Crain's Cleveland Business

VOL. 39, NO. 11

MARCH 12 - 18, 2018

Source Lunch

Costly move?

President Trump’s insistence on tariffs brings concerns. Page 2

Jacklyn Chisholm, Council for Economic Opportunities Page 19 DEVELOPMENT

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

At the Table Autism Speaks has Iron Chefs’ backing. Page 18

TECHNOLOGY

Investment BrandMuscle CEO Alexander to step down tool could bring bucks to ‘zones’

By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

Phil Alexander is stepping down as CEO of BrandMuscle, which has overhauled its executive team since last summer.

One major change: Alexander — who founded the Cleveland office of the marketing software and services

By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

Economic development leaders from around Northeast Ohio are waiting to hear from the office of Gov. John Kasich about which distressed areas of the region will be able to use a new investment tool created in the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

The governor is expected to select those areas, census tracts, by Wednesday, March 21, with the U.S. Treasury Department certifying the tracts as Opportunity Zones (OZ) 30 days later.

This new program could make it attractive to private sector investment in many areas in the cities of Cleveland and Akron, as well as in specific low-income census tracts in suburbs or small towns.

The law said governors can nominate no more than 25% of their state’s low-income census tracts. In Ohio, that means 319 of their state’s 1,276 distressed census tracts can be nominated for OZ designation. Counties in Ohio had to submit lists of designated census tracts by mid-March, so the governor can decide which tracts will be certified.

The goal in creating these Opportunity Zones is to convert a portion of what the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) estimates is $6.1 trillion in unrealized capital gains to investments in distressed communities.

“That’s a huge pool of capital,” said Steve Glickman, CEO of EIG, which helped craft the OZ section of the tax act when it was earlier standalone legislation. “These are gains that have built up over 10 years of the bull market. It makes for an interesting opportunity when people are thinking about their next investment to think about investing in these communities where they never invested before.”

company — will be replaced by not one but two executives from within the company. Paul Elliott will oversee B ra n d Mu s c l e’s offices in Cleveland, Austin and Alexander Kansas City, while Raymond Trantina will lead

the Chicago team, which focuses on BrandMuscle’s customers in the beverage industry and produces printed marketing materials. Both will hold the title of president and report to the board of directors.

Another major change: The executive team is now much smaller. The company, which focuses on helping large companies market themselves to local audiences, listed 12 executives on its website back in August. Seven of

them are no longer with the company, or eight if you count Alexander, who will continue as CEO through a transition period and will remain a shareholder and board member.

Those executives left for a variety of reasons. Some were let go, some left to take positions at other companies, and some left once they realized “how we were going to structure going forward,” Alexander said.

SEE ALEXANDER, PAGE 6

AKRON

IT’S HIP TO BE IN THE SQUARE

What’s cooler than ice cream? Highland Square has some of the best at its iconic Mary Coyle Ice Cream Parlor, which is owned by the Trecaso family. The parlor has been dishing it out since the Great Depression. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

In Akron, if you want gourmet organic foods, great live music – or just want to meet diverse and colorful people at the local coffee shop – Highland Square is a great place to go. The neighborhood began as a home to wealthy tire company executives and other professionals who wanted to be near the old streetcar lines, and over the years has evolved into one of the city’s hippest urban neighborhoods. FIND THE STORY ON PAGE 17

SEE ZONES, PAGE 6

Entire contents © 2018 by Crain Communications Inc.

Focus

Physician innovators Page 10

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Tariffs could be costly for manufacturers

By RACHEL ABBEY McCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

As steelmakers cheer tariffs that could encourage more domestic production, industries that use the metal are concerned about the ramifications increased raw material prices could have on their businesses.

On Thursday, March 8, President Donald Trump signed proclamations putting a 25% tariff on a wide variety of imported steel products and a 10% tariff on a broad number of imported aluminum products, excluding products from Canada and Mexico. The argument is that imports threaten the longterm viability of steel and aluminum makers in the U.S., and that it could be a national security issue if more closed, because the domestic industry wouldn’t be able to meet demand in an emergency.

The expected benefit to U.S. steel and aluminum makers is clear, as this move should cut down on the competition they face from foreign companies. Steel in particular has struggled in recent years as factors like oversupply and a strong dollar led to mill shutdowns. And the announcement of the tariff has already led to optimism in the sector. Canton-based Republic Steel on Thursday announced that it was poised to reopen its Lorain plant if the tariffs led to increased demand, and Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp., which also has a mill in Lorain, praised the tariffs in a news release. Companies including Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., which supplies iron ore to steelmakers, are pleased, too.

But there are concerns — lots of them — about how this could affect companies further down the supply chain and whether it would slow a manufacturing economy that has been running strong in recent months.

In the public eye, steelmakers and automakers are pretty high-profile, said Roy Hardy, president of Independence-based Precision Metalforming Association. But the small to

As steel and aluminum workers look on, President Donald Trump signs a proclamation March 8 that will place a tariff on a variety of imported steel and aluminum products. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

midsize companies that the association serves are often forgot about.

The primary cost of the products made by the 800 or so metalformers in the Precision Metalforming Association comes from the material they process, Hardy said, and a 25% cost increase would be difficult to pass on to customers. And some companies would still have to pay for foreign imports, as there are types of steel U.S. producers don’t make.

The metalworking industry employs far more people than the steelmakers, said Miles Free, director of industry research and technology for Brecksville-based Precision Machined Products Association, another trade association representing manufacturers in the middle of the supply chain.

And he said the group doesn’t understand how “shifting injury” from one industry to another is good policy.

“That just doesn’t seem right to us,” Free said.

D.C.-based economic consulting

firm The Trade Partnership in a new report estimates the tariffs could cost the U.S. more than 140,000 jobs.

While the report estimates that employment in U.S. iron, steel and non-ferrous metals, including aluminum, would grow by about 33,500 jobs, job losses in sectors like fabri-

“I mean, it all trickles down. There’s no doubt.”

— Rich Gent, vice president of Gent Machine Co., on the effect of tariffs on raw material prices

cated metals and motor vehicles would more than cancel that out.

There’s precedent for these concerns.

Bill Adler, president and CEO of metal stamping company Stripmatic Products Inc. in Cuyahoga Heights, said an “enormous amount” of the

tool and die base was lost during tariffs implemented by President George W. Bush in 2002. Jobs stopped, capital equipment investments slowed and companies implemented hiring freezes or workforce reductions.

“I think we’re going to see a lot more of the same,” Adler said of the current tariffs.

Rich Gent, vice president of Cleveland-based Gent Machine Co., said an increase in raw material costs would be significant to the screw machine company, as raw material makes up 15% to 40% of the part’s cost. The real issue is how Gent’s customers would react. Short-term, they would probably take the increase, he said. Long-term? They might look for another supplier.

Gent Machine has about 56 employees, and business has been strong for the past seven to eight years, Gent said. Although most of the steel Gent uses already comes from the United States — his suppli-

ers are domestic but have to get some kinds of steel imported — he’s afraid the tariffs will mean an increase in all raw material prices, as U.S. suppliers realize they can raise prices and remain competitive. Those increased costs would affect business, which would in turn affect employees.

“I mean, it all trickles down,” Gent said. “There’s no doubt.”

Fastener maker Kerr Lakeside Inc. in Euclid makes more than 900 different screw diameter and length combinations, said president and CEO Charles Kerr. And even a 15% steel price increase could make a measurable difference on his production costs — up to $3,000 for just one, single type of screw, Kerr estimated.

Kerr said he can compete with foreign companies in part because his products are made in America, and he can argue that’s worth a small amount more. But if the pricing gap between domestic and imported products grows, the company runs the risk of losing market share, Kerr said.

Overall, Kerr said it’s easy to squirt the toothpaste out of the tube, but hard to put it back in. If these tariffs have the “catastrophic” consequences people are afraid of, it will be difficult to turn back, he said.

And, ultimately, the tariffs could be relatively easy for companies to evade, said Susan Helper, professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University. Basically, foreign companies won’t be able to import steel or aluminum, but they will be able to import finished products made from those materials.

“This is not the ideal way to do it,” Helper said.

Helper, who previously served as chief economist for the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama, said fixing that workaround would be important, as would putting targeted tariffs on companies actually dumping products in the U.S. There are other ways to help the steel industry, too, like encouraging collaboration or by showing steel-using companies how to be more productive and efficient.

Equity Trust plans two more buildings in Westlake

By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter

Recognizing the value of unused land at Equity Trust’s Westlake headquarters near the I-90 and Crocker Road interchange, the financial firm’s principals are pursuing a plan to develop a pair of three-story office buildings on the site.

Richard Desich, a member of the family that owns Equity Trust and serves as development manager for the project, said the company had not planned to do more development at the site but found opportunity came knocking at its door after opening the new headquarters in 2014.

“We had several people show up the first couple weeks we were here and ask if we had office space available for rent,” Desich said. “And that has continued. We feel there is demand for office space at this location.”

The Desich family also wanted to continue to make a statement, as it did by moving its headquarters there and massively redoing the building it acquired from the Cleveland Clinic.

“We really want to inspire people,

Principals of Equity Trust plan to develop two office buildings with I-90 visibility at the company’s corporate headquarters in Westlake. (Vocon)

and it’s not just the people who will work there but the more than 100,000 people who drive by every day,” Desich said.

The project is a separate venture from Equity Trust, which provides services for real estate investors who hold property in individual retirement accounts. The firm has 350 staffers at its Westlake headquarters who serve about 400,000 customers with custodial accounts totaling more than $2 billion.

However, the Desich family also

realized it had most of a team to undertake such a project in place from its headquarters project. Desich asked Vocon, which designed Equity Trust’s headquarters renovation, and Infinity Construction Co. to again serve as its contractor. The charge to Vocon was to develop an “inspirational” building design recalling the new atrium at Cleveland Museum of Art. Desich also selected agents from the JLL real estate brokerage’s Cleveland office to market it.

David Robar, a Vocon architect,

said in an interview that the three-story buildings are designed to be “very contemporary,” with more than 50% glass walls.

The proposal is dubbed “Convergence” to reflect the combination of factors in its design, a collaborative work space and a location near the multiple major businesses and the Crocker Park mixed-use project.

Convergence is no small deal. The two buildings would have a total of 100,000 square feet of office space.

Desich and members of his team declined to estimate the construction cost. However, industry estimates put it at more than $17 million.

Desich said the group wants to proceed quickly but won’t start it until it has half of the first 50,000-squarefoot building leased. J.R. Fairman, a JLL vice president, said he believes there is demand for contemporary offices that is not being met.

“Groups are having to go to Beachwood or Richfield to find large, high-impact office spaces,” Fairman said. “Across the market there is a lot of vacancy among older buildings.

We don’t have a huge supply of class A buildings with large amounts of available office space.”

Fairman and Andrew Coleman, a

JLL executive vice president, are marketing the project. Fairman said it will take about a year to construct it after an anchor tenant commits to the first building.

Alec Jelepis, a Newmark Knight Frank executive managing director who works the Westlake office market, said most of the 14% vacancy in the west suburbs is in small offices in older buildings.

“There is a striking lack of large class A office space in Westlake in the 20,000-square-foot size range,” Jelepis said. “If you want 4,000 square feet of space, you could spend your life looking at suites out there. Some occupiers have told us they would look at new office space in Westlake.”

Securing preleasing would help land financing, Jelepis said, but he noted that such a multitenant project “is still risky.”

The developers of Convergence have informally shared their concept with Westlake city officials but have not submitted a formal plan.

Michelle Boczek, Westlake economic development coordinator, confirmed the group has shared its ideas.

“We’re hoping they’ll be able to come back with a project,” she said.

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PA G E 3

New company is tech connector

By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps

Serial entrepreneur Sam Gerace has launched his first company since leaving Veritix.

And to say he’s familiar with his new team would be an understatement.

Gerace — who parted ways with Veritix in October 2015, around the same time the digital ticketing company’s merger with AXS was finalized — is now the CEO of Convey, a connection management service. Seven of the tech company’s 11 employees are Veritix alumni, including Rick Rothhaar, Convey’s head of product, and Erica Yesko, its head of operations.

Gerace and LaunchVector, his entrepreneurial team, spent almost a year evaluating three business concepts before deciding Convey was the most promising. The company’s platform has Apple and Android apps that allow users to instantly connect, with the idea that it replaces the business card via a digital service that updates contact information in real time.

In explaining how it works, Gerace said he has three digital personas — as the CEO of Convey; the chairman of Minds Matter Cleveland, a nonprofit that guides high school students from low-income families on their path to college; and the coach of a youth soccer team. “The contact info is different for each,� Gerace said. “For Convey, I have my LinkedIn and Twitter handle. For my kid’s soccer team, I don’t have any social handles. I want to have a way for parents to reach me if their kids are sick and can’t go to the game.�

Convey manages those personas in one place, and if a job title is changed, a Twitter handle is altered or a user changes his or her phone number, everyone with whom they’ve connected on Convey has that information instantly. “That’s a really nice picture if everyone in the world has Convey,�

Gerace said.

Gerace — whose entrepreneurial successes includes the 1996 launch of Be Free, which was acquired six years later by ValueClick for $128 million — believes Convey can get to the “ubiquitous� point. But the CEO still sees value in exchanging information with a non-Convey user, since the app will text that person your contact information, with an invitation for the contact to try the service, and allow you to send any future updates to any contact you think will be interested in such information. “Yes, you’re not a Convey user, but this is a really easy-to-use tool that does the data entry for you,� Gerace said.

For sales executives such as Ron Boynar of Oswald Cos., that can be crucial.

Boynar said only about half of the information he receives from sales target lists is accurate. “People are gone. Wrong numbers.

It’s a big waste of time,� he said.

If an entire organization is using Convey (Boynar said Oswald might be in the coming months), that would be less likely to happen, because information would be updated across the board as changes happen, Boynar added.

Gerace said a customer relationship management platform such as Salesforce can be a “great recording system, but it’s not a real-time tool.�

He said more than 20% of the data in such systems “is decaying every year.�

So while he’s thrilled that Convey’s

app already has 8,700 users, he thinks the enterprise service — with entire sales forces using the technology — is what will drive the business.

Ten companies Gerace are part of what Gerace calls Convey’s “enterprise preview program,� which gives each the ability to use the software free of charge and provide feedback. The CEO expects the platform to be available for mass business consumption in May. “Once it’s released, we expect them to become customers,� Gerace

said of the 10 companies.

Convey initially anticipated that its mobile app would be free, but in its interviews with hundreds of potential customers (Gerace said the total is above 400), the company was told by some sales executives that if their firms didn’t pay for the technology, they would. That led Convey to decide on a “freemium� package that charges customers only if they want certain functions within the app.

Convey’s platform also includes a meeting mode that recognizes other users in the room. “It shows everyone’s picture and logs the meeting,� Gerace said. “It tells you the time and date you met someone. If you touch a button, it logs that into your enterprise system.�

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And like an iPhone, it begins to recognize habits.

If you normally talk to a contact every few months and it’s been 3 1/2 months since the last interaction, Convey will send a notification that recommends you reach out to that person. “It’s not bothering you, but if you have a cadence you’ve established, it can say hey,� Gerace said.

The entrepreneur and mentor is proud that everything has been developed in-house by his 11-person team, which is occupying the top floor of an old manufacturing building at 3635 Perkins Ave. “We didn’t import anyone from Silicon Valley,� Gerace said. “These are all people I had worked with in one way or another.�

Convey’s mobile app was launched last fall. (Contributed photo)

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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After moving three times due to growth since opening a Northeast Ohio office in 2005, Toledo-based Rudolph Libbe Group has bought three former industrial buildings for its operation to put down roots.

Now undergoing renovation, the buildings at 4937 and 4940 Mills Industrial Parkway in North Ridgeville represent a more than $2.5 million investment in the Cleveland market, said Dave Boyer, Rudolph Libbe general manager for Northeast Ohio operation.

The 40-year-old former manufacturing buildings in North Ridgeville also will accommodate the construction firm’s local staff of 20 and allow it to double in size in coming years due to anticipated growth. The company started out with six staffers at its first office in Westlake.

The new Northeast Ohio office is going into one of the three manufacturing buildings because it suits Rudolph Libbe’s work as a full-service, design-build construction contractor.

About 80% of the company’s work is inside existing industrial facilities, either updating them or moving equipment, particularly during plant shutdowns, and the remainder is ground-up building.

“Because we do so much industrial work, we wanted that look in our offices,” Boyer said, which means leaving duct work, piping, cable and beams exposed.

Turning the former factory into offices required cutting more than 20 openings for windows into its walls to add light for an open office that also has eight suites for executives, two huddle rooms for impromptu meetings, and two conference rooms that require advance scheduling.

Another building will provide warehouse space for the operation, and the third, located across the street, will be converted to a fabricating shop for mechanical systems and certain types of metal work. Rudolph Libbe's Oberlin pipe fabrication shop, with about a half-dozen workers, will be moved to that structure to centralize its regional operations.

Rudolph Libbe came to Northeast Ohio to serve Ford Motor Co.’s facility needs — it demolished the former foundry at Ford’s Brook Park engine plant — and Boyer said the company decided to expand operations permanently here because of the depth

Construction workers from Rudolph Libbe are renovating an industrial building in North Ridgeville to serve as the firm’s new headquarters as it commits to the region by buying three structures for a new campus on Mills Industrial Parkway. (Roger Mastroianni)

of industrial concerns in the region.

“We’ve been pleased we did,” he added. Last year, Rudolph Libbe did $62 million in business, including the cost of construction put in place, up 40% over the last three years. The company’s field staff is currently 150.

In contrast to most general contractors, Rudolph Libbe subcontracts only a few specialties — such as roof-

“We self-perform about 80% of our work because it allows us to have better control of the job, safety and meet our customers’ schedules.”

— Dave Boyer, Rudolph Libbe general manager for Northeast Ohio operation

ing, siding and some interior finishes — and directly hires its field trades, from carpenters and iron workers to laborers.

“We self-perform about 80% of our work because it allows us to have better control of the job, safety and meet our customers’ schedules,” Boyer said.

A big part of its workload is updating factories while they are shut down, such as installing new equipment.

That means constructing new buildings is a smaller portion of its work.

“About 75% of our work is inside existing buildings,” Boyer said.

Besides finding available former factory buildings in an industrial environment, Boyer said Rudolph Libbe landed in North Ridgeville because it is central, served by three highways, and the drive is 25 minutes shorter to its corporate headquarters in suburban Toledo than its current one. The city also provided a property tax abatement for 15 years.

“North Ridgeville checked all our boxes,” Boyer said.

North Ridgeville Mayor G. David Gillock said the city is “absolutely delighted” that Rudolph Libbe landed there.

“They seem to be very community-minded and are investing in those buildings. It’s not that they’re eyesores, but they are making them look nice,” Gillock said.

Boyer said Rudolph Libbe plans to be in its new complex by April.

Brooklyn, Middleburg Heights could land 80-room hotels

By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter

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Hotel occupancy may be sagging due to the great run-up of new hotels in the region, but new suburban hotels just keep on coming.

In Brooklyn, a spring start is forecast by city building commissioner David Kulcsar for a Fairfield Inn on Tiedeman Road between Brookpark Road and I-480.

The four-story, 85-room property is proposed by Carnation Hospitality LLC, which was formed by a New Philadelphia, Ohio, investor group.

Meantime, planting new hotel flags in the region also means more properties.

That is the case in Middleburg Heights, where a Tru Hotel, part of a new hotel chain by Hilton that targets millennial customers, is on the drawing board.

Plans for the Tru Hotel are pending before Middleburg Heights city

officials, according to Charles Bichara, the city's economic development director. That hotel will have 81 rooms and is proposed for a site at 17500 Rosbough Blvd., he said. It also will have four stories.

Bichara also noted that a Residence Inn by Marriott is under construction on Bagley Road in Middleburg Heights. The extended-stay hotel will have 112 suites and follows the chain's new concept for the flag. The original Residence Inn in the suburb now carries a Sonesta Suites flag.

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ALEXANDER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Granted, the company has hired two new executives since last August.

Scott Weeren became chief operating officer in November, and last week Mike Marchetti began serving as executive vice president of client service. But BrandMuscle won’t go back to having 12 top executives anytime soon, Alexander said.

“We had 12 because we bought all these different businesses. We had leaders from the Kansas City business, the Austin business, the Chicago business. It was just unwieldy. I had 12 direct reports,” he said.

So why is Alexander leaving?

He’d been planning his exit since 2012, when The Riverside Co. — a private equity firm with headquarters offices in Cleveland and New York — acquired the Cleveland-based marketing software business he founded in 2000, which also was called BrandMuscle, and merged it with two other companies in Chicago and Austin. Anticipating his exit, he bought a home in Phoenix in 2013, and his wife moved there.

But he ended up sticking around, taking more than 100 flights a year between Phoenix and the company’s four offices (the company gained a fourth office in Kansas City in 2016 when it acquired Sapeo Technologies).

So when Riverside sold BrandMuscle to American Capital Equity of Bethesda, Md., in December 2015, Alexander told the incoming private equity firm that he wouldn’t be

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People, banks or businesses that sell stock or other investments could write off a portion of their capital gains by making OZ investments. In turn, any capital gains from the OZ-eligible investment could be completely exempt from the capital gains tax if held for the long term.

“This new tool for economic development gives us the chance to support the creation of jobs in underserved areas throughout the county,” said Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish. “We overlaid areas for new markets and historic credits with the Opportunity Zones to leverage the value of investing and developing in these underserved communities.”

Cuyahoga County has nominated 70 of 252 distressed census tracts in the county for OZ designation. While most of the qualifying census tracts were in the city of Cleveland, qualifying tracts also were submitted for Bedford Heights, Brook Park, Brooklyn, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Lakewood, Maple Heights, Newburgh Heights, North Randall, Parma, Richmond Heights and Warrensville Heights.

Some of the tracts did not meet all of the criteria for distressed areas but could be nominated because they were contiguous to distressed tracts.

Summit County nominated 22 tracts, Lorain County 11 , Lake County three and Medina County two.

The program is, structurally, similar to the existing New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program, which also directs investment to low-income areas. That program offered a tax credit for investing, through what are called community development entities, or CDEs, nonprofits that have been certified by the U.S. Treasury Department. These funds take the capital they have raised and turn around and lend to qualified business or development projects. The carrot for investors in NMTCs is a credit to off-

around long enough to see the next sale. But he also told the firm (the portion that owns BrandMuscle is now called Northlane Capital Partners) that he’d gladly run the business until it identified a successor. Or in this case, “successors.”

BrandMuscle’s Cleveland office hired Elliott two years ago to serve as its chief digital officer and tasked him with expanding its digital marketing services team, which has increased revenue by about 130% per year for the last three years. The company’s overall marketing services team has 90 employees today, up from roughly 40 when Elliott was hired. At the time, Alexander told Elliott — whom he had known for years — that he could take on a greater leadership role with the business.

Although BrandMuscle has invested heavily in expanding its services team and expects it to double its revenue again this year, the company’s software — which is designed to help branch managers, franchisees and other affiliates create custom, locally targeted ads without running afoul of corporate guidelines — is still core to the business, Alexander said.

Elliott seconded that: “The technology is what allows BrandMuscle to do this at scale,” he said.

Elliott acknowledged that the company has been through a large amount of change lately, and some employees could see that change as instability.

“While there certainly is or has been some concern, just based on purposeful changes,” he said.

To allay such concerns, Elliott has on more than one occasion turned to

an analogy.

“You’re Clevelanders. Take a look at the Cavs,” he said, recalling what he said to employees during a late February meeting where Alexander announced he would step down.

“You had a roster of complete allstars. Yet, we made some significant trades and moves in order to find the team that worked best together that would help us get to that championship game again,” he said, referring to the flurry of trades the Cleveland Cavaliers made in early February.

Elliott also said the company has tried to be transparent about its performance.

“This company is not only stable, but really heading toward those next major milestones,” he said.

Alexander said BrandMuscle typically doesn’t reveal revenue figures to the media, but he did note that the company, in 2017, for the first time passed $100 million in annual revenue, which was a milestone he’d wanted to hit before stepping down.

The company, which has roughly 700 employees, has expanded its staff in Cleveland as well. It has 232 fulltime employees in Cleveland, plus 13 open local positions, as of March 8.

That’s down slightly from 237 on Jan. 1, but it’s up from 220 on Jan. 1, 2017, according to data collected for the Crain’s Local Software Developers list.

Alexander believes that growth will continue, adding that “Cleveland has become the center of activity” for Elliott’s side of the business.

“Cleveland’s going to continue to grow,” he said.

set federal income taxes.

In Northeast Ohio, the tax credits have been used to attract investors to 78 projects with total project financing of $1.6 billion, according to data from the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition, a national nonprofit that has lobbied to extend the life of the NMTC program.

Among the local projects that won tax credit funding through Cleveland Development Advisors (CDA) are $10 million in financing that earned tax credits for the construction of University Hospitals Rainbow Center for Women & Children, in Cleveland’s Midtown; $10 million for the rehabilitation of the 800 Superior Building; and $2.4 million for the redevelopment of buildings along East Fourth Street.

CDA is a development financing arm of the Greater Cleveland Partnership and a certified NMTC funder that could become an OZ funder.

“We are looking at it very closely,” said CDA president Yvette Ittu. “It may make sense.

Ittu said one advantage to OZ funding is that it is open-ended. The federal government sets an annual cap on the amount of tax credits that can be issued and apportions them among CDEs. The OZ program will not have a limited annual amount of capital gains that can be deferred.

Tax credits largely have been used to finance real estate, and the Treasury Department sets caps on the amount of tax credits available annually. OZ funding is expected to be used for a broader range of financing, especially equity investments in startup or early stage businesses.

Because the Treasury Department has yet to turn the tax legislation into Opportunity Zone regulations, development officials Crain’s spoke with could not offer definitive details about how the program will operate. What follows distills the best guesses of several officials on how the program will operate.

While the Treasury Department will certify OZ development funds, accreditation is expected to be less rigorous than that for NMTCs, allowing more entities to sponsor OZ in-

vestments, including funds created by someone with money to invest.

“It seems like a very low bar to be a qualified fund,” said John Sciarretti, a real estate and community development specialist in the Dover office of Novogradac & Co., an accounting firm. “You simply have to be a partnership or a corporation and have an objective of investing in an Opportunity Zone and hold 90% of your assets in an Opportunity Zone.”

While the OZ investment must come through a development fund certified by the Treasury Department, there is no cap on the amount of investment, and tax deferment, it can offer.

A fund also can be created for a single project.

So, for example, say Lake Erie Informatics, a hypothetical young software development firm operating in an incubator, finds someone or some business or investment fund owning high-value stock and willing to invest $1 million that will allow it to continue developing the software and to move to its own office space. Those two parties could create and get certified an Opportunity Zone fund to channel the investment through, as long as the business would be moving into an OZ census tract.

That way, the investor will be able to defer paying some of the capital gains on the high-value stock and, if the investment helps the business blossom, shield the capital gains made when Lake Erie Informatics is acquired by the larger Atlantic Ocean Informatics.

The tax law provides that the investor can write off 10% of the capital gain from the sale of the stock, so long as the investment in Lake Erie Informatics is held for five years. Another 5% of the capital gain can be written off if the investment is held for at least seven years.

The biggest attraction, said Ittu, comes if the investor holds the investment in Lake Erie Informatics for at least 10 years. Then the investor will not have a taxable gain for any appreciation in value in the investment in Lake Erie when the investment is sold.

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Opinion From the Editor

Health aides are critical, and could use a lift

Editorial

Building momentum There are, finally, some reasons for optimism that the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland and its downtown neighbor, the Global Center for Health Innovation, are beginning to pay the dividends promised when Cuyahoga County commissioners in 2007 levied a 20-year sales tax hike to pay for the $465 million complexes.

We’re a long way from feeling completely good about their performance. But at both facilities, the trend line is encouraging.

Crain’s government reporter Jay Miller last week produced a status report on the convention center as it nears five years of operations. Among the highlights: It has hosted a total of more than 1,000 events (including the Republican National Convention in July 2016, a centerpiece event that wouldn’t have come here without the new venue); the average meeting participant is spending about $1,300 per visit; direct spending on meetings grew 23% from 2009 to 2016; and the momentum of the memorable 2016 (which saw a total of 235,681 visitors to 235 events) was nearly matched in 2017, as the center drew 222,656 visitors to 222 events.

Scott Durkin, vice president of partner development at Experient, a Twinsburg firm that manages events across the country, said that as a result of the new building, Cleveland for the last two years “has broken into our top 30 as far as destinations that we book.” Before that, he noted, the city wasn’t in the top 50.

That’s certainly progress. Is it enough yet to justify the initial investment, and the annual subsidy that Cuyahoga County still has to supply? Probably not, though it’s also a good sign that the county’s subsidy, budgeted at $5.4 million, was reduced to $2.3 million last year due to cost-cutting measures and increased revenue, according to George Hillow, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Convention Facilities Development Corp.

David Gilbert, president of Destination Cleveland, the local convention and visitors’ bureau, says perceptions of Cleveland are changing significantly for the better in the convention world; various surveys taken since the RNC support that contention and suggest the long-term outlook is positive. More

critical is whether rising numbers of conventions and other events can contribute to sustained tourism spending and (better yet) business investment here. On those critical measures, we need more data, which should be a priority for Destination Cleveland.

The Global Center — the facility that locals used to call the medical mart — got a booster shot last week when the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) announced it was extending its lease at the four-story, 235,000-square-foot building. It’s a significant vote of confidence in the direction of the building from HIMSS, which has been in the space since 2013 and occupies most of the structure’s top floor.

HIMSS’ renewal comes on the heels of Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator, launching in Cleveland in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic and JumpStart Inc. The local Plug and Play team is in the Global Center, and it has started the process of choosing at least 10 health tech startups that will set up shop there next month.

Finally, there’s measurable progress toward the building living up to the promise of its name — that is, being a place for health innovation.

The HIMSS and Plug and Play developments are validations of the move made last fall for BioEnterprise Corp., the nonprofit health care and bioscience business accelerator, to move its headquarters to the Global Center and to take over strategic management of the facility.

Aram Nerpouni, president and CEO of BioEnterprise, said the Global Center is in a transition “from a medical mart, often described as a showcase, into an active innovation center.” The goal, he said, is to make it a place “where people are working from every day, rather than being just a destination for events.”

Hindsight being — well, you know — this should have been the focus of the building from the start. So we’re in better-latethan-never territory, but BioEnterprise’s expertise in operations related to health sciences is starting to pay off.

Publisher and Editor: Elizabeth McIntyre (emcintyre@crain.com)

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Managing Editor:

Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com)

Sections Editor:

Timothy Magaw (tmagaw@crain.com)

Contact Crain’s:

216-522-1383

Alicia dreams of driving a school bus.

She trained for months and got her license to deliver kids from sidewalks to school and safely back again. No doubt, she’s got the skills. Her dream, however, is stuck in neutral while she waits for the call — not the current one that asks her to fill in for a sick driver, but the one that offers permanent employment.

Between Alicia’s dream and reality, she walks the halls and rooms of a rehabilitation/nursing home south of Youngstown most weekends, 12 hours each shift. She tenderly cares for her elderly and infirmed patients. She changes their diapers, feeds them, lifts them from bed to wheelchair to walker. And she does it all with compassion.

I’ve seen Alicia’s empathetic work firstElizabeth hand. She comes to my parents’ home sevMcIntyre eral hours a week to help my father care for my mom, who has dementia. Like many older adults, my father wants to keep my mother at home as long as possible. Alicia’s visits help him to do that.

After spending more than a decade as a health care aide, though, Alicia wants a change. Her back aches as the physical demands of the job take a toll. She’s tired of the politics and headaches of health care. So she is looking to make a change.

She wants to be behind the wheel of that school bus full-time.

Talking to Alicia, I couldn’t help but wonder what a loss it is when compassionate caregivers like her leave the health care field, especially at a time when we will need them the most. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the number of Americans over age 65 will have nearly doubled in 30 years as the baby boomer generation ages. That means more people will need help performing basic functions — taking medication, bathing, preparing food, dressing and eating.

The majority of those who care for older adults are direct care workers like Alicia — the home health aides, personal care aides and nursing assistants. These professions are among the fastest-growing occupations in our country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which estimates that an additional 1.1 million of these workers will be needed by 2024. However, the labor pool of working women who usually fill these jobs cannot keep up with the graying population.

Nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home care providers have been dealing with the workforce shortage for several years now, knowing the situation is only going to get worse.

One of the problems could be that many are paid as if they’re sweeping floors instead of taking care of our precious loved ones. Many, ironically, lack their own health care benefits.

Feeding a retirement fund is a stretch when feeding a family is an immediate need.

The median pay, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is $10.87 an hour. That’s $22,600 before taxes. That’s barely above poverty level for a two-person household.

My siblings and I showed our thanks to Alicia when my father’s own medical issues prevented him from taking care of my mom. But a short-term cash infusion probably won’t be enough to keep her. Like many families, we’re tag-teaming to assure both get good care. After their lifetime of caring for us, it is the least we can do.

But that doesn’t change the fact that we are going to need all the Alicias we can get as all of our parents, and as we, continue to age.

Some rethinking of priorities may be in order. We can start with a raise.

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 off: Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com.

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Web Talk Re: U of Akron’s polymer college struggles with faculty losses I have watched the intentional dismantling of this college for the past few years. Faculty that left over five years ago have not been replaced. Faculty searches have been conducted, candidates interview, but then the provost and president “can’t find the money” to make an offer.

Other schools quickly learn not to send promising candidates because the ad is a sham; no one will be hired. ... The problem with not hiring before all the senior people leave is that there is no one to mentor junior faculty. All the world-renowned polymer scientists will soon be gone and UA will have to build from scratch. ... Cheaper, but the reputation and expertise will be gone for decades. (President Matt) Wilson has no idea how to run a research university.

— Akronite If the industry thinks this college is so relevant, why not fund the college and support them?

— Just Curious This is simply a symptom of a larger and broader problem across the entire campus. It is true that the polymer college, which has historically lost money (lots of money), is just now feeling the heat that the other colleges at UA have felt for many years. ... There is nobody steering the university’s ship with a strategic oar, including the board. The end result could be disaster for the university, its students and the Akron community. Something must be done.

— Professor in Ohio

Re: Airport challenges The March 5 letter to the editor from Jim Rundo, “Cleveland Hopkins is in desperate need of an overhaul,” certainly covers most of the problems! For all the money “invested” in Hopkins in recent years, the sorry state of everything there is pitiful. I’m sure our airport is a huge reason for Amazon’s decision to scratch Northeast Ohio off its list of potential locations for HQ2. The best way to fix Hopkins is to take it away from Cleveland and turn it into the kind of regional government entity we’ve seen for other assets rescued from Cleveland’s neglect, like the Metroparks. — Stephen I certainly hope our city leaders are reading this letter and do not have their head in the sand. This truly is a bigger issue than most realize. The author only scratched the surface on the issues.

— Michael Pappas

Personal View

Power outages are tough storms for biz to weather

By MATT WHEATLEY and TERESA RINGENBACH

Resiliency seems to be both the new energy buzzword and a question of our time against a backdrop of polar vortex, superstorms, snow bombs and hurricanes. In 2017 alone, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States.

Technology has changed where we look for resiliency. No longer do we look to our utility as the sole solution to keep our lights on.

Rather, modern business is using technology to build their own sustainable and resilient power sources to become self-reliant. Resiliency to a business is at its heart ensuring the power stays on. If the power goes out — due to weather catastrophes, technical breakdowns or unusual demand — business stops. Customers aren’t served. Production lines are halted — product destroyed. Patients aren’t treated. Equipment overheats or suffers electrical damage. Safety can be compromised.

Loss of power is harmful and costly for businesses — the average cost of a single outage at a data center is nearly $1 million. And in Ohio, thunderstorm and lightning occurs once every 3.8 days on average during the months of March to October, so having the right backup systems in place can be crucial during heavy storm seasons.

A recent survey found that while 73% of U.S. businesses consider electric power to be critical to their mission, just one-third actually make energy resiliency — the ability to withstand or quickly recover from significant disruptions in power — a top strategic priority.

How often does the loss of electricity impact businesses? In 2016, there were 184 power outages across the state of Ohio, according to the Eaton Blackout Tracker annual report. Only four other states had more.

Nationwide, 92% of U.S. companies had experienced at least one energy failure in the last 12 months, and the average number of outages was 15.

The reasons are varied — weather, faulty equipment, human error and more. Even animals and automobile accidents can cause damage to power lines and equipment.

The good news is that technology can make a difference. A microgrid can combine on-site generation (including cogeneration and trigeneration) with storage, energy efficiency and 24/7 monitoring technology to serve consumers at the point of demand. Microgrids have become cost-effective options for large energy users (and often those around them) and allows them to avoid the loss of power and protect their customers, employees and the bottom line — to become a community beacon in many cases.

Most importantly, the cost for designing, building and maintaining these microgrids is borne by private companies, not Ohio ratepayers.

For these advancements to flourish, however, we need a market and regulatory environment that encourages energy resiliency.

Here in Ohio, consumers should be free to choose from new and emerging power technologies that best suit their individual homes, facilities or campuses.

Targeted investments at the utility level to strengthen and modernize the power distribution network, along with a more complete rollout of next-generation smart meters, ensures whichever technology the consumer chooses will function well with the surrounding grid. This puts the consumer, large or small, in control of not only their energy usage but their ability to keep the lights on and their business protected from disruption.

Even the best planned and deployed centralized grid cannot weather all of these storms.

The transmission and distribution of electricity has inherent efficiency losses and any weak links can risk resiliency of supply. But as the power industry evolves, and technology opens the doors to new possibilities, the distinction between power users and power generators will narrow.

Microgrids will do more than provide effective risk management for businesses. They will be a critical piece of the power resiliency, which goes beyond monopoly wire systems in Ohio.

Wheatley is vice president of sales and commercial for Centrica Business Solutions. Ringenbach is senior manager of government and regulatory affairs for the Midwest division of Direct Energy.

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Focus

PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS

Dedicated Northeast Ohio physicians are tackling medicine’s major hurdles It’s no secret that health care is a driving force in our regional economy. Making that possible are thousands of physicians who work tirelessly to advance the health and well-being of Northeast Ohioans. In this new feature, Crain’s is honoring a handful of those physicians nominated by their peers who continuously demonstrate commitment to innovation and excellence — both toward their patients and the Northeast Ohio community.

Pictured, top row: Dr. Nancy Cossler Second row: Dr. Joan Papp; Dr. Michael Vogelbaum Third row: Dr. Peter Highlander; Dr. Farah Munir; Dr. Grace Song Fourth row: Dr. Melanie Lynch; Dr. Chirag Shah; Dr. Mark Horattas; Dr. Mehdi Shishehbor

Illustration by Enis Aksoy via iStock

Dr. Bruce Cohen Akron Children’s Hospital, Director, NeuroDevelopmental Science Center Spend enough time talking with neuroscientists — as does Akron Children’s Hospital President and CEO Bill Considine — and one name will come up again and again: Dr. Bruce Cohen. After hearing the name repeatedly, Considine set out the meet Cohen in 2010 and soon after launched an effort to recruit the 20year Cleveland Clinic veteran to Akron Children’s.

“The more I looked into the man behind the name I kept hearing, I saw he was the real deal every way.

He has a phenomenal caring spirit, he has a great bedside manner and

he’s incredibly smart,” Considine said.

Cohen is an internationally known expert in mitochondrial diseases, a broad range of disorders that stem from malfunctions in a portion of cells called the mitochondrion. Mitochondria are primarily responsible for turning the food we eat into the energy we need, according to Cohen.

It is made up of about 1,100 working parts — or proteins — scattered among the body’s 20,000 genes.

Mutations that change the dynamic of these 1,100 working parts can result in the failure to produce

enough energy to power essential cell functions or in the production toxic byproducts. Some mitochondrial diseases are more serious than others. Cohen’s patients have ranged from severely disabled infants to middle-aged adults with muscle weakness or seizures. There are no known cures.

At Akron Children’s, Cohen leads the effort to change that by working with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to design clinical trials and then recruiting patients around the country into those studies.

SEE COHEN, PAGE 15

Cohen

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PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

Dr. Nancy Cossler

Dr. Joan Papp

Chief of System Quality for Obstetrics, University Hospitals

Medical Director, Project DAWN, MetroHealth

A woman in labor could see a number of providers cycle through her room as they undergo shift changes while she goes through hours or even days of labor.

To make sure everyone’s up-todate on trends over the patient’s stay, Dr. Nancy Cossler helped to develop software that would synthesize information for a new provider coming in to work with the patient.

People often say if only they’d known that this event occurred 18 hours earlier, or if only they’d known that the fetal heartrate was rising over 24 hours, said Cossler. Knowing critical events or trends could help improve quality and safety of care.

“But if you’re just looking at the last several (hours), you don’t see that,” she said.

Working in teams and in 12-hour shifts is arguably safer for the patient, but creates hand-offs and shift changes that can make it difficult to have “situational awareness” around key data that should stand out over time, Cossler said.

The software, which Cossler worked on with her colleague Jeff Beers, is an add-on to UH’s electronic medical record. It is currently in the hands of a serial entrepreneur who has formed a company to commercialize the technology. They plan to launch the beta version at UH Mac-

“She is not someone that would go ahead and do something on her own when she’s not flying with all the information and the expertise.”

Dr. James Liu, chair of OBGYN for UH.

Donald Women’s Hospital this summer.

Cossler’s innovative work doesn’t stop there. She’s also led the charge in setting up quality initiatives in MacDonald. Within about a two year period, the hospital began to see reductions in serious safety events, said Dr. James Liu, chair of OBGYN for UH. Then Cossler was charged with extending what she’d done there to all of the community hospitals in the UH system that do delivery to standardize obstetrics practice throughout the community hospitals.

Cossler is “highly self-motivated” and “highly intelligent,” he said.

“She is very, very quick to ask for expertise when she feels uncomfortable,” Liu said. “So she is not someone that would go ahead and do something on her own when she’s not flying with all the information and the expertise.”

Though quality and safety have become her passion, Cossler still practices clinically.

The real risk in labor and delivery is not how the baby’s born, be it a cesarean or vaginal delivery, or the procedure itself, Cossler said. “The real risk and art of obstetrics is in the management of labor and the decisions that are made over time.” — Lydia Coutré

As an emergency physician at MetroHealth, Dr. Joan Papp began seeing a large number of patients impacted by the opioid crisis: those who were misusing prescription drugs, those who had transitioned to heroin, those suffering from complications of drug use and more and more overdoses.

“It really struck me that we had this wonderful, very effective antidote that we use in the emergency department, but it really wasn’t available anywhere outside of the hospital,” Papp said of naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication.

In 2013, she launched Project DAWN (Deaths Avoided With Naloxone) in Cuyahoga County to provide the antidote to people on the front lines of the epidemic. Since then, the initiative has distributed about 8,000 naloxone kits and reversed about 1,500 overdoses.

As fentanyl hit the streets, Papp realized she and the system needed to do even more to address the deadly problem. She turned to MetroHealth leadership, who last July opened the system’s Office of Opioid Safety, which gave Papp a staff and expanded resources to continue her work in a more comprehensive way.

“I’ve been really floored by how much support I have gotten from the beginning,” said Papp, also director of the Office of Opioid Safety. “From

“She’s relentless, driven and passionate, and as a result, you have all the accomplishments that she’s already achieved, and I’m sure there’s more coming.”

Dr. Bernie Boulanger, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at MetroHealth

starting Project DAWN to opening the Office of Opioid Safety, I mean, we have just gotten nothing but positive feedback and green lights and support from our administration here.”

She now has a manager and outreach workers who work on Project DAWN. An educator helps coordinate educational activities for staff.

The team works with providers on prescribing practices. They’re going to take a deep dive into data around prescribing patterns to determine where to direct resources.

Papp said the office recently received a $2 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to develop quick response teams who will go out with some police officers to overdose victims’ homes, connect them with treatment and provide naloxone.

Without Papp, the Office of Opioid Safety wouldn’t have been possible, said Dr. Bernie Boulanger, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at MetroHealth.

“The opioid crisis is a battle, right?

It’s a war we’re in, and I tell people Joan is a warrior in the battle against opioids,” Boulanger said. “She’s relentless, driven and passionate, and as a result, you have all the accomplishments that she’s already achieved, and I’m sure there’s more coming.” — Lydia Coutré

A Commitment to Excellence Summa Health is proud to recognize 2018 Crain’s Cleveland Business Physician Innovator Melanie Lynch, M.D., F.A.C.S., and her team for their exemplary work on the Breast Care ACCESS Project.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you for your dedication to continuously improving the health and well-being of our communities.

Melanie Lynch M.D., F.A.C.S. Breast Surgeon

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PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

Dr. Michael Vogelbaum Associate Director, Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center, Cleveland Clinic The blood-brain barrier is one of the body’s best defense systems. It protects the brain from toxins and infections that might be carried in the blood. Yet, it also keeps out medicines like chemotherapy, which is the reason why brain cancer outcomes have lagged significantly behind those of other tumors.

“Most therapeutics evaluated for brain tumors don’t have a chance because they never get to the brain tissue effectively, whether they were given orally or by IV,” said Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Vogelbaum, inventor of a new medical device known as the Cleveland Multiport Catheter (CMC).

CMC is a temporary implant with four ultra thin tubes designed to distribute cancer drugs “directly into brain tissue at the location of the target we want to hit,” Vogelbaum said. Clinical trials evaluated the device’s effectiveness by delivering a chemical tracer along with the chemotherapy. In those trials, he said, the tracer was seen in larger volumes of brain tissue and to a greater degree “than any other approaches that have been used before to deliver

drugs directly into the brain.”

“What we have is a technology that we have proven to deliver agents to the brain tissue, so now the fun and promise begins by delivering therapeutics that have a chance to work,” said Vogelbaum, who also is founder and chief medical officer of Infuseon Therapeutics, a spinoff formed to commercialize the device. “It looks like we may have our first therapeutically oriented trial opening up later this year.”

Vogelbaum, an active researcher in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, has been on the Clinic’s staff since 1999. He has formulated and led multiple single-center and multicenter clinical trials aimed at finding

new therapies for glioblastoma and other forms of brain cancer. He also is a co-founder and steering committee member of the global Response Assessment in NeuroOncology working group and a member of the National Cancer Institute’s CTEP Brain Malignancy Steering Committee.

Dr. Andre Machado, chairman of Clinic’s Neurological Institute, said Vogelbaum’s research is particularly relevant today given high profile glioblastoma cases like that of Sen. John McCain.

“It is clear that the approach to treat these tumors needs to change,” he said. “Innovation is in order, and Dr. Vogelbaum is at the forefront of that innovation.”— Judy Stringer

MCPc MOVES TO MIDTOWN This week we open an expanded Security Operations Center to address the growing cyber needs of our customers

Holly Morgan

Dr. Peter Highlander

Dr M

Surgeon, Northern Ohio Medical Specialists

Chi Cir

A knee or hip replacement is a viable medical response to arthritis and other joint issues, ideally leading to pain relief and improved function in patients who undergo the surgery. While replacing an ankle is not nearly as common, an innovation from a Bellevue surgeon has an opportunity to change the podiatric landscape for good.

In January, Northern Ohio Medical Specialists (NOMS) surgeon Peter Highlander performed Ohio’s first successful full talus bone, or ankle, replacement. The patient, a 31-yearold woman, had been living with a deformed ankle following a severe fracture sustained in a car accident.

Other surgeons the woman visited said amputation was inevitable, but Highlander offered a more positive option with a new process involving 3D printing.

Highlander, known for his advanced work in ankle trauma and reconstruction, sent images of both the woman’s ankles to Additive Orthopaedics, a biologics company based in New Jersey. He got back a 3D-printed cobalt chromium prosthetic that eventually will allow his patient to keep up with her young daughter, a vast improvement considering the woman couldn’t even wear shoes because of her deformity.

“People are surprised when they find out the type of work I’m doing here in north central Ohio,” Highlander said. “With 3D printing, I can convert to a total ankle replacement even if the implant fails. It’s a matter of trying something new without burning bridges for later treatment.”

In essence, 3D printing replaces lost supportive structures with anatomically specific implants, compared to “off the shelf” talus replacements that come in three “one-size-fits-none” iterations, Highlander said. Obtaining a perfect fit will always be difficult, but 3D-printed devices promise long-term outcomes of reduced pain and regained function.

“So many people don’t know you can even replace an ankle, let alone get a customized ankle replacement,” Highlander said. “We’ve got to reach people so they know they don’t have to live with pain.”

Jeffrey Jensen was dean of podiatric medicine at Barry University in Miami when he had Highlander as a student. Jensen recalls his former charge’s diligence, typified by a thick file of articles Highlander kept on various trauma and surgical techniques. Jensen is not surprised to see his ex-student’s dedication carry on into the professional ranks, and believes 3D bone replacement technology can advance under Highlander’s leadership.

“Peter took complicated procedures and broke them down so patients could understand them,” said Jensen. “Creating an environment where patients can benefit from (3D printing) technology is a skill set in and of itself.” — Douglas J. Guth

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PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

Dr. Farah Munir

Dr. Grace Song

Chief Medical Officer, Circle Health Services

Dr. Grace Song’s innovation, quite frankly, isn’t all that new. Simply put, it’s practicing family medicine the way it was done 25 or 30 years ago.

Almost two years ago, the former University Hospitals doc joined Paladina Health, a Denver-based primary care outfit that is quietly making an entrance in Ohio by forging arrangements with area employers with the ambitious goal of disrupting the patient-doctor relationship.

Paladina’s model revolves around the concept that a doc with a smaller caseload can take better care of patients — and ultimately lower an employer’s health care spend by focusing on prevention rather than utilization.

Dr. Farah Munir has never taken the easy route.

Following her undergraduate studies at Northwestern University, the Chicago native was torn between a career in psychology and psychiatry. She ultimately chose the latter route because she wanted to work with and for patients suffering from the most severe forms of mental illness. Since 2006, Munir has been an anchor in Cleveland’s academic and community psychiatry circles, having held roles with University Hospitals and completing her residency at the Cleveland Clinic.

It’s “mission-driven work,” she said, particularly caring for the most vulnerable in the community in her work at Circle Health Services — the former Free Clinic of Greater Cleveland that recently affiliated with the Centers for Families and Children.

In 2015, Munir led an effort to design a patient-centered medical home model that integrated behavioral health with primary care at Circle Health — an approach that is now helping better coordinate services for people living with mental illness. That’s significant because so often for people living with mental illness, physical health becomes a secondary issue. Take a person with chronic schizophrenia, Munir said, who might have a host of other medical issues but might find it difficult to navigate the fragmented health care system on his or her own.

“The way we look at ourselves is that we provide full circle care for everyone,” Munir said. “We are a safe space. You can afford to come here if you don’t have money. You can trust us. We don’t turn anyone away. The important thing about us is that we provide true compassion for our patients. We meet people where they are.”

Munir was one of the leading forces during the affiliation discussions with The Centers, a major local nonprofit known for its behavioral health care integrated with primary care, early learning programs and job training and workplace development programs. The main opportunity with linking the organizations is the ability to scale that integrated model of care given The Centers’ wide reach.

“With any affiliation, there’s a great deal of uncertainty or anxiety,” said Elizabeth Newman, CEO at The Centers and now Circle Health. “Farah really kept the group on her side and focused on the overall opportunity. That opportunity is really about population health and offering high-quality health care. Farah was able to translate that end goal and make it very real. If you’ve ever heard Farah talk about population health, you can see her passion for this work. She’s been doing it for a long time and knows the impact it can have.” — Timothy Magaw

Medical Director - Heartland Region, Paladina Health Patients have direct access to their docs, 24/7 phone access for urgent needs and no co-pays.

Some local outfits that have bought into the idea are Lincoln Electric and Akron Public Schools.

For Song, it’s about practicing medicine the way it was meant to be practiced, and that’s why she jumped at the opportunity to be Paladina’s pioneering physician in Ohio. Most of her day, for example, is spent meeting with patients — at most about 15,

or half of what she was expected to see at UH. Much of that time is spent on preventative counseling — including diet or exercise plans, for example. For some of her older patients, she said it’s a glimpse into what primary care once was. And for Song, it’s what it should be.

Patients have direct access to their docs, 24/7 phone access for urgent needs and no co-pays.

These aren’t five or 10 minute quick hits, but rather 30-40 minute sitdowns. With traditional payer arrangements that reward volume over quality, that’s unheard of.

“This is a great model for health care,” said Song, a Northeast Ohio na-

tive who has been charged with preaching the Paladina gospel regionally. “I hope it gets adopted nationally.”

Dr. Eric Miller, Paladina’s medical director for its east region, described Song as one of Paladina’s “brightest stars” given her high quality metrics and patient satisfaction scores.

“Her patients have come to count on her as a trusted partner and champion for their health,” Miller wrote in a letter of recommendation. “Her teammates look to her for steady leadership as a role model in delivering this unique form of primary care. Perhaps her example, leadership and passion is why Ohio has become our fastest growing market in the country.” — Timothy Magaw

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PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

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Medical Director, Interdisciplinary Breast Program, Summa Health Many physicians are trained to be empathetic with their patients. Few, however, have the kind of intimate connection Dr. Melanie Lynch has with the breast cancer patients who walk into Summa Health Cancer Institute.

About 18 months after taking the helm of the Akron-based medical system’s breast program in late 2013, Lynch was diagnosed with the disease. “I have talented surgical and non-surgical colleagues here; I was honored to have them take care of me,� she said, “and I’ve had a very good outcome.�

Still, the irony of being on the receiving end of what Lynch and her team dubbed the “days of misery� index was not lost on this surgical oncologist. “Days of misery� refers to the time between an abnormal diagnostic mammogram and the biopsy used to confirm breast cancer.

A few years ago, Summa patients were waiting an average of 26 days.

Since only about 30% of breast biopsies are malignant, that means a whole lot of women were spending a whole lot of time wringing their hands over nothing. “It’s a very high stress time when you come in and have an abnormal mammogram and are then asked to come back to have a biopsy done,� she said.

Shortly after joining Summa, Lynch undertook an ambitious project to reduce the days patients spend anxiously awaiting confirmation. Her team began with a six-month study

that included focus groups with referring physicians and breast cancer survivors.

The next year was spent analyzing quantitative and qualitative data before Summa rolled out a redesigned process.

Data from 2017 shows the new process cut the time from abnormal diagnostic mammogram to biopsy by more than half, to just over 11 days. It also reduced “outmigration� or patients leaving the health system before their biopsy. With the shortened time frame and a larger case load, Lynch estimates the cancer center spared patients about “1,800 days of misery� in 2017.

Dr. Gil Padula, system medical director at Summa Health Cancer Institute, said the streamlined intake process is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lynch’s contributions to breast cancer care. He is particularly excited about a follow-up program Lynch is rolling out that identifies ancillary needs of breast cancer patients — do they face financial barriers, for instance, or need physical therapy or emotional support — before they enter the clinic so that those specialists are on hand as needed. “Everybody is doing interdisciplinary cancer centers now, but the way she is doing it will transform health care in Northeast Ohio,� Padula said. — Judy Stringer

Dr. Chirag Shah Director, Clinical Research, Breast Radiation Oncology, Cleveland Clinic Outcomes for women diagnosed with breast cancer have improved dramatically over the last three decades, thanks to early detection and standardized treatment protocols, which often include radiation. With survival rates on the rise, Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Chirag Shah is among a new generation of radiation oncologists out to improve the lives of breast cancer victims. “As we have more and more survivors, we are really shifting our focus to things like heart-sparing radiation and looking at how to make radiation therapy easier and more convenient for patients,� Shah said.

Protecting the heart against damaging radiation has been one of Shah’s major research interests since he joined the Clinic in 2015. Studies have shown that women who undergo radiation treatments for left breast cancers are at higher risk of heart complications down the road. In those studies, Shah said, the average radiation dose to the heart was about seven units. In response, national guidelines dropped the acceptable dose to four units. Shah designed a clinical trial at the Clinic to see if it could be lowered even further.

The Clinic evaluation used a technique called Active Breathing Control in which CT scans and computer programming ensure radiation is only delivered to the left breast when the patient breathes in and there is a natural separation between the chest and heart. The trial also used cat scans to evaluate where the tip of the

heart might still be vulnerable and programmed radiation machines to block out that area. In data gathered over his three years at the Clinic, Shah said the average heart load for patients in the trial dropped to one unit. “This is significant because we know with every unit of increase in dose there is a potential increase in cardiac complications,� he said Shah also oversaw the Clinic’s adoption of new techniques to pare radiation therapy down from “25 to 30 treatments over more than a month to just five treatments in about a week� for appropriately selected patients. And, radiation is aimed at targeted areas rather than the whole breast. “There is no difference in recurrence, and this technique has been associated with reduced toxicity and better cosmetic outcome,� Shah said.

Dr. John Suh, director of radiation oncology at the Clinic, credits Shah with adding energy and innovation to its breast oncology program, where cutting-edge research sets the pace for clinicians around the world. “Although he is a very young physician, he’s clearly made a mark already in terms of how we think about breast cancer, particularly partial breast radiation,� Suh said. — Judy Stringer

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PA G E 15

PHYSICIAN INNOVATORS

Dr. Mark Horattas

Dr. Mehdi Shishehbor

Chairman of Surgery, Cleveland Clinic Akron General

Director, Cardiovascular Interventional Center, UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, University Hospitals

Tell surgical patients you plan to manage their pain with a new technique that doesn’t include narcotics — either in the hospital or after returning home — and they are understandably skeptical, said Dr. Mark Horattas. Tell them those same techniques will likely get them on their feet and out of the hospital sooner, and most people are willing to try.

“Even the few patients who did experience postoperative discomfort tended to require much fewer opioid analgesics if any at all,” Horattas said, referring to patients undergoing Cleveland Clinic Akron General’s Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocol. “But most patients really did not need or want them.”

Horattas researched, developed and rolled out a narcotic-free colorectal surgery using ERAS that has reduced narcotic usage in that patient group by almost 90% since the program began in April 2016. ERAS is fairly new in the United States, Horattas said. He led a team in developing protocols that are unique to Akron General, including novel anesthesia techniques and a long-acting abdominal pain block.

The new guidelines implemented as part of the ERAS protocols were very different than what is taught in medical schools, according to Dr. Lance Talmage, chairman of Akron General’s anesthesia department.

Talmage partnered with Horattas on crafting the ERAS protocols. He believes much of the early success stems from Horattas taking the time

to get surgeons, anesthesiologist and nurses together around a table to explain what the duo wanted to do and why.

“None of these things work unless you get everyone engaged and help them understand that the ultimate goal is better patient care,” Talmage said.

Colorectal surgery patients in Akron General’s ERAS program not only used less narcotics, “they had fewer complications and a quicker return to normal activity,” Horattas said. The use of opioids tends to prolong recovery, he said, by interfering with normal bowel function, which can result in trouble eating and moving around, and in longer hospital stays.

Many ERAS patients were eating and walking the same day of surgery.

Days of hospitalization dropped from an average of 5.5 to 2.5 days.

The program has been expanded to breast and bariatric surgeries, and others are being developed. Horattas is quick to emphasize that the success of this program wouldn’t have been possible without a multi-disciplinary team of caregivers.

“Each department does their part,” he said, “with the expectation that patients will have less pain and probably go home quicker and be much happier and more satisfied with their experience.” —Judy Stringer

COHEN

increasing the strength of people fatigued by mitochondrial mutations, reducing seizures or improving intellectual function. Research is still in its infancy, he said, and clinicians like him will not know how their work benefits patients for years.

Cohen is certain, however, that more is being learned every day thanks to an interdisciplinary team at the hospital and the infrastructure Akron Children’s has afforded him to conduct cutting-edge clinical trials.

— Judy Stringer

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

“Right now the standard of care is symptom management,” said Cohen, also the program Director of the Center for Brain, Mitochondrial and Muscle Health Research. “Our goal is to bring new mitochondrial therapies, in the form of medication, through the FDA process that will ultimately benefit the outcome of these patients.”

Favorable outcomes could include

When a patient with gangrene, ulcers or blockages in his legs comes to University Hospitals vascular surgeon Mehdi Shishehbor, it’s often as a last resort to save the limb.

Shishehbor has met this challenge head on through minimally invasive approaches that effectively treat critical limb ischemia (CLI) and prevent amputation.

CLI, or severe obstruction of the arteries, is one of the most challenging conditions in cardiovascular medicine, as it markedly reduces blood circulation to the extremities, resulting in severe pain and skin ulcers in patients.

“There’s lack of blood flow and skin breakdown,” Shishehbor said.

“My job is to improve blood flow and heal those wounds. People who see me have no other options available.”

Amputation of the foot or lower leg is meant to resolve pain, but Shishehbor is working to circumvent this drastic step through a technology called LimFlow, which diverts blood around diseased leg arteries and into

one of the veins that feed the foot, delivering blood and oxygen to starved tissues.

Shishehbor has trained more than 300 physicians nationally on this advanced technique in limb salvage, which boasts a 70% to 80% success rate.

Under Shishehbor’s stewardship, UH recently restored blood flow to a female patient’s blocked leg artery by using her wrist as a starting point, when typically this procedure is performed via the groin. The surgeon used a sheath, wires, balloons and stents from Tokyo-based medical manufacturer Terumo, marking the first time these devices were used to circulate blood flow from the wrist to the leg.

“The patient is doing fantastic,” Shishehbor said. “The most important thing we have is a passion and love for saving a patient’s leg.”

Dr. Marco Costa, president of the

Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, recruited Shishehbor from the Cleveland Clinic for his innovative approach to vascular care, one bolstered by a tireless commitment to limb salvage.

“In 30 years of medicine I haven’t met someone more dedicated to patient care than Dr. Shishehbor,” Costa said. “His drive is to eliminate amputation as a tool of care. His technique in restoring blood flow and getting blood vessels open are novel and very effective.”

As decreasing CLI-related amputations is a team effort, Shishehbor spearheads a regional limb salvage collective comprised of Cleveland-area researchers, podiatrists and vascular medicine specialists.

The mission is to close knowledge gaps among both patients and caregivers, as well as work with underrepresented communities that may not know about the options available to them.

“Nothing makes me happier when I save a patient’s leg and they’re able to walk into my office,” Shishehbor said. — Douglas J. Guth

As we embark on our goal of raising a minimum of $100 million in philanthropic gifts by 2022, we are pleased to announce the names of those who will lead our MetroHealth Transformation Campaign.

Honorary Co-Chairs Bridget and Bernie Moreno

Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.

Audrey and Albert Ratner

Jerry Sue Thornton, PhD

Campaign Cabinet Akram Boutros, MD, FACHE The MetroHealth System Thomas M. McDonald Thomas McDonald Partners, LLC Chair, The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees

Brenda K. Kirk Hyland Software Chair, The MetroHealth Foundation Board of Directors

Joseph DiRocco Fifth Third Bank

Rob Durham HKM Direct Market Communications

Scott Mueller Dealer Tire, LLC

Brian M. O’Neill Tucker Ellis, LLP

Vanessa L. Whiting, Esq. AES Management Corp.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

ADVERTISING SECTION

MBA

WEATHERHEAD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

www.crainscleveland.com/onthemove

To place your listing or for more information, please call Laura Warren at (773)-814-3898 or email lwarren@crain.com

weatherhead.case.edu

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Douglas J Smorag

Cynthia G Koury

Neal B Colby

Aileen P Bost

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Executive Vice President

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Senior Client Service Director

CM Wealth Advisors

CM Wealth Advisors CM Wealth Advisors announces that Aileen Bost has been promoted to Senior Client Service Director. Prior to joining CM Wealth Advisors in 2014, Aileen was a Relationship Manager at Hawthorn PNC Family Wealth. While there she served as the main point of contact for over 40 ultra-high-networth family relationships and family foundations. Aileen is a member of the Estate Planning Council of Cleveland and an officer for a local private foundation.

CM Wealth Advisors CM Wealth Advisors announces that Douglas Smorag has been promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. He has been employed with us since 1998 and associated with the firm since its inception in 1983. Doug works closely with clients to develop and execute effective financial, tax and estate planning programs. In 2016, he was recognized with the University Hospitals Distinguished Advisor Award.

Doug serves on a number of charitable foundations and associations.

CM Wealth Advisors Cynthia Koury has been promoted to Executive Vice President at CM Wealth Advisors. Cindy also serves as the firm’s Chief Investment Officer overseeing the investment process including a robust private equity program. Prior to joining our firm in 2012, Cindy served as a Senior Managing Director at Victory Capital Management. She serves on the investment committees of numerous organizations and is a member of the CFA Society Cleveland.

Neal Colby has been promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at CM Wealth Advisors. Neal started with the firm in 2014 as Director of Operations and led the sourcing and implementation of a new comprehensive reporting system for the benefit of our clients, among other achievements. Neal retains his role leading the Operations Team and other responsibilities on behalf of the firm and its clients.

FINANCIAL SERVICES Fred G. Botek Director of Tax and Wealth Transfer Planning

St. Clair Advisors, LLC

CM WEALTH ADVISORS is pleased to announce

David C. Henkel as Executive Vice President CM WEALTH ADVISORS is a preeminent multi-family office offering objective counsel, exceptional client service, and a disciplined, sophisticated approach to investment management.

James W. Wert · Cynthia G. Koury · Douglas J. Smorag · David C. Henkel Aileen P. Bost · Deborah C. Jira · Karen L. Greco Neal B. Colby · Paul A. Bodnar · Thomas V. David John E. Kohl

216.831.9667 www.CMWealthAdvisors.com

Fred has joined St. Clair Advisors as Director of Tax and Wealth Transfer Planning. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA and law degrees from Case Western Reserve University. He has spent the past three decades providing tax, financial, and investment counseling to wealthy families. In addition to serving on several non-profit boards and committees, Fred is Chairman of Gilmour Academy’s Board of Trustees. For information visit www.saintclairllc.com

FINANCIAL SERVICES Adam T. Clare Tax Associate

St. Clair Advisors, LLC Adam has joined St. Clair Advisors to support the tax planning and preparation functions in its Family Office practice. Adam earned his accounting degree from Lake Erie College and, prior to joining St. Clair Advisors, held a similar role with a global accounting, tax, and advisory firm. For more information, visit www.saintclairllc.com.

TECHNOLOGY Dave Pankow Vice President of Business Development

OEConnection Dave Pankow has been promoted to Vice President of Business Development at OEC. Mr. Pankow joined OEC in 2010 as the Manager of Business Development. In 2014, he was promoted to Director. Mr. Pankow is responsible for global business development and strategic relationships for OEC. Mr. Pankow holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Wright State University.

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AKRON

Neighborhood Watch

Highland Square: Welcome to the cool part of town The eclectic neighborhood is home to professionals, hipsters and a slew of local businesses to keep it interesting

By DAN SHINGLER

About this series

dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

We thought we knew a fair amount about Akron, which is the hometown of some of us at Crain’s. That is, until we started driving around with Akron planning director Jason Segedy, who agreed to take part in an ongoing series to show us his knowledge and passion for the city — one neighborhood at a time. This month, we look at Highland Square, which over the decades has had a strong residential base and has been home to some of Akron’s most iconic local businesses.

It’s probably one of Akron’s bestknown and most-loved neighborhoods — even if some people’s memories of it are, let’s say, a little blurry.

It’s Highland Square, and over the decades it’s been home to wealthy industrialists, college professors, medical professionals, artists, hippies, hipsters and, of course, iconic Akron institutions like Mary Coyle Ice Cream and Annabell’s Bar and Lounge — not to mention the summer PorchRokr music festival and its 10,000 attendees. From bars to locally owned businesses and quirky shops, Highland Square has a funky, eclectic personality all its own.

For tour guide Jason Segedy — Akron’s director of planning and urban development, and an urbanist who supports dense, walkable places — Highland Square is what many neighborhoods should strive to copy.

“This would have all been (inhabited by) fairly wealthy people who could walk to the streetcars. This is an urban planner’s dream, this street,” Segedy said, driving down a well-kept stretch of Portage Path in Highland Square. The spot is less than a quarter mile from and an easy walk to West Market Street, which houses most of the neighborhood’s businesses.

One house stands out for its stateliness. It comes into view as Segedy is talking about the diversity and quality of housing in the neighborhood and does not go unnoticed.

“Do you know whose house that is? That’s David Giffels’ house ... the house he wrote about in ‘All the Way Home,’ the book about fixing up an old house in Akron,” Segedy said.

“That would have been a rich person’s house. It’s got a billiards room, and it’s even got a butler’s pantry,” Segedy added.

It fit right into Highland Square in the early part of the 20th century, when Akron’s rubber industry was booming and the people who ran it sought to live upwind from the city’s rubber factories. Neighborhoods like Highland Square and Merriman Heights got the executives and their large, brick homes, while places like Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park got production workers and less expensive housing.

“I’d say the average house here sells for between $80,000 and $150,000,” Segedy estimated.

Homes in Highland Square tend to keep their values, he said, which is one reason folks like Giffels say they are willing to put in so much work.

An associate professor at the University of Akron and former writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, Giffels said he didn’t grow up in Highland Square but he wanted to live there long before he moved to the neighborhood almost 30 years ago.

“I grew up in West Akron and I went to St. Vincent-St. Mary (High School), and on my way home every day, we drove through Highland Square. It always felt a little more exotic and a little more bohemian than where I lived,” Giffels said.

The Highland Square Theater is a neighborhood landmark — one that’s near and dear to many residents. And one that still shows first-run films for $5. (Photos by Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

Square Records is a longtime mainstay of Highland Square and a place to which author David Giffels used to walk from his neighborhood home with his children.

A “little free library,” where residents share books, sits in a perfect spot, right next to the mural-adorned Angel Falls Coffee Co.

After almost 10 years renting in the neighborhood, Giffels said he had confirmed enough of what he already thought about Highland Square to commit in a huge way. So, he bought a house that needed not just a little elbow grease, but its own oilfield.

“It was infested with wildlife and it rained through three stories into the

living room on a day like this,” Giffels said during a recent downpour.

Now he’s got a showplace, and in a neighborhood with a real sense of community, Giffels said. And though it’s had its ups and downs and seen its share of crime over the years — “We called it the (ABJ) Ghetto when I was at the Beacon because so many

of us lived there,” Giffels said — he’s felt safe and raised his two children in his Highland Square home.

“It was a great neighborhood for them growing up. They always thought it was really cool to walk up the street and go to Square Records. There’s an adventure in that,” Giffels said.

But what Giffels said he might like best about the neighborhood is the way it’s “always evolved,” and recently he’s seen it evolve even more.

That’s included a lot of small business growth.

The current wave began about 10 years ago with the development of a retail strip along West Market Street.

That ushered in the neighborhood’s first chain restaurant, Chipotle, which Segedy said is a good fit but was very controversial in Highland Square, which is very protective of its local merchants and businesses.

It got “local” in spades in 2015, though, when the 23,000-square-foot Mustard Seed Market & Cafe changed everything. Owner Phillip Nabors is a longtime resident of Highland Square and now the purveyor of much of the neighborhood’s food from his store, which emphasizes organic, local and sustainable foods and gourmet items.

Mustard Seed is also a top gathering spot not just for Highland Square but for the whole city, thanks to its upstairs café and patio cantilevered over the sidewalk on Market Street. Residents come in for live music, or to hold meetings about neighborhood issues and more.

Like a lot of his customers, Nabors has a strong connection to the community.

“It’s pretty deep. I’ve lived in my home in Highland Square for 37 years, and we were renters in Highland Square for 10 years before that, so I’ve lived here most of my life,” he said.

A self-described “old hippie” at 62, Nabors said he’s always loved that Highland Square was the cool part of town, and he loves that it’s become more diverse over the years with all

types of people, working in all types of professions, moving in.

In addition to owning the Mustard Seed, Nabors also manages other property in the neighborhood, including the 10,000-square-foot retail plaza across the street from his store where Chipotle is located. He currently has one vacancy that he wants to fill, but with the right tenant.

“I have several interested parties.

I’m just trying to get the use that the square really needs … and I have a preference for independent businesses rather than chains,” Nabors said.

He’s confident, however, the space won’t last long.

“People around the square make money. We get good rents, but it’s worth it,” Nabors said.

Other investors have followed, too, including Mario Nemr and his cousin Ray Nemer — from the same family, but apparently with different immigration officials a few generations back, thus the different spellings, Nemr joked.

They, along with Ray’s father, Manny Nemer — a well-known bar owner, restaurateur and real estate investor in the city — have so far invested about $2 million into their businesses along Market Street in Highland Square, Nemr said.

Nemr and his family own Mr. Zub’s deli and the Matinee pub, and a new restaurant called Cheese & Chong’s that just opened in March. Ray owns Ray’s Pub and the Raycade game room.

They’ve been shuffling businesses from one side of Market Street to the other to better organize them and constructed a new building at the site of a former apartment building that now houses Mr. Zub’s, Matinee and Ray’s Pub, Nemr said.

Soon, they’ll offer five luxury apartments in the upstairs portion of the new building, with rents probably fetching $1,000 to $1,200 a month, he estimated.

Nemr said when he opened Mr. Zub’s across the street at its original location 10 years ago, there was vacant retail space everywhere. Not so today.

“The area has taken a dramatic turn for the better,” he said. “The neighborhood is great, too. They had to suffer through some serious construction for all this to happen.”

Nemr doesn’t live in Highland Square, but he said the neighborhood makes him and his cousin feel right at home.

“Everyone gets along around here.

Even all the businesses get along, which is unusual,” he said.

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At the Table

Autism Speaks gala will have two Iron Chefs in the kitchen Ink in Saturday, July 28, for one of the city’s greatest culinary benefits.

The Cleveland Autism Speaks 2018 Chefs Gala will be held from Joe 5:30 to 10 p.m. at Crea the Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd.

More than 20 of Northeast Ohio’s most honored chefs will join host Michael Symon, including his fellow Iron Chef winner and Food Network host Alex Guarnaschelli.

While the local chefs will host food stations presented in the museum’s massive atrium, Symon and Guarnaschelli will take the stage to lead an interactive, three-course dinner preparation.

Tickets are $250 per person, with a range of donor levels available. Learn more about the event and purchase tickets online at tinyurl.com/autismspeaksgala.

Marigold takes on Tenk Tenk West Bank, a multipurpose work and events environment composed of over 13,000 square feet in Cleveland’s Flats, now has an exclusive food-service provider: Marigold Catering.

Operated by chef-restaurateur Joan Rosenthal, Marigold, also of Cleveland, has taken Tenk as its first exclusive client. Event spaces can accommodate up to 500 seated diners or up to 1,000 for cocktail-style gatherings. But Tenk also hosts parties as

Iron Chef Michael Symon will be one of two chefs headlining the Cleveland Autism Speaks 2018 Chefs Gala, which will be held at the Cleveland Museum of Art on July 28. (Marc Golub for Crain’s)

small as 30 guests.

Learn more about the center at tenkwestbank.com. Visit marigoldcatering.com to find out more about its event-planning services.

Take in a historic venue Cleveland is home to an endless procession of noteworthy event venues, including one of the city’s most storied destinations.

If you’ve been interested in getting a peek at the recently (and exquisitely) refurbished Tudor Arms Hotel — that remarkable $22 million restoration, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and reopened in 2011 at 10660 Carnegie Ave. in University Circle — here’s a chance for a tour, for free.

From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 22, you can experience the seven ballrooms in full splendor and decor.

A cash bar and valet parking will be available.

You must register by Tuesday, March 20, or pay $15 per person at the door. Get more information and reserve admission at tudorarmsevents.com.

Elements continues to offer modestly priced sandwiches, entrees, salads, soups and a pretty good buildyour-own burger (including your choice of sides). It’s worth checking out — elementsoneuclid.com.

The restored Tudor Arms Hotel in University Circle will be open to tour on March 22. (Stan Bullard)

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Another spot for CoreLife

CoreLife Eatery, a chain of restaurants that specialize in grain dishes, greens and broth-based foods, is ClusterTruck, that “restaurant adding a sixth Northeast Ohio location to its portfolio. without a dining room,” is growing.

The site opened Thursday, March 8, The virtual food delivery company, which Crain’s reported began di- at 7809 Mentor Ave., Mentor. With a rect-to-client delivery on Dec. 4 in goal of operating 300 locations naCleveland, has altered and expanded tionwide over the next five years, its service radius. Downtown Cleve- CoreLife offers a menu based on horland remains the central delivery mone- and antibiotic-free chicken area, but the company now delivers and beef, as well as dishes made withalong the lakeshore, roughly from out GMOs, trans fats, artificial flavorFirstEnergy Stadium to the area east ings or colorings, and other additives.

For a complete list of area locations of Burke Lakefront Airport (into the St. Clair/Superior Avenue neighbor- and more information about the hood), and south toCRAIN'S the Ohio City restaurant, visit corelifeatery.com.

CLEVELAND BUSINESS μ MARCH 12, 2018 μ PAGE 17

ClusterTruck expands

Hidden gem turns 10 Downtown Cleveland’s major corridors are home to a procession of good places to eat, but a few are kind of hidden in plain sight.

Elements Bistro on Euclid, 2300 Euclid Ave., is one of those places.

Tucked in the Parker Hannifin Administration Building on the Cleveland State University campus, the unassuming little spot celebrates its 10th anniversary this winter.

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PA G E 19

Jacklyn Chisholm

President, CEO of the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland 2017 was a tumultuous year for Jacklyn Chisholm. ¶ Early in the year, the chair of the board of CEOGC publicly announced that the organization had fired Chisholm, the organization’s president and CEO, because she had been “unable to meet the goals set forth at the time of her hiring” in May 2015. However, Chisholm, who had earlier charged board members with flouting the organization’s bylaws, didn’t leave. Instead, that board chair, and the board members who joined in the announcement, are gone. ¶ CEOGC is a nonprofit organization that runs 13 Head Start programs for children in the city of Cleveland, a home energy assistance program and other programs to help low-income people become self-sufficient, including job placement programs and programs to teach parenting and other life skills. ¶ Chisholm, who grew up on Cleveland’s East Side and earned three degrees in anthropology from Case Western Reserve University, including a Ph.D., spent much of her professional career at CWRU, moving up the ladder to associate vice president for community partnerships before leaving to become vice president of planning and external affairs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. — Jay Miller

Five things Favorite Cleveland landmark Lake Erie

Favorite hobby Reading

Favorite movie “Pride and Prejudice”

First hero My mom

What drew you to the civic arena?

I want to make a difference in people’s lives in a tangible way.

You had a tough year, taking some members of your board to court to protect your job and what you saw as the integrity of the organization.

How are things now?

While that was painful, ultimately it was a really good thing for the agency to go through. When you consider everything that has happened, we’re now on the map as an organization that can be trusted. We’re open for business. It wasn’t fun, but I don’t regret any of it. What we do matters. I could have walked away a while ago and found something else. I’m a change agent. My sweet spot is bringing order out of chaos. I’m not a manager. The next change for the agency is preparing us to expand to help the community.

CEOGC won a grant from the Cleveland Foundation in November to help the organization build and diversify its funding, since you rely heavily on federal dollars that get harder and harder to get.

What does that mean to you?

The Cleveland Foundation gave us $200,000 for capacity building. To sustain the organization, we need to diversify our funding, and to do that I need a development officer. We don’t have that capacity in the organization.

Lunch spot Nighttown 12383 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights 216-795-0550

The meal Both had the Dublin Lawyer, the house specialty made from lobster baked with cream and Irish whiskey.

The vibe A quiet spot for lunch, but noisier after 5 p.m., this Cleveland Heights restaurant has been a hangout for neighborhood folks and jazz lovers for 53 years.

The bill $52.92 with tip

To fund CEOGC like that, you had to earn back the community’s trust, didn’t you?

That’s it. We needed to earn their trust. So in talking to the foundation about the things that we’ve done, they were willing to invest in us. The first time in 20 years, and never that big.

So what’s next?

For me, it’s asking, “What are the needs in the community?” And where there are very few organizations meeting those particularly needs, see if we can fill that. We need to do a market study, of the community, to see what it needs and how do you position the agency for the future. My goal in the next two or three years is that I want (CEOGC) to be serving 25,000 people, though the need is greater than that. The majority of people we serve, we serve through workforce development programs, personal counseling, emergency services and HEAP, the federal Home

Energy Assistance Program.

Your programs now are based in the city of Cleveland. Do you see that expanding further?

At one time, our entire focus was on Cleveland. But poverty has moved to the suburbs, to the inner-ring suburbs and beyond. So in the next iteration of the agency, we have to look at how are we going to serve the suburbs in Cuyahoga County. We need to start to look at possibly closing some of our sites in Cleveland and moving them to the suburbs.

The National Head Start Association has lauded your “Friendships through Reading” program. What is that program?

The program won a 2017 “Exemplary Program” award from the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs (at Ohio State University). Police officers come, in uniform, and read to (Head Start) kids.

Because of all that has happened, in particular the shooting of young Tamir Rice by police officers, many of these children don’t look at police in a good way. So the thinking was, “What if we bring officers into the classroom, having them in their uniforms — we started with Chief Calvin Williams — reading to the kids?” We were invited to a conference by the National Head Start Association to talk about the program, and now 22 Head Start programs have adopted something like it.

You once said to me you wanted to be a college president. It took you nearly 20 years to get through your own college experience. You have a bachelor’s, master’s and a Ph.D. in anthropology from CWRU. Do you still have that ambition?

Education changed my life. I’m a first-generation college graduate.

When you get to college, you get the chance to dream. You get an idea of what you want to do with your life.

You get to explore all of that. There was always someone to help me — a teacher at (John F. Kennedy High School), it was a professor at Case.

At every point in my life, I needed people in my life to energize me.

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