Crain's Cleveland Business

APRIL 23 - 29, 2018 VOL. 39, NO. 17

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

When it comes to strategic priorities, diversity must lead T

he research doesn’t lie. The best-performing companies put diversity and inclusion at the core of everything they do. In this special report, we take a look at diversity through several lenses. One thing is abundantly clear: Putting together a diverse and inclusive workforce shouldn’t be viewed as a challenge, but rather as an opportunity to do what’s right.

Tech issue: JumpStart focuses on inclusion. Page 11

New economy: Immigrants play a vital role. Page 12 Building CLE: The trades look to diverse pools. Page 13

Illustration by Ellen Weinstein for Crain’s Entire contents © 2018 by Crain Communications Inc.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Regional media shakeups bring job cuts

By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

The news business in Northeast Ohio has itself been making news recently, the result of a round of staff trimming in Cleveland and a sale in Akron that also might reduce employment.

It’s a regional industry shakeout that likely will ripple through the organizations for months, with jobs hanging in the balance.

The move that bests demonstrates the direction of the industry is the sale of the Beacon Journal newspaper and its online affiliate, ohio.com.

On April 11, New Media Investment Group Inc., a New York City-based holding company that owns 142 daily news outlets, announced that it had purchased the assets of the Beacon Journal for $16 million for its GateHouse Media affiliate. The seller was Black Press Group, a newspaper chain based in Surrey, British Columbia.

New Media president and CEO Michael Reed said in a news release that the Beacon Journal was a “great addition to our large Ohio footprint of properties.” GateHouse Media already operates daily and weekly newspapers in Ohio, including The Columbus Dispatch, The Repository in Canton and The Daily Record in Wooster.

Black Press, which publishes 170 newspapers in Canada and the United States, bought the Beacon Journal in 2006 for a reported $165 million.

That drop in value reflects the state of the industry generally and the Beacon Journal in particular.

At the time of the purchase by Black Press, the Beacon Journal had a daily circulation of 137,000. That’s now halved, down to 68,000, according to New Media’s release announcing the sale.

Beacon Journal vice president and editor Bruce Winges said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t discuss details of the sale because it hasn’t closed yet.

“I will tell you that I think over the long term, this will be good to us, it will give us even more ways to collaborate, which is something we all need in this industry,” he said.

GateHouse has a reputation of consolidating operations. It consolidates printing operations, as well as centralizing copy editing and design services. All of those moves cut jobs.

A day before the Akron announcement, the Northeastern Ohio Newspaper Guild, which represents unionized employees, tweeted that Advance Ohio, owner of both The Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and cleveland.com, was offering voluntary buyouts to managers at The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com staffers with 15 years of service. Chris Quinn, president of Advance Ohio, confirmed the plan later in the week.

It’s the latest in a series of actions meant to trim the workforce and save money as revenue declines.

“This is a tough industry. Nobody has figured this out across the country how to be sustainable,” Quinn said on Friday, April 13, on WCPN’s “The Sound of Ideas,” where he is a regular contributor.

“It’s a staff reduction that brings us back to where we were five years ago, when we started the company.”

Quinn attributed the falling revenue to the print side of the operation, The Plain Dealer, which has seen a steep decline in advertising revenue and circulation. His reference to starting the company five years ago is a nod to the creation of the Northeast Ohio Media Group (NEOMG), which later became Advance Ohio. NEOMG, as described by its then-president, Andrea Hogben, would operate cleveland.com, the Sun chain of weekly newspapers and an ad sales and marketing staff selling both print and online advertising. The Plain Dealer Publishing Co. would continue producing the print newspaper.

The local media do not disclose revenue figures. But advertising revenue, the bulk of newspaper dollars, peaked in 2005 for daily newspapers at $63.4 billion, according to the Pew Research Center, which tracks the media industry.

By 2016, according to Pew’s estimate, that number was down to $18.3 billion.

That loss of revenue from print advertising, which has not translated into online revenue for the news organizations, has triggered the recent cost-saving moves.

“So few of our clients do print advertising anymore, except in specific trade publications,” said Lane Strauss, creative director of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland. “Now you get the morning paper and (because people find their news online) it feels like three weeks ago. So for people to get their advertising and marketing information that way, it’s an antiquated way to do that.”

Among Wyse’s clients are paintmaker Sherwin-Williams Co. and

food giant The J.M. Smucker Co. Some advertisers have stuck with print, notably auto dealers. But even there, interest in investing in print is flagging.

“We don’t do too much in print ads, unfortunately,” said Ralph Stawicki, vice president of marketing for the Bernie Moreno Cos., which operates seven auto dealerships in Northeast Ohio. “We just don’t see the return on investment.”

While the auto marketer no longer uses The Plain Dealer or the Beacon Journal, it also didn’t move ad dollars into their web platforms, cleveland. com and ohio.com. Instead, Stawicki said, it hired a search engine marketer so its ad messages reach targeted customers at many websites online.

A Moreno ad recently popped up on the website of the Daily Mail, a United Kingdom daily, alongside an article about the Cleveland lakefront home of basketball player Tristan Thompson and Khloe Kardashian.

As a result, digital advertising revenue at daily newspapers is modest. Digital now accounts for 29% of newspapers’ overall ad revenue pie, according to Pew, and it’s growing slowly, if at all.

As Quinn said, the industry hasn’t hit on a business model to reverse the downward trends. For now, it is cutting jobs and consolidating services.

Advance Ohio, for example, publishes the Beacon Journal and other publications at its printing plant in suburban Brooklyn.

In its news release, New Media’s president, Reed, suggested similar opportunities.

“In addition to being a long-stand-

“I went from intern to manager at OEC.”

Learn more at OEConnection.com/Patrick

ing dominant source of award-winning journalism, its proximity to our properties in Wooster, Canton and Columbus is very exciting as we see many opportunities for growth,” he said.

But cutting jobs remains a major strategy, and the full list of those taking the voluntary buyouts at Advance’s Cleveland operations has not been disclosed.

A severance package, believed to be equal to one year’s salary and benefits, has been offered to nonunion managers of the Plain Dealer and to employees of Advance Ohio and cleveland. com, which are also nonunion.

Plain Dealer reporters are members of the Newspaper Guild, while reporters at cleveland.com are nonunion.

The identities of staffers taking the buyouts have not been announced.

Quinn, in an email, cautioned staffers not to speak to Crain’s about the program. Quinn also did not respond to an email from Crain’s.

But sources have told Crain’s that sports columnist Bud Shaw, Karl Turner, director of state content, reporter Karen Farkas, Washington bureau chief Steve Koff and editorial writer Sharon Broussard had accepted buyouts. The buyout is also being offered to business-side employees.

It’s not known if Advance Ohio has targeted a specific number of buyouts. Wendy McManamon, a copy editor at The Plain Dealer and the chairwoman of the local chapter of the NewsGuild, the union that represents editorial employees, had heard the number 29 mentioned, but that number couldn’t be confirmed.

SEE NEWSPAPERS, PAGE 18

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Firm aims to fill small biz financing void

By JEREMY NOBILE jnobile@crain.com @JeremyNobile

The founder of Cleveland’s Advance Partners, who has been running the company supporting independent staffing firms for the past two decades, has a new business venture: financing small companies overlooked by banks.

Joel Adelman started Advance in 1998, growing the startup without any acquisitions from a staff of two to 175 employees all working from the firm’s Beachwood headquarters (its individual revenues are kept private).

The business provides financing and various services — like managing payrolls, tax prep and invoicing services — to small staffing firms across the country. It was acquired

by Rochester, N.Y.-based public company Paychex Inc. in 2015 — for $296.1 million, according to company filings — as that business sought more work in the smaller to midsize ends of the market.

It was a good deal for Adelman, who stayed with the company after the acquisition until this month, as he officially launches AdCap Management in Pepper Pike.

Adelman said he probably would’ve stayed with the company had Paychex not offered a compelling deal and taken over ownership, noting the firm has been “very good to us.” He’s leaving on amicable terms, staying involved with Advance as a consultant.

“I had actually stayed a bit longer (than expected) because I was committed to making the transition as smooth as possible,” Adelman said.

“But there is a time when a founder-owner kind of feels, at least in my case, I felt like I had maximized the transition process. And I’m proud my leadership team that worked for me for many years is still intact there.”

So, Adelman said, the time was simply right to move on.

Starting Advance — which Adelman estimates has worked with more than 1,000 staffing firms — was itself something he never really expected to do.

Prior to Advance, Adelman was working for his father, Sheldon, who ran Blue Coral Inc., a manufacturer of car care products. That Cleveland-based business was doing about $100 million in sales annually when it was bought by Texas-based Quaker State in 1996. The junior Adelman was a national sales manager at that time.

The family stayed involved for about six months after the transaction. After that, the junior Adelman, hungry for fresh work, wasn’t sure what he’d do next.

“If someone told me a year earlier I’d be in the business of financing staffing agencies, I wouldn’t believe it,” Adelman said.

But while looking for opportunities both in and outside of Northeast Ohio at that time, he learned about the need for capital in the staffing industry. His family had money from the Blue Coral sale. So, sensing an opportunity, he attended a trade show in Palm Springs, Fla., where he learned about the concept of small, independent staffing firms — a segment of the business world rarely looked at by traditional banks in terms of financing because it’s an industry with effectively no real, hard assets behind it.

“A lightbulb went off,” he said. “There were in excess of 10,000 small momand-pop temp agencies: security guard

companies, nursing agencies, light industrial manufacturing.”

The firms providing staffing to those sectors are inherently negative cash flow businesses.

To Adelman grow, those business have to pay more contractors, who need paid weekly. And the workers need paid at a regular clip as well.

Those people are compensated upfront, while the staffing firm sits on receivables for several weeks.

So Adelman decided to channel his resources behind what became Advance Partners. Through that, the firm could lend money to those

cash-hungry staffing firms and manage their back-office operations.

With AdCap Management, Adelman is continuing his focus on helping smaller entrepreneurs underserved by banks, noting, “I don’t want to lose that connection.”

He’s doing that by creating what amounts to a family office, alternative lender hybrid that offers him the liberty to work with more than just staffing firms.

“My idea is there is a number of specialty finance opportunities other than staffing that require lending,” he said. “We can advance capital in industries those banks shy away from.”

Adelman, who said he’s identified a “few” families to work with, isn’t sharing how much money he has on hand in AdCap right now. He said

there’s no immediate need for any other outside capital, but that he might consider it in the future.

“What I’m most interested in is continuing with a network to help me find opportunities to work with small business,” he said.

AdCap’s financing will be a mix of both equity and debt. And while the intent is not to buy out other companies like a private equity firm, Adelman’s intent is to consult with and mentor the entrepreneurs his firm works with, like those firms tend to do following an investment.

Besides staffing agencies, some examples of firms and people he sees serving include real estate agents working on commissions, commercial real estate bridge lending, merchant cash advance providers and even law firms.

Adelman also has his eyes set on a more meta service: financing other financing companies.

“It’s an area I find of interest,” Adelman said. “There are small, specialty finance companies with their own troubles accessing capital and getting their own financing. And I kind of like that.”

Adelman is launching the third chapter of his business career. And he feels the future is quite promising.

“I was incredibly proud with Advance. If Paychex wasn’t around, I’d probably still own the business today,” he said. “But now, our focus is where the banks aren’t lending.

These industries I’ve mentioned are underbanked and growing. There will be plenty of opportunistic lending situations.”

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The first phase of a 200,000-square-foot warehouse — dubbed Cedar Tree Center I — will start soon in Lorain County. It will be in Sheffield Village’s French Creek Business Park. (Contributed rendering)

Warehouse operator plots a major real estate move

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A total of nearly 2 million square feet of industrial buildings is rising in Northeast Ohio, but none is in the northwestern area, which includes Lorain County, despite an incredibly low 2% vacancy rate.

However, Brad Maloof, president of Brook Park-based Amware Group., and a real estate development team he has assembled are about to change that.

Construction is scheduled to start the week of April 23 on a 103,527-square-foot warehouse in Sheffield Village that will be ready for occupancy by the fall. As soon as most of the first building is leased, Maloof plans to start construction on a second phase that would double the property’s size.

However, Maloof, whose major company is the third-party logistics, distribution and storage concern Amware Warehousing, has ways to reduce the risk on the more than $6 million project.

“If we can’t find a tenant, we’ll use the space,” Maloof said.

There are other ways the venture reduces the risk, and more reason than usual to assess the risk involved in such a project. The planned warehouse is on Mallard Park Drive in French Creek Business Park, an industrial estate that has had just one building go up on it since it was created in 1999. The park, visible from Insterstate 90 on the eastern edge of Sheffield Village, has been a vast series of green fields bisected by streets for almost 20 years.

It languished so long it went back to its lender, and a Maloof-led affiliate bought the fully improved park 18 months ago from Fifth Third Bank for just $700,000. About 160 acres is usable after subtracting land that was delineated for wetlands and must be retained in a natural state, as well as land used for the latest project and the first building.

The land actually was the second dip into Sheffield for Amware, which also owns warehouses in Elyria and other suburbs.

The first was in 2015, when another affiliate bought, also from the bank, the sole structure in the park for $2.4 million to ensure the company would have expansion space in case it needed it, or lease it to others.

The building wound up being fully leased to Magna, a Canadian-based international auto supplier. That pre-

“Since we own the industrial park, we see it as a win-win.

We’ve had inquiries for space that we don’t have available.”

— Brad Maloof, president of Amware Group

cipitated the more recent dive into the land purchase.

“Since we own the industrial park, we see it as a win-win,” Maloof said.

“We’ve had inquiries for space that we don’t have available.”

Joe Barna, a principal and founder of Cresco Cushman Wakefield who represents Maloof on the building and the park, wishes the new building had gone up two years ago.

“We could have filled it several times,” Barna said. He said people call constantly about sites because they see from I-90 the sign for French Creek surrounded by empty land.

Also, Barna said, there is regularly demand from suppliers to Ford Motor Co.’s Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake plant, but they typically have contracts only for a short term, such as three years. However developers who would build properties to house them would need 10-year leases to secure construction loans. So that has kept a lid on a key source of demand for construction projects.

The other reason the northwest suburban market has been fallow is that real estate developers who launch substantial projects for multiple users or tenants tend to be based in the eastern or southeastern suburbs, Barna said.

“Yes, there’s synergy because there are more businesses on the East Side than the West” Barna said, “but the reality is that they see the northwest as the red-headed stepchild of the market.”

Demand in the region is such there is certain to be demand, said David Stover, an executive managing director at Hanna Commercial who heads its Cleveland industrial unit.

“The biggest challenge for brokers now is the lack of inventory,” Stover said. “I’m surprised there is not more construction throughout the region.

Our entire region would benefit from more (industrial) development.”

He said he has had trouble finding space for industrial space users of 10,000 and 15,000 square feet in the northwest suburbs.

“I have not seen the market this

tight in my 30-year career,” Stover said.

Tight, indeed. Newmark Knight Frank’s first-quarter 2018 industrial report put industrial vacancy at 5.8%, a historic low, and down from 6.3% in last year’s like period in the region’s industrial market of 284 million square feet. The brokerage also puts vacancy at 2% in the northwest suburbs — the lowest of any subsections of the Northeast Ohio industrial market. However, the northwestern area also is the region’s smallest submarket, with just 23 million square feet of space.

To spur development in the park, Sheffield Village Mayor John Hunter said the village has approved a 75% property tax abatement for industrial construction if it meets certain job creation thresholds.

In that respect, timing has worked to the current developer’s favor. A tax increment financing package by the prior developer for roads and other infrastructure at French Creek expires in 2019, and the mayor said that is likely to be the first time new users could benefit from the tax abatement.

“I’ve been talking to Maloof about developing the property since he bought the land,” Hunter said. “It’s been like a field of dreams where the belief was build it and they will come.

But no one came. You have to be proactive with business, and we’re excited to see the park developed.”

Besides Barna and Cresco for leasing, Maloof retained Liberty Development Co. of Westlake to oversee the real estate development, including retaining contractors for the project. Barna said Tom Kuluris, Liberty Development founder, knows the industrial market and has been active with several ventures the last few years in the Lorain area.

Maloof also retained a development concern because he has other things to attend to. All told, Amware Group, which has five subsidiaries and 100 employees, has revenues of about $45 million yearly.

“I’m pro-Cleveland and pro-Northeast Ohio,” Maloof said of constructing a building that will be the size of four football fields when fully completed. “I like real estate; it’s a fun industry. But you have to be careful.”

Correction J The Investment Advisers list published on April 16 incorrectly identified the top executive for CBIZ Retirement Plan Advisory Services.

Brian Dean should have been listed as president.

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New technology being explored in Cleveland could give surgeons close to X-ray vision.

Cleveland-based surgical navigation startup Centerline Biomedical has for years been working to develop its Intra-Operative Positioning System (IOPS), a GPS-like system that provides 3D guidance during minimally invasive procedures.

Surgeons would have to look at a monitor to follow the guidance, but a new grant is offering Centerline and Cleveland Clinic researcher Karl West the chance to add HoloLens, a mixed-reality device from Microsoft, to the experience. “So now, when I put HoloLens on, I can look at the patient and visualize or see the anatomy inside,� said West, director of medical device solutions at Cleveland Clinic and staff member in the Lerner Research Institute’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. “It’s like having X-ray vision.�

The Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to test a “holographic GPS system for the operating room� is for nearly a quarter of a million dollars, according to a release from the Clinic.

The small grant comes as Centerline, a Cleveland Clinic spinoff company, is preparing to pursue U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of IOPS. If approved, Centerline president Vinod Goel said he expects to take the device to market in the fourth quarter of this year. Adding the HoloLens application later wouldn’t require additional FDA approval, he said. “It’s still the same IOPS,â€? Goel said. “(It’s) the question of how surgeons can see, visualize it. ‌ We’re not changing any components or anything. We’re just giving surgeons additional tools to watch it.â€?

West, who’s also scientific adviser for Centerline and co-inventor of the IOPS technology, said the HoloLens capability on IOPS keeps the surgeon focused at the surgical site instead of having to look away at a monitor. “So now if we use HoloLens, they actually will be able to look at their hands

Karl West of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute demonstrates the HoloLens technology. (Contributed photo)

because they’re actually looking at the surgical site, so all of the imaging is being projected at the surgical site,� he said.

To date, Centerline has raised $13.3 million and is hoping to raise an additional $15 million in a Series B funding round in the coming months. “And that will basically give us enough funding for market launch, for working on new applications, hiring more people, going through the next round of clinical research for the European market and all those kinds of activities,� Goel said.

In the study funded by the STTR award, researchers will test the IOPS system in both a preclinical model and patient-specific, 3D printed models, using the technology to control and precisely place stent grafts, which are commonly used to treat aortic aneurysms by decreasing pressure and blood flow in the damaged parts of the aorta.

Stent grafts can commonly be misplaced. The current standard-of-care

placement technique requires 2D X-ray fluoroscopy, which exposes patients, surgeons and caregivers to potentially dangerous radiation.

IOPS both limits radiation exposure and offers better visualization, said Dr. Ezequiel Parodi, staff vascular surgeon at the Clinic’s main campus. “It’s a device that could let us be able to get some good, great images on the patient anatomy and be able to navigate ‌ without using any radiation, or at least at the beginning minimizing the amount of radiation,â€? said Parodi, who is one of a few physicians offering advice to Centerline.

Goel said the company has been demonstrating the IOPS technology at conferences and has gotten “tremendous� feedback. “The reaction from surgeons has been just amazing — very popular technology,� he said. “We’re excited to get this through the FDA and get to the market.�

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PA G E 7

At the Table

Symon fired up about Cleveland as a barbecue hot spot seasoning as the herbs and spices, salt and pepper we use,” he added.

That’s most obvious at Mabel’s BBQ, the eatery he opened about two years ago in downtown Cleveland, a few doors from Lola. In the introduction to “Playing With Fire,” he talks about how the nation’s barbecuing legacy played in Mabel’s creation.

“I knew I wanted to make (Mabel’s) unique to my hometown,” he writes in the section titled “My Love Letter to Live-Fire Cooking.” “That meant crafting a style and menu that draw upon Cleveland’s rich cultural heritage, much of which is firmly rooted in eastern Europe.”

Maybe that’s why Symon’s so strongly inclined to nix the notion that there’s no such thing as a Cleveland style of barbecue. OK, so it may not be conventional, open-pit cooking, but Symon insists that many of the traditional techniques associated with open-fire cooking and smoking have a big influence on Cleveland’s foodways.

Still what business does a guy from Cleveland have setting foot in an arena that many hold as the sacred realm of Southern cooks?

Symon bursts into laughter, and you can almost hear him shrug a conciliatory apology.

“I think barbecue is definitely a Southern thing, but it’s also a very eastern European thing,” he said during a phone conversation from

his place in New York City, where he tapes “The Chew,” the weekday daytime TV show he co-hosts.

“It fits very much into how Clevelanders think about food,” Symon he added. “A trip through the West Side Market really IS barbecue. I mean, it’s labeled differently — smoked sausage, hocks, kielbasa, applewood bacon — but whether it’s coming out of a pit or kissed by smoke … all of those things.”

Opening Mabel’s BBQ was the tipping point for the book project. Over the years, Symon made pilgrimages to some of his favorite barbecue haunts across the nation in preparation for his first ’cue restaurant. He wanted to learn and borrow from the best, he said.

“More than that, over the years prior to (research), I got to spend time with all these pitmasters, and I wanted to include them as part of the book because they’ve so impacted the way I cook, not only at home, but in the restaurant kitchens,” he said.

“And I wanted to share how regionally specific the way they do things are.

I wanted to give the recipes, but I wanted this book to be a story and how-to book, how to do things A to Z.” He certainly covers the waterfront in “Fire.” The sumptuously photographed volume, dripping with juicy images, is a meat-lover’s fantasy.

TIME IS ALMOST OUT

Gotta admit, I don’t think of Cleveland as a barbecue destination.

Having traveled the nation’s storied low-and-slow circuit for the better part of 50 years, it’s hard to, uh, pit my hometown against ’cue capitals stretching from the Joe Carolinas through Texas Crea and beyond.

Michael Symon sees it differently.

Cleveland’s most famous chef doesn’t fall for the notion that there’s only way to define barbecue, however implicitly diverse and multifaceted its meaning interpretations can suggest.

He makes that plain in his latest cookbook, “Playing With Fire,” written with Cleveland Scene dining reporter Douglas Trattner (Clarkson Potter, 2018; $30).

In this his fifth book of recipes, Cleveland’s Iron Chef and owner of several restaurants (including B Spot burger locations and the acclaimed Lola Bistro on East Fourth Street) establishes the importance of “live-fire cooking” and the range of techniques he employs at his various venues.

“We always talk about barbecue, but I really prefer the term live-fire cooking,” Symon said during a recent phone conversation.

“It’s such a big part of the way I like to cook. The grills, wood-burning ovens, I love fireplace cooking. … I’ve always been amazed the way open flame cooking affects the flavor of foods. It’s really as much a form of

Fans of Mabel’s will find his quintessential take on smoked meats, a dish called “This Is Cleveland,” a dumpling-laced, mouthwatering morass of kielbasa, smoked pork loin, sauerkraut and cabbage. Throughout its 240 pages there are instructions for dishes as varied as barbecued pork ribs, pigs ears or Lake Erie walleye cooked in dried corn husks, grilled chicken thighs with blackberry barbecue sauce, and a homemade version of an Old World delicatessen classic, Mabel’s Pastrami.

So where does Symon think Cleveland stacks up as a barbecue city, and is there room for more such places?

Northeast Ohio’s barbecue scene has fired up over recent years with places such as the Proper Pig Smokehouse in Lakewood, Oak and Embers Tavern locations in Chesterland and Hudson, and Ohio City BBQ in Cleveland, to name a few. A name like Symon’s adds momentum to the trend.

“I think there’s always room for places that do things right,” he said.

“I’d love to see Cleveland develop more of its own style of barbecue. I love it, and as more barbecue places pop up, I’d love to see a unique style be more of a nod of our hometown.”

That’s not a whispered promise of another Mabel’s on the local horizon.

Symon won’t say no, but says he’s not sure a franchise a la B Spot will happen.

But outside of Northeast Ohio?

That’s a different matter. A Symon-driven barbecue spot is in the works for Las Vegas.

Vegas bound Michael Symon Restaurants is taking over the Addison Exhibit Hall Space in the Palms Casino Resort, a nearly $6 million renovation that will include indoor dining and a patio.

There’s optimistic talk of a September opening, according to the Vegas Eater foodie website. Fellow chefs Bobby Flay and Marc Vetri also will open restaurants in the complex.

“It will be different, with some Cleveland influences to it,” Symon said.

Although sources dub the place “Mabel’s Vegas,” Symon said the final name selection has not been made.

“The way we go about smoking meat won’t change,” he said. “Eastern European influences will be evident, and the house-made pastrami will likely be on the menu.”

And because it’s in Vegas, there will be some global influences: perhaps a smoked brisket taco, the use of Thai spices or a banh mi sandwich.

“But I don’t know that we’d open another barbecue place in Cleveland — even though I would say (Mabel’s) is our most successful concept, on a lot of levels.

“Of course, the most important concept we ever did was Lola. Twenty-two years ago it broke a lot of concepts in the city. But when Mabel’s happened?

The timing of it, and seeing how many other barbecue places opened since then, that may have been part of a new barbecue movement in the area. And I love seeing that.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Opinion From the Editor

Plotting a plan to curb nation’s opioid epidemic

By DR. SIDNEY WEISSMAN and ARTHUR LURIGIO

Opioid-related overdoses end the lives of more than 100 Americans each day on average. Here’s a five-part plan to alleviate the opioid epidemic.

Editorial

Land of opportunity The tax overhaul signed into law last December was primarily just a giant tax cut, but it has a few intriguing policy ideas.

Among the most innovative of them: the creation of “Opportunity Zones,” which aim to use tax incentives to encourage longterm investment in lower-income parts of the country — urban and rural — that aren’t sharing in recent economic success.

We like the spirit of experimentation in the Opportunity Zone, or OZ, program. Ohio Gov. John Kasich last month selected 320 Census tracts across the state to recommend to the federal government for OZ designation. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has to sign off on the state choices, which, as some experts had warned, are a mixed bag of areas that truly need help and others that seem to be doing pretty well.

In Cleveland, for instance, parts of downtown, Tremont and University Circle — areas generally attractive for investment, though they have some distressed characteristics, too — made it onto the governor’s list of recommendations, while portions of challenged neighborhoods like Hough, Old Brooklyn and Slavic Village didn’t.

It’s easy to pick holes in the logic of these sort of choices.

Nearly 900 Ohio Census tracts were submitted for OZ consideration, and most of them had a good case to make.

It’s understandable, though, that at least in the early stages of the OZ program, the state government seeks to balance need with opportunity by recommending to the feds some areas that offer a better chance to support projects with profit potential, as well as some riskier bets. The hope is that the program demonstrates some early successes and, over time, leads more investors to explore projects in lower-income areas.

As Deb Janik, senior vice president for real estate and business development at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, whose Cleveland Development Advisors Inc. affiliate is active in development financing, told Crain’s earlier this month, “We’ll learn quickly the (OZ regulations), find out what the appetite is for the investment and find where it makes sense. Those are all the exciting things we have to work out.”

Last week, the Brookings Institution produced an analysis of the 18 states, including Ohio, that have submitted their selections for OZ approval. It found, on average, that states “selected deeply disadvantaged areas for their OZs. The average poverty rate of selected zones was 30 percent (in 2016), compared to an average poverty rate nationwide of 15 percent and an average rate within qualifying low-income communities of 25 percent.”

Across a range of indicators like child poverty and educational attainment, Brookings found, Ohio and the other states’ selections are “more disadvantaged than the low-income tracts they did not select, and selections had larger minority populations.”

On balance, then, the first group of states has done right by the broadly defined goals of the OZ program. It’s important that the federal government, in making the final choices, does the same. Only then, in concert with local officials identifying promising projects, can the OZ program aid developments that lead to increases in jobs and neighborhood quality, and maximize the chance that poor residents benefit from the initiative.

Yes on 9

When Cuyahoga County voters fill out their mail-in ballot or head to the polls on May 8, they’ll see Issue 9, which is a renewal of one of the county’s two human services levies.

This two-year, 3.9-mill renewal, which does not raise taxes, would bring in about $104 million annually. The services it makes possible are abundant, from supporting preschool for kids and home-delivered meal programs for the elderly to providing treatment for those facing mental health issues or drug addiction.

Failing to pass the renewal would lead to severe programming cuts for some of the most vulnerable residents of the county. The levy costs the owner of a $100,000 home about $135 a year — a modest price to support fellow residents in need. We encourage in the strongest terms a “yes” vote on Issue 9.

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

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Addiction treatment: The first task in addressing opioid abuse is treating overdose victims. First responders must be equipped with and trained in the use of naloxone. Once victims are stabilized, their treatment can begin. Much scientific evidence shows that opioid use disorder (a medical condition that in common parlance would be called opioid abuse or addiction) can be effectively treated, with recurrence rates no greater than those for other chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma and hypertension. The Food & Drug Administration has approved three medications for treatment — methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone — that block opioid cravings and effects. All three also significantly increase the likelihood that opioid users can recover to live healthy and sober lives.

Medications are most effective when they are combined with non-medical therapies, including short- and long-term residential programs and follow-up care that includes recovery management.

Intensive outpatient programs help opioid addicts acquire the competencies and skills to resist future drug use. Offered in community-based settings with comprehensive long-term care, such programs ensure that recovery is an achievable goal, especially when they involve sober housing, supportive services (job development and training) and peer mentorship (e.g., Narcotics Anonymous sponsors).

Education: State and federal governments must fund educational programs that show the limitations and dangers of opioid use.

These messages should be directed at the general public, customized to reach groups at a higher risk for opioid use disorders (e.g., rural residents) and crafted along the lines of public health advertising campaigns concerning the risks of tobacco and unsafe sex practices. Educational initiatives also should contain school-based platforms for youths 12 to 17, who are prone to opioid experimentation.

Furthermore, patients should receive informational packets with every opioid prescription to be reviewed with both their prescribers and the pharmacists. Strict adherence to dosage and prescription regimen requires the firm commitment of the physician and the patient to ensure that the type, duration and dosage of the medication are properly and prudently administered. Doctors must be fully informed about the dangers of over-prescribing. Opioid-based instruction should become embedded in standardized medical school curricula.

Medical students must also become familiar with varied pain treatment modalities that are based on established guidelines and evidence-based practices. Medical residents with direct patient care responsibilities should have hands-on training experiences with the administration of opioids. Physicians should be required to attend accredited continuing medical education programs on the latest guidelines for opioid prescribing.

Alternative therapies: Pain management practices should consist of options that work more effectively and are much safer and cheaper than opioids. Alternatives include guided imagery, meditation, over-the-counter pain relievers (such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen and naproxen), physical therapy, antidepressants, massage and manipulation and exercise.

When all else fails, opioids should be used only when their benefits outweigh their risks. With few exceptions, opioid prescriptions should be limited to one-week supplies for each patient.

SEE OPIOIDS, PAGE 9

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited. Send letters to Crain’s Cleveland Business, 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 44113, or by emailing ClevEdit@crain.com. Please include your complete name and city from which you are writing, and a telephone number for fact-checking purposes.

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PA G E 9

PUT US TO WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS!

OPIOIDS

Letter to the Editor

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

The way to succeed Recent mishandlings of stored embryos and eggs at University Hospitals, as well as anarchy within our federal government, resemble how teenagers focus on covering their mistakes.

It used to be a rite of passage that as one grew up, you would tell your boss/partner/client what you did wrong, and together both parties worked out ways to avoid future injury. Personally, I remember how those events eventually led to better understandings. However, today, in this age of information advancement and fear of setback (the very center of every lesson), we avoid admitting any mistake and awkwardly curtail resolve.

Grow up. Stop focusing on what has been done, and start looking to how we can, collectively, repair. We need to return to a time when we listened and learned from one another, which is, after all, the true lesson of life. Stop yelling, telling and selling, and start adjoining. Achievement is found in alignment instead of demigod attending. Let’s treat collaboration and correction as THE fundamental horizon-building achievement that we essentially need and the way we ultimately progress.

Greg Coloian Cleveland

Prescription regulation: A CNN/Harvard University study published in March reported that in exchange for prescribing opioids, some physicians have accepted large payments in the form of fees for consulting, speaking, educating and training engagements directed at other physicians. Whether these doctors were selected as spokespeople or so-called opinion leaders because they already wrote large numbers of opioid prescriptions or whether the money paid to them led to changes in their prescription-writing practices is unclear. In any case, the correlation between opioid prescribing and physician earnings is appreciable and troubling.

Recent changes in the development of accredited continuing medical education programs have curtailed this practice. Furthermore, states such as Ohio and Mississippi have sued major drug companies, including Purdue Pharma and Endo Health Solutions, for wantonly extolling the benefits of opioid painkillers while purposely downplaying their risks of addiction.

Supply reduction: Nationwide, computer networks should be established to track the issuance of opioid prescriptions, and those retrieving an opioid prescription should be required to show a valid ID card. Controlling prescriptions will reduce the quantity of drugs being deflected into illicit use. However, this alone will not substantially diminish the availability of opioids through other channels. For example, untold numbers of small labs in China are producing and mailing fentanyl and its derivatives to the U.S. The Chinese government must be enlisted in our efforts to stem this drug flow. New methods of enforcement also will be needed to reduce the smuggling of heroin, which comes mainly from Mexico and Afghanistan.

The opioid epidemic developed over several years and will take long-term, concerted and coordinated public health efforts to reverse the trend of new addictions and to treat victims in the recovery process. We must fortify our will to act before more lives are lost.

Lurigio is a professor of psychology and of criminal justice and criminology at Loyola University Chicago, where he is the senior associate dean for faculty, a faculty scholar and a master researcher in the College of Arts & Sciences. Weissman is a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He is also on the faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Focus

J o

DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Diversity is a marathon — not a sprint Inclusion efforts require ongoing buy-in at the top

By TIMOTHY MAGAW and JEREMY NOBILE tmagaw@crain.com, jnobile@crain.com @timmagaw, @JeremyNobile

Diverse workforces are better workforces.

That’s the main takeaway from business consultants, researchers and, of course, executives when asked about the importance of putting together teams inclusive of varying races, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations and socioeconomic statuses. However, for many industries and companies, intentionally building programs that address diversity sound great in theory — and as talking points — but such efforts often fizzle in their infancies.

Take the legal community as an example. Nationally, 86.6% of legal occupations — a group that includes lawyers, law clerks, paralegals, judges and others — are held by white individuals, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s a problem with which the Northeast Ohio legal community has grappled, though to mixed results.

In 2016, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association launched an effort to address the lack of diversity in the Cleveland legal market following a survey that found fewer than 4% of local equity and non-equity partners were non-white. While numbers of women and minorities are slightly better in public sector and in-house legal departments, white men remain the largest demographic represented throughout the legal market both nationwide and in Northeast Ohio, particularly at the most high-ranking and influential positions.

The belief was that trend would right itself over time — but it hasn’t.

As such, the CMBA sought ways to unite the legal community to improve diversity in its ranks.

One idea in the group’s Cleveland 2020 Legal Inclusion Plan involved the creation of a director of legal inclusion at the CMBA. The person would travel across the country promoting the Cleveland legal market and encouraging diverse people to live and work in Northeast Ohio to feed the ranks for law firms and inhouse legal departments to gradually level the diversity scales.

Companies and law firms seemed interested. But as the nonprofit sought a financial commitment from those groups to fund the position — it wanted $200,000 to cover the position’s salary for two years plus an auspicious travel budget, which it was hoped would be spread out over 40 donors — little more than half of the organizations it needed actually came through.

“So we put the Cleveland 2020 plan on hold and decided to have a new group with different eyes look at what was developed and consider what

So, what does the actual workforce look like?

In this section, we touched on diversity and inclusion efforts across a number of fields.

Here’s how some of those fields stack up.

Occupation Total, 16 years and over

PERCENT OF TOTAL EMPLOYED (2017) Total employed (000) Women

White

Black/ African American Asian

Hispanic or Latino

153,337

46.9

78.4

12.1

6.2

16.9

Chief executives

1,639

28.0

90.0

3.8

4.6

4.7

Financial managers

1,167

55.7

83.5

6.7

8.2

11.2

Personal financial advisers

525

32.0

87.0

4.8

6.6

8.3

Accountants and auditors

1,804

60.3

79.5

8.2

9.7

9.6

Lawyers

1,137

37.4

88.6

5.6

4.4

4.8

Physicians and surgeons

1,079

40.0

72.0

8.2

18.1

6.8

Pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters

600

2.2

86.6

9.0

1.5

27.1

Electricians

857

2.5

87.9

6.7

2.5

19.1

1,946

3.3

85.9

8.6

1.7

46.9

Construction laborers Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

challenges prevented us from reaching the goal we wanted,” said CMBA executive director Rebecca Ruppert McMahon. “Even though we may be disappointed the plan as originally conceived by the organizations that built it did not pan out, we continue to be optimistic we will find a way to continue to drive forward because our commitment and resolve to inclusion has never been stronger.”

There’s at least one clear takeaway that experience has reinforced at the CMBA. “Creating a genuinely diverse and inclusive legal community is a marathon,” McMahon said. “It’s not a sprint.”

Like McMahon, experts and business leaders interviewed by Crain’s suggest creating a diverse workforce is much more of a journey rather than a simple metric play. It’s about taking a long-term view toward diversity and inclusion by ensuring that all points of view are represented and respected.

“We all form our perspective through the lives we live and through the skin that we’re born in,” said MetroHealth CEO Dr. Akram Boutros, who was born in Egypt and moved to the United States when he was 12. “We actually believe this gathering of diverse points of view and diverse life experiences help come up with better, wiser more effective solutions to issues that we face in the health care community and even as a corporation.”

MetroHealth’s diversity initiative, which started several years ago, was ratcheted up by Boutros after he was hired in 2013 and learned that only 13% of the managers throughout the health system were racially diverse.

Boutros instituted a systemwide requirement in 2014 that 20% of all management interviews must be racially or ethnically diverse. Today, the percentage of management interviews that fall in that category are in the mid-to-upper 30s. Also, last year, 82% of MetroHealth’s non-physician hires were diverse and gender inclusive. For physicians, that number is 75%.

One way MetroHealth expanded that pool was by tweaking the academic requirements needed for certain jobs. About six months into his tenure, a woman recommended for a job told Boutros she couldn’t even apply for a job to manage a clinic despite having ran a physician practice for 17 years because she didn’t have a college degree. As such, the organization went through almost every job at the system and attached an experience in lieu of education addendum to the job requirements. Before that, Boutros said, “Excellent candidates were being completely sidelined even before their application came in.”

The bottom line

Illustration by Ellen Weinstein for Crain’s

The correlation between a diverse workforce and company performance is well documented. One of the more recent studies came in January from global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The research, which builds off McKinsey’s 2014 report, surveyed more than a thousand companies across 12 countries.

SEE DIVERSITY, PAGE 16

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DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

JumpStart deepens focus on inclusion in the tech world

By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

Over the past five years, JumpStart has widened its focus in an effort to help more entrepreneurs — especially those who cannot be described as “white guys.”

Since then, the Cleveland-based nonprofit has launched several programs designed to help companies led by minorities and women, and it has taken steps to make sure that diversity and inclusion are high priorities for everyone on staff, including employees that do the work JumpStart is best known for — helping local tech companies.

JumpStart further deepened its focus on inclusion in January, when it hired Cleveland native Erin Horne McKinney as its first managing partner of inclusion.

Horne McKinney took the job to help entrepreneurs like herself, she said, describing how she started her first company with little in the way of advice, connections or capital.

“JumpStart is an organization that I wish I had had starting out,” said Horne McKinney, who most recently led innovation strategy for the office of the mayor of Washington, D.C. She has a lot on her plate: Jump-

“Especially for diverse entrepreneurs, the access to capital is one of the key things they don’t receive” Erin Horne McKinney, JumpStart managing partner of inclusion

Start continues to add new programs geared toward minority and female entrepreneurs — and expand existing initiatives. Here are a few examples:

Core City: Cleveland JumpStart’s Core City: Cleveland program started off small. A few years ago, the nonprofit started inviting entrepreneurs within the city of Cleve-

land to come in for one-on-one advice sessions, which are open to entrepreneurs running all types of companies, not just high-growth tech startups, said Lamont Mackley.

At the time, Mackley was a member of JumpStart’s tech investment team, but recently he became one of six employees dedicated to Core City, which now has several offerings.

For instance, in 2016, JumpStart launched the Core City Cleveland: Impact Program, a 12-week program that provides Core City companies with assistance services and up to $10,000 in growth capital. That program will have produced 25 graduates when the fifth cohort completes the program on May 9.

Now JumpStart is in the process of launching a mentoring program for Core City companies, said Mackley, who oversees outreach and services for the Core City program. The nonprofit is in the process of matching 23 mentors — experienced entrepreneurs and other professionals with valuable experience — with 18 mentees within the program. And Mackley said he expects those numbers to rise.

“It needs to be much bigger than that,” he said, noting that he’d like to have two mentors for every entrepreneur.

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SEE JUMPSTART, PAGE 18

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DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Northeast Ohio embraces immigrants in new economy

By DOUGLAS J. GUTH

Immigration’s impact

clbfreelancer@crain.com

Here’s how immigration has affected the Cleveland metro economy

Immigrants are a fundamental component of the U.S. labor force, now representing one in every six workers, according to analysis from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Foreign-born talent is strongly represented locally as well, to the tune of 7,405 immigrant entrepreneurs in the Cleveland metro area alone, per a 2017 report released by New American Economy and promoted heavily by Global Cleveland.

The region’s overall immigrant population — more than 113,000 — boasts $3.2 billion in spending power. Local government and businesses must tap into this well of human capital if Cleveland is going to compete in the worldwide marketplace, said observers interviewed by Crain’s.

While the city has a recent history of welcoming immigrants, the work of attracting and retaining new residents is far from finished.

Baiju Shah, CEO of BioMotiv, is constantly searching for skilled drug developers on a global level. As Shah’s Cleveland-based company works with scientists hoping to validate their products for Federal Drug Administration testing, casting a wide net for talent is a necessity. “In our field, many scientists happen to have been born abroad, and come to the U.S. for education and to develop their careers,� said Shah, a founding chairperson of the Global Cleveland nonprofit. “We want the most talented individuals independent of their backgrounds, but a high

113,252: Immigrant residents 5.5%: Immigrant share of population $1.2B: Immigrant taxes paid (2014) $3.2B: Immigrant spending power (2014) 7,405: Immigrant entrepreneurs

proportion of scientific degrees go to individuals from international countries.�

2010 U.S. Census figures support Shah’s assertion: As of that year, foreign-born inhabitants represented 33% of all bachelor’s degree holders in engineering fields, 27% in computers, mathematics and statistics; 24% in physical sciences; and 17 percent in biological, agricultural and environmental sciences.

In fact, eight of Shah’s 40 employees were born overseas, symbolizing an expansive web of technology partners from New Zealand, China, India, United Kingdom and elsewhere. “Human disease doesn’t know any boundaries, so having people with strong scientific capabilities to work in a global industry is vital in how we function,� Shah said. “For Cleveland to realize its full potential, it needs to be connected to this network.�

With the economy constantly evolving, hiring managers nationwide must take into consideration the unique and significant contributions made by immigrants, said Joe Cimperman, president of Global

Cleveland, which champions increased immigration into Northeast Ohio as a means of spurring economic development.

Immigrants and native-born peoples comprise 17% of U.S. workers, according to the Chicago Council study. In Cleveland, those individuals are filling talent gaps at smaller companies such as Buckeye Business Products and plumbing supplier, Oatey, as well as paying into the tax system and occupying homes that would otherwise stand empty. Akron and Summit County, meanwhile, are teaming up to make their own immigration push, via a “Welcome Plan� focusing on the steady integration of immigrants into the community.

Citing an immigration system he calls “broken,� Cimperman said bringing in this highly qualified population should be viewed through a practical rather than emotional lens. “It’s not our moral imperative to be welcoming, but to look at the economics of it, and what these newcomers bring to society,� he said. “We can’t build anything other than a bridge. To do otherwise is anti-American and anti-free market.�

Last year, the organization partnered with Flashstarts on the business accelerator’s Entrepreneur-In-Residence program, designed to kick-start immigrant-led companies in Cleveland. Entrepreneurs hosted by Flashstarts are offered an H-1B visa for their participation, while also working part time for a local university, as a visa cap that impacts foreign workers aiming to immigrate to the U.S. does not apply on the collegiate level.

SEE IMMIGRATION, PAGE 16

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PA G E 13

DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Trades look to diverse pools as boomers age

By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

About 20% of the construction workers who built the Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel on The Mall were minorities, and 6% were women. That’s a big improvement for an industry that used to have the reputation of lacking a diverse workforce.

One reason for the change is a joint effort by contractors and the construction trade unions to build a pipeline of pre-apprenticeship and apprentice programs targeting women and minorities. It’s part of a broader effort to build a construction industry workforce as the large number of baby boomers retires.

A study last year by the Associated General Contractors of America found that, of 40 survey participants from Ohio, 73% of the state’s construction firms were reporting difficulties hiring enough qualified workers.

“Since 2013 we’ve really invested in our outreach programs to attract minority and female candidates,” said Dave Wondolowski, executive secretary of the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council, a union umbrella group. “We felt it was important to let people know we were open for business here. We’re looking for anybody who’s willing to do a hard day’s work for a fair day’s pay.”

Spurring that effort was the work of the Construction Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Commission on Economic Inclusion, a program of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. In 2012, it found significant long-term job opportunities on upcoming construction projects.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson responded to that by bringing together contractors, unions and property owners to press the construction community to adopt recommendations made in a GCP-commissioned study that found “minorities are currently under-represented in the local construction sector.”

From there, 10 organizations with plans for major construction in the next few years — medical centers, universities and major businesses — agreed to set standards designed to encourage the use of local labor and contracting firms, in particular minority and female workers and firms, on building and infrastructure projects in the region.

That has spurred an expansion of apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs — at Cuyahoga Community College, Max Hayes High School in Cleveland and within the unions themselves — as well as stepped up efforts to recruit workers, especially minorities and women.

“Our demand study stated very clear that the need for replacement workers was sufficient enough to invest in training programs,” said Christopher Nance, director of the construction diversity and inclusion program at the Commission on Economic Inclusion. “When you layer into that the importance of engaging a diverse local workforce to build and sustain the local economy, the business case (for expanding training programs) goes up that much more.”

Similarly, the Construction Employees Association of Cleveland (CEA), a trade group comprised of union contractors, created what it calls the Contractors Assistance Association to attract minorities and women into construction. There are about 30 CEA

contractors involved in programs to help members diversify their workforce.

Also, its Diverse Worker Program connects CEA contractors with a broader pool of candidates. An informational program plugging the job opportunities in construction at a former church in Slavic Village earlier this month attracted 40 people. The session was one of four scheduled for April and May around Cuyahoga County.

It’s part of CEA’s effort to bring fresh talent into the industry, said Glenn Shumate, the association’s executive vice president. It also sponsors career fairs, tours of job sites and apprenticeship programs and even recruits online.

Apprenticeships are the entry into

the construction trades. They last as long as five years and include some classroom time but they are primarily on the jobs training, Shumate said, with pay starting at $15 an hour. Because of their length and the demands apprenticeships make on aspiring workers, success at diversifying construction sites is slow in coming.

The payoff, he said, is that the pay can rise from an apprentice’s $15 an hour to as much or sometimes more than, $30 an hour as a journeyman.

Its website includes a list of apprenticeships offered by the individual trade unions.

To help women and minorities better understand the challenges of

the jobs, the industry has developed pre-apprenticeship programs, which include the programs at technical high schools. The Adult Pre-Apprenticeship Training Initiative of the Commission on Economic Inclusion found that, between 2014 and 2016, of 96 people initially enrolled, 76 completed the course and 46 were place in construction jobs (another 18 found work in non-trade jobs).

The commission has also has joined with groups such as El Barrio, Towards Employment and the Urban League of Cleveland to help candidates improve their “soft skills,” which means teaching the basics and the realities of the working world, like making sure you

have reliable transportation and can make it to work on time every day.

Shumate made it clear that making it through the trades’ training cycle to journeyman status, becoming a certified tradesperson, can be daunting.

“Many start, not many finish,” he said. “You’ve got to be willing to endure the cold, the hot, the physical, the dirty, all of that environment, and that’s not everybody.”

In addition to programs to diversity the building trades, Nance said he’s now working to bring more women and minorities into construction management and professions like architecture and engineering, even project financing.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

THE LIST

Minority-Owned Businesses Ranked by local full-time employees THIS YEAR COMPANY

FULL-TIME LOCAL STAFF JAN. 1, 2018

YEAR FOUNDED

MINORITY OWNERSHIP %

BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

TOP EXECUTIVE

1

Janitorial Services Inc. (JSI) 8555 Sweet Valley Drive, Valley View (216) 341-8601/www.jsijanitorial.com

504 (1)

1969

100% Hispanic/Latino

Janitorial services company serving businesses throughout Northeast Ohio

Ronald Martinez Sr., president Ronald Martinez Jr., vice president

2

New Horizons Acquisition Corp.

211 Woodlawn Ave., Norwalk (419) 660-4000/www.newhorizonsbaking.com

265 (2)

1967

100% African-American/ black

Commercial bakers

Tilmon (Tim) F. Brown CEO

3

The Anderson-DuBose Co. 5300 Tod Ave. SW, Lordstown (440) 248-8800/www.anderson-dubose.com

206

1991

100% African-American/ black

Distributor of food, paper and cleaning products to McDonald's and Chipotle food chains

Warren E. Anderson chairman, CEO

4

ASW Global LLC 3375 Gilchrist Road, Mogadore (888) 363-8492/www.aswglobal.com

120

1983

100% African-American/ black

Third-party logistics, distribution management, fulfillment, transportation management, value-added warehousing, packaging, promotional merchandise

Andre Thornton president, CEO

5

MVP Plastics 15005 Enterprise Way, Middlefield (440) 834-1790/www.mvpplastics.com

85

2009

100% African-American/ black

Provider of custom injection molding, manufacturing engineering and foam distribution

Darrell L. McNair president, CEO

6

Visiting Angels - Cleveland 12200 Fairhill Road, second floor, B-wing, Cleveland (216) 231-6400/www.visitingangels.com/cleveland

75

2002

100% African-American/ black

A non-medical in-home service provider assisting seniors and older adults

Constance Hill-Johnson Kevin Johnson managing directors

7

Safe Choice LLC 11811 Shaker Blvd., Suite 415, Cleveland (216) 231-7233/www.safechoicellc.com

70

2010

100% African-American/ black

Provider armed and unarmed security guards

Anita L. Spencer, president, owner Anthony Spencer, vice president, co-owner

8

Apex Dermatology and Skin Surgery Center 5800 Landerbrook Drive, Suite 250, Mayfield Heights (440) 646-1600/www.apexskin.com

60

2011

100% Hispanic/Latino

Medical practice specializing in medical, surgical and aesthetic dermatology for patients of all ages and ethnic skin types.

Jorge Garcia-Zuazaga president

9

DLZ 614 W. Superior Ave., Suite 1000, Cleveland (216) 771-1090/www.dlz.com

56

1916

100% Asian

Architecture, engineering and construction services firm

Vickie Wildeman vice president

10

Fit Technologies 1375 Euclid Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland (216) 583-5000/www.fittechnologies.com

55

1999

82% LGBT

Managed IT services firm specializing in onsite field support, help desk, infrastructure, internet, wireless and cloud services

Micki Tubbs, CEO, cofounder Michelle Tomallo, president, cofounder

10

JDD Inc. 3615 Superior Ave., Cleveland (216) 224-4025/www.jdd-inc.com

55

1994

100% African-American/ black

Janitorial company serving medical buildings, manufacturing facilities, schools, retailers and financial institutions

James Vaughan Jr. president

12

Evergreen Cooperative Laundry Inc. 540 E. 105 St., Cleveland (216) 268-3548/www.evgoh.com

51

2009

98% African-American/ black; 2% Hispanic/Latino

Commercial laundry primarily serving the health care industry

Allen Grasa president

13

Green City Growers Cooperative 5800 Diamond Ave., Cleveland (216) 268-0200/www.evgoh.com

44

2011

80% African-American/ black; 12% Asian; 8% Hispanic/Latino

Year-round 325-acre, pesticide-free hydroponic greenhouse growing lettuce, herbs and micro-greens

John McMicken acting president

14

Margaret W. Wong & Associates LLC 3150 Chester Ave., Cleveland (216) 566-9908/www.imwong.com

40

1986

67% Asian

Immigration law firm

Margaret W. Wong president, managing partner

15

RW Delivery Inc. 12487 Plaza Drive, Cleveland (216) 267-2000/www.rwdelivery.com

37

1994

51% African-American/black

Local and long-haul trucking- and transportation-related services provider

Richard Wall CEO

16

Spectrum Global Holdings LLC 468 Richmond Road, Richmond Heights (216) 206-6743/www.spectrum-global.com

35

2003

100% African-American/ black

Consulting firm providing expertise in business growth strategy and economic development/entrepreneurship; manager of loan funds

Nnamdi Michael Obi CEO

17

RAR Contracting Inc. 4545 Spring Road, Suite 2, Brooklyn Heights (440) 735-1946/None

33

2004

100% African-American/ black

Ready-mix concrete and aggregate materials supplier Hauling of construction materials and equipment

Keith Rogers president, owner

18

E.F. Boyd & Son Inc. 2165 E. 89th St., Cleveland (216) 791-0770/www.efboyd.com

30

1905

100% African-American/ black

Family funeral home company serving Greater Cleveland with two locations

William F. Boyd II CEO

18

Fox Enterprise Services 7630 Freedom Ave. NW, North Canton (330) 497-5200/www.foxenterpriseservices.com

30

1999

51% Hispanic/Latino

Aluminum composite metal fabricator

Delilah J. Volpe, CEO Anthony M. Volpe, vice president

30

1984

51% African-American/black

Manufacturer and distributor of corrugated packaging

18

International Container Systems LLC (dba Elsons International) 16601 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland (216) 481-8219 /www.elsonsinternational.com

Andrew Jackson CEO

18

Mac Productions Inc. 13115 Puritas Ave., Suite 3, Cleveland (888) 415-8882/macproductions.net

30

1999

100% African-American/ black

Technology solutions provider

John A. Stubbs chairman, CEO, CMO

22

SDS Delivery Systems Inc. 3100 E. 45th St., Cleveland (800) 313-6201/NA

25

1995

100% African-American/ black

Local and statewide delivery company operating 24/7

Mark Stevens president

23

The AKA Team 4711 Hinckley Industrial Parkway, Cleveland (216) 751-2000/www.akateam.com

21

2009

100% African-American/ black

Diversified construction company

Ariane B. Kirkpatrick president, CEO

23

RCF Group 2425 W. 11 St., Cleveland (216) 781-8200/www.thercfgroup.com

21

2003

55% African-American/black

Comprehensive workplace solutions provider in the furniture, architectural interiors and facilities management industries

Carl Satterwhite, president Scott Robertson, chairman

RESEARCHED BY CHUCK SODER (CSODER@CRAIN.COM)

This list is not comprehensive. To join, visit our Minority Business Directory: CrainsCleveland.com/section/minority The full Minority-Owned Business Directory includes more than 160 companies and additional information. It can be viewed for free online; Crain's Data Members may download it in Excel format. Information is provided by the companies. Send all feedback to Chuck Soder: csoder@crain.com (1) JSI had 900 total employees, including part-time staff. (2) This employment figure is as of March 1, 2018; it appeared in our Family-Owned Businesses list published April 9.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

IMMIGRATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

Through the effort, Flashstarts is hosting four nascent startups — two from India and two from Ukraine.

Bangalore native Hemanth Velury arrived in Cleveland a month ago following the 2016 launch of VirtualSpaces, which uses mobile virtual reality software to transform building blueprints into a first-person visual tour for clients.

“If someone wants to buy a property, they can go to a (real estate) website and look at different options, but nothing is going to help them understand the concept of space or depth,” Velury said. “Our VR gives you the immersion of being in a place, and fools your mind into thinking you’re somewhere else.”

Velury and chief technology officer

DIVERSITY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

It found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile. In terms of ethnic and cultural diversity, there was a 33% likelihood of outperforming.

It’s that sort of data that often leads to C-suite buy-in in creating a fullfledged diversity initiative, according to officials from the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio, a local nonprofit that works with companies, schools and other organizations to, as their mission states, eliminate bias, bigotry and racism. In other cases, it’s some sort of trigger event that exposes a deeper divide in the workplace.

SHIFT Consulting, the Diversity Center’s professional services division, provides evidence-based initiatives tailored to companies’ unique needs when it comes to diversity.

Those could include the restructuring of the hiring and recruiting process, the development of employee resource groups and ongoing employee coaching. One of the biggest misconceptions about this work, its leaders say, is that the diversity journey concludes once you’re able to recruit and ultimately hire a diverse workforce. In

PAGE 16

μ

APRIL 23, 2018

μ

Abhijeet Naik will continue the acceleration process with Flashstarts through mid-August, learning marketing, financial modeling and how to negotiate the mindset of potential customers. Using their technology, the pair is readying a pilot program for a Cleveland-area real estate developer. During his short time here, co-founder Velury has enjoyed the warmth and affordability of the community.

“The more talented people that come to Cleveland, the more the city will get recognized,” Velury said.

“Talent is talent, whether it’s local or hailing from elsewhere.”

More Northeast Ohio companies are acknowledging a foreign workforce likely to have high levels of educational attainment. Sherwin-Williams and Progressive are two local stalwarts in employing this demographic, said Cimperman, as are the fact, that’s just the beginning.

“It doesn’t work to hire a bunch of different people and forget the rest of it,” said Amanda Cooper, who holds a Ph.D. in international psychology and serves as director of the SHIFT Consulting division. “You have to be intentionally inclusive.”

Peggy Zone Fisher, the Diversity Center president and CEO, added, “The biggest challenge for us is helping companies understand that (diversity) is not a checkmark. If the program is going to be impactful, you must dedicate the time and commitment to doing this work.”

In terms of putting in that work, Starbucks, which is scrambling following the arrest of two black patrons at one of its Philadelphia stores, announced last week it would close more than half its stores in the United States next month for an afternoon of bias training. The company also announced in a news release it has started to review its training and practices to ensure its stores provide a “save and inclusive environment for our customers and partners.” The triggering event at the Philadelphia cafe involved a manager summoning police after the two men waited at a Starbucks table without ordering.

The shutdown will have little impact on Starbucks’ bottom line — Bloomberg estimated it would cost the company a mere $16.7 million in

CRAIN'S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Immigrant population growth in the Great Lakes region In nine of the top 25 metros in the Great Lakes region between 2000 and 2015, immigrants offset population decline; in the Cleveland MSA, despite the U.S.-born population dropping by 4.8%, the total population declined only 4.2% in the period, thanks to a positive increase in immigrants.

U.S.-born: -4.8%

Foreign-born: 5.5%

region’s hospital systems.

MetroHealth president and CEO Akram Boutros is a naturalized citizen from Egypt who believes that im-

migrants can continue to play a role in the U.S. health care system, especially considering the looming physician shortage.

“It’s getting more difficult in certain areas to do that,” Boutros said about recruiting immigrants. “If you look at Cleveland, you’d find a good number of providers here are immigrants.”

Earlier in his career, Boutros led a residency program at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island, where he did not hesitate to open the doors for international medical graduates.

“I was so impressed by some of their skill sets and, most importantly, their passion for healthcare,” he said.

University Hospitals has 225 immigrant employees across its system, including 41 physicians and 73 residents. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, a UH clinician and the head of diversi-

ty recruitment, said foreign researchers help the hospital navigate vastly different medical cultures.

“Because of their experience in their country, these people may have first-hand information about specific diseases,” said Larkins-Pettigrew.

“We can ask them ask the questions that will move our research further along.”

In the face of ever-changing immigration policy, Northeast Ohio must be a beacon of welcome for a population that wants nothing more than to use their expertise for sustainable employment, said Cimperman of Global Cleveland.

“How do we stay true to our roots while still bringing in newcomers from the world over?” he said. “We can bring in people from where your family came from, and have them understand why Cleveland has been such a blessing.”

part of the solution. Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities,” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in the release.

helped shatter in the male-dominated finance industry — routinely is honored as one of the most powerful women in banking and lauded for her company’s advancement of women and minorities under her direction. At No. 43, Key was the only Cleveland-based company to land on DiversityInc’s list of the Top 50 companies for diversity in 2017. In particular, DiversityInc highlights African-American representation on the company’s board of directors, its success at promoting women and use of minority-owned businesses in the company’s supply chain.

Among the core pieces of Key’s diversity and inclusion efforts are its Key Business Impact and Networking Groups, or KBINGs, that represent differing dimensions of diversity, including race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and those with disabilities. The groups are used to promote an inclusive culture within Key but also deepen relationships in the communities the company serves.

“Diversity and inclusion is what we call a critical business imperative,” said Kim Manigault, who was promoted earlier this year as KeyCorp’s chief diversity and inclusion officer after serving as the chief financial officer for Key’s Technology and Operations organization. “It’s at the core of what we do and how we do everything.”

It starts at the top

“Diversity and inclusion is what we call a critical business imperative. It’s at the core of what we do and how we do everything.”

Kim Manigault, KeyCorp’s chief diversity and inclusion officer

lost sales, hardly a significant figure for a company that did $22.4 billion in business last year. However, the breadth of the shutdown and Starbucks’ corporate clout underscores why these issues are so important.

“While this is not limited to Starbucks, we’re committed to being a

REAL ESTATE

Phone: (216) 771-5276 Rozek Contact: Kate Lynn Calcaterra E-mail: CLBClassified@crain.com

Often, company leaders criticized for a lack of diversity in their workforce consider it more of a pipeline issue at the collegiate level than a hiring problem, though McKinsey’s data appears to contradict that notion, particularly when it comes to women.

In another report from McKinsey last fall, the group noted that fewer women than men are hired at the entry level despite women being 57% of recent college graduates. At every subsequent step up the corporate latter, the representation of women further declines. That issue is even more pronounced for minority women. As a result, only one in five C-suite leaders is a woman, and fewer than one in 30 is a woman of color, McKinsey noted.

The importance of women in leadership roles is something that Cleveland-based KeyBank, in particular, takes to heart.

KeyCorp CEO Beth Mooney — who, in an interview with Crain’s last year, joked about the bits of glass still stuck in her hair from the ceiling she

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PA G E 17

AKRON

Big projects keeping developer Testa busy

By DAN SHINGLER dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

Pay no attention to the fact that Joel Testa has no construction cranes running at the moment.

Because, while true, that might be the most misleading fact you’ll run across all year.

“We’re doing big stuff, but it’s all low,” Testa said with a chuckle, when asked about the cranes.

The Cuyahoga Falls-based developer is about to embark on what might be his biggest building boom as he breaks ground on three huge projects that have been years in the making.

During a recent interview, the president of Testa Companies began pulling out drawings, calling up computer renderings and explaining how he plans to build mixed-use centers for area communities and to convert a major downtown Akron hotel into the Rubber City’s newest apartment offerings.

Probably the largest project on Testa’s plate is The District, which will turn part of downtown Hudson into a mixed-use development designed to complement the city’s existing First & Main district.

“That project is about $150 million, maybe a $125 million project,” Testa said.

It entails enough space to the west of North Main Street to build 560,000 square feet of office, retail and residential development, Testa said. The project will take years to complete, but Testa said he’s nearly ready to break ground after nearly two years of working with city officials and residents on concepts and designs.

“We’re starting it this year. Our hope is to be in the ground late summer or early fall with development.

We’ll let demand determine how fast we build it out, but it’s probably every bit of a five- to seven-year project,” he said.

The design calls for office space

Joel Testa, president of Testa Companies, stands in the Northside Marketplace, which he developed on the ground floor of his Northside Lofts in Akron. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

and retail space built on flexible plans, so that they can be converted from one use to another as needed, Testa said.

It also will include a boutique hotel, parking deck, green space, walking trails and a broad range of housing types. That includes apartments, something not all that common in homeowner-centric Hudson, but which Testa thinks the city will need going forward.

“That’s to entice millennials in, because we think Hudson doesn’t have a lot of millennial housing but needs to embrace it. … We have to think about the Hudson of 20 years from now, and we need people to fall in love with it and plant roots today,”

Testa said.

That project would be enough to keep some developers busy enough, but Testa said he’ll also begin developing a new town center in Mogadore this year.

He purchased the Mogadore Country Club in 2015, a former golf course that is now about 112 acres slated for development.

That development, to be named West Village after a family that once owned the property, will be almost a stand-alone village, as Testa describes it, complete with a variety of housing types, retail, office space, medical offices and even on-site care for elderly residents.

“The idea is you could live here

through all phases of your life,” Testa said.

At the same time, it will be a gathering place and shopping destination, something city officials were keen on when he began planning the development, he said.

Though a bit smaller than the Hudson project, Mogadore is still a huge development.

“My guess is it’s probably an $85 million project,” Testa said. “And it’s also a multiyear project. It’s easily five years.”

Finally, he’ll begin work on downtown Akron's City Center Hotel, a 342-room former Holiday Inn where Testa is now doing demolition in preparation for about a year’s worth of construction that will begin in late spring or early summer.

Testa said that project will cost about $69 million, and he hopes to begin accepting tenants next year.

“My goal there is to create the most affordable, market-rate apartments in downtown Akron,” he said.

That’s doable, he explained, because unlike an office building, a hotel already is somewhat set up for residential use. Each room, of course, has its own bathroom plumbing. By combining two former hotel rooms, or even three, Testa said he can fairly easily access the plumbing needed to install a kitchen and a bath for each unit.

Testa said he plans to offer one-bedroom units in the building for under $1,000 and two-bedroom units for about $1,200 a month.

Testa is among the busiest developers in the Akron area — if not Northeast Ohio — at the moment.

He’s often sought after for big, transformative projects, probably because he’s had success at them in the past and because he takes a different approach than most developers.

For example, Mogadore officials were keen to work with him because of his success developing a phase of the Crocker Park lifestyle and shopping center in Westlake.

He won the right to develop The

District in Hudson after city leaders put out a request for proposals and liked Testa’s plans for a fully integrated, mixed-use concept.

He’s also a consultant of sorts. In Mogadore, he had to convince officials that simply trying to replicate Crocker Park was not a good idea.

Mogadore does not already have the high-density, high-income population of Westlake, so it needs a development that includes not only retail, but also draws in new residents with housing to make it work, Testa said.

In Hudson, he said he met with residents for more than 18 months to hear and address their concerns.

Some were not comfortable with the extent of an urban feel that Testa’s original plans might have brought to the city, so he said he eliminated taller buildings and spread out the development plan a bit to give it a bit more of a suburban feel.

Testa also seems to use the term “urban planning” in his conversation more than most developers, said Jason Segedy, Akron’s planning director.

Testa is a student of trends in the ways that people live and strives to make his developments walkable, bikable and attractive to residents who want an increasingly urban and cosmopolitan feel to the places they live, Segedy said.

“Joel definitely walks the walk,” said Segedy, who puts Testa and Tony Troppe at the top of his list of progressive, urban developers that are integral to Akron’s rebirth.

“Both of those guys were doing urban infill residential projects when no one else was doing that,” Segedy said.

He also gets why other cities also want Testa’s development touch, even in suburban, bedroom communities.

“From an urban planning standpoint, what’s neat is he really is a student of some of the best practices in planning, particularly with regards to mixed-use developments,” Segedy said.

JoAnn launches program for craft entrepreneurs

By SUSAN CONDON LOVE clbfreelancer@crain.com

Earlier this year, Hudson-based JoAnn Fabric and Craft Stores followed through on a business hunch, one backed by nearly a year of research and analysis of national crafting trends and spending.

In January, the company launched JoAnn+, a business-to-business bulk ordering and shipping service for small businesses, nonprofits and crafters that features tiered pricing and store-to-front-door service.

“We reached out to our customer base,” said Stephen Caution, director of business development for JoAnn+, which in 2016 had $2.6 billion in sales and some 23,000 employees, according to Forbes.

Caution was lured away in March 2017 from a senior manager/customer-driven innovation position with Walmart to lead the JoAnn+ initiative. He spent nine months researching and developing the program geared to crafters and e-commerce entrepreneurs.

“Customers wanted consistent

The JoAnn+ program lets small businesses and others purchase materials, such as fabric, in bulk.

(Contributed photo)

pricing and reliable product availability” when building craft-based businesses, Caution said. They also wanted the ease of home delivery, so they didn’t have to worry about packing their cars, minivans or trucks with needed items.

The program offers customers the option to order a little — or a lot — of items such as fabrics, sewing supplies, crafter materials, frames, decorations, crates, jewelry, artificial floral items and seasonal goods.

JoAnn+ is open to anyone who needs to make larger purchases frequently, whether it is a nonprofit preparing for a big donation, a business planning production or a single entrepreneur running a handmade shop, which represents the program’s largest customer segment.

Registration is free, and so far “tens of thousands” have signed up, Caution said.

The company has been reaching potential customers through targeted emails, digital advertising, instore promotions and working with maker fairs, crafting events and organizational partners, he said.

The benefit to entrepreneurs, other than ease of delivery, is the potential savings on raw materials. JoAnn+ features tiered pricing based on the amount ordered.

For example, Caution said, if a JoAnn+ customer orders eight yards of fleece, the price might be $5 a yard.

If he orders 24 yards, the price would lower to $4.30 a yard. If 64 yards or more is needed, the price would be $3 a yard.

Additionally, customers ordering $500 or more of merchandise in one quarter earn a 5% rebate, in addition to the tiered pricing.

“There are no hidden costs and no hidden fees, no registering credit card numbers,” Caution added. “You just sign up and order what you need.”

The benefits to JoAnn, founded in 1943 as a single retail store and now numbering 790 stores in 49 states, are high-volume orders and, hopefully, repeat business.

“We know these customers are repeat and bulk buyers, and if we can create a compelling reason for them to shop more frequently or exclusively with us, we will see an increase in revenue,” Caution said. “We’re focused on making the shopping experience better with JoAnn+ than anywhere else — as well as helping our customers grow their business or cause — and that is how we’ll strengthen existing relationships and win new customers who don’t al-

ready shop with us.”

Currently, the staff dedicated to the program “numbers under 10 people,” Caution said. “As the economy grows, so will (those) numbers.”

Crafting and e-commerce seem to back up the premise of JoAnn+. In 2010, according to market research company Statista, the popular e-commerce site Etsy, which offers handmade and vintage items, sold $31.4 million worth of goods. In 2017, sales grew to more than $3.25 billion.

Again according to Statista, Etsy has more than 33 million active sellers, 18% of which are full-time entrepreneurs.

And according to the Association for Creative Industries, the U.S. “creativity market” generates some $44 billion in sales annually, an increase of 45% from 2011.

“There’s a resurgence in the appreciation for the handmade,” Caution said. “They need materials, and we are in the position to help small businesses and entrepreneurs. …

(JoAnn+) helps them buy more product for less money, growing their business more rapidly.

“It’s an opportunity for all.”

PA G E 18

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

JUMPSTART CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

KeyBank Center for Technology, Innovation and Inclusive Growth Remember that $24 million grant that KeyBank Foundation gave JumpStart last year? Some of it is being use to fund The KeyBank Center for Technology, Innovation and Inclusive Growth.

Through that initiative, JumpStart aims to help organizations throughout Ohio find better ways to help minority and female entrepreneurs, as well as those in rural areas.

In March, the center awarded its first grant, giving $100,000 to the Cincinnati Chamber Minority Business Accelerator. That accelerator aims to “help 50 high-performing minority businesses grow their revenue to $5 million and create 500 new jobs over the next five years,” according to a news release.

Although the KeyBank Center will be focused on helping other organizations, JumpStart should benefit from that work as well, according to Gloria Ware, who recently became the center’s first director.

She’s already sharing best practices with other organizations — and picking up lessons from them in the process.

“We can learn what works and what doesn’t,”

JumpStart’s Lamont Mackley, left, works with entrepreneur William Beard on his business pitch. (Contributed photo)

Ware said while driving back from a meeting with another organization in Dayton.

Focus Fund In 2016, JumpStart launched a $10 million venture capital fund focused on minority- and women-led tech startups.

Since then, the Focus Fund has invested a total of roughly $1.2 million into six companies throughout Ohio. That pace is “slower than we’d like it to be,” Mackley said. It has been hard to find minority- and women-led startups that are ready for an investment in the $250,000 range — money that’s intended to help them achieve specific goals on the way to raising a larger Series A round.

But JumpStart is working with some companies that should be ready for capital from the Focus Fund

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in the not-too-distant future, according to Mackley.

“We see them. They’re already in the pipeline,” he said.

The creation of the Focus Fund was one of the things that put JumpStart on Horne McKinney’s radar. You’d be hard-pressed to find another fund for female and minority entrepreneurs that makes such sizable investments. And those investments, in her view, are needed.

“Especially for diverse entrepreneurs, the access to capital is one of the key things they don’t receive,” Horne McKinney said.

Growth Opps Today, Growth Opportunity Partners is an independent nonprofit lender, completely separate from JumpStart. But JumpStart did help the organization get off the ground.

Growth Opps makes loans to small Northeast Ohio businesses that have the potential to create meaningful wage jobs — accessible jobs that give people a chance to earn a solid paycheck and get started on a career path.

Since 2015, Growth Opps has made 20-plus loans worth $3.7 million. So far, loan recipients have gone on to create another 350 jobs, said president Michael Jeans.

A few loans have been paid back in full, and exactly 99.5% of loan payments have been made on time, Jeans noted.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

Still to come is the fate of the Newspaper Guild staffers. Their contract expires Fed. 28, 2019.

Rumors abound that Advance Ohio will try to shed the union agreement and unite what are now two separate newsrooms — one union, one not. McManamon wouldn’t speculate on the union’s fate, but said federal law requires the company to bargain in good faith.

“I fully expect they will come after us hard. They’ve told us as much,” she said.

“We’re determined to continue to serve this community.”

A similar situation faces the union news staff in Akron. Rollie Dreussi, executive secretary of the guild local, said that because the New Media purchase was the sale of assets, not the whole business, employees will have to reapply for their jobs with the incoming owner. But he said that if the company rehires a majority of the current union membership, GateHouse will have to negotiate a new contract with the union.

Dreussi said that GateHouse recently agreed to a contract with Canton Repository employees that included modest wage increases.

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Bialosky Cleveland welcomes Ben Crabtree, RA, LEED AP to the firm as an Associate. Ben is a registered architect with 13 years of experience and a specialty in higher education and library design. Ben earned a Masters of Architecture and Bachelors of Architecture from University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. At Bialosky Cleveland, Ben presently works on the mixed-use master plan for Northern Kentucky University.

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Singerman, Mills, Desberg & Kauntz Co., L.P.A. Singerman, Mills, Desberg & Kauntz Co., L.P.A. is pleased to announce that Michelle R. Reese has joined the firm as an associate attorney. Michelle previously was an associate at Day Ketterer. Michelle will practice in the Firm’s public sector, commercial lending, real estate, business organization and transaction practice areas. She is a member of the Medina County Children’s Center Board of Directors, the Wadsworth Public Library Board of Trustees, and the 2018 Medina County Leadership Class.

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The Scott Fetzer Company Scott Fetzer, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, has announced that Gary Heeman, Group Vice President, will expand his responsibilities to include mergers and acquisitions for the company.

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PA G E 19

John Michael

Broadcaster, Cleveland Cavaliers John Michael has an engineering degree, a master’s degree, and he graduated from Notre Dame Law School. He was a successful construction attorney for Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (now K&L Gates), a large international law firm based in Pittsburgh. But sports was always his passion, and that drive led him to making what, at the time, seemed like an almost unfathomable choice — Michael gave up a legal career with a “healthy” six-figure salary to be the play-by-play voice of a Class A baseball team. It was “one of those now-or-never” moments that paid off for Michael.

But first he had to work his way up the ladder, from the Hagerstown Suns to doing play-by-play for a trio of minor league hockey teams (including the Cleveland Monsters), and eventually to the Columbus Blue Jackets (he was the bench reporter for Fox Sports Ohio) and the Cavs. The 45-year-old has been the latter’s radio voice since the 2011-12 season. — Kevin Kleps

Five things Broadcasting role models Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play voice Mike Lange and legendary former Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully

Family ties Michael and his wife, Julie, have a 4-year-old daughter, Katelyn, and 2-year-old son, Jake.

His wife was the star athlete Michael played four sports in high school, but the former Julie Maund was the captain of Notre Dame’s women’s soccer team in 1997-98.

The price of victory Early in his legal career, Michael handled his first solo trial, and he prevailed. “You win the case, you come back to the office and everybody is celebrating, and the emails go out. ... But then I close the door in my office and I’m like, ‘Was that really worth six months of hell?’ ”

Hobbies? Not really Michael keeps it simple — he said it’s all about family and sports for him.

Lunch spot Gourmand’s 5345 Canal Road, Valley View 216-328-0942 gourmandsdeli.com

The meal One had a beef and lamb gyro with a soft drink, and the other had a corned beef sandwich with a soft drink.

The vibe Gourmand’s isn’t big. Nor is it fancy.

But it’s an excellent sandwich shop that has a wide variety of selections and is well worth the visit. (There are plenty of vegetarian options, too.)

The bill $23.71, plus tip

What made you want to make the full-time switch to broadcasting?

To be honest, I was enjoying the practice of law a lot. I was making my way up the law firm, progressing, but there was something about the draw of going to an arena or going to a stadium instead of going to court all the time that made sense. And if I would be able to actually get paid to talk about sports for a living, that might be something that I enjoy.

So you had to take a little bit of a pay cut, I’m guessing?

(Laughing) Yeah, just a little bit.

As if your road to an NBA play-by-play job wasn’t already unique, you also replaced Joe Tait.

How did you look at that?

It was a little difficult to reconcile at first, but I think in the end, I said, “You know, this guy is a Hall of Famer, virtually the only play-by-play broadcaster the organization has ever had.” Obviously, those were huge shoes to fill, and who did they look to? That’s not something to be nervous about. That’s something to take pride in and carry on the great broadcasting or carry on the mantle, however you want to do it, in terms of the pride he brought to the area, how he carried himself and everything else. I was honored, put it that way, to be the guy who was named to replace Joe Tait.

You were three years into the job when LeBron announced that he was returning. Did you look at it like your job was changing because the Cavs were going from a lottery team to the most high-profile team in the league?

No, I didn’t look at it like that. I think I prepare for every game the same way. I think I prepare for every season the same way, in that if it ends in mid-April, fine. If it ends in June, OK, June. A lot of people have said to me, “Your job must be so much more fun now that you’re heading to the Finals every single season.” One set (of answers) is of course, because it’s exciting to be around a team that’s having success, it’s exciting to be around a happy plane, a happy organization, a place where everyone is feeling good about themselves and looking forward to having a chance to win the whole thing. On the other hand, I was having a lot of fun the first three seasons. I always have a lot of fun doing what I do. I don’t want to say the result of the game or the result

of the season is secondary, but at the same time, I don’t think it takes away from how happy I am to be in the position I am, to be able to call NBA games for a living.

You’re pretty good at throwing stats out on Twitter. Is that something you enjoy?

When I was practicing law, what I did to unwind was get my hands around numbers and read about sports and everything else. Now that’s what I do for a living. That’s easy for me, and that’s interesting for me. I enjoy that aspect of the job. I don’t do it for social media. I do it to enhance our listeners’ enjoyment of a game. If it happens to be something I can fire out on Twitter, terrific. But the idea is so that our listeners can best enjoy the game. Obviously, research is critical, and it goes a long, long way to making a broadcast entertaining.

That’s the bottom line. It’s not about me. It’s about our listeners. That has been my approach from the get-go.

When you’re calling a game like Game 7 (of the 2016 NBA Finals), when a city hasn’t won a championship in 52 years, are you thinking, “OK, if it does end the way I think it could, what am I going to do?”

Well, here’s what happens. When you go into the game, you of course have things that you think you want to say, but when the moment starts getting close, they all start getting jumbled because, first of all, the game is going on and it’s such a wild game. I think if you script out that moment, it comes out sounding rehearsed. You need to have a moment of just let it fly.

What advice do you have for young broadcasters?

I’d start with just be yourself. My biggest advice is the sport is too spectacular, the athleticism is too terrific … Just call the game. Know the game, be yourself, it’s not about you. It’s about the moment and these players. Let’s celebrate the game, let’s celebrate these players, instead of trying to celebrate yourself.

What’s the best part of your job?

Being able to go to the arena every day. Being able to watch and talk about stuff that I love. If I was in a normal profession, I likely would be enjoying sports during my free time.

To be able to do this, I think is the greatest.

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