Erie Times-News --- Erie 2020

ERIE 2020 ERIE THROUGH FRESH EYES

ANNUAL ECONOMIC REPORT FOR THE REGION • SUNDAY, FEB. 16, 2020 •SECTION K

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These are architectural renderings of the proposed building that the Erie Downtown Development Corp. hopes to build on the corner of West Fifth and State streets at the site of the former McDonald’s.

[CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Erie set for success 2019 was a year of hopeful signs that suggest Erie might be moving in the right direction

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend and an Erie resident for 25 years, knows one thing about turning points: They can be hard to spot when they’re happening.

When it comes to the fortunes of his adopted hometown, he said, “ I think we are on a really good path. I don’t know if we have turned any corner. I think you can only see that in hindsight.”

For people who live and work in Erie, and especially for those who care about its future, the year that ended on Dec. 31 was anything but forgettable.

The year 2019 might be remembered as the year of the Undercover Billionaire, who slept in his truck and started a business; the year of big investments by local interests; and the year that Erie invited the world to hear its pitch.

It was the year Airborn Inc. in Lake City announced plans for a $3.7 million expansion, the year the Erie Downtown Development Corp. unveiled plans for a culinary arts district and a new four-story building on State Street.

And it was the year eggs got broken in the making of this omelet of reinvention.

Businesses forced out when their leases weren’t renewed by the EDDC expressed their displeasure and, in some cases, the public rallied around them.

What didn’t happen was more of the same.

James Grunke, CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Employees gather in summer 2019, just before Airborn Inc. executives announced the start of a $3.7 million expansion project that will add 249 jobs to the manufacturing facility in Lake City. [GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Ken Louie, director of the Economic Research Institute of Erie [FILE PHOTO CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Opportunity Zones.

In a speech in June, urban expert Bruce Katz said that Erie, through the investments of its anchor institutions, had created a model that others could follow.

“You’re leading the parade, and the whole country, frankly, is watching,” Katz said.

Taking notice of Erie

No victory laps

For once in 2019, the outside world seemed to be paying attention to Erie.

And not just to tell the story in broadly-painted brushstrokes of a down-onits-luck Rust Belt town that can’t catch a break.

From Homecoming 2019, which brought investors and a member of White House cabinet to Erie, to the national media, which seemed to take notice of the progress being made and not just what was broken, 2019 saw Erie collect notice and praise.

Much of that praise came from people writing about the possibilities of federal

James Grunke, CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber, which organized Homecoming 2019, no doubt likes the sound of what Katz and Forbes are saying.

But he has something in common with Ken Louie, professor of economics at Penn State Behrend and director of the Behrend’s Economic Research Institute of Erie.

Neither one is ready to declare victory.

Partly, that’s due to natural caution. Grunke, who has been in economic development for 30 years, often says he doesn’t count a job as being created until he

sees the first employee walk through the door.

Part of its is more practical.

The good news of the past year — including the news over the summer of a $26 million investment to bring a campus of the MageeWomens Research Institute to Erie and word of a likesized investment by Gannon University in downtown Erie — seems to suggest Erie is sowing seeds of hope.

But that doesn’t mean the local economy is in full recovery mode.

The numbers on the ground continue to paint a less-than-perfect picture.

“Manufacturing continues to shed jobs,” Louie said.

“Nationally, manufacturing is considered to be in recession. Erie mirrors that concern.”

Many of 2019’s metrics are good. The stock market soared. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Erie County fell as low as 3.9 percent and hovered for most of the year at below 4.5 percent.

“But the fact that things are stable doesn’t mean that everything is rosy,” Louie said.

Basic economics tells us that the tight labor market produced by low unemployment should lead to rising wages.

That hasn’t happened, Louie said. He can point to a number of potential reasons, including the rise of the gig economy and a reluctance of employees to push for higher

wages as they worry about the possibility of automation.

Sowing the seeds Stagnant wages aside, Louie saw a lot of news last year that seemed to suggest Erie might be poised for a turnaround.

The seeds have been planted. Momentum is gathering.

“In my opinion, we are not quite yet at that really rapid growth trajectory that we would all like to see,” Louie said.

Ford says Erie won’t really have turned the corner until it’s population trend is reversed is or becomes stable.

He sees Behrend, which last year announced it would invest in a new laboratory as part of the Magee-Womens Research Institute-Erie, as part of a solution that will bring new jobs and new residents to Erie.

“I would say I am as optimistic as I have ever been, but realistic in that we do face challenges,” Ford said.

Ford said he recognizes that a lot of attention has been focused downtown, perhaps to the exclusion of other areas.

“All the boats are going to rise here,” Ford said. “We need to have faith that when one area grows we are all going to grow.”

Grunke, who began work as CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership in September

2018, said he feels confident that the community is laying the groundwork to overcome those challenges.

The chamber is nearing the final stages of a $5.2 million fundraising effort to pay for economic development efforts over the next five years.

In the meantime, the chamber is planning to reprise 2019’s Opportunity Zone-focused Homecoming event as it continues to follow up on leads that grew out of that event.

One of those leads involves the possibility of a $100 million investment in Erie.

Grunke is being cautious not to get ahead of himself.

But he sees that interest as evidence that something good might flow from Erie’s efforts.

“Because of Homecoming and because of Opportunity Zones, we have, I think, the potential for the largest outside investment in Erie that has ever happened,” Grunke said.

That project is far from a done deal, he said.

But it’s evidence, all the same, that the investments of local companies and nonprofits and the positive buzz surrounding Erie add up to something.

Before, he said, “We would never have been on their radar screen.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNMartin.

About the cover •From the top down, Presque Isle Bay and Erie’s west bayfront are shown at sunset in September. Photo by Greg Wohlford of the Erie Times-News.

•A rail yard full of locomotives is shown in October at Wabtec Corp. in Lawrence Park Township. Photo by Christopher Millette of the Erie Times-News.

•Radiation therapist Kathleen Duncan describes how patients will be positioned in a linear accelerator inside the new AHN Cancer Institute at Saint Vincent during a grand opening in Erie on Oct. 31. Photo by Greg Wohlford of the Erie Times-News.

•Mocha Wallet co-founders Moustafa Elhadary, 23, left, and Jason Fezell, 30, work in a Gannon University Technology Incubator office in Erie on Jan. 23. The men work with another co-founder, Shihab Hassan, on the project. Photo by Greg Wohlford of the Erie Times-News.

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Construction continues in this Dec. 30 photo of Erie Insurance’s seven-floor, 346,000-square-foot $135 million office building at the corner of East Sixth and French streets. The new structure is expected to open this spring. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

‘We have everything to believe in’

Erie’s biggest employer is also a driving force in reshaping the community

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

It is a measure of how much has changed, and how quickly.

Four years ago this week, this newspaper’s annual business report included a story based on an interview with Terry Cavanaugh, who was coming to the end of his eight-year run as the CEO of Erie Insurance.

Behind the scenes, plans were being made for a massive expansion.

But in February 2016, the corner of East Sixth and French Streets was still a parking lot, not the all-butfinished $135 million office building that stands there today.

The Erie Downtown Development Corp. did not exist and few were publicly suggesting that Erie should think of itself as a magnet for investors or a home for technology companies.

In short, a great deal has changed. And Erie Insurance, a famously quiet company that will mark its 95th anniversary this spring, has played a pivotal role in that transition.

Tim NeCastro, an Erie native who grew up in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood and worked for the company for 20 years before taking over as CEO in June 2016, wasn’t in charge when plans were drafted for the new building.

But he, along with Erie Insurance Chairman Thomas Hagen, is credited by many local business and political leaders for launching a new wave of community investment that includes support for the Erie Innovation District and helping to launch what’s turned into the promise of a nearly $100 million investment in Erie by the Erie Downtown Development Corp.

Talk to NeCastro for any length of time and something becomes apparent: Running a Fortune 500 company, Erie’s largest employer with more than 3,100 local employees, is only part of his job.

He divides his goals into two categories, including

Erie Insurance fast facts • Founded April 20, 1925 • More than 5,000 employees, including more than 3,100 in Erie • Nation’s ninth-largest home insurer • 12th-largest auto and business insurer • Ranked 381 on Fortune’s list of the 500 largest U.S. companies

goals for an already successful company that ranks as the nation’s ninth largest home insurer and the 12th largest auto insurer, and goals for the community the company is working to improve.

“They are different in some respects and they are connected,” NeCastro said.

“The company has a strong history of being a top performer. As a result, we are very confident if we continue to do the right things, we are going to succeed.”

Size isn’t the only measurement of the company’s performance.

The financial website Nerd Wallet recently gave the company five stars for auto insurance and calls it the second best company for auto insurance in the country.

The financial results have been just as good.

Erie Indemnity Co., the publicly traded management firm of Erie Insurance, reported a $257 million profit through the first nine months of 2019.

But there is work to be done, NeCastro said. There are systems to be upgraded, customers to be won and, eventually, the company that operates in 12 states and Washington, D.C., will expand its footprint, he said.

And as the company grows, it’s presence and employment in Erie will inevitably grow as well.

More than a geographic expansion, NeCastro said he would like his legacy to be an appetite for looking at the world with fresh eyes.

“If there is something I would like to do for this company while I am in office it is to get the company focused on things we don’t do today that we could do – because we have great skills, such a heart of service and such a do-the-right-thing

Tim NeCastro, 59, CEO of Erie Insurance, is on North Park Row in downtown Erie. Behind him are properties owned by the Erie Downtown Development Corp., which is investing millions of dollars to renovate the buildings. NeCastro, whose company launched the EDDC, serves as president of its board of directors. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

“If there is something I would like to do for this company while I am in office it is to get the company focused on things we don’t do today that we could do – because we have great skills, such a heart of service and such a do-the-right-thing attitude.”

Tim NeCastro CEO of Erie Insurance

attitude,” NeCastro said.

“If I can stimulate in the company a comfort level that it’s OK to reach out to do some different things, I think I will have been a successful leader,” he said.

Like other community leaders, James Grunke, CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, is most familiar with the leadership role that Erie Insurance and NeCastro have played in the community, where the company launched the EDDC with a $5 million investment, helped support the Erie Innovation District, created a $50 million federal Opportunity Zone investment fund and took the lead in supporting the chamber’s Erie Forward with a pledge of $750,000.

That level of involvement can’t be taken for granted, Grunke said.

“I think Tim is very committed to Erie Insurance being a community leader,” Grunke said. “Even with a Fortune 500 company,

that’s not always the case.”

It’s not just about money for economic development or writing a $1 million check to help the Experience Children’s Museum.

Erie’s biggest employer appears to be among its biggest cheerleaders.

NeCastro or Hagen, and sometimes both, seem to be at every groundbreaking, every ribbon cutting.

When ValueMomentum, a New Jersey-based technology company that had worked with Erie Insurance for years, said it was looking for another location, NeCastro lobbied hard to convince the company Erie was the right choice.

“ValueMoment and MCPc (another technology company that announced an Erie expansion in 2019), I think those are the tip of the iceberg,” NeCastro said. “We have a lot of irons in the fire with companies like that.”

NeCastro doesn’t think it’s his job specifically to bring new companies to come to Erie. But he doesn’t

think it’s not his job either.

“It’s up to all of us to come forward,” he said. “I will take those meetings all day long. “I think it’s important that the biggest employer in Erie is bullish on this market and is here to stay and will help their business thrive in this market.”

NeCastro isn’t looking to climb a ladder.

There are no plans for other jobs in the corporate world. Nor does he have any immediate plans to retire.

But he knows it’s a good bet that the work of reinventing Erie won’t be done on the day he moves out of the office once occupied by company co-founder H.O. Hirt.

NeCastro also has a sense that he’ll know if his hometown has turned a corner.

“I want it to be far enough along that I feel confident that it’s going to continue and going to have good sustainability. I will know that if I sense optimism in the people instead of hearing that it will never work or we tried that.

“Attitude is everything,” he said. “And we have everything to believe in.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNMartin.

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Region’s economic indicators A brief look at the state of Erie County and Crawford County.

Service industries include fast food, banking, insurance and other jobs.

107,100

in November

ERIE

Manufacturing Erie County: 18,900 employment Manufacturing remains a key employment sector.

in November

Crawford County: 7,400

in November

$11.2 billion in 2018, up from $10.86 billion in 2017.

The verdict:

Down from 19,800 in November 2018 Unchanged from December 2018

The region’s manufacturing sector is not growing.

Unemployment Unemployment is seen as a key indicator of the economy.

Erie County:

4.5% in Nov.

Unchanged from a year earlier.

Crawford Up from 4.3 County: percent a

5.3% in Nov. year earlier.

The verdict:

The verdict:

Unchanged from November 2018.

The verdict:

Bankruptcy filings, all chapters Numbers are for filings made through court in Erie Fourth quarter of 2019: 274, down from 311 in final three months of 2018.

Fewer The bankruptcies verdict: tends to be a sign of a strong economy.

Park visitors

Rising home values is good news for homeowners.

in November

Unemployment rates are up.

Average home sale price

Fourth quarter, 2019: $149,000, up from $134,667 a year earlier

Crawford County: 22,900

A higher GDP means greater economic production

Erie County:

Up from 105,900 in November 2018.

The verdict:

CRAWFORD

Erie County:

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Service employment

Erie County:

Gross domestic product

The verdict:

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Visitors help drive local tourism.

Presque Isle State Park attendance in 2019: 3.71 million

Down from 3.78 million in 2018.

The verdict:

Lower attendance means fewer tourists visiting Erie.

Flights

The number of people boarding planes at Erie International Airport is a reflection of business and leisure travel.

The verdict:

Sources: Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, AAA, Presque Isle State Park, Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Bankruptcy Court and Greater Erie Board of Realtors.

Gasoline prices

Erie International Airport in 2019: 106,765

Up from 95,146 in 2018.

More flights is good news for the local airport.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in Erie was $2.91 as of Jan. 22, up from $2.46 a year earlier.

The verdict:

Higher prices mean our dollars don’t go as far.

GANNETT

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Billy Lewis, 54, at left, and Greg Brown, 38, walk through the area that once housed Sherlock’s on North Park Row in Erie on Jan. 13. Lewis and Brown, co-owners of Red Letter Hospitality, plan to run food service and organize local food vendors for the 8,000 square-foot space, which is being renovated by the Erie Downtown Development Corp.

[CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

COMING RIGHT UP

Former coworkers’ company on a mission to turn Erie into a culinary destination

By Jennie Geisler jgeisler@timesnews.com

A list of the 10 most popular restaurants in the Erie region right now could, arguably, include The Cork 1794, Molly Brannigan’s and the Skunk & Goat Tavern.

A list of the 10 most wellknown company names would almost surely not include Red Letter Hospitality.

Owned by North East native Billy Lewis, 54, and his business partner Greg Brown, 38, Red Letter is an umbrella company that includes the three newly renovated, thriving and cool-kid restaurants in the first list, as well as a catering business, Cork Catering, and three healthy food establishments in Northeast Ohio called Core Life Eateries.

Lewis and Brown have amassed all this regional food and hospitality business in four very busy years.

They’re not done.

Red Letter Hospitality recently signed on to manage thefoodservice,abarandlocal food vendors for Flagship City Food Hall, the 8,000-squarefoot space under construction along North Park Row in downtown Erie, which once housed Sherlock’s and Park Place Tavern.

The hall, being renovated by the Erie Downtown Development Corp., will include nine spaces for food vendors that measure between 150 square feet and 450 square feet, in addition to the bar. Red Letter is accepting applications

A green ceiling is a new feature of the recently-renovated Molly Brannigan’s in Erie, shown here in June. [GREG WOHLFORD FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

from local cooks as well as food truck and local restaurant owners through March 2 and plans to open the food hall early in 2021. The hall will seat 192.

Longtime Erie foodies will be impressed to know where Lewis’ food service experiencecomesfrom:Foryears,he owned Den Dressing, including the recipes and related food businesses, which he sold in 2005 to Treehouse Foods.

He continued to work for Treehouse food service company, where he met Brown, who was serving there as chief financial officer.

“We would travel a lot together, for eight years,” Lewis said about himself and Brown. “And we’d talk and say, ‘One of these days, if we ever own a restaurant, this is what we would do.’”

In 2015, Lewis decided it was one of those days.

“I wanted to do something else in my life,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily to go into the restaurant business, but that’s what happened.”

That year, Lewis and Brown opened The Cork 1794 in North East. Then West Erie Plaza tempted them to move The Cork there. They changed the name of the North East restaurant to the Skunk & Goat, and soon Molly Brannigan’s became available and they started thinking like the businessmen they were: about “doing this to scale.” They started Core Life in Northeast Ohio. And all the rest.

“I was passionate about food,” Brown said, adding that he had previously opened a barbecue restaurant in St. Louis, which he sold in 2018.

The Skunk & Goat Tavern is at 17 W. Main St. in North East. [JACK HANRAHAN FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

“When the West Erie Plaza decision was made,” Lewis said, “I wanted to ‘scale this thing.’ I wanted to bring this to Erie and make Erie a culinary destination. It already was one for Presque Isle and the wineries, and we thought Erie should be known for its culinary scene, for its food.”

The Cork celebrated its first birthday in West Erie Plaza in December. Molly’s was renovated in 2019.

Skunk & Goat is flourishing. The Flagship City Food Hall is picking up steam, but Lewis and Brown aren’t ready for dessert.

CoreLiferestaurants,which started as a project of Lewis’ son, Mac Lewis, offer bowls that include grains, greens, lean proteins that are healthy and fast to make. Billy Lewis

said his son educated him and Brown on the concept and they have three so far. Lewis said they are “actively looking at this moment for a Core Life location in Erie.”

Meanwhile, they’re taking a proactive approach to one of the restaurant business’ toughest challenges, which is keeping a trained and loyal work force.

In early January, they closed all the restaurants for three days and held enrichment and social activities, including a cook-off, team-building exercises, with catered meals — from Cork Catering, of course.

“We’re looking at folks in this business and helping them reach their potential, making everything possible for our employees to succeed and allowing them to prosper,” Lewis said.

“If we don’t have happy employees, how does that affect our guests?” he asked.

“We want them to build relationships. It’s been rewarding watching these guys and girls grow. And our guests can tell that.”

Lewis said he has been willing to invest so much into Erie’s culinary scene because "Greg and I have drunk the Kool-Aid.” “Something is just different now,” he said. “There’s an energy. There’s alignment among private, nonprofit and the public sector that wasn’t there before.”

Brown agreed.

“You can just feel that fire in the belly.”

Jennie Geisler can be reached at 870-1885 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNgeisler.

The main dining room of The Cork 1794 restaurant is in the West Erie Plaza in Millcreek Township. [GREG WOHLFORD FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

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Scott Enterprises plans a restaurant and bar, called Oliver’s and shown in this architect’s rendering, for the top floor of the Hampton Inn & Suites that is scheduled to open in May. The new hotel is part of Scott Enterprises’ Harbor Place development on Erie’s bayfront. [CONTRIBUTED]

‘One chance to do it right’

New hotel and restaurant near completion on Erie’s bayfront

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

It’s down to the finishing touches now.

Scott Enterprises, which held a ceremonial groundbreaking on a chilly day in May 2018, is nearing completion of its 95-room Hampton Inn & Suites on Erie’s bayfront.

But the eight-story hotel, set to open sometime in May, will be a different hotel than the one family-owned Scott Enterprises first envisioned when it began drawing up plans for the mixed-use Harbor Place development that it hopes to build on 12 acres of bayfront property.

What began as a plan for a hotel with a rooftop bar became a plan for a hotel with a larger top-floor restaurant that was central both to the design and appeal of the hotel,said NickScottJr., a vice president and owner of Scott Enterprises.

Scott said Scott Enterprises is busy looking for a chef for the new nautical-themed restaurant, which has been named Oliver’s in honor of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.

The idea, at first, was that the restaurant would be a place to enjoy an Erie sunset and small plates of food.

Sunsets remain central to

The restaurant and bar, called Oliver’s in honor of Oliver Hazard Perry, will seat about 150 and have views of Presque Isle Bay. [CONTRIBUTED]

any of the properties as his favorite.

But there is nothing run-of the-mill, he allows, about what’s taking place just west of the Blasco Library, where the hotel project was able to grow to its full potential with the help of a $5 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant.

“I would say this is a very special project that we are spending a ton of time on, making sure it’s done right,” he said. “We realize this is an opportunity for Erie to really shine. It’s not only important for our company but it’s important for the city we all grew up in. This is very special to my father and our mom. This is part of a bigger

the theme. This, after all, is a space that features a glass wall that opens when weather allows.

Other elements of the plan have changed.

Scott said he expects the menu will be broader than originally planned, focusing on steaks, seafood and pasta.

The space is larger, too, with room to seat 154.

“I think over time we realized you get one chance to do this, do it right,” Scott said. “If you look up, you can see we cantilevered the building out.”

As an owner of a company that includes Splash Lagoon, Peak ‘n’ Peak Resort as well as numerous hotels and restaurants, Nick Scott Jr. has a parent’s reluctance to identify

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For Scott Enterprises, the bigger picture includes a recent $3.5 million expansion of Splash Lagoon in Summit Township. That expansion to the park, which draws more than 300,000 guests a year, included $1 million for FlowRider, an indoor surfing machinethat’salreadyhelping to attract older guests.

Justafewmonthsago,company president Nick Scott Sr. had said the company’s next investment might be a second hotel for its Harbor Place development.

Nothing is final, but the company is rethinking that decision, Nick Scott Jr. said.

Plans for the family’s Harbor Place development

have always included an office building and Scott said his family is studying the possibility of that project moving to the head of the line.

In recent months, he said, the Scott family has been hearing the voices of Erie Mayor Joe Schember, the Erie Downtown Development Corp., the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership and others on the need for downtown office space.

The plan is far from final, but Scott said over the next few months Scott Enterprises will be considering the possibility of building a 70,000 to 90,000-square foot office building that would cost $20 million to $25 million not far from the new hotel and with a view of Erie’s waterfront.

“We think it’s something that Erie wants,” he said.

“There’s no better place to have an office.”

But opening day on Oliver’s and the new Hampton Inn & Suites comes first.

Scott is hoping that they hit the mark and that a restaurant with one of the best views in Erie hits the casual upscale note that he’s looking for.

“We want it to be the place you go for special occasions andwe wantit to be thespecial place you go once a week for a good happy hour,” he said.

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNMartin.

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Shannon Travis, 45, is an information technology director at Erie Insurance.

Matthew White, 33, is the managing director for Whitethorn Digital. [CHRISTOPHER

[CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

THEY CHOSE ERIE

By Jim Martin, Dana Massing, David Bruce jmartin@timesnews.com, dmassing@timesnews.com, dbruce@times news.com

The numbers don’t lie. The U.S. Census shows that Erie County continues to lose population.

But those numbers, which show Erie County’s population fell by more than 1,800 between 2017 and 2018, don’t tell the whole story either.

Erie County, a metropolitan area of about 272,000 people, is still a place where people come in search of opportunity and a better, happier life.

They come seeking refuge from war-torn regions and oppressive governments.

They come for new jobs.

They come to be with family. They come to start and grow families of their own.

For Erie 2020, we talked with people who sometime over the last three or four years made an important decision. They chose Erie.

These are stories of a few of them: Shannon Travis Age: 45 Last address: Jacksonville, Florida Arrived in Erie: June 2018 What brought her to Erie: A position at Erie Insurance as IT director and chief analyst Her story: Travis already had more than a passing familiarity with Erie. For three years, between 2014 and 2016, she had been flying to Erie to work at Erie Insurance for four days a week as an IT contractor.

It left her with a favorable impression of the company and the city.

She and her husband,

who works remotely for the state of Virginia, have no regrets.

“The people are living up to what I thought, really friendly, supportive, open, willing to help,” she said.

Her husband, who never lived north of North Carolina, was excited to buy his first snowblower, she said.

One of her favorite things has been showing off her new hometown to visiting relatives.

“We’ve been to Presque Isle, we did Tall Ships. We even got the Erie dining card. My favorite is going to Sara’s for the twist cone.”

Henos Asgedom Age: 24 Last address: Eritrea, a small dictatorship in the horn of Africa Arrived in Erie: October 2018 What brought him to Erie: Came to Erie as a refugee His story: Asgedom, who had never seen snow before, arrived in time for the great storm of 2017, only to find himself, his mother and five siblings with an immigration-related appointment in Buffalo.

“I said, ‘Let’s give it a try,’” he recalled.

Asgedom loves most things about Erie, but is still getting used to snow. He drives a tractor-trailer when the weather is better, but is working now as a translator and as a driving simulator instructor at the Hispanic American Council.

He likes the food, including hamburgers, pizza and pie. He likes the people, the services available to the refugee population and the people who support those organizations.

“The good thing here is

Shiwangi Bist, 35, is a retail manager at Lucky’s Food Mart 2 in Erie.

you can work,” he said.

“You can help yourself. ” Matthew White Age: 33 Last address: San Diego Arrived in Erie: June 2017 What brought him to Erie: White, who had previously taught at Penn State Behrend, was working as a game developer for Sony and living in San Diego when he and his wife started talking about having children.

It didn’t make sense to him while he was spending hours a day in traffic and paying $4,000 a month for a small apartment.

White, who since launched his own game development company, Whitethorn Digital, said, “We can live anywhere on the planet that has a low cost of living and some good, high-speed internet.”

White, whose wife’s family is from Mercer County, chose Erie.

His story: They have no regrets. In fact, the mortgage on their house costs less than he paid for his uncovered parking space in California.

He’s convinced he likes Erie better than most Erie natives do.

“I think people from here are harder on Erie than people who are not from here,” he said. “You can do so much worse for a midsize town. People try to compare it to Pittsburgh or Toronto. So much trying to punch out of your weight class.”

Moustafa Elhadary Age: 23 Last address: Originally from Egypt, most recently from United Arab Emirates Arrived in Erie: Fall 2014 What brought him to Erie: After attending college

Moustafa Elhadary, 23, is a software engineer for Logistics Plus.

at Penn State Behrend, he made Erie his home in 2018 after landing a full-time job as a software engineer at Logistics Plus.

His story: Elhadary came to Erie with a plan to spend two years at Behrend before transferring to University Park. He changed his mind after falling in love with Erie and being elected Student Government Association president for two consecutive terms.

His sister followed him to Behrend and his parents began spending much of their time in Erie, where they currently live while his mother works to earn her master’s degree in counseling from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to Elhadary’s work at Logistics Plus, he’s launched a business called Mocha Loans, an app that helps users pay off students loans.

“Going to a place like New York City or even Pittsburgh, I don’t think I would have been able to do as much as I’ve been able to do in Erie,” he said. “There are more chances to prove yourself here.”

Shiwangi Bist Age: 35 Last address: New Delhi, India Arrived in Erie: March 2018 What brought her to Erie: Bist’s husband, who works for Logistics Plus, was transferred from India to Erie.

Her story: Bist had worked as a manager of human resources in India but decided to quit her job and come with her husband to Erie. Looking for a career change, she took a retail manager job here.

Before committing to the move, she read about Erie online. One of the first

things that interested her was that Erie was known as the “gem city” because of being on Lake Erie. “Erie has a diversified culture,” she said. She also liked that it was neat, clean and small and she’d be able to get anywhere in about 15 minutes, leaving her more time with her husband and son. “The quality of life is better,” Bist said.

“This is the kind of life and kind of city where I want to retire,” she said.

Jenn McQuade, M.D. Age: 49 Last address: McLean, Virginia Arrived in Erie: August 2018 What brought her to Erie: McQuade and her husband, Timothy Germain, M.D., were recruited to work in Erie as surgeons at Saint Vincent Hospital.

Her story: McQuade and her husband moved to Erie for work but McQuade said that she enjoys the community’s social opportunities.

“We have been pleasantly surprised, especially having struggled with Washington, D.C., traffic,” said McQuade, who also has two children with Germain.

“The ease of getting around and doing things is great.

And the quality of events, like the Erie Philharmonic at the Warner Theatre.

It’s first rate, and so is the Jefferson Educational Society.”

McQuade’s only concern is that she was promised four seasons of weather and so far there has been little snow to enjoy.

“We have season passes to Peek’n Peak (Ski Resort) but we haven’t been able to go this winter due to the lack of snow,” she said.

See CHOSE, K11

Jenn McQuade, M.D., 49, is a colon and rectal surgeon at Saint Vincent Hospital in Erie. [PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

K11

CHOSE From Page K10

Hannah Stancliff Age: 28 Last address: Copley Township near Akron, Ohio Arrived in Erie: Summer 2016 What brought her to Erie: She took a job in August 2016 as convention sales manager with VisitErie after attending Edinboro University for undergraduate and graduate studies from 2010 to 2016.

Her story: “I sell Erie,” said Stancliff, who works for the agency that markets Erie’s tourism industry.

“So when people ask me about Erie, I say it’s the biggest small town you’ll ever be in.”

After graduating from Edinboro, she looked for jobs here and in northeast Ohio. Her now-husband, who is originally from Millcreek Township, had a job here but was willing to move. But Stancliff said the best offer she received was in Erie.

“The cost of living was very appealing to me,” she said. The couple purchased a home about a year ago in Millcreek.

Court Gould Age: 58 Last address: Pittsburgh Arrived in Erie: May 2018 What brought him to Erie: He was hired to serve as vice president of community impact for the Erie Community Foundation.

His story: Gould, who had been the founder and leader of a major nonprofit organization in Pittsburgh, said, “I studied Erie very closely and came to the determination from afar, without having any connection here, that this is a town that has made a deliberate intention to become one of America’s great communities.”

Having the resolve to change is the first step, Gould said, “That was reinforced by a wide range of positive things that are in motion,” he said.

Gould said he hasn’t regretted the move.

“My wife and I are very smitten with living downtown, going out numerous evenings a week and riding my bicycle to work, going to community events and taking part in civic activities.”

The transition has been surprisingly easy, he said “One of Erie’s greatest calling cards to new residents is the door is wide open for anyone to get their hands right into the

Hannah Stancliff, 28, is the Bayfront Convention Center sales manager for VisitErie. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Court Gould, 58, is the vice president of community impact at the Erie Community Foundation. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

community,” he said.

hope and grit to remake itself,” she said.

Rev. Melinda Hall Age: 35 Last address: Brookville; is a Kentucky native Arrived in Erie: October 2019 What brought her to Erie: Hall, who was ordained an Episcopal priest in 2013, served churches in DuBois and Brookville that are in the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania. In July, she was elected the new dean of the Erie-based diocese’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul.

Her story: Hall and her husband, a Presbyterian pastor, had been feeling their time in Brookville was coming to an end and were thinking about an urban setting. She said she was excited about the new energy in Erie, the community building and sense of buy-in. She read the entire Erie Refocused comprehensive plan.

“Erie is an interesting city with a lot of things going on,” she said, citing local arts and music, colleges, restaurants and recreational opportunities, among other things. Even though it’s small, she said, the city “has quite a bit to offer that shouldn’t be undervalued.”

Hall said the 250member cathedral also was in a time of transition, with its dean retiring after 32 years. She’s interested in how it can serve as a center

— Jim Martin, Dana Massing, David Bruce “Erie is an interesting city with a lot of things going on, it has quite a bit to offer that shouldn’t be undervalued.”

Rev. Melinda Hall

“My wife and I are very smitten with living downtown, going out numerous evenings a week and riding my bicycle to work, going to community events and taking part in civic activities.”

Court Gould

“I sell Erie. So when people ask me about Erie, I say it’s the biggest small town you’ll ever be in.”

Hannah Stancliff

The Rev. Melinda Hall, 35, is the dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul in Erie. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

of spirituality for the city and is excited to meet other leaders and find out how the faith community fits in.

Her son is only 10

months old but she’s already planning for him to attend public schools in Erie.

The city “has enough

“We have been pleasantly surprised, especially having struggled with Washington, D.C., traffic.

The ease of getting around and doing things is great. And the quality of events, like the Erie Philharmonic at the Warner Theatre. It’s first rate, and so is the Jefferson Educational Society.”

Jenn McQuade M.D.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

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This artist’s rendering shows Gannon University’s future I-HACK building in Erie. [CONTRIBUTED]

Gannon University is investing millions on new curriculum and facilities for a future in cybersecurity

BETTING BIG ON ERIE

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

Nineteen-yearold Austin Detzel, of Wattsburg, has always loved electronics and computers. When he talks about the internet of things, he speaks of the IOT in the shorthand that friends speak of one another.

It’s no surprise he was one of the first in line when Gannon University began enrolling students last fall for the first semester of its cyber engineering program.

Victoria Bartlett, of North East, followed a different route to Gannon’s companion program in cybersecurity, both part of the I-HACK or the Institute for Health and Cyber Knowledge.

After high school she went to work at Sander’s Market, where she and her employer, which operates seven stores, discovered she had an aptitude for computers and information technology.

For all the talk of cybersecurity — and there’s a lot of it — and the demand for thousands and thousands of graduates with skills in cybersecurity and cyber engineering, Bartlett, Detzel and Gannon find themselves on the cutting edge.

And that can be an uncomfortable place to be.

Only a relative handful of programs in cybersecurity and cyber engineering exist at the moment.

In many cases, accreditation guidelines are still being developed, said Karinna Vernaza, dean of the college of business and engineering at Gannon.

She’s not worried about that. Gannon has a history of its programs being smoothly accredited and she expects it to continue.

See BETTING, L2

Karinna Vernaza, Gannon University’s dean of the College of Engineering and Business, and Walter Iwanenko, vice president of Academic Affairs, are shown Jan. 16 inside Gannon’s I-HACK building in Erie. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

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Sunday, February 16, 2020

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Erie Times-News | GoErie.com

This artist’s rendering shows the second floor, which will be used for academic space, of Gannon University’s I-HACK building. [CONTRIBUTED]

BETTING From Page L1

Bartlett and Detzel say they are just as confident that they’ve found the right match for their talents and the marketplace.

Bartlett said she imagines working someday at a place like Erie Insurance or maybe Wabtec.

Detzel likewise likes the idea of staying in Erie.

“There are so many options,” he said. “Pretty much every company will be using internet connected devices.”

Detzel and Bartlett aren’t the only ones making an important bet.

Gannon, which announced the creation of two new majors and I-HACK in the fall of 2018, is betting millions of dollars that the university is investing its money in the right place at the right time.

The plan calls for a topto-bottom transformation of the vault-like Verizon building at 131 W. Ninth St. where hundreds of telephone operators once plied their trade.

The renovation would begin with a facelift of the first and second floors for use as a lobby and academic space, both of which would be ready for class this fall.

Pierre McCormick, a 1979 Gannon graduate, last year donated $1 million to the university, which is being used to establish the Pierre McCormick Cyber Learning Center on the building’s second floor.

A third floor, which would be called the hatchery and would be linked by an open stairway from the second floor, is envisioned as a place where students and faculty could work on projects with industry partners, giving students access to real-world experience and providing businesses with the services of the university.

Plans call for the fourth and fifth floors, about 13,000 square feet each, to be leased to commercial tenants, most likely technology companies.

As for the sixth floor, Walter Iwanenko Jr., vice president for academic affairs at Gannon, said Gannon is working with a corporate partner that has experience in building data centers in older buildings.

“We are looking at not only housing our own data, but Erie has been overlooked as a perfect

Gannon University student Austin Detzel. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Gannon University student Victoria Bartlett.

[CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

location to store data” for companies in need of a second, off-site location, he said.

What makes Erie a good fit for a data center?

Proximity, mostly. It’s within a 150 miles of three major population centers and it’s not prone to earthquakes or hurricanes.

For Iwanenko, this investment feels like the right move at the right time, both for the university and for the city.

He explained why recently as he looked out the south-facing, fourthfloor windows and across the street to the former Rothrock Building, where $8.5 million transformed it into a new home for Velocity Network and, at least temporarily, a home for the Erie Innovation District.

The job outlook numbers seem to justify the programs themselves.

But it is the activity in the community around Gannon that’s helping fuel the university’s confidence that not only will students enroll, but that businesses will lease space and data center clients will choose Erie.

“We are extremely confident,” Iwanenko said.

“We wouldn’t invest $27 million into a project that we weren’t confident in.

I think we are gathering steam in this block. I think the momentum is starting to build. We believe a lot of magic is going to happen.

We believe this is going to be a community asset.”

For now, this fortress

Gannon University’s I-HACK building in Erie is shown on Jan. 16. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE-TIMES-NEWS]

“We are extremely confident. We wouldn’t invest $27 million into a project that we weren’t confident in. I think we are gathering steam in this block. I think the momentum is starting to build. We believe a lot of magic is going to happen. We believe this is going to be a community asset.”

Walter Iwanenko vice president of Academic Affairs at Gannon University

of a concrete and steel building is a mostly blank slate, a construction zone, where old materials are being stripped away to make way for new heating and ventilation equipment and other infrastructure.

Vernaza, who explained that plans call for construction to be complete by the fall of 2021, found her her words

interrupted recently as she toured the building by the sounds of construction equipment and garbage sliding down a chute.

Bartlett and Detzel, now in their second semester in the I-HACK program, haven’t taken a class in the new building yet, but say they’re happy to be on the ground floor of a new program.

Bartlett said, “Being an adult student, I want to get the most productive degree, the thing that will do the most for me and the thing that will launch my career.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter. com/ETNMartin.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

FLETCH EYES GROWTH STRATEGY

Transplanted tech company takes root in Erie

By Kara Murphy

For the Erie Times-News

Marquett Burton grew up in California, went to undergraduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, and then graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. When he started his own business, Fletch, in 2014, he set up company headquarters in Chicago.

But in 2019, Burton relocated his headquarters to 121 W. 10th St. in Erie.

What brought him here?

Erie Innovation District’s Secure Erie Accelerator, or SEA. The idea behind SEA is to invite seed-stage technology companies to Erie for a 10-week program to introduce them to potential customers, partners and investors. The program also focuses on mentoring, exposure to the Erie business community and provides chosen companies with a $50,000 investment.

But the biggest goal?

“Theacceleratorprovidesan opportunity to bring in innovative entrepreneurs, such as Marquett, from around the globe in hopes they consider planting roots here in Erie,” said Rebecca Styn, the vice president of ventures for Erie Innovation District. Five businesses from SEA’s first cohort stayed in Erie, and two businesses in the second cohort — including Fletch — have already relocated here.

Burton has committed to Erie: He’s living here now, and one of his employees has relocated here. Others will join when he’s successful at

Marquett Burton, founder of Fletch, a technology company that created an app to track student attendance at colleges and universities, Feb. 1 inside the Erie Innovation District, which has its offices in the Velocity Network building at 121 W. 10th St. [PHOTOS BY JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

SEA Director “Jordan Fuller and Rebecca Styn have been particularly very good partners. We’re so blessed and thankful to have their support in helping us make meaningful connections in Erie. They’ve been phenomenal and are great ambassadors to the city.

They’re why we’re here now.”

Fletch for classrooms, and beyond

Marquett Burton, founder of Fletch, a tech company that created an app to track student attendance at colleges and universities, shows some of the Bluetooth beacons that accompany the app.

raising more capital.

“I came to Erie to grow my business,” he said. “That’s our goal in relocating here.”

It was his experience with the Erie Innovation District that cemented his decision

to commit to Erie beyond the 10-week SEA cohort.

“I can’t think of anything I’ve asked for that the Erie Innovation District hasn’t been able to help us with,” he said. Erie Innovation District

Fletch is an “effortless attendance” product.

The idea? A Fletch beacon installed in a classroom can detect the presence of a student’s phone and automatically register if the student is present — or not — in class. Fletch can be an especially helpful technology in large college auditoriums, Burton said.

While concerns about

L3

privacy have been raised in regards to similar apps, Burton said his product only detects phones up to half a football field away from the beacon, which means it’s not tracking student movements beyond the building where they’re located.

Hospitals are another target market for Fletch.

The technology allows hospitals to track patient and employee movements throughout a medical campus, Burton said.

Burton is also exploring other uses for his technology well beyond college classrooms and hospitals.

For instance, Fletch worked with Plastek Group in Erie to install Fletch equipment on mobile equipment to track their locations, Burton said.

Burton also sees a use for the Fletch technology in defense. He is hoping to find an Erie company to work with so the hardware can be produced in the United States rather than overseas, a necessity to obtain Department of Defense contracts.

“That is something we are excited about,” he said. “EID was able to introduce us to two companies that we can possibly work with.”

While there have been hiccups along the way — Burton said Fletch was recently turned down for investments from Erie Insurance Group and Ben Franklin Technology Partners — he remains committed to Erie.

“FletchisinErie.Weoperate in Erie. That’s entirely because of the Erie Innovation District and its ability to provide us with support and introductions. I think Erie is on the right track. There are improvements that need to be made, of

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Sunday, February 16, 2020

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Erie Times-News | GoErie.com

Upstart business gets help from the hive Edinboro students launch company to keep fishing sites clean

By Ed Palattella Erie Times-News

Hunter Klobucar and Tyler Waltenbaugh, students at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, became friends over a shared passion for steelhead fishing.

Their connection has become so tight that the two have launched a business to promote environmental conservation among freshwater anglers, whether they are casting lines on the streams and creeks of northwestern Pennsylvania or the raging rivers of the American West.

“We want to be that company in the outdoors industry that is making the change,” Klobucar said. “It has the potential to make the change in the industry, the potential to change the world.”

He and Waltenbaugh are partners in Fish Gods, a company that has developed a reusable collapsible mesh bag for anglers to pick up trash.

Fish Gods has a logo and other promotional materials and is ready to court investors for the production of the inexpensive bag.

“We want to target the angling community first and branch out into other outdoor activities such as camping, hiking and biking,” Waltenbaugh said.

He and Klobucar got hooked on their idea in the summer of 2018. The swift trajectory from concept to company is due largely to the help Fish Gods has received from the Northwest Pennsylvania Innovation Beehive Network, created in 2014 and expanded in the following years as a grant-funded collaboration for entrepreneurs between Edinboro University, Penn State Behrend, Gannon University, Mercyhurst University and the Erie County Public Library.

“We can give them all our ideas and they can make this happen,” Waltenbaugh said.

“It is irreplaceable.”

Idea bubbles up Waltenbaugh, 23, a senior strategic communications major, is from Leechburg, northeast of Pittsburgh.

Klobucar, 21, a junior majoring in environmental geology, is from Jeannette, southeast of Pittsburgh.

The two, who now share an apartment, got to know each other at Edinboro through fishing. They founded the campus fly-fishing club and got it chartered through the 5 Rivers program of Trout Unlimited, the fishing advocacy nonprofit.

In the summer of 2018, Waltenbaugh and Klobucar were among four college students selected to participate in Trout Unlimited’s Pennsylvania Brook Trout Odyssey, meant to increase understanding of the popular game fish. During the fishing trip, which followed Route 6 in Pennsylvania, Waltenbaugh and Klobucar noticed how plastic items — bottles, milk jugs, forks, spoons — and other trash littered streams throughout the state.

“It was unbelievable,” Waltenbaugh said.

The two also came to realize that picking up and collecting the trash could be difficult for anglers because they are already carrying rods and other gear. Waltenbaugh and Klobucar came up with a solution: a mesh bag, clipped to an angler’s clothing, into which garbage could be placed.

“Our bag is the answer to turning a blind eye on trash,” Waltenbaugh said. “Where do you put a dirty water bottle that has been sitting in mud for three weeks?”

Edinboro University of Pennsylvania students Hunter Klobucar, 21, left, and Tyler Waltenbaugh, 23, are shown at Edinboro’s Student Startup Hub for entrepreneurs. The two friends and avid fishermen formed the company Fish Gods and have developed a collapsible bag for anglers to pick up trash. [PHOTOS BY JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

“Our bag is the answer to turning a blind eye on trash. Where do you put a dirty water bottle that has been sitting in mud for three weeks?”

Busy Beehive Fish Gods is one of a number of startups that the Northwest Pennsylvania Innovation Beehive Network has helped launch. Some others: • Sphere Brakes, a specialty brake company.

• One Leg Up, a locally produced line of dog toys.

• Bayfront Glass, a bottle and jar recycler.

• M2 Additive, which uses a new kind of extruder for plastics-based manufacturing.

• AmpLife, whose product is a collapsible bowl with a no-spill lid and a built-in charger and a stand for an iPhone or iPad. It is designed for families that are traveling with children.

— Compiled by Penn State Behrend, which is part of the Beehive Network with Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Gannon University, Mercyhurst University and the Erie County Library.

• Watch video of the founders of Fish Gods discuss their company: www.GoErie.com/ Videos.

He and Klobucar also aimed to make their product environmentally friendly. They came up with a bag that would be made of mesh, with a flexible lid, and that could be used again and again, “The idea,” Klobucar, “is to have a bag that you don’t throw away.”

Catching a wave Klobucar and Waltenbaugh kept developing their idea when they started along the path that would eventually get them involved with the Beehive Network. In the spring of 2019, they named their company Fish Gods, after an ancient phrase in which anglers pray for a good catch.

If you are kind to the fish gods and respect the environment, Klobucar said, “the fish gods will bless you with good fortune, a good day on the water.”

Fish God’s fortunes improved during Waltenbaugh’s class on introduction to public relations at Edinboro. His professor, Tony Peyronel, told the students about the Ben Franklin Partnership’s Big Idea Startup Contest. The competition, run locally through Penn State Behrend, carries a top prize of $50,000 for a new company.

Waltenbaugh and Klobucar entered the Big Idea contest in

Tyler Waltenbaugh Edinboro University of Pennsylvania student

Tyler Waltenbaugh looks over promotional materials for the company he started with Hunter Klobucar. They have developed a collapsible bag for fishermen to pick up trash.

the spring of 2019 and did not win for Fish Gods.

But they got encouragement through the contest to enroll in a 10-week business camp for startups at Behrend called the Ben Franklin TechCelerator@Erie. At the end of the camp, they won $5,000 for their pitch for Fish Gods and the reusable bag, which will have an “earth-friendly name” and be about a foot long, Klobucar said.

Waltenbaugh and Klobucar used the $5,000 as capital to build up their business.

Meanwhile, they tapped into a trove of resources that cost them nothing. They became clients of Edinboro’s Beehive, in which students and faculty in marketing and other fields assist nonprofits and business enterprises, most of them startups such as Fish Gods.

“We are here to give them as much help as we can,” said Peyronel, executive director for entrepreneurial development at Edinboro University. “We run it like an agency that does not bill clients.”

Peyronel’s job includes oversight of Edinboro’s Center for Branding & Strategic Communications, part of the Northwest Pennsylvania Innovation Beehive Network. He said the Edinboro Beehive has taken on

more than 50 clients, with Waltenbaugh and Klobucar as the only student clients.

They are also the first clients to use the Edinboro Beehive’s Student Startup Hub, in the university’s Baron-Forness Library.

The hub provides space so student entrepreneurs do not have to work out of their dorm rooms or apartments.

“They are really on the move here,” Peyronel said of the two. “They are on their way. They are looking for investors. We are continuing to work with them this semester as they prepare to publicly launch the product.”

The Edinboro Beehive students and faculty helped Fish Gods develop a logo — it incorporates the trident, symbol of the ultimate fish god, Neptune — and helped them craft their branding, promotional materials and marketing plan. The Edinboro faculty and staff also helped in designing the company’s website, which is to go live soon.

The Beehive Network at Gannon provided legal assistance and Penn State in University Park provided legal guidance as Waltenbaugh and Klobucar created a limited liability company, in September. And the Beehive Network at Penn State

Behrend, with its program on plastics engineering and its Innovation Commons for entrepreneurs, helped them design a prototype bag.

The pooling of resources, which has benefited other startups in the area, is what makes the Beehive Network so valuable for entrepreneurs, many of whom have little funding or expertise to tackle all the businessrelated details on their own, said Amy Bridger, senior director of corporate strategy and external engagement at Penn State Behrend.

Bridger helps coordinate the Beehive Network, which she said is designed to “create an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the entrepreneur.”

“The credibility of the network makes a difference,” she said.

Dream floats on Waltenbaugh and Klobucar stand out among the other startup founders in that they are college students juggling schoolwork and social lives with the demands of launching a business. The Beehive Network proved an asset to them in that regard as well.

Without the Beehive Network, “I really don’t think we would be where we are in our lives right now,” Waltenbaugh said. A student entrepreneur needs such a support system, he said, “Unless you have a rich uncle.”

The Beehive Network’s assistance, Klobucar said, “made us legitimate and professional.”

The Beehive also helped the two students dream.

They dream about making their signature product. But they also dream about bigger ideas. The fish gods, after all, are watching.

“We have plans much further than a bag,” Waltenbaugh said. “We have bigger plans for Fish Gods and environmental issues.”

Ed Palattella can be reached at 870-1813 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNpalattella.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

L5

Erie Insurance plans for whatever is next

By Jim Martin

Like all auto insurers, the nation’s 12th largest auto insurance company has been keeping a close eye on so-called ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft. In fact, Erie Insurance was one of the first major companies to begin writing insurance policies for the independent drivers who provide service through those companies.

Erie Times-News

W

ould Blockbuster Video have done something differently if it had seen the streaming storm of Netflix headed its way?

What about the U.S. auto industry, fat, happy and largely unconcerned in the early 1970s about challenges that imports from Japan might provide?

Both are examples of business disruption on a scale that can give corporate CEOs sleepless nights about changes they fail to anticipate.

Erie’s largest, most successful homegrown company, 94-year-old Erie Insurance, isn’t immune from worries of that sort.

The good news for a community that’s come to depend on more than 3,100 local jobs provided by the company, as well as its investments in the community, is that the Fortune 500 company has spent time thinking about what could disrupt its business model and just as much time thinking about how to respond.

Like all auto insurers, the nation’s 12th largest auto insurance company has been keeping a close eye on so-called ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft. In fact, Erie Insurance was one of the first major companies to begin writing insurance policies for the independent drivers who provide service through those companies.

The rise of those services is seen by many as a reflection of a society where

General Motors’ self-driving vehicle, GM Cruise, is shown here on its proving grounds in San Francisco.

Cars of this type could eventually influence the insurance industry. [CONTRIBUTED]

Erie Insurance CEO Tim NeCastro. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE FILE PHOTO/ ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

fewer people will own cars and fewer people will need auto insurance policies.

At the same time, a growing list of companies continue to move ahead with

plans for autonomous or self-driving cars that could prove equally disruptive to a multi-billion auto insurance industry.

Tim NeCastro, CEO of Erie Insurance, said the good news is that change won’t happen overnight.

But change will come.

“I would say it’s inevitable that changes in mobility and how people get where they are going are definitely going to impact our business,” NeCastro said.

“The nature of risk is changing,” he continued.

“There is no need for a car in certain (situations). We think the evolution of the shared economy, the evolution of the technology that makes the car more independent of humans is going to continue. It will definitely put downward pressure on automotive premiums.”

And that, eventually, could force Erie Insurance and other insurance companies to refocus.

“That would cause us to put an increased focus on areas where there is an opportunity to insure risk.

If cars become so safe and insurance premiums so minimal it won’t be a viable area for us,” he said.

NeCastro said he thinks that the brave new world of self-driving cars, at least a world in which such cars are commonplace, remains years away. There are too many details to be worked out, he said, too many calculations for a computer to effectively replace a human at this point.

Even if that day does come, that doesn’t mean insurance companies suddenly become the equivalent of buggy whip salesman or builders of videocassette recorders.

The business is diversified, NeCastro said.

“We are in the life business, we are in the commercial business. It’s not like we have no other basis of strength to work from. You can’t stop hail and you can’t stop every fire. There’s still going to be a need for us.”

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This an August 2018 file photo of one of the labs in Mercyhurst University’s new Cyber Education Center, an 8,000 square-foot, $2 million education space that focuses on cybersecurity. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Mercyhurst training students on new front lines

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

The pay is good and the demand is high.

That’s the word on the growing field of cybersecurity.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 32 percent growth in hiring between 2018 and 2020. And according to a report from IBM, the average advertised salary for a cybersecurity job is more than $93,000.

Despite those favorable numbers, cybersecurity isn’t like business or economics.

Most schools don’t offer degree programs.

Erie is shaping up to be an exception to that rule.

While Gannon University is the latest to join the fray, offering programs in both cyber engineering and cybersecurity, Mercyhurst University has touched on the topic for years through its intelligence studies program.

For the first time this school year, Mercyhurst launched an undergraduate program in cybersecurity.

Students responded in record numbers, said Michael Victor, Mercyhurst president.

Victor said the college officials had been hoping for 20 students in the first year.

“We enrolled 63 students, the largest cohort ever for an inaugural major at Mercyhurst,” he said.

Christopher Mansour, assistant professor of computing and information science, instructs a class in the cybersecurity lab of Mercyhurst University’s MCPc Cyber Education Center. Known as “the sandbox,” the lab operates on an independent network and is completely isolated from the university, allowing students to safely execute untested programs or viruses. [CONTRIBUTED]

The program, which grew out of Mercyhurst’s intelligence studies program, one of the largest and oldest in the nation, has four faculty members, including an expert in the internet of things, an ethical hacker, a data science expert and an authority in digital forensics.

Victor thinks there’s an opportunity for Erie to emerge as a leader in cybersecurity and an opportunity for programs at

both Gannon and Mercyhurst.

While Gannon provides a greater emphasis on cyber engineering,“ we are doing more of a focus on cybersecurity as it emerges out of intelligence studies,” he said.

To a growing degree, that’s where Victor sees the focus of intelligence studies shifting in the years ahead.

Mercyhurst’s Ridge College of Intelligence Studies was founded with the notion of protecting people from the traditional threats associated with terrorism. While many of those threats are still in play, Victor said a growing part of the curriculum focuses on business intelligence and finding ways to protect all of us against the threat of computer-based threats.

In August of 2018, MCPc, a Clevelandbased technology company that has office in Erie, opened a $1 million secure operations center at Mercyhurst that‘s part of the university’s cybersecurity laboratory and

Michael Victor, president of Mercyhurst University, speaks Aug. 2 at the dedication of the new Cyber Education Center. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

classroom complex.

There, in a secure setting, MCPc and student employees are able to track and mitigate security threats as they take place, Victor said.

Victor doesn‘t expect this will replace the mission of the Ridge School, which has trained agents and employees of the CIA, FBI, the National Security Agency and Homeland Security.

That program remains a Mercyhurst mainstay with about 500 students.

Eventually, “I see it being as large as traditional intelligence studies,” he said.

Victor, whose university helped launch the Erie Innovation District, which is now its own freestanding organization, sees Mercyhurst‘s effort as part of something

larger as Erie works to establish itself as a center of technology.

“We are really proud of what we were able to build here,” he said.

“It‘s up, it’s operating.

It‘s its own unique entity. We are proud of what we were able to accomplish.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter. com/ETNMartin.

Erie Times - News | GoErie.com |

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Region’s agriculture continues to evolve

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

Farming remains an important part of the Erie County economy.

More grapes, a lot more in fact, are grown here than in any other part of Pennsylvania.

And while the total number of farms — 1,162, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture — continues to decline, Erie County farms sold what they produced, including grapes, milk, beef, chickens, apples, green beans, tomatoes and Christmas trees, for more than $82 million in 2017.

But recent years haven’t been easy ones for farmers, especially dairy farmers who have faced low prices and ever-shrinking demand for the milk they produce.

Between 2012 and 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the number of farms in Erie County fell from 1,422 to 1,162.

The next census, conducted in 2022, will reflect that Dean Curtis, a farmer for his entire life, sold his dairy farm in 2018.

In an interview more than a decade ago, he explained the challenge he was facing.

“We have long-term debt, and we have shortterm debt,” he said at the time. “Our cash flow is nonexistent, and we are kind of running on credit.”

Faced in recent years by low prices for corn and grain, farmers have adapted in different ways.

Some, including Waterford farmer Mark Troyer, president of Troyer Growers, has looked to

Tony Mase of Meadow Hill Farm in Meadvile gets ready for the dairy cow competition Aug. 20 at the Crawford County Fair in West Mead Township. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Dean Curtis walks out of an empty milking parlor April 11 at his farm in Venango Township. Curtis sold his 150 dairy cows in June, shutting down a dairy farm that had been in operation since 1931. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Potatoes move through a washing process Dec. 5 at Troyer Growers in Waterford Township.

Troyer Growers processes about 21 million pounds of potatoes annually, grown on about 600 acres. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

EVOLVE From Page L10

alternatives to the massive corn crop he grows each year.

He‘s doubled down on potatoes, investing in new storage facilities that allow him to grow 600 acres a year. He’s also started a new business, Farmulated CBD, to grow hemp and process CBD oil for retail sale.

For the owners of Heaton‘s Tree Farm in North East, there’s nothing new about looking to alternatives, hopefully more profitable ones, to make money off the land. Christmas trees, after all, are a decidedly niche crop.

In addition to growing soybeans and wheat and

The Schauffele family of North East carry their Christmas tree to their vehicle Dec. 7 at Heaton’s Tree Farm, 12270 Cole Road, North East Township. The family business grows about 18 acres of blue spruce,

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raising sheep and hogs, local farmers, in small but growing numbers, have begun producing alternative crops, including hops and barley for beer.

Delayne Jacobs, a Cochranton area farmer, who is the co-owner of Milledgeville Malt Works, decided a few years ago to begin growing and roasting his own barley.

Simply growing what everyone else grew was no longer enough to make a living.

“By the time you bought the seed, the fertilizer and the fuel, there wasn’t even money to pay the taxes,” he said.

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNMartin.

A bud from a mature hemp plant is shown Dec. 5 in a greenhouse in Waterford Township. Mark Troyer, president of Troyer Growers and a new company called Farmulated CBD, is growing hemp and processing CBD oil for retail sale. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

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LEADING THE WAY

Halina Zyczynski, M.D., is the medical director of the new Magee-Womens Research Institute–Erie.

The facility is still under construction at 118 E. Second St. [JACK HANRAHAN/ ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

UPMC doctor and researcher to lead $26 million research center

By David Bruce dbruce@timesnews.com

H

alina Zyczynski, M.D., steps over steel beams and around broken hospital beds to show where the Magee-Womens Research Institute–Erie will be located.

Construction has begun on the $26 million medical research facility, but much of the space on the third and fourth floors of Magee-Womens, UPMC Hamot – 118 E. Second St. – was still being used for storage in mid-January.

“The plumbing and electricity are already installed, so it’s just putting up the walls,” said Zyczynski, the Erie institute’s medical director.

“It shouldn’t be a huge effort.

Realistically, we expect to be completed in June or July.”

Zyczynski, a urogynecologist, started working at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh about 30 years ago. She treats pelvic organ prolapse

and bowel and bladder incontinence in women.

Or, as Zyczynski described her medical practice, “I wake up every day to take care of the vagina.”

In 2013, Zyczynski started seeing patients in Erie as well as Pittsburgh.

She also divides her time between her clinical work and administrative work with the institute.

“Every Monday and Tuesday I’m either in the operating room or my medical office,” Zyczynski said. “The first and second weeks of the month, I’m in (Pittsburgh), and the third and fourth weeks I am here in Erie.

“On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I do administrative work,” said Zyczynski, 59, who lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and son but keeps an apartment in downtown Erie.

Once it’s finished, the institute, known as MWRI–Erie, will bring more expertise and clinical trials to northwestern Pennsylvania. It is the first expansion of the Pittsburgh-based

Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation, which opened in 1992.

MWRI-Erie is expected to create up to 200 jobs and bring up to $50 million in medical research funding to Erie over the next 10 years, according to Mike Batchelor, president of the Erie Community Foundation.

The expansion of the institute and the creation of a related biomedical lab at Penn State Behrend has the potential to create a new sector of the local economy.

It is expected to create jobs that pay an average of $70,000 a year, Batchelor said in September when the foundation announced it has invested $6 million in funding for the institute.

MWRI-Erie will specialize in the areas of reproductive development, pregnancy and newborn development, as well as infectious diseases, gynecology, reproductive endocrinology, women’s cancers and women’s wellness.

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The Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center at Penn State Behrend’s Knowledge Park will be the home of a new laboratory tied to the Magee-Womens Research Institute-Erie. Students and faculty will conduct research and work to commercialize the work of the MWRI. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

BEHREND TO SERVE AS RESEARCH PARTNER

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

The benefits of a having a medical research facility in Erie might take generations to fully understand.

The financial advantages, measured in jobs and the value of medical research dollars that are expected to flow into the community, might be easier to measure.

It‘s possible, however, that neither would happen and that the Magee-Womens Research Institute-Erie would not be moving forward if not for the investment of Penn State Behrend as a research partner.

Penn State‘s $5 million buy-in toward the total startup price of $26 million is part of what it brings to the table in an effort that’s expected to create 200 high-paying jobs over the next 10 years.

But there‘s more to it.

Ralph Ford, Behrend‘s chancellor, often talks about the access that the school provides to one of the nation‘s top research universities.

He spoke of it in June when Behrend hosted hundreds of attendees from around the world for the International Advanced Manufacturing Research Conference.

“This is the power of being a research university, “ he said at the time.

In this case, Behrend has signed on to serve as the academic research and commercialization

Penn State Behrend Chancellor Ralph Ford. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

partner for MWRI. According to Behrend, “The college is positioned to be that partner because of its core capabilities in engineering and the sciences, experience with external partners in applied research and technology translation and access to the resources of the larger Penn State research enterprise.”

Behrend‘s role “is really important,” said Mike Batchelor, preisdent of the Erie Community Foundation, which contributed a $6 million grant to bring MWRI to Erie.

“They really liked their research protocol,” Batchelor said of Behrend. “They know how to spin off industry.”

Ford, who has a background in research – he was an engineer and researcher at IBM and Brookhaven National Laboratory – sees opportunities for his students and the community.

A study by the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership last year identified careers in life sciences as a target of opportunity for Erie.

Whether they are created by the MWRI facility on the

UPMC Hamot campus or grow out of a lab at Penn State Behrend, Ford sees potential for new jobs.

“We believe there is a whole new economy that will come out of this,” Ford said.

Officials are estimating that $15 million in new federal research money will flow into Erie during the first five years and that research spending could reach $50 million by year 10.

Behrend is adding curriculum to help make that happen.

The college will begin

LEADING From Page M1

Zyczynski is uniquely qualified to serve as the institute’s medical director.

Besides being Magee-Womens’ director of the division of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, she also has a long history in medical research.

She has served as the site principal investigator of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Pelvic Floor Disorders Network since 2001. She also served for 12 years on the steering committee of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases’ Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network.

“Not everybody has the skill set Halina does,” said Richard Guido, M.D., a UPMC

Halina Zyczynski, M.D., is the medical director of the new Magee-Womens Research Institute–Erie.

[JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

gynecological surgeon and clinical researcher who has worked with Zyczynski

since 1988. “She is a positive person in all aspects of her life and she is dedicated to

taking care of women.”

The institute’s work in Erie will begin in Hamot’s labor

new academic programs in biomedical engineering and biochemistry/ molecular biology and will hire two new faculty members for the fall.

Behrend plans to equip and open two labs to support imaging and cellgrowth testing related to MWRI research.

The larger of the two labs, a 2,700-square-foot space in the Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center, will become the heart of an advanced imaging facility at Behrend.

Researchers there will have access to the college’s ESEM and confocal microscopes and additional advanced imaging equipment.

The lab will be a resource for start-up companies and products that further MWRI Erie’s studies.

A second, smaller lab will be located in the Otto Behrend Science building.

Both are expected to be in use by August.

Ford‘s assessment of the importance of the project hasn’t changed since he spoke about it in September.

“I don’t think I have seen anything this large that can have this sort of impact,” he said. “One of the things we really need to change the game on in Erie is research funding. This is as big to me as anything I've seen, if not bigger.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter.com/ETNMartin.

and delivery unit, where samples of blood, umbilical cords and placentas will be collected from participating mothers.

These samples will stock a biobank that will be kept at MWRI-Erie and be used in the future to study possible genetic indicators for premature birth, heart disease and ovarian cancer.

“Research is not new in Erie when it comes to women’s health,” Zyczynski said. “We have conducted studies here at Hamot for the past four or five years. But we were limited in the types of studies we could do due to a lack of infrastructure. The whole goal here is to create the infrastructure so that someone with a good idea can be matched with good subjects.”

David Bruce can be reached at 870-1736 or by email. Follow him on Twitter atwww. twitter.com/ETNbruce.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

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The Minority Community Investment Coalition is making plans to revamp the Joyce A. Savocchio Business Park. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

PARK PLAN AWAITS SUPPORT

By Kevin Flowers kflowers@timesnews.com

John Purvis believes in the potential of the Joyce A. Savocchio Business Park.

Purvis is the owner of Solar Revolution Erie LLC, a local company that provides solar panels, solar panel installation services, and a variety of other equipment for solar energy projects in the tri-state area.

Purvis is also working closely with Gary Horton, president of the Urban Erie Community Development Corp., who is part of a group that wants to develop a health and wellness center, an urban farming facility and a solar panel network on the Savocchio Park property, located near East 16th Street and Downing Avenue in one of Erie’s poorest neighborhoods.

Purvis is helping Horton develop a detailed business plan for the solar panel network, a place Erie residents could be trained to manufacture, install and/or maintain solar panels.

“We would take part of that land and develop green, solar energy on it, and put that energy into the power grid and sell it locally,” Purvis said.

“We can then go to anyone and see if they want to buy their electricity from this site. It’s a perfect location for it and a win for everybody that would create installation jobs and maintenance jobs right in that neighborhood.”

The Savocchio Park plan — aided by a $250,000 grant from the Erie Community Foundation and a $40,000 contribution from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and endorsed by Mayor Joe Schember’s administration — continues to evolve and remains in need of “major investment,” Horton said.

UECDC in January 2019 completed a $100,000 purchase for 19 of the business park’s 25 acres as part of its plan to create a community hub. The purchase includes only vacant land and no buildings.

The property would be renamed the Joyce A. Savocchio Opportunity Park. The business park, which opened in 2005, was named for the city’s three-term mayor and was once a tire- and debris-littered dump site.

Savocchio, a Democrat, was Erie’s first female mayor, serving from 1990 through 2001.

Horton worked as a mayoral aide for Savocchio in the 1990s.

Gary Horton, president of the Urban Erie Community Development Corp., wants to develop a solar panel network and other businesses at Savocchio Business Park. [JACK HANRAHAN FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

“We would take part of that land and develop green, solar energy on it, and put that energy into the power grid and sell it locally. We can then go to anyone and see if they want to buy their electricity from this site. It’s a perfect location for it and a win for everybody that would create installation jobs and maintenance jobs right in that neighborhood.”

John Purvis, owner of Solar Revolution

Urban Erie’s partners in the project include the Minority Community Investment Coalition — a group made up of the Booker T. Washington Center, the Martin Luther King Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center as well as the Eastside Grassroots Coalition, whose core team includes Horton, the Sisters of Mercy at the House of Mercy and the Burton-Diehl Neighborhood Organization.

In August, Horton rode a trolley around the Joyce A. Savocchio Business Park with federal officials while explaining to them his plans for revamping the property and what the project needs in terms of funding.

Scott Turner, executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, was there. So was U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Butler, R-16th Dist.

However, six months after that tour of the property, no large investor has stepped forward to jump-start the project, which is located in a federal Opportunity Zone.

“We still need major investment,” Horton said.

In addition to the solar project, the Savocchio Park hub could eventually include an indoor urban agricultural

system that can grow fish, produce and other foods that can be distributed to needy local residents; a small business incubator; and a multi-use health and wellness facility that could provide health services, fitness training and recreational programs to residents.

Horton and others backing the project believe it could provide crucial opportunity in an area that includes nearly 7,000 residents, has a 50 percent minority population and an overall poverty rate of 35 percent, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

“All of this talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, we not only want to be the face of that, but the reality of it,” he said.

Horton estimated that it could cost up to $20 million “to do everything we want to do” at the business park. However, it’s more likely the project would proceed in phases, and the timetable would be determined by funding.

“We’re trying to develop separate business plans for each phase,” Horton said. He added that he has talked with representatives of a Harrisburg aquaponics company, Intag Systems, about the indoor

agricultural component.

The company designed and built a similar facility at the Commonwealth Charter Academy Capital Campus in Harrisburg, where students grow a variety of fish, organic herbs, fruits and vegetables.

“We’re doing our due diligence and trying to build relationships that will help us (finish) this project,” Horton said.

Brett Wiler is director of capital formation for the Flagship Opportunity Zone Development Co., and is the point man for Opportunity Zone investments in Erie County.

Opportunity Zone legislation allows investors to take capital gains — money earned from the rising value of an investment, including stock, a home or a business — and to invest that money into designated lowincome census tracts. Erie has eight such Opportunity Zones.

Wiler said he has met with Horton and others involved with the Savocchio Park project, and has asked for copies of business plans, when they are finished, to help market the project to potential investors.

Mayor Joe Schember said he wants to see the Savocchio Park project succeed.

“It could mean a great deal for the people of that area,” Schember said. “We’ll p rovide any assistance that we can.”

Kevin Flowers can be reached at 870-1693 or by email. Follow him on Twitter atwww. twitter.com/ETNflowers.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

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Karen Croyle is the executive director of Corry Counseling Center. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

CORRY EMBRACES

BLUE ZONES PROJECT

By David Bruce dbruce@timesnews.com

CORRY – Employees at Corry Counseling Services can now stand at their desks or pedal while they sit at them.

They can also join a weekly walking group or ease their stress by spending a few minutes in the office’s new “downshifting” room, where they can relax and perhaps listen to ocean waves on a portable stereo.

“I’m encouraged by how our staff has embraced these changes,” said Karen Croyle, Corry Counseling Services executive director.

“They are used to us doing things that promote engagement, so it’s not a surprise. But I’m glad they are so willing to get involved.”

Corry Counseling Services is just one Corryarea business that is embracing the region’s efforts to be a Blue Zones Community. It’s a threeyear community initiative designed to improve people’s health and help them live longer lives.

After months of planning, healthy activities and other changes have been occurring all over the region since Blue Zones Project–Corry was launched in June.

“The national team is so impressed with how quickly the Corry community has come on board with this project,” said Shannon Wohlford, the project’s engagement lead. “People have really come forward, eager to join.”

Corry was selected earlier this year to be the 47th Blue Zones community in the world.

The project is designed to help residents live longer, healthier lives by following examples – known as the Power 9 lifestyle principles – found in communities around the world where a high percentage of people live into their 90s and 100s.

The $3.5 million cost of the project is funded primarily by UPMC, Highmark Health and Corry Memorial Hospital. It also

Denise Seib, human resources director at the Corry Counseling Center, uses a standing desk in her office. The center is among the Corry-area busineses embracing the region’s efforts to be a Blue Zones Community. The $3.5 million Blue Zones Project, designed to improve people’s health, is funded primarily by UPMC, Highmark Health and Corry Memorial Hospital. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

As part of the Blue Zones project, the Corry Counseling Center has created a break room designed to calm workers. [JACK HANRAHAN/ ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

has received $100,000 from the Erie County Gaming Authority and several

smaller grants.

A recent study conducted by Blue Zones

Project–Corry shows the need for a community health initiative.

The well-being survey showed that a higher percentage of Corry residents have high blood pressure, are obese or overweight, and have high cholesterol levels than the Pennsylvania and national averages.

Most alarmingly, 85 percent of Corry residents ages 18 to 24 have tried tobacco.

“We learned there were no face-to-face tobacco cessation classes being held in Corry,” Wohlford said.

“People either had to call the (1-800) QUIT-NOW number or drive to Erie for classes.”

Blue Zones is working with a volunteer at Corry Memorial Hospital to offer three or four tobaccocessation programs a year in Corry. The first six-week session started Jan. 15 and included seven participants.

A healthy cooking class, which featured a plantbased Mediterranean diet, drew 16 people to Corry’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church in November.

More classes will be held in the future, Wohlford said.

“We also are working with the Salvation Army and the Second Harvest Food Bank to host a mobile fresh fruit and vegetable stand,” Wohlford said.

“The Salvation Army, which offers breakfasts and lunches on weekdays, asked us to come and do some healthy food tastings and food-skills training.”

Blue Zones Project– Corry is also working with Sander’s Markets in Corry to help it become a Blue Zones Project-approved grocery store.

As part of the process, signs will be attached to certain shelves and coolers in the store that contain fresh fruits and vegetables, whole-grain and other healthy foods.

“It’s all about making the healthy choice the easy choice,” said Jennifer Eberline, the project’s community program manager.

Taste testings and educational programs are also planned for Corry Area School District students, teachers and staff as the district tries to become a Blue Zones-approved school.

The project also was awarded a $20,000 grant from Pennsylvania WalkWorks to create a walking and biking plan for Corry. The search for a consultant to implement this project started in January.

David Bruce can be reached at 870-1736 or by email. Follow him on Twitter atwww. twitter.com/ETNbruce.

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Set-up operator Derek Catchot, 35, inputs information into a touchscreen on a CNC lathe Feb. 5 at Industrial Sales and Manufacturing. The touchscreen shown here is used with software designed by the Erie-based Data Inventions. The software collects production data from 23 mills and lathes at ISM and automatically uploads it to a central database. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

STOKING PRODUCTION Data Inventions helps manufacturers boost the bottom line

By Valerie Myers vmyers@timesnews.com

Duane Clement founded Data Inventions six years ago to help manufacturers quickly collect and use data to improve operations.

The company is based in the ninth-floor Radius CoWork area of the Renaissance Centre at 10th and State streets in Erie.

Its software helps industrial machines and systems to talk to each other and to managers in real time.

In manufacturing, success boils down to labor time, machine time and the number of parts made, Clement said. Most companies have invested heavily in technology and data but get inaccurate data or get it too late to make meaningful corrections, he said.

“For these companies, time really is money,” Clement said. “We become the system to track the data that they need in real time.”

In mid-sized shops, one person often works on multiple machines and on multiple parts in one day, clocking in and out, checking order information, reporting a machine down and more — sometimes on a computer located across the shop floor, Clement said.

“One guy was walking three miles in a day to and from the computer,” he said.

Tablet computers mounted on the machines now allow operators to record their time and to periodically report the number of parts made, when the machine is down and other information using Data Inventions software.

Bringing the tablets to the machines alone has saved one company an estimated $70,000 a year in employee and machine down time, Clement said.

Further, shop mangers can see on their program dashboards when a machine is down, when a part is awaiting quality control inspection and other production details.

“Our software applications allow companies to

Duane Clement, 53, at left, and Lisa Bruno, 49, are shown Feb. 5 at Industrial Sales and Manufacturing in Millcreek Township. The software shown on the tablet held by Clement, and on the screen behind them, was developed by Clement’s Erie-based company, Data Inventions.

Bruno is the information technology project leader at ISM, and helped adapt Data Invention’s software for use at ISM. She is holding pipe fittings made at ISM. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

connect information from machines in real time, get it management to make realtime decisions and increase production, often over 20 percent, within 90 days,” Clement said.

For its flagship customer, Industrial Sales and Manufacturing on West 12th Street in Millcreek Township, even a 10-percent production increase would translate to an additional $750,000 a year, Clement said.

And some shops can increase production by as much as 40 percent, Clement said.

Clement is a Dunkirk, New York, native who returned to the region about 15 years ago to raise his family after a management career with Proctor and Gamble and other big-league companies.

He founded several of his own companies, including a retail data firm, before launching Data Inventions

in 2014.

The retail data firm focused on getting information to front-line workers at KFC, Taco Bell and other Yum Brands restaurants to help them better serve customers.

“I’m actually doing the same thing now only looking at the manufacturing community,” Clement said.

The potential of his manufacturing technology company helped Clement raise about $2.8 million from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners, local industry and investors here and beyond Erie.

“Ben Franklin Technology Partners invested in Duane because we saw that a company could spend a half-million dollars for a new machine or use Duane’s product to use what they have more efficiently,” said Liz Wilson, director of marketing and communications for

Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a statewide, technology-based economic development initiative.

Clement’s track record as an entrepreneur also encouraged investment, Wilson said.

“In Duane, investors see a successful serial entrepreneur. If you're going to throw the dice on someone, it's going to be him,” she said.

Erie investors were attracted by the company being based in Erie, Clement said.

“A lot of local investors are investing because they want Erie to be a place where their kids want to stay and work,” he said.

In the company’s first six years, Clement sank the majority of capital and revenues back into the business and worked with other developers, including Lojic LLC, a spinoff of Acutec Precision Aerospace

in Meadville, to incorporate some capabilities without reinventing those wheels.

Data Inventions will go to market with its overall product this month, selling software subscriptions.

“We don’t have to build a sales force to get customers,” Clement said. “And there are close to 50,000 customers we can target.”

The company added three new customers last month and expects to have more than 20 customers by the end of 2020. In five years, Clement projects 800 customers and $30 million in annual sales.

Data Inventions will account for $100 million in economic impact to the region and provide 170 jobs, also within five years, according to an economic impact study.

Valerie Myers can be reached at 878-1913 or by email.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

M7

Lord Corp.’s Robison Road facility in Summit Township. Lord, which was purchased in 2019 by Parker-Hannifin, is the only industrial company ranked as a top-20 employer in both Erie and Crawford counties. [FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

TOP EMPLOYERS’ LIST POINTS TO DIVERSE ECONOMY

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

A

s always, the list of Erie’s top 50 employers includes plenty of familiar names, employers like Erie Indemnity — No. 1 on the list — along with UPMC Hamot and Saint Vincent Hospital.

More than anything else, the most recent list, compiled at the end of the June 2019 by the state Center for Workforce Information & Analysis, underlines the diversity of a local economy once dominated

by GE Transportation.

At its peak, the company, one of Erie’s top-paying manufacturers, employed as many as 18,000 people.

It was the massive main engine in a local economy built on manufacturing.

But the threat of just how much there was to lose, given the volatile nature of the freight locomotive business, was never far from anyone’s mind.

Today, Wabtec,

the successor to GE Transportation, remains at No. 2 on the list with about 2,500 employees.

But the days of a single, dominant employer seem, more than ever, to be a thing of the past, a recognition that the list of top employers is more diverse than ever.

The most recent list of Erie County’s top employers is dominated by hospitals and other health care providers, social service agencies and educational employers of one kind or another.

Four local school districts make the top 50 as do all four local universities and Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.

While Walmart is the nation’s largest employer, it ranks fifth in Erie County.

Aside from Walmart and government employers, Lord Corp. is the only employer that ranks in the top 20 in both Erie and Crawford counties.

Crawford County’s list of top employers is far

Erie County Top employers, 2nd Quarter, 2019 Rank

Employer

Rank

Employer

1

Erie Indemnity Co

26

Mercyhurst University

2

Wabtec US Rail Inc

27

PA State System of Higher Education

3

UPMC Hamot

28

Erie Homes for Children & Adults

4

State Government

29

Waldameer Park Inc

5

Wal-Mart Associates Inc

30

The Tamarkin Company

6

Saint Vincent Health Center

31

Saint Mary’s Home of Erie

7

Federal Government

32

Career Concepts Staffing Services Inc

8

School District of the City of Erie

33

Port Erie Plastics Inc

9

Dr. Gertrude A Barber Center Inc

34

C A Curtze Company

10

Erie County

35

Infinity Resources Inc

11

Regional Health Services Inc

36

Bay Valley Foods LLC

12

Millcreek Township School District

37

Millcreek Manor

13

City of Erie

38

Presbyterian Senior Care

14

Plastek Industries Inc

39

General McLane School District

15

Presque Isle Downs and Casino

40

Lowe’s Home Centers LLC

16

Country Fair Inc

41

SFC Global Supply Chain Inc

17

Lord Corporation

42

Fort LeBoeuf School District

18

YMCA of Greater Erie

43

Sarah A Reed Children’s Center

19

Wegmans Food Markets Inc

44

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine

20

Pennsylvania State University

45

Corry Manufacturing Company

21

Gannon University

46

Pleasant Ridge Manor

22

Dr. Gertrude A. Barber in Home Services

47

Northwest Tri-County Int Unit

23

Saint Vincent Med Ed & Research Inst

48

Eriez Mfg Co

24

Millcreek Community Hospital

49

Associated Clinical Laboratories LP

25

Voices for Independence

50

Rodao LLC

Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

Crawford County

GANNETT

Top employers, 2nd Quarter, 2019

Rank

Employer

1

Meadville Medical Center

2

State Government

3

Crawford County

4

Wal-Mart Associates Inc

5

Acutec Precision Aerospace Inc

6

Crawford Central School District

7

Allegheny College

8

Wesbury United Methodist Community

9

Channellock Inc

10

Greenleaf Corporation

more industrial in nature.

About a third of Crawford County’s top 50 employers are manufacturers of one type or another.

In Erie County, just seven of the top 50 are manufacturers and two of those are food processors.

The Center for Workforce Analysis & Information provides another way to look at local employment,

not through the lens of the top employers, but by ranking the job sectors in which we work.

Restaurants and eating places, elementary and secondary schools and hospitals rank as the three top employment sectors in Erie County.

Crawford County, which has traditionally touted itself as Tool City USA, also

employs the most people in its restaurant sector.

Second place, however, belongs to metalworking and machining. Elementary and secondary schools come in third.

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter. com/ETNMartin.

Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

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Sunday, February 16, 2020

N1

A CENTURY OF BUILDING BEHIND THE SCENES

Jay Spaeder is the CEO of the Wm. T. Spaeder Co., which specializes in commercial and industrial plumbing and HVAC services in Erie, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, and residential plumbing in the Erie area. The company employs about 250 people. Jay Spaeder, 59, is shown Jan. 9 at the new UPMC Hamot office tower in downtown Erie, where the company has been working. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

By Ron Leonardi rleonardi@timesnews.com

A one-hour home residential service job constitutes the Wm. T. Spaeder Company’s smallest endeavor.

Its largest projects fall into the multi-million dollar category.

Take a ride through Erie and you’ll likely notice the company’s commercial handiwork at several construction sites.

Crews are currently installing plumbing and heating at the Erie Insurance Group office building, and fire protection and plumbing at the UPMC Hamot patient tower. Both projects are valued at more than $100

million.

Two other recently completed projects involved plumbing and fire protection at a Saint Vincent Hospital project, and fire protection at the Saint Vincent Cancer Institute.

“We’ve had a hand in a lot of the major projects going on in Erie right now,” said Jay Spaeder, 60, the company’s CEO. “We’ve been lucky over the years hitting the right projects at the right time and we’ve had a nice, steady growth.”

His grandfather, William T. Spaeder, a master plumber, founded the Erie company in 1914 as a small plumbing and pipe-fitting business.

Three generations of family have guided and overseen the company’s 106-year run of development and growth.

“Even though we’ve been here for more than 100 years, we’ve been quiet,” Spaeder said. “We were never big into marketing ourselves, our family. We just went ahead and did our work and it was all word of mouth.”

That work involves being one of the region’s largest contractors in residential and commercial heating, ventilation and air conditioning, process piping, plumbing, fire protection and sprinkler system installation, design and coordination services, residential HVAC and

emergency plumbing, and industrial and commercial water treatment.

“In the last few years, we decided that maybe we should market ourselves and get the word out there about all that we do,” Spaeder said.

“It seems to have helped.”

From its 100,000-squarefoot headquarters at 1602 E. 18th St. in Erie, the company has been a staple for decades in Erie’s industrial community, employing about 250 and earning a track record for good wages and investing in its employees.

“It’s a conservative business, so the concept was always to reinvest in the company, so when times get tight, you have resources to

sustain you,” said Mary Kay Reber, 59, the company’s chief financial officer. “Also, to reinvest in technologies that allow you to respond when things do rebound to your customers. If you don’t have that kind of strength, you can’t respond.”

“You have to evolve with the community,” Spaeder said. “In the early 1950s and 60s, a lot of our work was plumbing and heating, and commercial jobs. In the 60s and 70s, we started doing a lot more industrial type work. In the 80s and 90s, industrial kind of fell out and we went into a lot of municipality work.”

See BUILDING, N2

N2

Sunday, February 16, 2020

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Erie Times-News | GoErie.com

Jay Spaeder, 59, foreground, center, talks with Eric Bowman, 31, at the new UPMC Hamot office tower under construction in downtown Erie. Spaeder is the CEO of the Wm. T. Spaeder Co. Bowman is the company’s project foreman. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

In 2008, the company started a service division, which has grown substantially, Spaeder said.

“You kind of evolve with the changes that the city has made,” he said. “The things that have happened, good or bad, you have to go on and evolve with what’s happening.’’

The business has additional office space in Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

When the business relocated to its current headquarters on East 18th Street in 1966, the facility totaled about 30,000 square feet.

Two expansions have added an additional 70,000 square feet. A 1992 expansion added office space and the plant’s fabrication shop.

Buildings aren’t the only resource.

“We have almost 100 vehicles on the road,” Spaeder said.

Growing up in the business

Spaeder was 6 or 7 when he started sweeping floors at the plant, threading pipe and putting fittings away.

“The highlight of our years was when we became 14, we got working papers and we moved up to the big money, to like $1.25 an hour,” Spaeder said laughing.

“From there, I went from high school and became Changing with the a laborer, went into the times pipe fitter’s apprenticeship, then I became Spaeder said one a foreman and then I of the best ways his

company has evolved and remained successful is by taking care of its customers.

“Erie is not a big area, so you have to take care of your customers whatever their needs are,” he said. “You evolve with them.”

The company has been able to sustain its growth, in part, because management has never been afraid to try new things, Spaeder said.

“We stay up on our technology. In the business, we are in the forefront of the technology in the construction business,” he said.

Spaeder said his crews handle service projects up to about a 100-mile radius of Erie, industrial work within about a 200-mile radius, and commercial plumbing and HVAC projects within a 70- to 80-mile radius.

His company’s employment has grown been about 10 percent annually.

“We don’t do massive hirings and we don’t do massive layoffs,” Reber said.

As Spaeder and Reber evaluate their company’s future, they plan to develop a leadership team that will “take over for the third generation of our family,” Spaeder said.

“We have to develop a leadership team that we hope will continue this operation,” he said.

“Carrying on the legacy.

That’s five to 10 years off.”

Ron Leonardi can be reached at 870-1680 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/ETNLeonardi.

The Wm. T. Spaeder Co., 1602 E. 18th St., in Erie. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Jay Spaeder, CEO of the Wm. T. Spaeder Co. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

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From Page N1

was a project manager/ estimator.”

Spaeder knew he wanted to continue in the family business, but did not envision running the company some day.

“I had a good mix of experiences,” he said.

“I thought I’d be in the field all the time. In the family business, you go where you are needed.

I was asked to do some things that might have been over my head but you take on the challenges and do it.”

Spaeder and Reber are cousins and grew up working together in the family business.

Reber, who has been with the company since 1991, got her start cleaning offices on the weekends.

“We were all raised in the business because we all had a parent that worked in the business,” Reber said. “My mother was the corporate secretary and did all the administrative work for her generation. We kind of each followed in our parents’ footsteps.

“Our families are very grounded people,’’ she said. ”None of us were raised in palaces and none of us were taught to expect to live a life of luxury. I think as a family and as a company we’re very down to earth and I think it helps us with our employees and understanding our business better. Our employees are a huge part of our success. They bring an enormous amount to us.”

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Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

ERIE GROUPS HELP FUND REVITALIZATION

Charles “Boo” Hagerty, left, chief development officer of the Hamot Health Foundation, and David Gibbons, UPMC Hamot president, talk with Erie Community Foundation President Mike Batchelor, right, on Erie Gives Day on Aug. 13. [GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

By Matthew Rink Erie Times-News

For the Erie Community Foundation, there was no better way to start the year then with a string of 20s to end 2019.

“We had what we call a 20, 20, 20, 20 year,” President Mike Batchelor said of 2019. “It was pretty amazing. We had new gifts of more than $20 million. We had grants of more than $20 million. Our assets went up by more than $20 million and we created more than 20 new endowment funds. So going into 2020, that makes us optimistic that we can be helpful.”

Another big achievement: The Erie Community Foundation’s annual Erie Gives campaign, a 12-hour online fundraiser that benefits local nonprofits of all sizes and missions, set another record in 2019, raising $5.53 million from 8,958 donors for 391 participating nonprofits.

In his 30 years on the job, Batchelor has never felt so excited about the foundation and the direction of the city and county.

“I've frankly never been more optimistic about our community's future,” Batchelor said.

This year, the Erie Community Foundation will continue to advance new initiatives it unveiled in recent years.

Those initiative fall into three categories: First, it has doubled its small grant gift-making pool from $500,000 to $1 million.

Second, it’s dedicating $15 million to three to five transformational grants.

The first was announced in September — a $6 million donation to a $26 million project to expand the Magee Womens Research Institute in Pittsburgh to UPMC Hamot’s Magee-Womens Hospital in Erie.

UPMC, Penn State Behrend, Hamot Health Foundation and the Magee Womens Research Institute are contributing $5 million each.

“We want projects with strong local champions that can leverage our money by several multiples and implement a project that could change the trajectory of our community,” Batchelor said. “It's a very high bar. We are thrilled about our first grant. We think it meets all those tasks.”

Those funds will also be dedicated to projects that would transform

neighborhoods, strengthen the downtown core and improve community health outcomes. The foundation received 25 ideas that it has since narrowed down.

The third endeavor is a $10 million commitment to mission-related investments. The foundation is using principal, instead of earned interest, from its endowment to make those investments, a departure from past practice.

It granted the Housing and Neighborhood Development Service $500,000 for its purc h as e o f t h e i c on i c Boston Store last year.

The foundation will also continue to work with partners like the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority on projects such as the Union City Historic Preservation Plan, which received $625,000 last year through ECGRA’s Mission Main Street fund and the Erie Community Foundation’s Shaping Tomorrow fund, and the new Erie Center for Arts and Technology.

The Erie Community Foundation is providing ECAT $1.5 million and ECGRA is adding $500,000 so that ECAT can rehabilitate the former Wayne School building.

ECGRA Executive Director Perry Wood noted that the agency, charged with distributing $4.5 million of gaming revenue annually, has reached a level of “stability” and “accomplishment” after 10 years in operation.

An impact study released in the fall notes that ECGRA has generated $128 million in economic impact and created nearly 850 jobs.

“The board is happy with it and I know elected officials are happy with it and the communities that we're serving are happy with it,” Wood said of the ECGRA model. “And that's a really good place to be after you've invested $50 million in the community and had 10 years under your belt to work toward the most effective revitalization models in the United States.”

ECGRA has refined and expanded some of its signature grant programs in recent years in hopes of jump starting revitalization projects across the county.

It’s also continued to build its Lead A s s e t s E n d o w m e n t, which funds nine nonprofits such as the Erie Art Museum and Erie

Zoological Society. The fund has grown to $13.9 million and grants are now made using interest from the endowment.

One program, Renaissance Block, aided 15 neighborhood groups and municipalities in revitalization efforts last year. The program allows up to $5,000 to be spent per property on exterior improvements in a designated area.

Our West Bayfront, for example, received $100,000 last year to implement improvements aimed at preserving neighborhood character and improving safety and walkability in an area around Gridley Park and a four-block area nearby.

“They're working heavily with the university (Gannon) as well as the residents,” Wood said of Our West Bayfront. “They're revitalizing the Eighth Street commercial corridor as well as the surrounding neighborhoods. They truly get the synergy that needs to be created between Renaissance Block and commercial corridors. We are cheerleaders just as much as we are funding supporters.”

ECGRA requires recipients to match their grants dollar for dollar.

Wood has said frequently that such a model has “unleashed capital” and that the overwhelming response from the community is a “sign of pent-up demand.”

In coming months, ECGRA will be working with the borough of North East, multiple community organizations and Mercyhurst University on ways to market downtown North East and the Mercyhurst North East campus, which the university intends to vacate and sell following the 2021 spring semester.

“The idea there is to take the revitalization process to the next level by really wrapping as many resources around a community like North East as we can,” he said.

“If this is successful and we're able to effectively get a priority list in place and start advocating for funding of those priorities alongside the funding that ECGRA is putting in, I think we’ll have a new model for dealing with the revitalization process.”

Matthew Rink can be reached at 870-1884 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/ETNrink.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

N3

N4

Sunday, February 16, 2020

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Erie Times-News | GoErie.com

A YEAR AFTER WABTEC WORK AND INNOVATION CONTINUE

Wabtec has been at work over the past few months on what could prove to be a significant next step for freight locomotives. The newly developed FLX Drive locomotive is a battery electric locomotive that uses no diesel engine. Energy captured from braking can be used to recharge the massive 2.4-megawatt battery system. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

About FLX Drive

By Jim Martin jmartin@timesnews.com

The honeymoon between Wabtec and its workforce wasn’t what either party would have hoped for.

A day after the Pittsburghbased company took over GE Transportation on Feb. 25, the 1,700-member union workforce was walking the picket line.

Today, nearly a year after that rocky start, things have returned to what seems like normal at Erie’s largest industrial employer, despite a recent layoff that cut nearly 100 hourly workers.

“We have made great strides in terms of integrating our culture,” said Alan Hamilton, a longtime GE Transportation engineer who is now vice president of engineering for Wabtec.

Merging cultures isn’t the only thing taking place behind the walls of the 431acre facility, which straddles the city and Lawrence Park Township.

Workers in Erie are still building locomotives, remanufacturing old ones and building drive motors for giant trucks used in the mining industry.

But it’s not all business as usual.

The successor to GE Transportation, which created the environmentally-friendly Evolution locomotive, has been at work over the past few months on what could prove to be a significant next step for freight locomotives.

The newly-developed FLX Drive locomotive, designed and built in Erie, is a battery electric locomotive that’s built without a diesel engine.

Instead, Hamilton explained, the electric locomotive operates as part of a hybrid train that might include three or four diesel locomotives pulling a series of freight cars.

By using the company’s Trip Optimizer, a fuel-saving cruise-control system, Wabtec can harness energy captured from braking and use it to recharge the massive 2.4-megawatt battery system.

Hamilton said the energy from the FLX Drive locomotive, built in partnership with BNSF railroad, can improve fuel economy of a train by 10 to 15 percent.

According to Wabtec, the FLX Drive battery locomotive program is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide program that puts billions of cap-and-trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy and improving public health and the environment.

The Water Street entrance to the Wabtec Corp. plant in Lawrence Park Township. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Alan Hamilton, vice president of engineering for Wabtec Corp. [FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-

Scott Slawson, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. [FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-

NEWS]

NEWS]

Depending on need, the electric locomotive could also be used to pull a train, almost silently, through a city or provide extra power climbing a grade.

The locomotive, which has been tested on the company’s test track that stretches from Lawrence Park to Harborcreek Township, is scheduled to be tested later this year in California.

Although it’s still a prototype, Hamilton believes that the FLX Drive could become increasingly important to

the company’s future.

“I think in the next 10 years we are going to see a big push toward these types of electric strategies,” he said. “We are already seeing it in our personal lives.”

At a time when demand for new locomotives has slowed, Wabtec engineers and testers in Erie and engine builders in Grove City are working to extend the lives of older, less efficient FDL locomotive engines that have been in service for 15 years or more.

Hamilton said new equipment, designed in Erie, can be added that boosts the fuel efficiency of those old engines by 5 percent.

A year ago, Wabtec CEO Rafael Santana talked about the company’s hopes for developing a western Pennsylvania or Interstate 79 strategy, linking headquarters in Pittsburgh with plants in Grove City in Erie.

The strategy of further developing those locations, where the company has about 3,600 employees,

hasn’t changed, Hamilton said.

“Erie remains a design hub and a very important piece of our business,” he said.

The union workforce in Erie, which now numbers between 1,500 and 1,600, already has seen some evidence of the company’s willingness to bring more work to Erie.

Scott Slawson, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, said Wabtec already has shifted some work to Erie after closing its MotivePower plant last year in Boise, Idaho.

Like Hamilton, Slawson said the past year brought healing for a labor-management relationship that got off to a rough start.

“It’s a different company.

There is no two ways about it,” Slawson said. “I think there are some issues we are working through together.

It’s a feeling-out process.”

But there are encouraging signs.

Following a slowdown, Slawson said the work schedule for 2020 looks a bit busier.

Whatever challenges the union and management might have gone through, Slawson said he believes that Wabtec has a certain faith in the capabilities of its massive Erie plant, the largest worldwide facility for a company with 27,000 employees.

“Their interest in Erie is long-term,” he said. “I don’t think they plan on going anywhere. Let’s start trusting in each other to do the right thing moving forward.”

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter. com/ETNMartin.

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

N5

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE LEADER GRAPHICS OFFERS UNUSUAL MIX OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Leader Graphics owner Pat Ott, 49, is shown at the Erie printing company in January. While expanding his business, Ott added PA Pelts, offering custom clothing crafted from pelts. Ott is wearing a coat made there for a customer. [GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

By Madeleine O'Neill Erie Times-News

There’s a lot going on at the Leader Graphics building on Hess Avenue.

More than just the printing that makes up the heart of the business — although there’s plenty of that happening.

There’s also embroidery.

Trophy engraving. Custom uniforms. Wall graphics and vehicle wraps. And perhaps the most unusual side-gig of all: PA Pelts, a business that will transform animal pelts into a custom hat or other item of clothing.

Pat Ott, the man who owns it all, calls Leader Graphics a one-stop shop. With each addition to the business, the phrase adds new meaning.

“People come in and they don’t realize how many different things we have to offer,” Ott said.

Although’s he’s been in the printing business for about 15 years, Ott, 49, started the business three years ago under the name Leader Graphics, at 1107 Hess Ave. Leader Graphics produces a wide array of marketing materials for clients ranging from national auto companies to local universities.

The company recently applied a school-themed wrap onto a Gannon University bus, for example.

The diverse array of printers and other equipment on-site at Leader Graphics allows the company to meet just about any customer’s needs, Ott said.

“I’m a big-time problemsolver,” he said.

Ott has also found several opportunities to expand his business.

When the Erie Sport Store closed in 2018, Ott bought

Anna Lindvay, 31, assembles sign packages being shipped nationwide to auto dealers from printing company Leader Graphics in Erie. For fun, Lindvay stacked the signs in a spiral pattern. [GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

its embroidery and trophy division and brought over several employees to his shop.

Lori Welch, 57, came from the Erie Sport Store to Leader Graphics, where she works as an embroidery technician.

She said she was happy to be able to continue with the work she did at Erie Sport Store.

“I like doing what I do,” she said. “A lot of people followed us here,” she said of former Erie Sport Store’s customers.

Taking on the Erie Sport

Store’s embroidery and trophy business brought a new client base to Leader Graphics, Ott said. The company now produces sports uniforms and other apparel and offers trophy engraving.

“It was a perfect fit for us,” he said of the acquisition.

Why does he keep adding to the business?

“It all serves the customer, whether it’s a corporate company or a high school or a college,” Ott said. “Any business that’s out there can come into our facility and take advantage of all the different departments that we have.”

Then there’s PA Pelts, which Ott describes as more of a hobby. He has a background in hunting, trapping and fishing, and got into the fur business when people began asking him for help handling pelts.

The pelts, and the objects into which they’ve been crafted, sit in a side room at the Leader Graphics building. Hats, jackets and other clothing and household items are among the possible final products.

Ott said PA Pelts was another good fit for his business because he had the

MORE ONLINE See more photos from Leader Graphics: www.GoErie.com/Photos

equipment on hand to sew the furs into apparel.

“It goes along with what we do,” he said. “Fur’s just another extension of fabric.”

Madeleine O’Neill can be reached at 870-1728 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNoneill.

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APPRENTICES ARE BACK ON THE JOB TOOLING INDUSTRY RETURNS TO ITS ROOTS TO TRAIN NEW WORKERS

By Valerie Myers vmyers@timesnews.com

Apprenticeshipsaremaking a comeback in the tooling and machining industry in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Shops growing sales are having a hard time finding skilled employees and are working with the Meadville-based Northwestern Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Tooling and MachiningAssociationtotrain apprentices. The association providesonlinecourseworkfor toolmakerandCNCmachinist apprentice programs. Local companies provide on-thejob training.

Ashortageofskilledworkers isoneofthetopchallengesthat local tool shops face, according to “Trends in the Tooling and Machining Industry of Crawford County, Pennsylvania,” released in August by Allegheny College’s Bruce R. Thompson Center for Business & Economics.

Nineteen apprentices currently at work at 14 Erie and Crawford companies through the NTMA program are helping to fill that skills gap, said TamiAdams, executive director of the five-county NTMA chapter. About 25 percent of the chapter’s member companies participate in the apprenticeship program.

“Many companies have a student that they’re bringing in and trying out to see if they have mechanical aptitude and the willingness to learn and work overtime,” Adams said.

“When they find them, they canputthemonasapprentices who earn while they learn.”

Companies provide 8,000 hours of on-the-job training over four years. The association provides 576 hours of classwork.

There are 15 additional, company-sponsored apprentice programs in Erie County and two in Crawford County, according to the Pennsylvania Apprenticeship and Training Council.

Itoncewascommonfortool shops to operate their own apprentice programs. Most discontinued the programs over the years as trained toolmakerswent to work forother shops and as shops focused on filling orders, according to the Allegheny study.

Now shops are returning to apprentice programs to train workers.

StarnTool&Manufacturing Co., in West Mead Township, near Meadville, turned business away in recent years becauseofashortageofworkers to replace retirees. It now has three apprentices on the job.

“It was very frustrating to have to turn work down after the manufacturing economy had been a little soft for a while,” company Executive Vice President Greg Wasko said. “We were missing opportunities because we didn’t have the capacity to accept new work. We had the machinery to do additional work but not the people.

“So we decided to home grow them,” he said.

The company aggressively recruits employees at trade organizations, schools and jobfairsandhelpsfacilitatethe NTMA apprentice program.

Promising students are offeredsummerjobsfollowing theirjunioryearofhighschool.

Those who are successful are invitedbacktoworkinacooperative program through their senior year. Workers who successfully complete the co-opprogrammaybeoffered apprenticeships.

ShelbyAnthony,20,a ConneautAreaSeniorHighSchool graduate, is in her second year as a toolmaker apprentice at Starn.She’salsolearningother operations, including CNC lathes and mills.

Ben Rockwell, 18, calibrates a 5-axis CNC mill, Jan. 24, at Starn Tool & Manufacturing Co. in West Mead Township, Crawford County.

Rockwell, a Saegertown High School graduate, recently began an apprentice program at the manufacturing company.. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Greg Wasko, 59, is the executive vice president of Starn Tool & Manufacturing Co. in West Mead Township, Crawford County. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

“I’m looking forward to getting experience a college degree (would offer) without the massive amount of debt that college brings,” Anthony said.

Another Conneaut Area graduate, Trent Zolnai, 20, is a CNC machinist apprentice at Starn. Saegertown High SchoolgraduateBenRockwell, 18,isjustbeginninganapprenticeship with the company.

Thecompanysofarhasbeen pleased with the young workers it’s found, Wasko said.

“You hear people in the industry complain that ‘kids these days’ aren’t capable or interestedinworking,”Wasko said. “There are brilliant kids out there with a good work ethic. You just need to get out of your office and go find them.”

Workers leaving once they’re trained shouldn’t be an issue, Wasko said.

“I hear some shops say that they get someone trained and then someone else hires them for $1 an hour more,” Wasko said.“That’saprettynegative, pessimistic way to look at it.

Along the way, the apprentice is very valuable and is producingforus.Andifwetreatthem rightandgivethemopportunities, we have confidence, and wehaveevidence, thatthey’re notgoingtogolookforanother job.”

Starn Tool & Manufacturing is 75 years old this year.

It makes tools and components for the robotics, aerospace, military, commercial products, machine manufacturing, automotive and medical industries.

Valerie Myers can be reached at 878-1913 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.

Twitter.com/ETNMyers.

Shelby Anthony, 20, checks the clearances on a manufactured part on Jan. 24 at Starn Tool & Manufacturing Co. in West Mead Township, Crawford County. Anthony, a Conneaut Area Senior High graduate, is in her second year of an apprenticeship at the company. The local tooling industry is having a difficult time finding skilled workers, so Starn is training its own. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Starn Tool & Manufacturing Co., shown on Jan. 24, is located at 20524 Blooming Cvalley Road in West Mead Township, Crawford County. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Erie Times-News | GoErie.com |

Sunday, February 16, 2020

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SURVEY SAYS: TOOLING INDUSTRY IS ROBUST

By Valerie Myers vmyers@timesnews.com

Trends and policies that Allegheny College economist Stephen Onyeiwu perceived as likely threats to Crawford County’s signature tool and machining industry turned out to be largely toothless.

Onyeiwu’s most recent study of the industry, “Trends in the Tooling and Machining Industry of Crawford County, Pennsylvania,” released in August, paints a positive picture of the industry and its future.

The study is based on surveys of local tool shops and additional research

by Onyeiwu and senior economics students Gillian Greene and Matthew Massucci.

Here are some of the findings: • The industry has beaten back foreign competition that two decades ago closed shops and eliminated jobs.

“One of the excitements that we found in this study is that, for the first time, nobody mentioned the C word,” meaning China, Onyeiwu said.

“Work and jobs that went to China in the past are coming back.”

That “big, big, big turnaround,” Onyeiwu said, is because the price gap between local and Chinese products has narrowed, it takes considerable time to receive work from China, and the quality of local products is superior.

• Sales rose 23 percent over the past five years.

• Diversification also rose.

It wasn’t uncommon two decades ago for shops to have one or two customers.

Shops today have an average of three dozen.

One of the main shop floors is shown, Jan. 24, 2020, at Starn Tool & Manufacturing Co. in West Mead Township, Crawford County. The local tooling industry is robust, according to several local surveys. [CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

• None of the local tool shops participating in the study said they plan to lay off workers anytime soon.

• Local tool shops are paying as much as 25 percent more for materials since President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on foreign

steel and aluminum in 2018.

In most cases, they have been able to pass increased costs on to customers.

• There’s been no real increase in employment to keep pace with increased sales, due partly to a lack of skilled workers and to

increased automation.

• Entry-level wages have remained relatively stagnant over the years and also may contribute to a scarcity of new workers.

“New hires at tool and die shops earn almost the same wage rate as people

who work at McDonald’s, Home Deport, a gas station or Walmart,” Onyeiwu said.

“And they really don’t need to learn a lot for those jobs.”

Toolmakers, though, earn more money as they learn new skills, he said.

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