Realm Winter 2020 - The Journal for Queen City CEOs by Cincinnati Magazine

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

04 LETTER FROM JILL MEYER

PRESIDENT AND CEO Jill P. Meyer

08 BY THE NUMBERS

THE JUMP 12 LOGISTICS TARGETING CINCINNATI

Amify moves into the region to service Amazon retailers.

TAKING CARE

14 LEADERSHIP ELECTION ADJUSTMENTS Four storylines for business leaders to watch following the local and national election outcomes.

16 TECHNOLOGY BIG DATA Alex Yastrebenetsky and InfoTrust give back as they scale up.

18 PHILANTHROPY GETTING CREATIVE ArtsWave supports arts groups during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

PG. 18

C I N C I N N AT I USA REGIONAL CHAMBER

2020 election results across the region

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Brendon Cull

10 MEET RAUL VILLAR JR.

VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Danielle Wilson

CEO of Paycor

TRAFFIC MANAGER Tracey Brachle BOARD CHAIR Molly North, President and CEO, Al. Neyer

MANUFACTURING Meyer Tool takes a holistic approach to business.

CHAMBER OFFICE 3 E. Fourth St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 579-3100 All contents © 2020 Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. The contents cannot be reproduced in any manner, whole or in part, without written permission from the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.

22 REAL ESTATE WHY SALES ARE UP Robin Sheakley on home trends during the pandemic.

24 HEALTHCARE HEALTHY START(UP) SoCap Accelerate pumps new life into medical innovation.

26 FOOD &

DEEP DIVES

FLAVOR FULL

Karrikin Spirits navigates pandemic ups and downs.

WITH AMAZON, THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

BEVERAGE

PG. 58

PG. 29

As work continues on Amazon’s $1.5-billion air freight hub at CVG, opportunities grow for local suppliers and partners.

BANKING LEADERS FOCUS ON THE FUTURE Six regional bank market leaders discuss pandemic pivots, tech advances, and their commitment to the community. 58 PHOTO ESSAY: FC CINCINNATI Behind the scenes as West End Stadium construction continues.

62 ASK ME ABOUT Going deeper with Jeremy Vaughan of Ernst & Young, Renee Mahaffey Harris of the Center for Closing the Health Gap, and Wym and Jan Portman with the CROWN trail network.

A CULTURE SHOCK FOR THE FUTURE OF OFFICE SPACE Commercial real estate experts look at how ofﬁce space trends are changing in the short term and perhaps in the long run.

Holiday fun at Newport on the Levee.

WALNUT HILLS IS TURNING THE CORNER

O N T H E C O V E R : P H O TO G R A P H BY RIC K LOHRE / RET O U CH I N G BY PAT R I CK W H I T E

One of Cincinnati’s oldest urban neighborhoods is re-emerging after embracing inclusive and diverse development.

64 BACK PAGE

( T O P ) P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY A G A R , ( M I D D L E ) R E N D E R I N G C O U R T E SY C V G , ( S TA D I U M ) P H O T O G R A P H BY C H R I S V O N H O L L E

PUBLISHER Ivy Bayer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Fox DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Amanda Boyd Walters ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lauren Fisher DESIGN DIRECTOR Brittany Dexter ART DIRECTORS Carlie Burton, Zachary Ghaderi, Jen Kawanari, Paisley Stone, Emi Villavicencio, Stephanie Youngquist ART INTERN Emma Theis ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Laura Bowling, Paige Bucheit, Julie Poyer SENIOR MANAGER, SPONSORSHIP SALES Chris Ohmer PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Vu Luong EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING Email cmletters@cincinnatimagazine.com Website cincinnatimagazine.com Phone (513) 421-4300 Subscriptions (800) 846-4333

P H O T O G2020 R A P H BYREALM TKTKTK 3 WINTER

WELCOME

ome of you know that my favorite celebratory drink is a glass of champagne. From that, you can infer that my favorite holiday is New Year’s Eve. Like everyone, I’m looking forward to saying goodbye to much of what we collectively experienced in 2020. I’ll be more than ready to clink a glass and say “Bring on a New Year” when midnight rolls around this December 31. But before we pop the corks with dreams of vaccines, full stadiums, and big family gatherings dancing in our heads, we should stop and reﬂect on 2020. Throughout the year, I spoke with many of our region’s CEOs and was heartened by their instinct to be bold, willingness to help, and constant drive to learn from others. One CEO told me he was going forward with plans to open a new hotel. Another participated fully in difficult and challenging conversations about race, equity, and justice and was changed by them. Another, fortunate to lead a business that grew even during the pandemic, just kept asking me, What can I do to help? In 2020, we were called on to manage crises (yes, plural) while remaining humble in the face of events beyond our control. Now we commit ourselves to building a Future City that honors what we learned in 2020 and places a bet on what we can become in 2021. Let’s remember that this difficult year will make 2021 even better than we could ever have imagined. That, and a glass of bubbly. Happy New Year!

JILL P. MEYER jill.meyer@cincinnatichamber.com

4 REALM FALL 2020

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THE JUMP

MEYER TOOL EXPANDS HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING JOBS ACROSS THE REGION. P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY M E Y E R T O O L

Get a jump on news about SoCap Accelerate, ArtsWave, Amify, and Karrikin Spirits. Learn about new pandemic-era home trends and how the 2020 election could impact business priorities. Get to know innovative CEOs Raul Villar Jr. and Alex Yastrebenetsky.

WINTER 2020 REALM 7

THE JUMP

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION The entire Cincinnati region

2020 Election

TRUMP/PENCE 55.8%

BIDEN/HARRIS 41.8%

How the 16-county Cincinnati region voted in the November 2020 election. NOTE

OTHER 2.4%

2016 Election

2020 election results were unofficial at press time and are subject to change when votes are certified.

Statistics provided by the Cincinnati USA Chamber’s Center for Research & Data from data collected by county Boards of Election.

BLUE COUNTY IN A RED REGION

CLINTON/ KAINE 37.4%

Hamilton County is the only county in the region that Joe Biden won (56.5-41.0%). Half of all votes in the region for Biden came from Hamilton County. Only 27% of the region’s votes for Donald Trump came from Hamilton County.

Not really. Biden gained 33,000 votes on Trump compared to Clinton’s performance in 2016. Of Biden’s increase, Hamilton County provided 23,000 alone. The suburbs performed slightly better for Biden, but were still dominated by Trump.

Biden won 23,000 more votes in Hamilton County than Clinton won in 2016. Trump won about the same number as he did in 2016.

Billed as a potential toss-up race, U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot’s re-election campaign was not that competitive. 2016

STEVE CHABOT (R) 57.6% V. MICHELE YOUNG (D) 39.7%

2018

STEVE CHABOT (R) 51.0% V. AFTAB PUREVAL (D) 46.6%

2020

STEVE CHABOT (R) 51.9% V. KATE SCHRODER (D) 44.5%

Warren County was the difference-maker yet again.

(Warren County vote only.)

2016 2018 2020 8 REALM WINTER 2020

OTHER 7.3%

DID THE SUBURBS TURN BLUE?

In the region’s other 15 counties combined, Trump won 64.5-33.1%.

FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT IN OHIO

TRUMP/PENCE 55.3%

VOTER TURNOUT

The entire Cincinnati region

Over 60,000 more votes were cast in 2020 than 2016

69.2% 2020 Election

(Note: This number will likely increase slightly as provisional and absentee ballots get counted and certified.)

2016 Election: 69.3% CHABOT 73.6% V. YOUNG 26.3% CHABOT 65.7% V. PUREVAL 32.2% CHABOT 64.8% V. SCHRODER 31.3%

Southwest Ohio counties had 72.4% of registered voters cast a ballot, Southeast Indiana counties had 67.9%, and Northern Kentucky counties had 59.6%.

ECONOMIC GROWTH STARTS HERE. • For every dollar spent on training employees at Cincinnati State’s WDC, businesses receive a $33 ROI. • 85% of Cincinnati State’s alumni remain in the regional economy. • Cincinnati State and its students support one out of every 134 jobs in the area.

$75 million Operations Spending Impact

$10.3 million Student Spending Impact

$571.9 million Alumni Impact

Cincinnati State has been a part of every economic recovery in our region for over 50 years and will continue to lead workforce development through exceptional real-world, hands-on learning, quality transfer education and technical training. Start by accelerating the potential of your employees through our Workforce Development Center (WDC): Amy Waldbillig, Vice President, Workforce Development (513)569-1643 or amy.waldbillig@ cincinnatistate.edu

$657.2 million TOTAL IMPACT

10,303

JOBS SUPPORTED data was derived independently by EMSI

CINCINNATISTATE.EDU (513) 861-7700

THE JUMP

TALENT

FAST AND FURIOUS

RAUL VILLAR JR. IS SUPERCHARGING GROWTH AT PAYCOR THANKS TO RESILIENT STAFF AND CLIENTS.

— BILL THOMPSON

It took Paycor 30 years to post $300 million in revenue. When Raul Villar Jr. joined the company in July 2019, he planned to double that number in three years—until the pandemic changed everyone’s plans. “We’re still growing the company now, it’s just 12 months behind where we wanted it to be,” he says. “It’s literally a 12-month reset, that’s how we think about it. We had our two best sales months in the history of the company in September and October. There is demand in the market.” Bob Coughlin, who founded the Norwood-based human capital management ﬁrm in 1990, chose the former president and CEO of Utah-based AdvancedMD for “his industry experience, leadership capability, and understanding of what it takes to scale a successful, fast-growth company.” Coughlin, who remains actively involved as Board Chair, has said his goal is for Paycor to become a billion-dollar company. The pandemic hasn’t shaken Villar’s confidence in that vision for the private company, which has more than 2,050 employees (almost 1,300 in Cincinnati). “ The growth comes mainly through market expansion,” he says. “We were primarily a Midwestern company for many years but have expanded geographically over the past decade. We opened in California, the sixth-largest economy in the world today, with two sales teams in July, and we’re starting to see results there. “Like everyone else, we had a period of three or four months where demand was less than anticipated, but we’re coming out of that and seeing record demand. Our clients have been very resilient.” Villar isn’t the only new member of Paycor’s leadership team. Chuck Mueller was hired as Chief Revenue Officer, Brett Meager as Senior Vice President of Client Services, and Alice Greene as Chief Legal Ofﬁcer and Gen-

10 REALM WINTER 2020

eral Counsel. Promotions included Joe Taylor to Chief Technology Officer, Adam Ante to Chief Financial Officer, and John Warcop to SVP of Implementation. Villar didn’t know Coughlin personally before, but they had at least one thing in common: Each started his career at ADP (Automatic Data Processing), the New Jersey firm that’s one of the pioneers in the payroll and human resources industry. And Villar has leveraged Coughlin’s connections since moving to Cincinnati with his wife and teenage daughter. (They also have two older children.) “Obviously Bob has an enormous network in the area, and he continues to play a big role as chairman of the board.” Villar realizes that growing the company is Job 1. But he also knows that Coughlin’s creation is more than just a business. “Paycor is committed to being a great community partner,” he says. “It’s part of Bob’s legacy that we share. We’re fully committed to the city and maintaining our leadership of community events.”

“We had our two best sales months in the history of the company in September and October. There is demand in the market.”

P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY PAYC O R

Khora Restaurant | Kinley Hotel

Building Cool Sh*t For 90 Years And Counting

Great American Ball Park

The Seven Hills School | Schiff Center

DotLoop / Zillow

E-Commerce Distribution Facility

THE JUMP

LOGISTICS

AMIFY SETS UP SHOP IN CINCINNATI The forthcoming Amazon Prime Air hub at CincinnatiNorthern Kentucky International Airport, slated to open in 2021, is already attracting new business to the region. (See more on page 30.) In late 2019, Amify, a company that helps retailers sell direct to their consumers via Amazon, set up its second national location in a turn-of-thecentury ﬁrehouse in Walnut Hills. — L E Y L A S H O K O O H E

BULL’S EYE Featured prominently on a wall is a massive target. “Since it’s an old ﬁrehouse, that’s the old trampoline for when people had to jump from the second story,” says Sean Lee, Amify’s chief marketing officer in Cincinnati.

TALENT “For the roles we needed to ﬁll, Cincinnati was kind of a no-brainer to set up shop. We have the right talent and the right people to do this work since we’re a marketing and operations and advertising city,” says Lee.

SWEET Amify’s clients are varied, from premium outdoor clothing retailer Mountain Khaki to the historic local family business Doscher’s Candy.

WHERE’S THE FIRE? “We wanted to ﬁnd something that was creative, urban, and fun, not your stereotypical cubicle, carpet, tile office space,” says Lee. “The space in East Walnut Hills kind of checked all the boxes.”

12 REALM WINTER 2020

P H O T O G R A P H BY D E V Y N G L I S TA

WINTER 2020 REALM 13

THE JUMP

LEADERSHIP

How the 2020 election results could impact the region’s business priorities. —BRENDON CULL

ow that the 2020 campaign season is over, it’s a good time to take measure of how the highest turnout election in more than 100 years might inﬂuence the coming months and years. After hard-fought battles at the ballot box, it’s critical for business voices to stay engaged and build relationships with newly elected leaders. Here are four storylines to watch.

CAN THE CITY AND COUNTY TURN THE PAGE? From music venues to sewer pipes to streamlining basic services, the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County have rarely shied away from a ﬁght. Former Cincinnati Vice

Mayor Alicia Reece won the County Commission seat once held by the late Todd Portune, a dominant voice in local government for decades. Reece’s deep relationships with elected city officials may signal a change in how the city and

14 REALM WINTER 2020

county interact. Look for her to revisit the still unresolved Metropolitan Sewer District issue and be open to ﬁnding opportunities to align with the city on transportation and inclusion. Take note of her personal passion for tourism and cul-

tural activities, an important driver of talent attraction and regional growth.

INVESTMENTS GUIDED BY A PUBLIC TRANSIT USER America’s most famous train rider, President-Elect

Joe Biden, is promising a bold agenda for transportation investment that could boost efforts to improve transit and infrastructure locally. Biden counts many bigcity mayors as top advisors and has promised a bold agenda for cities. Given the recent Brent Spence Bridge closure, expect that he’ll take a look at it as a project of national signiﬁcance. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a close ally of Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, could be tapped as Secretary of Transportation. Garcetti was helpful in passing Issue 7 locally and has visited the region to advocate for transportation investments.

LEADER McCONNELL, STILL

A HIGH-PROFILE SHERIFF LOOKS TO LEAD

Incoming Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey won two difficult campaigns in 2020. She’s promised reform, and her lengthy New York Times proﬁle article in November puts her on the national map as a leading voice in law enforcement. McGuffey is a Leadership Cincinnati graduate, the ﬁrst sheriff to boast that distinction. Expect her to work to build relationships with business leaders as she attempts to expand the historic Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement to the rest of the county.

While many expected the U.S. Senate to ﬂip to Democrats, it appears that Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell will retain his role as the Majority Leader. Though his

Hamilton County will have two new leaders in Commissioner Alicia Reece (top at podium) and Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey (behind Reece to her left).

P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E SY ( M A I N ) A L I C I A R E E C E / ( B I D E N ) A L E X G A KO S / S H U T T E R S T O C K . C O M / ( M C c O N N E L L ) M A R K R E I N S T E I N / S H U T T E R S T O C K . C O M

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

cards are always kept close to his vest, one thing is clear: McConnell is keenly aware of the business community’s regional priorities, from CVG expansion to a permanent ﬁx for the Brent Spence Bridge.

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THE JUMP

TECHNOLOGY

DATA WITH A PURPOSE Alex Yastrebenetsky’s InfoTrust is a “big data” darling looking to give back as it scales up. –AIESHA D. LITTLE

16 REALM WINTER 2020

uring the tech recession of the early 2000s, the CEO of the company Alex Yastrebenetsky worked for flew into Cincinnati to announce that more than 200 of its employees were being laid off. At the time, he considered himself one of the lucky ones to still have a job at the end of the meeting. “It took me quite a few years afterwards to figure out what I wanted to do but, looking back, that was the day I realized I wanted to run my own business,” says Yastrebenetsky, founder and CEO of the digital analytics consulting, data governance, and technology company InfoTrust. Nearly 20 years later, InfoTrust is on the cutting edge of all things data, helping some of the largest Fortune 500 companies better understand who their online customers are, how to best engage with them, and how to collect their data while staying compliant with digital privacy laws. Next year, the company will launch InfoTrust Labs, an in-house innovation center where employees can experiment with disruptive technologies and learn the latest methodologies, systems, and processes. “Even though our clients are typically very large organizations, they’re all experimenting with new technologies and new processes to speed up bringing new products to market,” Yastrebenetsky says. “We want to become experts in innovation so not only can we innovate our own products and services, we can continue supporting our clients’ initiatives.” Over the years, Yastrebenetsky—who immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager from Kharkiv, Ukraine, and studied computer engineering at the University of Cincinnati— has built a strong sense of philanthropy into InfoTrust’s company culture. He recently released Crawl, Walk, Run: Advancing Analytics Maturity with Google Marketing Platform, which he co-authored with InfoTrust Chief Marketing Officer Michael Loban. The two are donating 100 percent of the book’s sales to the InfoTrust Foundation, which supports causes throughout the region, including Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The company celebrated the book’s launch by donating $20,000 to the nonprofit. The goal is to donate $1 million a year by 2025. “The focus of our growth will become not hitting vanity metrics that don’t really matter so much for a privately owned business, but what do we get to give, to contribute, as we hit different levels of revenue and profitability,” he says. “You always start by giving. You commit to giving to something that is so important to you that you cannot fail, and you grow into a person or an organization that can deliver on this giving promise.” In addition, InfoTrust is in the process of building a roadmap to partial employee ownership within the next couple of years. “We, as human beings, all want to have a purpose,” Yastrebenetsky says. “I think some of the happiest people in the world are those who get to work not because they have to pay the bills but because they realize their purpose day in and day out. They do what they’re passionate about.” I L LU S T R AT I O N BY Z A C H A RY G H A D E R I

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THE JUMP

GETTING CREATIVE IN A CRISIS

ArtsWave helps arts organizations “keep their pilot light on.” —SARAH M. MULLINS

Like chili and beer are woven into the fabric of the Queen City, the arts have become an essential part of Cincinnati culture. The arts industry boasts a $300-million economic impact from more than 200 small businesses and 10,000 employees, though the pandemic has wreaked havoc on them. ArtsWave, the region’s arts funding organization, estimates that $40 million has been lost in ticket

revenue, sponsorships, and contracts since Ohio’s and Kentucky’s shutdowns, leaving local creatives and organizations in dire straits. ArtsWave stepped up to deploy emergency funding to arts organizations, providing $2.4 million in grant payments, $300,000 in supplemental emergency grants, and bridge loans. Before even wrapping up its annual campaign, it launched the Arts

18 REALM WINTER 2020

Vibrancy Recovery Fund. “We knew that we had an immediate problem of raising enough money to at least ﬁll our grant-making hole for 2020,” says ArtsWave CEO Alecia Kintner, “let alone provide additional support that clearly was going to be needed.” With an ambitious $3 million goal, the Vibrancy fund focuses on sustainability, innovation, restructuring, and cultural diversity.

Kintner describes the emergency efforts as keeping the pilot light on for organizations. “There are a lot of ﬁxed costs that arts organizations have whether or not they’re performing,” she says. “Everything from mortgages, security, and insurance— just like in any household—and that’s before you take into account all of the creative workers in our arts and culture economy who may have been laid off or seen their contracts cut.” Despite the challenges, organizations are proving their ingenuity and innovation with socially distanced ballet at Sawyer Point, virtual concerts by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the Playhouse’s Monologues of Hope, a video series by local playwrights, among many other examples. Maintaining the city’s vibrant

Creating a Fabric ArtsWave supported an outdoor show at Washington Park featuring local artists of color.

arts scene is critical, says Steve Shifman, President and CEO of Michelman—it isn’t a frivolous luxury to have, but a crucial piece of the region’s economy. As a member of the Chamber’s Restart Task Force, he knows the importance of the arts. “From a business standpoint, if I am trying to attract people to join our company and move from outside of Cincinnati, one of the things that helps attract them

Signs of Hope Playhouse in the Park hosted virtual Monologues of Hope from local actors Candice Handy, Kevin Crowley, and others. Cincinnati Ballet (top left) performed outside at Sawyer Point.

is the arts,” says Shifman. “We punch well above our weight class here in Cincinnati. It’s really the arts I think that helps create this fabric of who we are.” Alongside pandemic responses, ArtsWave supports organizations and artists of color with $730,000 in funding—covering artist fees for the Black Lives Matter mural downtown; hosting Flow, An African American Arts Series; and partnering with P&G’s Cincinnati Music Festival to create an outdoor museum featuring local Black and Brown artists. Moving into 2021, the organization is committed to equity and inclusion in the arts. “It’ll be a really long time before we’re back in a position to be able to have audiences at full capacities inside of our venues,” says Kintner. “We’re coping and doing everything we can to provide different kinds of support now.”

P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E SY ( B A L L E T ) S A M A N T H A R I E S T E R A N D D A N I E L WA G N E R ; F I N D I N G O U R WAY ; C H O R E O G R A P H Y : S U Z E T T E B OY E R W E B B ; P H O T O G R A P H Y : H I R O M I P L AT T / ( O U T D O O R M U S E U M ) A G A R / ( M O N O LO G U E S O F H O P E ) C A N D I C E H A N DY I N “ J E L LY B E A N ” BY S A K I N A H H O F L E R , K E V I N C R O W L E Y I N “ B E L L A C I A O ” BY J O S E P H M C D O N O U G H .

PHILANTHROPY

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CO-HOST OF 2020 BOYD INTERNATIONAL AVIATION FORECAST SUMMIT First major in-person industry conference in Cincinnati in October 2020

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THE JUMP

MANUFACTURING

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS Meyer Tool takes a holistic approach with its customers and employees.

—LEYLA SHOKOOHE

Meyer Tool, the manufacturing company founded in 1951 and headquartered in Camp Washington, produces products for jet aircraft engines, power generators, and the like, but its focus goes beyond high-tech gadgets. “The reason we’re successful is our employees,” says Chief Operating Ofﬁcer and Vice President Beau Easton. “We have people with extreme longevity and tenure.” Founder Bud Meyer created Meyer Tool as a chop shop for customizing motorcycles before transitioning to tool and die work. Easton’s father, Arlyn Easton, after losing his plant manager job at GE, called on Bud, who gave the senior Easton space to house his electrical discharge machine. “Meyer Tool took off then [in the mid-1970s], when we became an agent production facility for General Electric,” says Beau Easton. The company’s niche is small-hole drilling, creating a cooling scheme for the parts they manufacture so they can withstand extreme heat, but they pride themselves on being a full-service operation. “We pretty much run the whole gamut of manufacturing,” says Easton. “We try to be a one-stop shop so [our customers] don’t have to go to additional supply-chain options, because if you’re trying to manage an entire supply chain with 20 vendors, the logistics become crazy. So we try and handle that under one roof.” To that end, Meyer Tool has two of its own proprietary apps for seamless workﬂow across its entire work-

20 REALM WINTER 2020

force, which numbers 1,600. The company co-locates with its customers at 13 facilities in North and South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Connecticut, New York, Canada, Poland, Cincinnati, and Kentucky. The latest facility is a new outpost near CVG in Erlanger, which will add 100 new aerospace jobs. “I would love to change the perception of manufacturing, and I’m on several boards where we’re trying to,” says Easton. “The reality is par-

ents and high school guidance counselors try to prep everyone to go straight to college. You come out with debt, and you’re not making what you can in manufacturing. We have great health care, and most of the companies I’ve worked with offer college tuition reimbursement.” Margo Watroba, who works in business strategy and government relations for Meyer Tool, says multiple employees have attained MBA degrees thanks to the company’s tuition reimbursement program—including her. “We have many people here who started on the ﬂoor, including Beau, and moved up within the company.” Meyer Tool partners with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Gateway Technical and Community College, and Cincinnati Works to bring potential manufacturing employees into the company. “Anything we can do to help people realize these are solid jobs,” says Easton. “It’s not a hot, sweaty environment where you’re lifting 50 pounds every ﬁve minutes and putting it in a furnace. It’s all computers and automation. One of our core values is, Make sure everybody’s taken care of.”

P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E SY M E Y E R T O O L

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THE JUMP

WHAT’S TRENDING THESE PANDEMIC-TRIGGERED HOME TRENDS SHOULD CONTINUE INTO 2021.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

As homeowners looked around during our new stay-at-home normal, they started noticing what they can and can’t do with their space. Here are four home trends that Sibcy Cline Realtors’ Robin Sheakley says became instantly popular and likely will have staying power in the new year.

A HOUSING BOOM LIKE NO OTHER

Here’s how the pandemic caused a surge in buying and selling homes across the region.

–SARAH M. MULLINS

t’s no secret the pandemic has forced us to adapt to new norms. But who saw a housing boom coming in the middle of lockdown? Homes are being snatched up within hours of hitting the market, says Robin Sheakley, president of Sibcy Cline Realtors, with Cincinnati among the hottest markets anywhere. “When the governor issued stay-at-home orders, you saw people really taking stock of their housing and understanding that if they’re going to be locked inside they want different things for their homes,” she says. “People were realizing their houses were too big, too small, too urban, too rural, perhaps too open, and perhaps too choppy.” If you stare at something long enough, it’s easy to notice the ﬂaws. And so homeowners started criticizing every crack in the ceiling, fault in their kitchen, and space they did or didn’t need. “We saw a huge trend in home repair and home improvement,” says Sheakley. “And then a lot of people started realizing I’m ready for something different.” Residential sales halted in March, along with everything else, but sellers and buyers came out of the woodwork starting in June. Data from ShowingTime, a management technology platform, indicates that weekly showings across Ohio were as much as double the same time the previous year. “There are plenty of stories of homes that were bought without people ever physically going in them, but purchased virtually,” says Sheakley. “With the amount of drone photography and videography now, there are all sorts of ways to get a really great sense of a property without standing there yourself.”

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Retreat-like baths: Bringing peaceful spaces into the home are at the top of many buyers’ wish lists. Think soaking tubs and serene colors that offer homeowners a spa experience. Dedicated office space: COVID-19 forced most to work from home on cue and families to adapt to digital learning, which Sheakley says have caused an increased interest in separate work spaces. “We’ve seen people converting bedrooms to offices a lot.” Outdoor entertaining space: Entertaining space is often a priority for prospective homeowners, but outdoor space is now a must. “People want to be outside,” she says. “They’re looking to be able to cook, serve, and entertain outdoors.” Downsizing: Homebuyers are opting for less land, less unnecessary space, and ways to reduce upkeep. “There are many people who have spent the past nine months looking around asking, Why do I have so much space?” says Sheakley. –S.M.M.

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THE JUMP icardo “Rico” Grant is no stranger to entrepreneurial culture. A long-time startup mentor with the nonprofit Cintrifuse, he founded CrownMob for the Black haircare marketplace in 2017. The mobile platform attracted 46,000 users in its two years and spawned a three-day conference/festival called Paloozanoire in 2019. Grant then took his startup know-how to Northern Kentucky University’s Institute for Health Innovation to help launch SoCap Accelerate, a new accelerator focusing on the healthcare industry. “My passion for innovation stems from my understanding of the need for fast change, the type of change that allows startups to win,” says Grant, who serves as SoCap’s executive director. “As a young founder, I participated in accelerators, and now having the opportunity to build one is a dream come true.” SoCap’s inaugural cohort kicked off in mid-October with the selection of five companies, ranging from those whose products are in the early stages of beta testing to those already generating sustainable revenue. Participants are EMDR VR (Cincinnati), a virtual reality therapy vehicle providing therapy to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome and anxiety disorders for medical practices and individuals without access; Kare Mobile (Louisville), a mobile van offering dental services; PopBase (Burbank, Calif.), an online learning platform focused on health education for children; STRE.ME (Fort Wayne, Ind.), an online software delivery platform aiming to improve patient satisfaction, outcomes, and hospital profitability; and Xen Mystic Pillow (Dover, N.J.), an orthopedic cushion product providing neck support with an adjustable surround system. The fast-paced six-week program builds a custom curriculum for participating companies to improve the most vulnerable areas of their businesses. Grant says SoCap is being intentional about changing the narrative of health and wellness in Northern Kentucky through the power of innovation. “There is no better time that now to focus on healthcare,” he says. “I have conversations with founders every day who are building mind-blowing solutions to real-world problems, and it’s the most refreshing aspect of entrepreneurship I’ve already been engaged with. My startup experience paired with the grit and hustle of awesome founders is why we’ll not only produce wins but change lives while doing it.” Unlike regular accelerators, SoCap does not engage with cohort companies for months at a time and does not make financial commitments in exchange for equity. The goal is to drive value to startups and founders who are passionate about the solutions they’re creating and, in turn, encourage healthcare companies to take a hard look at the gaps in their innovation needs and use SoCap’s cohort companies to fill those gaps. “As a new program,” Grant says, “ we have to show up to work every day and ensure that these companies come out on the other end of this experience as prepared as they deserve to be.”

HEALTHCARE

A HEALTHY START(UP) Ricardo Grant and SoCap Accelerate pump new life into healthcare innovation. –AIESHA D. LITTLE

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THE JUMP

FLAVOR FULL Since opening in December 2018, Karrikin Spirits Company in Fairfax has made a name for itself with distinct flavor profiles. “We’re not just a distillery,” says co-founder Jeff Hunt (on right with founding partner Mike Florea). “We’re a flavor house.” The company keeps tight control over all aspects of the alcohol-making process, from grain to glass, while offering a full dining menu with its own distinct flavors. —AIESHA D. LITTLE

FULL CIRCLE Karrikin’s 30,000-square-foot facility sits on the former land of a farmer who made corn whiskey in the early 1800s.

BE STILL MY HEART With its 1,000-gallon custombuilt copper still, the largest in Ohio, Karrikin makes 15 spirits, including vodka, rum, and agave (its version of tequila).

H2 WHOA The company uses “reverse osmosis” to strip incoming water of impurities and then adds specific salts and minerals to recreate global water profiles for better flavoring.

CHOW DOWN On the restaurant side, Chef Chris Davis pulls in seasonal menu items to complement Karrikin’s spirits.

OPEN AND SHUT Karrikin started making hand sanitizer when the pandemic shut down businesses in March, then reopened its outdoor patio in May. Hunt says he plans to focus more on carryout during the winter.

HAPPY WIFE, HAPPY LIFE Hunt created the company’s sparkling spirits line (spirits infused with soda and fruit juice) for his wife Cassandra, who doesn’t like beer or hard liquor.

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As the landscape changes, can you be the same yet different?

DEEP DIVE

FIRESIDE PIZZA HELPS BOOST ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IN HISTORIC WALNUT HILLS. P H O T O G R A P H BY L A N C E A D K I N S

Amazon Is Taking Off

Banks Focus on the Future

New Shocks in Office Space

A Neighborhood Renews

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DEEP DIVE

The Sky’s the Limit

hen Jeff Bezos visited the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport last year, he touched on a secret to Amazon’s rapid growth. “One of the great things about customers all over the world [is] they are divinely discontented,” he told the audience gathered for the ofﬁcial groundbreaking of the company’s air hub. “You give them the best service you can, but they always want a little more.” The company Bezos started in 1994 has been meeting customer demand for more and better service by shipping an almost unlimited menu of products to doorsteps quickly, consistently, and accurately. The billionaire business leader was at CVG to break ground on the construction of a central air service hub that will help fulﬁll Amazon’s new pledge to cut delivery times in half. “We’re going to move Prime from two-day to one-day, and this hub is a big part of that,” he said. Amazon’s plan to invest $1.5 billion to build its central U.S. air hub in Northern Kentucky came with the promise of creating more than 2,000 jobs. But economic development experts and Amazon-watchers agree the jobs are just a fraction of the return expected over the long term from Bezos’s investment. As one of the world’s fastest-growing companies continues to evolve, expand, and hasten the speed at which it ships products, its Greater Cincinnati air hub will play a central role in its growth. “I don’t think the region has fully realized the impact that the Amazon 30 REALM WINTER 2020

AMAZON’S 50-YEAR COMMITMENT TO AN AIR SERVICE HUB AT CVG CREATES UNTOLD OPPORTUNITIES FOR CINCINNATI-BASED SUPPLIERS AND PARTNERS. BY DAVID HOLTHAUS ILLUSTRATION BY COEN POHL

P H O T O G R A P H BY T K T K T K

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DEEP DIVE

Prime hub will have here,” says Kimm Lauterbach, president and CEO of Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) Cincinnati, the economic development agency for the 16-county, three-state region. The scale of Amazon’s phenomenal expansion, its reach into so many households in the U.S. and around the world, and its ambitious plans for continued growth all present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky to capitalize on the investment. Those plans have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which almost overnight drove rapid growth in e-commerce in general and

BUILDING THE FUTURE

Amazon will start opening its central U.S. air hub at CVG in mid-2021.

for Amazon in particular, as consumers abruptly turned to the safety of shopping online from home. “This is absolutely growth for our community,” says Lee Crume, president and CEO of Northern Kentucky Tri-ED, Northern Kentucky’s economic development organization. “It’s a big deal, not just because of the scope of it, the size of it, and the number of jobs that will come from it, but because this will be their principal

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location to do this type of work.” Amazon’s choice to locate in Northern Kentucky presents opportunities for a wide range of businesses to work as company suppliers or partners—opportunities some say are limited only by the imagination.

DEDICATED TO CUSTOMER SERVICE

O GET A HANDLE ON how this hub might grow and what it could mean for the region’s economy, it’s helpful to look at what it will mean for Amazon, which has disrupted the world’s retail economy in just a couple of decades. Largely because of Amazon, consumers now expect to be able to shop from their homes for electronics, clothing, housewares, books, music, and just about anything, and have it all delivered quickly. The company has single-handedly ramped up shoppers’ expectations for service and convenience and is constantly looking for ways to become more efﬁcient and satisfy its “divinely discontented” customers. In response to the pandemic-driven increase in business, Amazon says it’s created 175,000 new jobs worldwide since March, most of them for permanent full-time work. As long ago as 2005, Amazon promised two-day delivery for most of the country, which became the standard that all online customer service was measured against. The company raised the bar about a year ago, promising to halve the time it takes to get products to doorsteps for its Prime

members. More than 100 million Prime members typically pay $119 a year to enjoy free delivery and other Amazon services. To achieve that level of customer service, Amazon spends billions on shipping, an expense that’s grown rapidly. It shelled out $12.9 billion on shipping worldwide in the fourth quarter of last year alone, 43 percent more than it spent in the same quarter a year before. The company has traditionally relied on UPS and the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the products it sells from its online platforms, but it started building and investing in its own logistics network. The company now controls a fleet of planes, semi trucks, and delivery vans, and even operates ocean freight service between the U.S. and China. In June, Amazon said it would lease 12 additional Boeing 767s that had been converted to carry cargo, bringing its total air network to more than 80 jets. And last year, it announced plans to purchase 100,000 electric vans to be on the roads by 2024. Its new CVG air cargo hub will support a growing fleet of Prime Air aircraft and serve as a linchpin for Amazon’s one-day delivery. The deal reflects significant investment by Amazon at CVG and to the region. As Amazon moves in, this region becomes home to a company that’s grown by quantum leaps. The company employs more than 875,000 fulland part-time workers and has more than doubled the size of its workforce since 2016. It posted annual revenue of $280 billion last year, doubling sales in just three years. This level of supergrowth presents opportunity for businesses here. Some are already taking advantage of the opportunity, even as construction chugs along at the hub facility.

R E N D E R I N G C O U R T E SY CV G

In October, Amify, an Arlington, Virginia-based firm that helps brands sell via Amazon, announced it would open its second headquarters in Cincinnati, a decision directly linked to Amazon’s plans for CVG. Amify’s first headquarters is just blocks from Amazon’s future HQ2 in northern Virginia, and it followed the e-commerce company here. “Aligning ourselves with their commercial hub [in Arlington] and with their logistics hub made the most sense for our company,” says Sean Lee, a P&G veteran who is Amify’s chief marketing officer in Cincinnati.

Amify typically works with companies doing between $2 million and $100 million in sales through the Fulﬁllment by Amazon program, in which sellers store their products at Amazon fulfillment centers; when customers order, Amazon employees pack and ship them for a fee. It saves the sellers shipping time and expense and gives them access to Amazon’s customer base and brand identity. Amify works with these indirect sellers on advertising and other business services. “We help brands not only do their content and advertising

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Amify Chief Marketing Officer Sean Lee in the company’s Walnut Hills offices.

on Amazon, we help them run their logistics and forecasting and supply chain operations,” Lee says. “Being close to the hub here gives us a lot of that capability.” Amify has helped hundreds of brands realize their Amazon selling potential. Locally, the company has worked with Doscher’s Candy to sell its candy canes and French Chew taffy online. The company is currently leasing office space in an old Cincinnati firehouse in East Walnut Hills and is actively hiring. (See more of the office on page 12.) Amify received a Job Creation Tax Credit from the state of Ohio with its plan to add 90 new jobs and more than $8 million in new payroll over six years. “We’ll probably outgrow that space in a couple of years,” Lee says. In March 2019, the eight-year-old company announced that it had secured $5.8 million in venture capital funding in a round led by Houston-based Mercury Fund and joined by CincyTech, the Cincinnati-based public-private seed stage investor. Lee says he expects more companies like his to crop up here. “I think you’ll see Amazon advertising agencies pop up, similar to agencies that specialize in Google or Facebook ads,” he says. “You’ll see Amazon content agencies to populate all the content for Amazon storefronts and product pages.”

COZYING UP TO ONE OF THE BIGGEST FREIGHT SHIPPERS IN THE WORLD

H E N I T ’ S B U I LT out, Amazon’s CVG hub may have the capacity to hold 100 jets, a signiﬁcant ﬂeet that will demand lots of maintenance. “These are heavy freight aircraft,” says CincyTech CEO Mike Venerable. “These aircraft have maintenance requirements, avionics, training requirements. There’s

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a whole aviation support sector that will grow up around the airport. We’re already seeing it.” In January, FEAM Aero, a Miami-based aircraft maintenance and engineering company, opened a $19 million, 103,000-square-foot hangar at the airport and said it would create 100 more aircraft technician jobs with it. (FEAM Aero currently employs more than 200 certiﬁed technicians that maintain several cargo operators that support Amazon and DHL.) “It’s

“AMAZON IS A DISRUPTER AND A LEADER IN LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN TECHNOLOGY.”

the ﬁrst of several that I would love to see here,” airport CEO Candace McGraw said at a formal ribbon-cutting. “CVG is becoming the epicenter of e-commerce. We are all things cargo, and we continue to grow.” Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings said last year it expects to add nearly 600 jobs in Kentucky over the next decade. The carrier provides aircraft, pilots, and crew to cargo carriers and has committed to a long-term lease on a new ofﬁce and operations center in Erlanger that’s expected to open in 2021. Flying merchandise in and out of the airport dozens of times a day or more will demand air cargo shipping containers. Lots of them. In October, a family-owned business based in

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California, Satco, Inc., said it would invest $7.5 million to set up shop in Clermont County’s Miami Township. “We are excited for the opportunity to be closer to our customers,” CEO Mike Proctor said at the time of the announcement. Satco designs, engineers, builds, and repairs shipping containers, pallets, nets, and other equipment used by cargo carriers like FedEx and DHL. Its Miami Township location will be the site of a maintenance and assembly operation to serve its customers at CVG with that equipment. Satco is buying a 115,000-square-foot building where it will eventually employ 75 people, including some of its executive team. The state of Ohio approved a nearly 1.4 percent, eight-year Job Creation Tax Credit, with the expectation that company would generate $3.8 million in annual payroll. Satco has established facilities at major cargo airports around the country, including Louisville, where UPS maintains its Worldport hub, and Memphis, home to the worldwide hub for FedEx. Over the long term, the range and number of jobs created across the Cincinnati region because of Amazon’s outsized presence may seem less like a ripple effect and more like a tsunami. Its facility is expected to be a model of advanced logistics as the company continually seeks to cut its shipping times. “What kind of companies will want to be here to support advanced logistics, advanced packaging systems, sensors, robotics,” Venerable wonders. “If you’re part of that supply chain to enhance and scale up logistics, you obviously want to have a presence close to the biggest air freight shipper in the world.”

Lauterbach says Amazon will push the envelope on shipping efﬁciency, and that in turn will create opportunities. “Amazon is a disrupter and a leader in logistics and supply chain technology,” she says. “What does that mean in terms of research and development and enhancing technology?”

LESSONS FROM LOUISVILLE

M A Z O N ’ S 5 0 -Y E A R CVG lease virtually guarantees long-term opportunities to partner with the company. Kentucky already has a good model to study to get a picture of how a major air cargo hub can create opportunities for jobs and investments over the long haul. Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport is home to UPS Worldport, the center of the UPS worldwide air network and the largest automated package-handling facility in the world. It’s been called “a technological marvel,” “more amazing than Disney World,” and “a contender for the eighth wonder of the world.” Hyperbole aside, the facility is an example of how modern-day logistics has turned the act of getting packages to their destinations into an evolving science that demands innovation and expertise. The Worldport footprint at Louisville’s airport dwarfs the amount of acreage dedicated to passenger service there. More than 300 cargo flights arrive and depart every day carrying 2 million packages to be sorted and processed inside a facility the size of 90 football ﬁelds, using 155 miles of high-speed conveyors and “smart” labels read by overhead cameras. UPS began expanding in Louisville more than 20 years ago and has

consistently grown the facility. As recently as October 2019, UPS announced $750 million in new projects at the air hub, which are expected to create another 1,000 jobs over the next few years. The latest projects include a $220 million aircraft maintenance hangar, ramp and taxiway improvements, office building renovations, flight-training facility expansions, and new operations offices. UPS said it plans to add nearly 50 new 747-8s and 767s to its Worldport fleet by 2022. The long-term economic impact of this massive and growing operation has been substantial. Economist Manoj Shanker studied it at the request of UPS and prepared a report, some of which has been made available to the public. His consulting firm, Meench and Shanker, found that UPS has been responsible for bringing 62,000 direct and indirect jobs to Kentucky, representing a payroll of $2.5 billion

P H O T O G R A P H BY LU K E S H A R R E T T

annually. Of those jobs, 57,000 are in Louisville and surrounding counties— and only about a third are UPS jobs. “It’s not just sorting packages or delivering packages,” Shanker says. “These are really high-tech jobs.” UPS has invested $2.4 billion in construction projects in Louisville over those 20 years. The company also operates a ground package center there, called the Centennial Hub. In mid2019, a multi-phase expansion tripled its size and created 300 new full- and part-time jobs. Worldport’s size and scale attracted other businesses to set up shop around it, Shanker says. The Louisville operation includes UPS Supply Chain Solutions, which provides logistics services, order fulﬁllment, and related services to other businesses. Electronics manufacturers, for example, have opened nearby to store parts so they can make repairs on returned products and get

TECHNOLOGY MARVEL

UPS has invested $2.4 billion over the past 20 years to build out its Worldport air freight center at Louisville’s airport.

them back on their way to customers within hours, Shanker says. “They have a huge warehouse where about 100 companies keep parts, so when the order comes they’re within a couple of miles of the airport and can ship in just a few hours.” The promise of rapid global delivery from Louisville has also attracted medical and scientific firms that place a premium on quick turnaround times. One is Luxembourg-based Eurofins, which opened a $12.5 million central genomics laboratory near Worldport, housing more than 100 employees, including lab technicians, chemists, and biologists who will provide scientific analysis, DNA testing, and other laboratory services. The company also said one of its subsidiaries would set up a microbiology lab there to serve customers in the food sector. Gilles Martin, CEO of Eurofins’s Scientific Group, cited the area’s shipping and distribution infrastructure, its logistics services, and its “unparalleled accessibility to major U.S. cities and the presence of UPS and Fed Ex facilities” in its decision to expand in Louisville. Louisville instantly became a key player in the worldwide testing business thanks to Eurofins, which employs 45,000 people in 47 countries. “Our city’s central location, with world-class logistics, will help Eurofins get their products in, tested, and returned more efficiently than anywhere else,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said in 2016. CincyTech’s Venerable sees similar opportunities occurring around CVG. Businesses making critical parts or complex machinery that need to ship “just in time” would benefit from quick access to Amazon’s air hub, since they could get high-value/low-volume inventory to their customers in a hurry. “Those companies might want to be nearby,” he says.

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TAKEAWAYS THINKING LONG-TERM Amazon signed a 50-year lease and plans to invest $1.5 billion to build its U.S. air freight hub at CVG. ECONOMIC IMPACT The UPS air freight hub in Louisville is responsible for annual payrolls of $2.5 billion and 57,000 direct and spin-off jobs in that region. UNTOLD OPPORTUNITIES “If you’re part of the supply chain to enhance and scale up logistics,” says CincyTech’s Mike Venerable, “you obviously want to have a presence close to the biggest air freight shipper in the world.”

REDI’s Lauterbach also expects that a broad range of businesses will want to take advantage of CVG’s logistics capabilities. “It will be across the board,” she says. “Everything from supply chain companies to service Amazon to tech companies that are helping to drive research and innovation in logistics and distribution technology.” The decision by one of the world’s largest, fastest-growing companies to commit to a long-term presence here is also a signal to other businesses thinking about relocating and expanding and could inﬂuence their decisions. “It’s a fantastic calling card for us,” says Tri-ED’s Crume. “As we look to attract new companies to the community, it gives us a ﬂagship to say, Amazon has chosen to be here in a scaled-up way and be successful, and the same calculus can work for your organization.” As Lauterbach says, “It brings a sense of validation to our market that Amazon has gone through a process to evaluate and choose our region.”

MEASURING AMAZON’S ‘PAYCHECK EFFECT’ ON LOCAL ECONOMIES

N A D D I T I O N TO LO U I S ville’s UPS Worldport hub, Cincinnati region business leaders can cite another example of an innovative blue-chip company establishing a long-term presence in Kentucky and the ripple effects that ﬂow as a result. This one is closer to home. In 1988, Toyota Motor Corp. opened what eventually became its largest production facility in the U.S. in Georgetown, Kentucky, 70 miles south of Cincinnati. Originally built to produce one of the world’s top-selling cars, the Camry, workers currently

assemble the Camry, Camry Hybrid, Avalon, Avalon Hybrid, and Lexus ES models as well as four-cylinder and V6 engines, axles, and steering and engine components. The plant has the capacity to build 550,000 vehicles annually. The Georgetown plant has been a major factor in attracting nearly 200 Japanese-owned manufacturing, service, and technology-related facilities throughout the state, Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet ofﬁcials say. Kentucky’s automotive industry today claims more than 520 facilities employing more than 100,000 people full-time, the Cabinet says.

“THE KINDS OF INNOVATION THAT WILL COME OUT OF THIS REGION WILL BE UNPRECEDENTED.”

A 2016 report by The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) found that Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky had made investments in the state totaling $6 billion. Toyota invested an additional $670 million to headquarter its senior management of engineering, design, development, research and development, and North American manufacturing operations in Erlanger. That operation closed in 2017 as Toyota consolidated, after 20 years in Northern Kentucky. Additionally, Toyota has a parts distribution center in Hebron. Between these facilities at their peak, Toyota employed 9,400 people in the state. But those job numbers were the just the tip

MAPPING THE GROWTH Amazon’s 50-year lease provides for room to grow at CVG.

FUTURE AMAZON OPTION

AMAZON PHASE 1 SOUTH AREA DEVELOPMENT

of what Toyota’s manufacturing presence has meant to the region. The 2015 CAR report said another 8,200 jobs were created by Toyota suppliers and 9,500 “spin-off ” jobs were created due to the economic impact of Toyota’s payroll and that of its suppliers. That “paycheck effect” will be felt here with Amazon, economist Shanker says. “It puts money in people’s pockets. That means everybody wins.” Just as Amazon is expected to do over the years at its CVG hub, Toyota regularly invested in new technology and expansions at the Georgetown plant, ensuring its long-term viability as technology advanced and consumer trends changed. One of the largest and

most recent was in April 2017, when the company announced a $1.33 billion investment to help Georgetown become its ﬁrst North American plant to utilize a new vehicle development and production technology meant to improve performance, fuel efﬁciency, and handling. Cincinnati business leaders say they foresee a similar commitment from Amazon to invest in the hub to continuously improve its efficiency and service. “I think what you’ll see with Amazon is a massive investment in the latest technology and a willingness to embrace change,” Venerable says. “What we want to do as a region is build around that hub capacity and

that hub advantage.” Amazon will be big contributor to CVG’s economic health and could even help attract other carriers, McGraw says. Long-term ground rent from companies such as DHL, Amazon, and others is a form of revenue for the airport, and all carriers pay user fees based on their landing weight for the ability to use the airport. As of the end of July, CVG had handled nearly 14 percent more cargo tonnage in 2020 than it did during the same period in 2019. “With Amazon growing their ﬂeet and many of those aircraft based at CVG, increased landing weight reduces the airport’s overall landing fee, making CVG an attractive and cost effective airport to operate from for cargo and passenger carriers,” McGraw says. Amazon will present a long-term opportunity for businesses to be creative in how they can take advantage of the hub. “The real challenge for us is to ﬁnd the companies that want to innovate in that space,” says Tri-ED’s Crume. “Who are the people who are doing innovation around materials handling, automation of distribution centers, and automation of ramp handling equipment?” Amazon should bring opportunities for the region to research and develop advancements in technology in aerospace, advanced logistics, materials handling, and other areas, Lauterbach says. She expects the region’s business community can accelerate innovation in these areas by tapping into existing resources such as the University of Cincinnati’s 1819 Innovation Hub and the budding AeroHub district in Evendale, the community that’s home to GE Aircraft Engines, one of the world’s largest jet engine makers. “What does this mean in terms of research and development and enhancing technology?” she asks. “The kinds of innovation that will come out of this region will be unprecedented.” WINTER 2020 REALM 37

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Banking Leaders Focus on the Future HERE’S HOW THEY ADJUST IN THE COVID ERA, NAVIGATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, AND ANSWER A CALL TO COMMUNITY IMPACT. B Y G A I L P A U L ince the onset of COVID-19, financial news has chronicled the devastation of shuttered businesses and the salve of Paycheck Protection Program and other federal support. As essential businesses, regional banks responded quickly to help customers navigate financial hardship and business disruption, as well as adapt to digital banking. The added workload from securing PPP loans for regional companies amounted to several years’ worth of loan request activity, by some estimates. Change in the banking industry was accelerating even before the pandemic. Financial technology, or “fintech,” enterprises have expanded the industry ecosystem and, in some cases, compete with banks on traditional products. On other occasions, fintechs and traditional financial institutions form strategic partnerships to innovate around offering digital efficiencies to consumers and business customers. Amid the release of third-quarter earnings and an overall improving economic outlook for 2021, we asked six regional bank market leaders to describe how they manage their regional operations in a changing environment within an industry once

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considered staid. Their companies are aggressively pursuing technology and process innovation, adapting strategies to provide deeper value to customers, and measuring the impact of corporate social responsibility programs designed to create meaningful change in communities through ﬁnancial wellness, economic mobility, and even happiness.

ARCHIE BROWN, FIRST FINANCIAL BANK

HE 32-STORY OFFICE tower at Fifth and Sycamore Streets was considered a bold addition to the Cincinnati skyline when it opened in the early 1990s. First Financial Bancorp located its corporate headquarters there and renamed the building in 2011, after a decade of sustained growth when it had more than quadrupled in size, added markets, and established a commercial ﬁnance business with nationwide footprint. Archie Brown was appointed President and CEO of First Financial Bancorp on April 1, 2018, coinciding with the completion of the company’s merger with MainSource Financial Group. Brown describes First Financial as meeting the needs of its business clientele by deploying technology. “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated trends and preferences for alternative ways to bank,” he says. “Therefore, innovation is critical. We will always look for ways to align our business to the needs of our clients and communities. We’ve established a Digital Solutions Group and a technology roadmap that will make it easier than ever to bank with us.” Calling the pandemic a “catalyst for innovation,” Brown says First Financial has “gained a great deal of experi-

ence in providing a seamless banking experience using alternative delivery methods.” First Financial announced an expansion in Northern Kentucky earlier this year with a new Innovation Center in Covington, designed to offer financial education, workspaces, and community event space. Its investment in urban innovation centers, like the high-profile one it opened at Fourth and Vine downtown in 2019, embodies its intent to heighten brand visibility around support of community engagement, economic activity, and business growth. January 2020 marked the launch of First Financial Bank Biz Beat weekly television show with the Cincinnati Business Courier. Brown is a visible regional leader and served as 2019 campaign chair for the United Way of Greater Cincinnati. At the onset of the pandemic, he helped lead First Financial’s work securing PPP funding for as many businesses as possible, in some cases even temporarily shifting staff job duties. He also helped marshal $1 million in COVID-19 relief to agencies and organizations that assist individuals and businesses in need. Increasing access to financial services in under-resourced neighborhoods is a key initiative. “Our Community Investment Plan has committed $1.7 billion over five years to increase access to banking services in our region,” he says. “Today, about 30 percent of our banking centers are located in low- to moderate-income communities, with three additional banking centers planned in LMI communities over the next two and a half years. It’s precisely at this time that local businesses and those who lead them must be committed to the wellbeing of our communities and neighbors.”

TIMOTHY ELSBROCK, FIFTH THIRD BANK

ARCHIE BROWN “We must be committed to the wellbeing of our communities and neighbors.”

I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M Ation permeates the culture at one of Cincinnati’s oldest and largest institutions, Fifth Third Bancorp. Chairman and CEO Greg Carmichael joined the company in 2003 as Chief Information Ofﬁcer after spending over two decades in IT in the manufacturing sector. Timothy Spence, named president in October, was recognized in 2018 by American Banker as Digital Banker of the Year. Fifth Third Bank is the largest locally based bank, with $202 billion in assets and about 7,500 local employees, and traces its origins to a downtown institution established in 1858. Timothy Elsbrock, president of Fifth Third’s Cincinnati region, says the company’s affiliation with payment application Zelle and other mobile offerings align with how customers want to bank, especially during COVID-19. He estimates that 74 percent of ﬁnancial transactions go through digital channels, like its mobile app, website, or digital ATM. Elsbrock ran Fifth Third’s Wealth & Asset Management division in 2007 with a “front row seat” to a volatile market, an experience he says has helped inform his present-day leadership of the company’s regional business lines. “It really dawned on me what community means to a bank and what a bank means to the community,” he says. “The whole process I went through then made me a lot more prepared for this and to focus on being customer-centric, because the great strength of our bank is the depth of relationships Fifth Third has with our customers and communities.” Since March, Fifth Third colleagues placed more than two million phone calls to local customers and clients, simply to ask, How are you doing? Is there anything WINTER 2020 REALM 39

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we can help you with? “There wasn’t any other point to the call other than checking in,” Elsbrock says. Fifth Third processed more than $5.5 billion in PPP loans to 42,000 business customers, impacting 600,000 jobs. Elsbrock says 95 percent of its loans went to companies with fewer than 50 employees, with the average loan being about $135,000. Simultaneously, he says, the company has paid attention to the year’s converging events that broadly exposed systemic racism and racial inequality. “Our responsibility to end racism and discrimination is what

PNC BANK EMPLOYEES GET PAID TO VOLUNTEER 40 HOURS A YEAR. “YOUR BUSINESS CAN ONLY BE AS HEALTHY AS YOUR COMMUNITY,” SAYS KAY GEIGER.

we owe the entire community,” Elsbrock says. “PPP will run its course. The markets we live in are out of our control. But what we as Fifth Third Bank, and I as Tim Elsbrock, can do is continue to make diversity and inclusion our top priorities.” Fifth Third published an inaugural Environmental, Social & Governance Report in October outlining its environmental stewardship, community resilience, and equity initiatives. It also launched a new Executive Diversity Leadership Council to develop

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and deliver strategic short- and longterm solutions to advance its equality, equity, and inclusion efforts. Since the mid-1960s, Fountain Square has been central to Fifth Third’s regional identity. A series of renovations and expansions is underway to modernize its downtown financial center, create a more prominent entrance to the bank from Fountain Square, and improve the public realm around it. In August, the company formally dedicated the new Fifth Third Center Stage, a permanent performance stage it presented as a gift to the City of Cincinnati, representing a $2 million investment. Dedicating a new performance venue during a pandemic is a bold vote of confidence for the future. Fifth Third and many banks posted third-quarter results that indeed were more positive than expected. “Our bank and others are flush with deposits,” says Elsbrock. “Everybody is conserving their deposits, deleveraging and paying down their debt. Now, if this were a normal year, I would tell you it was a strong quarter. It’s turning the corner, and people are getting back into capital markets doing acquisitions and mergers, a great harbinger for 2021. I’ve gone from this spring having no idea what would happen to the summer, where I believed it was going to be OK, to being cautiously optimistic today.”

KAY GEIGER, PNC BANK

AY GEIGER HAS BEEN at the helm of PNC Bank for 12 years, leading the venerable “main street bank” with the same conviction and purpose she brings to numerous corporate and civic boards on

which she serves. “Serving is the greatest reward you will ever have,” she says. In this region, Geiger has overall client, community, and employee responsibilities, including PNC’s Corporate & Institutional Banking, Commercial Real Estate, Commercial Banking, Institutional Investments, and Wealth Management. Geiger grew up in Columbus in a family that placed an emphasis on education. In middle school, she learned languages and planned a future career as a U.S. diplomat or in an embassy. In September, she shared her formative experiences in a LeadingShe podcast episode: “There was this open-minded curiousness that I found quite energizing about people and cultures that were different from me.” After earning an MBA at Ohio State University, Geiger spent her early career as an international credit analyst for a bank and later shifted to treasury management and corporate institutional banking leadership. Geiger considers education the key to having “freedom to explore the world and have choices,” and supports PNC’s signature Grow Up Great early childhood education initiative, a $500-million, multi-year bilingual program that helps prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and in life. To date, the program has served almost seven million children, including 4C For Children in the Cincinnati region. With so many children now learning from home, PNC makes available free, high-quality lesson plans and online courses for early childhood educators on its website. PNC employees get paid to volunteer 40 hours a year to support early childhood education. “Your business can only be as healthy as your community,” she says. Geiger sees banking from the van-

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tage of PNC’s customers. As of June, about 73 percent of PNC’s consumer customers opted to use non-teller channels; for the business customer, PNC had technology systems in place before the onset of COVID-19. “I’m very pleased that we were extremely forward-thinking in our investments in various forms of technology for our commercial clients,” she says. “We didn’t know it was going to address pain points as severe as COVID.” Technology frees up business leaders’ time to strategize and “think about how we can help run their business.” To serve an increasingly diverse community, Geiger says it’s an “imperative that leaders come together

to work on systemic racism and social inequities. It isn’t like a couple of companies and a couple of CEOs are working on this. We’re all working on this.” She says PNC recently announced a $1 billion commitment to helping end systemic racism and supporting economic empowerment of African Americans and low- and moderate-income communities.

ANDREW HAWKING, TRUIST BANK

HE MERGER OF BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks became ﬁnal in December 2019, resulting in Truist, now the

nation’s sixth-largest commercial bank, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. Andrew Hawking spent most of his 40-year banking career in commercial lending until 2015, when he assumed leadership of BB&T in this region after the company acquired Bank of Kentucky. Hawking says the company was in the process of rolling out a merger integration plan when COVID hit and “all eyes turned to PPP.” He says Truist dove in deep: “We did the thirdmost in terms of PPP loans of all U.S banks, about $13.1 billion.” That means decisions about some of the more visible merger-related details, such as signage on bank branches, will

LOOKING UP

Fifth Third’s Timothy Elsbrock says he’s “cautiously optimistic today” after wild business swings since the spring.

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wait until 2021, as will closing branches in markets where there is overlap. He says it could be late 2021 or 2022 before the combined bank completes upgrades of its systems. In September, Truist unveiled a corporate venture capital division with new fintech investment, geared to provide capital to early-stage companies and work closely with the companies in which they invest to leverage Truist’s network of executive-level talent and industry experts in technology, investment banking, capital markets, and innovation. “Fintech startups are really smart and they focus in on data, technology, accessibility, reliability, and security,” Hawking says. “We’re not going to stand on the sidelines. We’ve got to be really competitive, and to do that we just needed size.” The new name for the merged entities drew a lot of industry attention when it was unveiled. Hawking says the new brand was designed to reflect the company’s culture around its purpose— to inspire and build better lives—and values, as well as the impact it intends to have on its communities. Truist will invest $60 billion over three years for home purchase mortgage loans to lowand moderate-income and minority borrowers; small business lending; community development lending; and Community Reinvestment Act qualified investments and philanthropy. “Our values are being trustworthy, caring, having one-team attitude, success, and happiness,” Hawking says. “One team means we are in this together. So if I need to partner with you on a solution, you understand it’s not about taking credit, it’s about having success for your clients. This thing called happiness is a function of being really good at the other four, generating positive energy, and doing things just a bit different.” 42 REALM WINTER 2020

JENEEN MARZIANI, BANK OF AMERICA

INCE 2019, BANK OF America has moved swiftly to define itself in the Cincinnati region and is on pace to open a slew of new financial centers, with momentum seemingly undeterred by disruption caused by the pandemic. Jeneen Marziani, Bank of America’s state market president, is responsible for developing relationships and business necessary to executing BofA’s Ohio goals, and her deep connection to the state and commitment to expanding the bank’s platform of philanthropy and community engagement opens important doors across Cincinnati. She spent much of her childhood overseas as a member of a military family but returned to Ohio to attend Miami University, joining Bank of America shortly after graduation. Named Ohio market president in 2010, Cleveland-based Marziani is a full-time banker in addition to leading the Ohio market. She also leads BofA’s charitable giving and volunteer initiatives, which could easily qualify as a full-time job on its own. BofA employs about 400 in this region, a number that’s growing as it executes on its financial center rollout, bringing retail banking, lending and small business services, and investing with Merrill to new and existing clients. BofA is the nation’s second-largest commercial bank. Brian Moynihan, its chairman and CEO, is from Ohio. As a global financial institution connected to millions of customers, BofA is leading in creating new digital banking platforms; its AI-powered virtual voice assistant, Erica, has gained so many users since its national rollout in 2018 the bank is looking at how the technology can work for commercial

JENEEN MARZIANI

Bank of America is building out technology to give clients a balance of “high tech and high touch.”

clients. During the first half of 2020, BofA was granted 184 U.S. patents, with nearly half related to artificial intelligence, machine learning, or information security. Marziani says BofA’s goal with expanding technology is to achieve balance in offering its clients “high tech, high touch. That helps us be able to leverage and get our clients to be able to utilize our services in any medium or mode that they’re looking for. I think that’s an incredible way to empower economic mobility for our clients and small businesses.” In a recent interview with Chief Executive magazine, CEO Moynihan said BofA focused on taking care of employees and customers above all else at the outset of the pandemic. Customers asked for help restructuring debt and “drawing their lines and keeping their liquidity going.” For consumers, Moynihan said the bank had two million loan deferrals at its high point. Marziani says BofA will soon announce Neighborhood Builders grants of $400,000 to two nonprofit organizations here. Systemwide, BofA has made a $1-billion, four-year commitment to address critical issues associated with racial inequality and economic opportunity for people and communities of color, including healthcare, jobs, small businesses, and housing.

DAVID WALLACE, HERITAGE BANK

H I RT Y Y E A RS AG O, Northern Kentucky businessman Arnold Caddell established a community bank to ﬁll what he considered a void in local options after a slate of Kentucky ﬁnancial institutions were acquired by much-larger competitors. Heritage Bank was founded with $4 million Caddell and his partners raised.

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They and six employees opened their ﬁrst branch in Burlington in 1991 on the premise that the institution could leverage strong community relationships to respond to the needs of a small-business clientele. CEO David Wallace says the community banking model promotes strong bonds between borrower and lender. “When our lenders are looking at a loan, we don’t just look at the ﬁnancials, we look at the person,” he says. Wallace studied Agricultural Economics at University of Kentucky and

DAVID WALLACE VOWS TO KEEP HERITAGE BANK INDEPENDENT “TO BE THERE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AND PEOPLE WHO WANT THE BRANCH EXPERIENCE.”

received his law degree from NKU’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law. He helped charter Heritage Bank, applying his knowledge of bank regulation gained from experience representing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. He stayed close to Heritage, with roles on its board and as general counsel. In early April, Heritage CEO Chris Caddell, son of the founder, died unexpectedly after a brief illness. The Caddell family asked Wallace to step in on an interim basis while they focused on Chris’ health. Wallace started at the bank March 12, “about when

COVID became real to everyone.” Wallace quickly mobilized the staff around PPP loans. With no intention of outsourcing the work, “It was a call to arms,” he says. “People just rallied here at this bank.” And all the while, “We were in the midst of this huge tragedy with Chris. Even with that, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in reaching out and getting to those customers of ours and others to get the PPP loans out.” Heritage secured PPP loans of nearly $105 million to assist more than 920 businesses. “I had guys working day and night until midnight trying to get those loans in and approved, because they understood the value and necessity of these funds to our medium- and small-business customers,” says Wallace. “I think that says who we are, what our core values are.” Named chairman and CEO in July, he says the company will continue to expand when there is opportunity to pick up business in markets where larger banks are closing branches. “We are going to be there for those small businesses and people who want to have that branch experience and be able to call up David Wallace, the CEO,” he says. “We have doubled in size in the last ﬁve years, and a lot of that is because of consolidations in the marketplace.” Wallace vows to keep Heritage Bank independent. It’s opened branches in Montgomery and Mason, but he says Heritage has always had a good base of commercial customers across the region even without having branches. The bank’s 2019 commitment to the renamed Heritage Bank Center, formerly US Bank Arena, “gives market visibility on both sides of the river.”

TAKEAWAYS PURSUING PPP The pandemic “was a call to arms,” says David Wallace of Heritage Bank, whose staff—and those at every regional bank—focused on securing PPP loans for business clients. HIGH TECH This year’s uncertainty has accelerated trends and preferences for alternative ways to bank, says Archie Brown of First Financial Bank. “Therefore, innovation is critical.” FOCUS ON COMMUNITY To serve an increasingly diverse community, says Kay Geiger of PNC Bank, it’s imperative that leaders come together to battle systemic racism and social inequities. “We’re all working on this.”

DEEP DIVE

Culture Shock

THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE WILL EVOLVE FROM THE INSIDE OUT, SAY COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE EXPERTS. BY AMY BROWNLEE

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erhaps the setting most fundamentally altered by the global pandemic is the corporate workplace. The first adjustments were mostly surface-level or logistic—wearing masks and social-distancing, frequent hand-washing, avoiding large groups. Inconsequential things have slipped away, almost unnoticed; the idea of sharing a box of donuts at a morning meeting feels like a different world. Masks hang on car rearview mirrors, and bottles of hand sanitizer sit on every counter and desk. Perhaps temperatures are checked before employees enter their office building. These protocols now seem like business as usual. But their lingering effects are larger than the sum of their parts. What has really changed, perhaps permanently and also perhaps for the better, is our approach to office culture: How we relate to each other, how we work together, how we redefine our shared values, and, at least for the immediate future, how we do all of this with safety in mind. “Culture ensures unity during a crisis,” says Carl Satterwhite, president of RCF Group, a workplace I L LU S T R AT I O N BY D A N I E L S T O L L E

solutions firm in West Chester. “It’s a way for companies and organizations to say, What are we all about? And how will we deliver that in this new world?” The issue is top of mind for most companies, and it’s informing conversations all around the region. “Culture is the new mantra across every organization and every meeting I’ve been a part of, because everyone has to reset,” Satterwhite says. “No matter what you’ve built in the past, COVID-19 is going to be a new cultural experience for most organizations.” This means taking a clear look at what your office culture has always been and then honestly assessing how that will fit into a post-COVID world and how it will need to evolve. Maybe your company will take this opportunity to move in a direction that, before the global shutdown, felt out of reach. Or you might end up keeping things exactly as they are. More than likely, as we move into a post-COVID model, perceptive business leaders will respond thoughtfully to the new parameters the pandemic has given us, rather than simply react to them. “ What we watched in March, industry-wide, is the reaction to the event,” says Bryan Lindholz, RCF Group chief operating officer. He monitors industry trends for RCF and uses them to inform the company’s approach to guiding clients through these macro-level corporate decisions. “Companies had to figure out safety and government laws and orders. We now have to send all of our people home. We saw the panic: Deal with the crisis, get people home,” Lindholz says. “Then we’ve seen a transition to people now taking a long-term approach. Businesses are considering what their new culture will look like, and that’s a personal approach each company needs to take.”

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Businesses create their own culture, says RCF Group Chairman Scott Robertson. “There’s no one-size-ﬁtsall answer.”

S W I T H M O ST B U S I ness trends, corporate leaders will be looking to their peers for direction. That, at least, hasn’t changed. Says John Eckert, senior vice president with CBRE Group, a global commercial real estate services firm, “Everybody wants to know what everyone else is doing right now.” Companies like RCF Group and CBRE use their unique positions in the property development and commercial real estate markets to fill an ad hoc consulting role for their clients. As they broker deals and fulfill their menu of services, they’re also fielding these trend questions in real time. Their answers, and the general guidance they provide, will drive the Cincinnati region toward a new collective corporate culture that’s more flexible, more task-oriented, and ultimately more efficient. Make no mistake, though, safety is still the top priority for most companies. Placing importance on safety measures—and on adherence to protocols—will become a key way that businesses signal their corporate values to staff, which in turn can have long-term effects on how employees themselves carry out those values. “Our office has done everything that the governor has outlined,” Robertson says. “And not only do you have to do it, but you have to live in this space and model it for your associates. If we decide that we’re going to cheat the system or be independent of it, they’re going to likewise make those decisions.” To ensure employee safety—not to mention comply with government mandates—many companies have

TIME TO RESET

“Culture ensures unity during a crisis,” says Carl Satterwhite.

placed their staff on hybrid or alternating work schedules to allow for social distancing. And this setup likely won’t change in the near future. At some point soon, that flexible schedule setup will be informed less by safety needs and more by the fact that it actually works for a host of business environments. “The workplace will change,” Eckert says. “I think the flexible workplace is here to stay. Companies are giving employees the option of working from home a day or two each week; that’s going to continue.” And it’s for good reason: We’ve long known that large parts of dedicated office space goes unused for much of the day and week. “Even pre-COVID, 20 percent of that office space is under-utilized,” Eckert says. “People are on vacation, they’re visiting a client, they’re out sick, whatever the case may be. If everyone came to our office every day, we wouldn’t have enough desks for them.” Even with these noted inefficiencies, many companies have been hesitant to move to a flexible workplace schedule, especially if they have decades of success with the traditional scheduling model under their belts. “Now companies are open to it and are trying to understand what that would look like,” Eckert says. “It’s about trust. The company trusting the employee: Are you getting work done at home, and do you know when it’s time to come in?” Social distancing has made flexible scheduling a new necessity, and so many businesses have been pulled along for the ride as they’ve realized that they can’t keep the status quo. “Folks are ready to listen and learn about it now,” Eckert says. “The flexible workplace was here before COVID. But the virus has been an accelerator.” We have a long history of office redesigns to inform this change. “In the 1980s, everyone had a private office,” WINTER 2020 REALM 45

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Eckert says. “Then in the ’90s, everyone went to this open work environment with a lot of workstations in a high density of employees per 1,000 square feet. Very sterile. Noisy. And you stayed in your cubicle all day.” What we now know is that there are limits to both setups. Square footage can go unused, and desks can sit empty. Or employees can feel stiﬂed by the cube ﬂoor’s low roar of phones ringing and coworkers chit-chatting and unmoored by the lack of structure.

HE WAY WE RESPOND to COVID’s short-term challenges can actually create a long-term solution to the classic workplace efficiency issue. So what does that look like? For many businesses, it’s an intentional blend of remote work and in-person collaboration and a redesign of the office environment that carves out space for specific tasks. The flexible work environment is a paradigm shift allowing for maximum efficiency of space while

“THERE ARE PLENTY OF BEHAVIORAL STUDIES THAT WILL TELL YOU PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE,” SAYS SCOTT ROBERTSON. “THEY WANT TO CONGREGATE.”

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also giving autonomy and physical space to the employee. “Companies are asking, What do I need to think about when I build my office?” Lindholtz says. “That’s a lot of our calls now. Companies are prepared for people to come back maybe two or three days a week. The question is, How am I going to clean the office and sanitize everything? They know that now. They’ve been through that.” Most companies have developed the necessary cleaning protocols to keep people safe. “We’re being asked to wipe down the touch points more often in all buildings,” says Mary Miller, CEO of Jancoa Janitorial Services downtown. “There are day people who focus just on wiping down elevator buttons, door handles, and anything else that people touch regularly.” As companies navigate this shift in immediate needs, they begin to think about their future. “Now they’re trying to figure out, What is my off ice going to look like post-COVID,” Eckert says. Adds Lindholz, “I think what we’re seeing today is that social distancing is playing a much larger role in design.” In many cases, staff use private rooms to complete in-

dependent projects as needed while also having access to dedicated gathering spaces for group work and remote connection with colleagues and clients. “Practically speaking,” Robertson notes, “the world has had decades, centuries of environments where people work together, collaborate, and elevate one another. There are plenty of behavioral studies that will tell you that people don’t want to be alone. They want to congregate.” It’s this reality that business leaders must weigh against the need to keep staff safe and healthy. The key to ﬂexible workspace is balancing an open environment with rooms that have a dedicated purpose, like small group meetings, remote conference calls, and private consultations. “You might have a small conference room for team meetings and another ofﬁce for Zoom calls,” Eckert says. “You might have another room that’s larger that can be a big conference room. You might have breakout spaces for different purposes. It’s a balance between the two. You can get away to have that meeting with a coworker or that private consultation with HR. You bring your team in for Zoom calls with a client.” More importantly, these purpose-driven spaces can provide a

framework of cues for employees about how to structure their project schedules. Rather than seeing their workplace as a sea of cubicles with no reference or access points and no private space—or, alternately, as a wall of closed ofﬁce doors—employees will encounter a vibrant, meaningful ofﬁce environment that drives their approach to conducting business.

F L EX I B L E WO R Kplace isn’t necessarily smaller, says Eckert. “Don’t just eliminate 10 desks. Build more purpose-driven rooms.” These will allow employees to choose where and when to conduct business. And many companies are doubling down on flexible work, moving to the free-address workstation model that allows employees to plug in anywhere and be available everywhere while at work. “It has become very apparent that people don’t really need to be here all the time,” says Lindholtz. “It’s about the balance between their ability to do heads-down work remotely but to maintain collaboration.” Free-address workstations are a real mentality shift for employees, and they require a change in views about time spent in the office—from staff and leadership alike. Gone is the assumption that employees away from their desk are playing hooky; under the free-address model, staff is given a respectful space in which to complete their work on their own terms. Flexible scheduling also presents an important recruiting tool for companies. As people come back into the workplace, they’ll be looking for maximum flexibility—and it may be a driver for retention more than ever before. “The key for us is meeting people where they are in their lives,” Lindholz says. “The biggest challenge

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is for those who have kids who are still at home and now they’re having to balance between What do I do with my kids and their school work? or My daycare is still closed. So it’s just about being able to have an open and honest conversation and also that flexible culture.” That flexibility goes all the way up to company leadership. “The big thing now is flexibility for firms in the lease itself,” says Eckert. “The ability to expand and contract is sometimes more important than the rental rate itself. Companies will pay for flexibility, for the right to expand or downsize. There’s a value there. Pre-COVID, the marketplace was relatively tight. We had a vacancy rate downtown of less than 14 percent. So companies didn’t have a lot of options.” This new environment doesn’t come without its costs, so companies need to be fully prepared to take on a new model. “There is a huge investment if you go to this strategy,” Eckert says. “You better believe in it. Because the cost of building out the

space will be more expensive, especially the cost for tech and furniture. And you need to get employee buyin for this kind of change of culture.” Not only does this new environment potentially provide both flexibility and efficiency, but it sends a nonverbal message to employees about how they can and should structure their day. They’ll come to fully understand that certain kinds of work are ideal for certain kinds of settings and that they can choose those settings within a framework of options. Independent work will be more efficient and less interrupted by the social realities of an open work environment. Group work, bracketed by that purpose-driven office space, will be more effective as it guides employees on how to optimize collaborative time. Office culture can direct the flexible office space to reflect company priorities, and those flexible spaces will in turn reinforce those priorities. Now more than ever, companies are looking for ways to keep their

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TAKEAWAYS CULTURE IS KING “Culture is the new mantra across every organization and every meeting I’ve been a part of, because everyone has to reset,” says Carl Satterwhite, president of workplace solutions firm RCF Group. STAY FLEXIBLE Safety remains the top priority for businesses as they bring employees back to the office. “I think the flexible workplace is here to stay,” says John Eckert, senior vice president of commercial real estate services firm CRBE Group. BALANCING ACT Office space of the future likely will strike a balance between employees’ ability to do heads-down work remotely and their need to collaborate and create in group settings.

employees connected. As the pandemic proceeds apace, we can ﬁnally begin to take stock of just how much has changed on a personal level. The way we interact is completely different now—at best, workplace interactions take place from six feet away or over video; at worst, they don’t take place at all. Casual acquaintances have evaporated. Furthermore, the way we relate is different. Eye contact has never been more important. Building the post-COVID ofﬁce environment successfully will involve integrating these changes with our indelible human habits. We need to talk to each other, and you can’t always schedule impromptu moments of collaboration and synergy. These connections build camaraderie and morale, create opportunities for that all-important transfer of knowledge that helps businesses thrive, and ultimately make our companies stronger. The 2020 pandemic will be a distant memory one day, a story we tell our grandchildren. And as with other global events of the past, it will leave its mark. In the meantime, this enormous disruption presents us with an opportunity: We can build a new model of corporate culture that helps us come back together in the safest way possible, and we can evolve in the bargain. We are also reevaluating what makes us work best and perhaps what gets in our way. We will ask some key questions that define our purpose in business: Why do we come into an office, what can we achieve there, and how we can best do all of it together? COVID has cast into stark relief how much we need each other and how those relationships will see us through to building future office spaces that work.

NOW MORE THAN EVER, COMPANIES ARE LOOKING FOR WAYS TO KEEP EMPLOYEES CONNECTED. BUT THE WAY WE INTERACT AND RELATE NOW IS VERY DIFFERENT.

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DEEP DIVE

Why Walnut Hills Is Turning the Corner A WAVE OF DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY SHOWS HOW INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY CAN HELP BUILD STRONG CITY NEIGHBORHOODS. BY DAVID HOLTHAUS

n its heyday, Walnut Hills was considered Cincinnati’s second downtown. The intersection of Gilbert Avenue and McMillan Street, known as Peebles Corner, was a major bus and streetcar transfer point, second only to downtown in trafﬁc. A live theater brought in entertainment headliners, and shops, taverns, nightclubs, a hotel, and a movie house lined McMillan. “There was a time when you didn’t have to leave the borders of 45206,” says longtime resident Kathryne Gardette. “We had family doctors, dentists, pharmacists, groceries, a butcher shop. You could be buried in Walnut Hills. You could literally lead your whole existence without leaving this neighborhood.” But by the dawn of this century, the main hub of Walnut Hills’ business district had been deteriorating for some time. Storefronts were empty and blighted. Crime was a problem, and so was the perception of it. There were few small businesses left in a neighborhood that had been a lively, self-contained community. Several national tenants—CVS, Kroger, PNC Bank—were about all that remained to serve a population that was about 65 percent Black, with nearly half living below the pov50 REALM WINTER 2020

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erty level. “The status quo in Walnut Hills in the early 2000s was not OK,” says Kevin Wright. “People were getting harmed, figuratively and literally.” Wright was hired in 2012 to lead the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, a community development organization that had been around since the 1970s but was struggling with high turnover and debt. He has since launched Yard & Company, a consulting firm that works to reimagine urban neighborhoods in cities across the globe. He and others—including committed residents, City Hall officials, neighborhood organizations, and corporate leaders—saw the promise in Walnut Hills. “It was really beat up back then,” Wright says. “There was a lot of crime, a lot of blight. But if you looked at it from an objective standpoint, it was like, Wow, this is right next to Uptown, right next to Eden Park, right up from Over-theRhine. This should really be working. No one was really paying attention to Walnut Hills, but it should have been working.” The neighborhood had been working for Mike Huseman’s company, HGC Construction, ever since his father, Ray, moved the company there in 1965. But after Mike bought it in 2002, he considered moving and analyzed where his clients were and where his employees lived. He decided to stay and has since expanded there. “What Walnut Hills has going for it is its proximity to downtown,” says Huseman, as well as the neighboring Uptown job centers at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “The infrastructure and location of where Walnut Hills is has turned into a huge asset.” Wright helped set in motion an effort that could be a case study in H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY M O R TA R

neighborhood revitalization, starting with pop-up parties in an alley off of McMillan called Five Points. The Redevelopment Foundation launched the Cincinnati Street Food Festival, closing off McMillan and featuring music and a dozen or more food trucks to graze among, and then posting photos on social media of people enjoying themselves in the neighborhood. “I think people started to open their eyes a bit to Walnut Hills,” Wright says. He and the organization connected with neighborhood residents to encourage their engagement in planning a community rebound. They worked with the Walnut Hills Area Council—the ofﬁcial city-recognized neighborhood council—on a master plan to guide future development. Completed in 2016, it says, in part, “Our trajectory is set to return Walnut Hills to Cincinnati’s ‘second downtown’ that it once was. But we need to make sure we get there with our existing community fabric intact and leading the charge.”

UST D OWN MCMILLAN from Peebles Corner, an old one-door station that had housed Fire Company 16 in Walnut Hills had been abandoned and vacant for four decades until Mike Marschman stepped up in 2014. He owned a food truck and catering business and enjoyed a bit of a following for his wood-fired pizzas. He’d come to know Walnut Hills through the Foundation’s pop-up events and festivals and was looking for a place to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. He fell in love with the old firehouse on his first walk-through, with the aged brick, chipped paint, and a mural displaying old fire codes still intact on one wall. It wasn’t something that could be recreated anywhere else.

POPPING UP

Allen Woods and MORTAR have helped a number of minority-owned new businesses open in Walnut Hills.

“That’s not something you can just go out and buy,” he says. It existed only at the corner of East McMillan and Copelen streets in Walnut Hills. Marschman opened Fireside Pizza there that year with a no-frills menu of pizza and craft beer and a simple but cool vibe of picnic tables, exposed brick, and good music inside. It worked. The pizza place and its incarnation in a 19th-century firehouse that had been left to die became a tipping point in the renewal of an entire neighborhood in decline. Since Fireside opened, millions of dollars have been invested in new businesses, housing, and public improvements in Walnut Hills. “Back then, nobody was opening restaurants in neighborhoods,” says Wright. “To open one on East McMillan was really eye-opening.” Suddenly, it was cool to hang out in Walnut Hills. The word got around about the new pizza place in the old ﬁrehouse. Wright started meeting with developers there, with the unspoken message being, Look, people are sitting around eating lunch. This is working. “It kind of snowballed from there,” he says. The success of Fireside Pizza, the growing buzz around the neighborhood, and the focus of the Redevelopment Foundation and the neighborhood council got developers, in particular Model Group, to take note. “There was a concentrated leadership and focus and plan and front-end development work that had been done to plant the seed,” says Jason Chamlee, vice president with Model Group. That, he says, “set the stage for private sector development to come in. We could see a path where an organization like ours could get involved.” O ver-the-Rhine–based Model Group redeveloped three historic but severely distressed buildings in the heart of McMillan to become Trevarren Flats, WINTER 2020 REALM 51

DEEP DIVE

A CORNER ON THE RISE

New business activity in the Paramount building is a sign of rebirth in Walnut Hills.

30 market-rate apartments that sold out quickly. At $10 million, it was, Chamlee says, “a relatively small pilot project,” but it had an outsized impact. “It was a giant stepping stone that we could build on.” On the ground ﬂoor was space for retail, and unique independent businesses eventually located there. Just Q’in serves up barbecue made with “faith and love,” Caffe Vivace is a coffee shop by day and a jazz lounge at night, and Tiki-Tiki Bang Bang (formerly Video Archive) is a reservation-only tiki bar and immersive cinema. Residential development in the neighborhood took a big leap with the transformation of the highly visible Baldwin Building on Gilbert Avenue from ofﬁces to apartments in 2017. HGC converted the 1920s-era building, once a piano factory, into contemporary living spaces. More residential projects are under way nearby, including market-rate housing that will increase the neighborhood’s population

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and in turn support its businesses. The Fortus Group, for instance, is planning a mixed-use development at the former Anthem Blue Cross site at Taft and Woodburn that will include 285 apartments and ground-ﬂoor commercial space.

EAR THE CORNER OF Gilbert and McMillan is a 105-year-old public restroom building, a remnant of the days when Peebles Corner was a hub of public transportation, with hundreds of people waiting for buses and streetcars and needing a place to rest. After being abandoned for decades, it was developed into Comfort Station, a cocktail bar that retained the original “Men” and “Women” entrances, interior skylights, and concrete ﬂoors. Down the street, new construction on McMillan created Cincinnati Scholar House, affordable housing for low-income single parents going back to school and their children. It’s the

first such program in Cincinnati and is based on a successful program in Northern Kentucky, offering housing and onsite preschool. The Cincinnati Scholar House is operated by Cincinnati Union Bethel and Christ Church Cathedral and was developed by Model Group. Across McMillan from Scholar House is the most transformative commercial project in the neighborhood to date. Paramount Square was the redevelopment of what may be the most recognizable building in the neighborhood, the Paramount building, an Art Deco–style concrete edifice that juts into Peebles Corner at the intersection of Gilbert and McMillan. It had housed many businesses over the years but had been vacant for decades, a very visible reminder of the disinvestment that had occurred in the neighborhood. Over the summer, Cincinnati’s first minority-owned brewpub, Esoteric Brewery, opened in the Paramount building. Co-owners Brian Jackson, a former brewer at MadTree, and Marvin Abrinica, a former Procter & Gamble executive, had been working on the project for a few years and were ready to set up shop. They met with Wright and the Redevelopment Foundation, who suggested they look at the building, which had been in the Foundation’s control since 2015. The Paramount had once housed a movie theater, a clothing store, and other retailers, with its last iteration being a pawn shop. It had been an empty hulk for years. “We walked in there and said, Wow, this is going to be a pretty big challenge,” Abrinica says. “But we always loved Walnut Hills, and it was cool to become an anchor in the building.” Esoteric has a more refined feel than most brewpubs, and the own-

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ers prefer to call it a “brewlounge,” with its comfortable seating, hardwood floors, and abstract art on the walls. The brewery was started in part with $891,000 in crowdfunding, Abrinica says. Along with the brewery, former office spaces on the upper floor were converted to apartments. The ground floor still has space for two more food vendors who may open in the spring, Chamlee says. The site has been renamed Paramount Square. “There aren’t many buildings like that in any Cincinnati neighborhood,” he says. “This is the heart of our business district,” says Samantha Reeves, current director of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation. “To have that gem brought back to life is super exciting.” The work to revive Walnut Hills and other urban neighborhoods could not get done without the involvement of many in both the public and private sectors. The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation organized residents behind a plan and became a partner in the redevelopment work. “They are a literal partner, a limited partner, in most of these deals,” Chamlee says. The Foundation becomes co-developer of distressed properties through a program in which the city owns the properties and puts them in a master lease controlled by the Foundation. “That way they’re preserved for a project that will benefit the neighborhood,” Reeves says. “The Redevelopment Foundation becomes the co-developer and figures out what to do.” Trevarren Flats, Comfort Station, Scholar House, and Paramount Square were all in the Foundation’s master lease. The neighborhood also benefitted from the tax-increment financing (TIF) tool, which permits incremental property taxes that are levied

due to rising property values to be reinvested in further development in a specified district. Cincinnati City Council has approved TIF districts in more than two dozen neighborhoods. “Walnut Hills was a neighborhood fortunate enough to have a TIF district,” Reeves says. The neighborhood also had an active entrepreneurial community through MORTAR, the startup accelerator focused on minority businesses. Allen Woods cofounded MORTAR in Over-the-Rhine in 2014 and was recruited by Wright to open an office in Walnut Hills to offer its 15-week program to people interested in starting new businesses. In the Christmas season of 2015, MORTAR organized a pop-up shop in an abandoned store on McMillan, inviting alums of the program to participate. With the help of MORTAR, one of those alums, Jasmine Ford, in 2017 opened a bakery on McMillan called Jazzy Sweeties, one of the first minority-owned new businesses in the neighborhood. “We gave her the assistance she needed and were really supportive of her with mentorship and guidance,” Woods says. “That’s a big part of the work we do.” Jackson, co-owner of Esoteric Brewery, is also a graduate of the MORTAR program and got connected to the Paramount building through MORTAR and the Redevelopment Foundation. MORTAR has been operating its Walnut Hills office for three years now and will continue to support minority-owned businesses in the neighborhood, Woods says. “We build connections to people and we pass that access on to other people,” he says.

HE COMMUNITY’S INvolvement in Walnut Hill’s rebirth has been essential and an intentional piece of the Redevelopment Foundation’s strategy. In a neighborhood that has the potential to see low-income tenants displaced, the residents have spoken up for creating affordable housing, says Gardette. She

NEW RESIDENTS FLOCKED TO THE HISTORIC BALDWIN AND TREVARREN FLATS REDEVELOPMENTS.

is president of the the historic Council and has lived in Walnut Hills for 30 years. She and her husband, Charles Miller, own the Miller-Gardette Building on McMillan across the street from Fireside Pizza. “We found that long-term residents could not qualify or could not afford the housing that was being built,” she says. “We really want a full complement of housing stock in our community.” That’s happening. The completion of Scholar House resulted in 44 units of low-income housing. The Manse Apartments, on Chapel Street near Gilbert, is the rehabilitation of the former Manse Hotel and an annex and construction of 18 new apartment units designed to provide affordable living space for senior citizens. The Manse was once a hotel for African Americans in the mid-20th century,

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DEEP DIVE

TAKEAWAYS STARTING SMALL The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation launched one-off events and pop-up spaces in 2012 to attract attention to the neighborhood and to gain trust from longtime residents. NEW IDEAS MORTAR opened an office in Walnut Hills to train minority- and women-led startup companies, some of which opened small businesses in the neighborhood to show other entrepreneurs how they can succeed there, too. GROWING BIG After the Redevelopment Foundation invested in rehabbing the prominent Paramount building at Gilbert and McMillan, Model Group announced a $75–$100-million development on the old Kroger site behind it.

when segregation was routinely practiced in in restaurants, hotels, and other public spaces. The creation of new affordable housing respects the people who have lived in the neighborhood for decades, Gardette says. “Long-term residents have stayed, making it a way for new residents to come into the neighborhood.” Residents will also be involved in the next phase of the neighborhood’s makeover, which has the potential to be the most impactful yet: the redevelopment of the 3.5 acre Kroger site in the center of the business district. Kroger closed its store there in 2017. The Redevelopment Foundation was able to gain control of the site, and Model Group is the developer. The possible impact dwarfs anything the company has done yet in Walnut Hills. “We’ve done $40 million of development so far on McMillan,” Chamlee says. “We think the Kroger site can support $75 million to $100 million in development.” Although ﬁnal decisions have not been made yet, Chamlee foresees a mixed-use development, including locally owned businesses and mixed-income housing serving a diverse demographic. The community will be

engaged, as what is likely to be a multiyear process gets underway, Gardette says. “There will be open conversations where the community is engaged as a whole and there will be strategic working groups that will meet with the developers more often,” she says. Model Group representatives will attend every meeting of the Council’s planning and development committee for the foreseeable future to provide updates on the site, Gardette says. Fireside Pizza is still making its wood-fired pies and serving as focal point of sorts for development, as new apartments are going up next door and across the street. Sam Dobrozsi bought Fireside in 2018. “The neighborhood was undergoing a positive change,” he says. “It’s exploded in the last year.” Dobrozsi has roots in the neighborhood, as his grandfather was raised there and an uncle served at the firehouse. He understands that change in a community with such a history is something that must be negotiated with care. “We have to navigate a fine line,” he says. “We’re trying to serve everybody in the neighborhood. Not only the folks who have been there for a couple of generations, but the new folks coming in, too.”

RESPECT

New businesses and affordable housing respect the commitment of longtime Walnut Hills residents, say neighborhood advocates.

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The Cincinnati region can be a beacon of inclusion and economic success for employees of all kinds resulting in long-term ﬁnancial achievement, innovation, and sustainability for employers and thereby our community. To realize this vision, it will take our collective eﬀort, resources, and honest commitment to strengthen policies and practices that enable our region’s talent and businesses to thrive. As leaders of our region’s most respected and successful companies, we employ people who call our community home and, as such, play an essential role in catalyzing the shift in our workplace policies and practices to increase productivity, advancement, and equity. The result of this collective belief and action will catalyze a burgeoning workforce yielding returns for employee and employer. Ultimately, we believe our will to foster a prosperous workforce will lead to our region’s quest for economic mobility and sustained progress.

THIS UNIFYING BELIEF LEADS EACH OF US TO:

Seek to understand the practical impacts of our practices and policies on our employees by gathering data from them to capture their experiences, impediments to success, needs and desires. Examine our company’s culture, norms and formal procedures related to diversity, equity and inclusion to actively create a workplace where all individuals can thrive. Share our lessons learned and learn from one another through sharing data and best practices with the goal of strengthening our collective knowledge. In signing this pledge, I join in partnership with other business leaders across the Cincinnati region to commit our companies to transform capitalism and to move forward stronger than before, with a focus on our most important asset – our people – in service to them, their families, and the Cincinnati region that we love.

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PHOTO ESSAY

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A WEST END WONDER

FC Cincinnatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s privately funded $250-million stadium is on track to be ready for Major League Soccer action in the spring. The facility will hold 26,000 for matches, feature indoor and outdoor club spaces available for private events, and host a Mercy Health community clinic operating year-round. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JOHN FOX

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COME ON IN

A GOOD NEIGHBOR

Berding says FC Cincinnati faced challenges in locating the new stadium in the West End, “no question. But we’ve tried to genuinely listen to the community and do the right thing.” FCC is now sponsoring 10 youth soccer teams in a neighborhood (above right and opposite page) that had none a few years ago.

A TOUCH OF TRADITION

A number of club areas inside the stadium will reﬂect Cincinnati history and architecture, including the First Financial Club’s classic beer hall (right).

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R E N D E R I N G C O U R T E SY P O P U LO U S D E S I G N

Some FC Cincinnati fans will enter the new stadium from the north and south (top), but 70 percent are expected to use the east-side grand staircase on Central Parkway. “We’re pointing the crowds, the lighting, and the noise away from the West End residential area,” says FCC President Jeff Berding.

SIT RIGHT BACK

Seats are close to the action (left), even in the upper deck, and are covered by the 360-degree partial roof (below) that helps hold in the crowd noise, creating what FC Cincinnati hopes will be a fantastic home ﬁeld advantage in MLS.

LOCAL CONNECTIONS

Berding says the city should be proud of the stadium project because so many area companies participated, from Turner Construction and Jostin Construction to Elevar Design Group and US Bank, plus more than 50 local subcontractors. He’s pleased that 70 percent of the construction contracts were awarded to minority-owned, women-owned, and small-business-certiﬁed ﬁrms.

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WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES OF STARTING YOUR NEW ROLE AT THE OUTSET OF THE PANDEMIC? The most important thing was making sure our people were safe and could maintain continuity of service to our clients. EY moved 300,000 people to remote working in about 36 hours, with almost zero impact on

client delivery. What’s becoming more challenging is making sure people continue to feel safe, both mentally and physically, and that we can keep helping them grow in this remote environment.

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ASK ME ABOUT My ﬁrst six months leading the Cincinnati office during a pandemic.

WHAT HAS BEEN MOST REWARDING ABOUT YOUR NEW POSITION? EY’s purpose is “Building a better working world,” and I’m at the forefront of bringing that alive in our community. Our people serve on more than 40 local boards, and we donate thousands of hours to helping our community.

WHAT ARE YOUR LEADERSHIP GOALS FOR ERNST & YOUNG IN CINCINNATI? My focus is on attracting and retaining the best and most diverse talent. Because of the global nature of our work here, I’ve been able to attract incredible talent from other parts of the U.S. and from countries around the world. As an

immigrant myself, originally from the UK, I know ﬁrsthand the fantastic quality of life Cincinnati has to offer. —ELIZABETH MILLER WOOD

WHAT IS THE IMPACT YOU HOPE CROWN WILL HAVE ON CINCINNATI? It will connect our existing trails—like the Ohio River Trail, Wasson Way, Little Miami Scenic Trail, and Mill Creek Greenway—with neighborhoods, businesses, universities, and other attractions. To attract and retain more talented professionals and young families, we believe Cincinnati must invest in connecting our urban trails as our peer cities are already doing.

WHAT ARE THE LARGEST HURDLES IN ACCOMPLISHING CROWN’S GOALS? Some sections of the network will require property acquisition. For this nearly $50 million project, we need to raise $6.5 million in private dollars.

P H O T O G R A P H S ( C LO C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T ) C O U R T E SY J E R E M Y VA U G H A N / BY J E R E M Y K R A M E R / C O U R T E SY W Y M A N D J A N P O R T M A N

HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC INVERSELY AFFECTED MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE REGION? Black and Brown people signiﬁcantly and disproportionately die from COVID-19. The social determinants of health and well-researched health disparities almost ensured that marginalized communities would be dramatically impacted by the pandemic.

WHAT PROGRESS HAS CROWN ALREADY EXPERIENCED? The vision originated in 2015, and between 2017 and 2019 Cincinnati secured state and federal grants to fund the existing 1.3-mile section of Wasson Way. In 2019 and 2020, CROWN helped Cincinnati secure $10 million in state and federal funding to build out another 2.4 miles of Wasson Way, as well as extend the trail 1.4 miles to Uptown. We will continue to apply for grants to expand the network over the next several years.

HOW CAN THE COMMUNITY GET INVOLVED? Visit CROWNcin cinnati.org to learn about volunteer opportunities and how to make a donation. —E.M.W.

HOW HAS YOUR ORGANIZATION LEVERAGED SOCIAL MEDIA TO EDUCATE AND SERVE THESE UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS? The Health Gap, along with 30-plus other organizations, launched a COVID-19 community resource site to serve as a trusted information source. We were able to quickly execute this vision and help balance the barrage of fear and uncertainty we all faced daily. All of our programming transformed into an online curriculum. We also partnered with location

organizations and government agencies to reach residents who were living alone, who had no access to the internet, or who needed help navigating resources.

WHAT IMPROVEMENTS HAVE YOU SEEN AS A RESULT OF YOUR EFFORTS AND COLLABORATION WITH OTHER COMMUNITY PROGRAMS? The

People have to be aware of the issues to address them. Another improvement has been consistent messaging of health programming across various organizations and the willingness to share stories. —E.M.W.

most notable improvement was a signiﬁcant increase in awareness and education about how health disparities and racism are contributors to health outcomes.

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Holiday season across the region feels a little different this year, to put it mildly. But Newport on the Leveeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new owner, North American Properties, is making spirits bright by hosting local small businesses and craft artists at The Exchange, in the former Barnes & Noble space. Booths from clothing and home goods boutiques like Bluegrass & Sass and Ten Thousand Villages, among others, offer plenty of gift ideas under one roof. Make sure you visit the heated tent at the adjoining Bridgeview Box Park for a drink or bite to eat. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; J O H N F O X

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