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State may shift tech plan focus more to IT
Sensor tech center’s 2nd chance on right track State axed first crack after puzzling delays By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
The big boxes of machinery sitting in Lorain County Community College’s Entrepreneurship Innovation Center represent the first equipment bought by a member of the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering, an economic development effort that was torn apart and put back together after the state threatened to revoke its financial backing. Those boxes also represent a lot of opportunity for Jack Keller, owner of Spectre Sensors Inc. The maker of pressure sensors recently moved its six-person adminKeller istrative office from Bay Village to the entrepreneurship center’s third floor, partly because of the sensor testing and packaging capabilities that will be available just down the hall, Mr. Keller said. Spectre Sensors has a plant in the Buffalo area, but is considering opening a 10-person manufacturing operation somewhere in the region to be close to the sensor center and collaborators at NASA Glenn Research Center. “It sounds too good to be true,” Mr. Keller said. Spectre Sensors isn’t the only company interested in the capabilities the Wright Center is trying to create for sensor technology at Lorain County Community College and five other Ohio institutions. Each has lined up local industry partners that plan to use equipment they are buying with the help of $17 million the Wright Center doled out in August. The Wright Center’s goal is to create jobs by helping local companies develop new products and by attracting new businesses to the region, said center director Bill VerDuin.
Report identifies areas Third Frontier should consider next By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
HOOPS HIT HOME Cleveland will transform into basketball central as MAC, NCAA tourneys return; Horizon League also possible By JOEL HAMMOND jmhammond@crain.com
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ttention all Cleveland-area Purdue University alumni: You’d better sit down for this. One of your own is cheering for the Ohio State Buckeyes — who throttled the Boilermakers, 87-64, on Jan. 25, and played them again on Sunday — to nab the top overall seed in the coming NCAA men’s tourna-
ment. But Alex Cavazos has a good reason. The director of room operations at the Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Center hopes a top-seeded Buckeye team ends up at Quicken Loans Arena for the NCAA tournament. And that would mean a full hotel, not only at his place but likely all across town. See MADNESS Page 9
COLUMBUS — The next generation of Ohio’s Third Frontier economic development program may put more money into information technology than it has in the past. A report prepared by the Battelle Memorial Institute, a Columbus-based research organization, listed IT as one of six technology industries the Third Frontier should consider focusing on as the recently renewed “If (Ohio is) not program enters its second phase. at a competitive The other industries advantage (in identified as having strong IT), we’re going job-creation potential were to get our biomedical; advanced materials; advanced energy/clean clocks cleaned.” technology; aerospace; and – Rick Fearon, vice instruments and controls. chairman and chief The 10-year-old Third financial and planning Frontier initiative, which is officer, Eaton Corp. intended to spur the growth of a high-tech economy in Ohio, previously put little money toward IT companies and projects because the commission that oversees it believed Ohio didn’t have enough of a competitive advantage over other regions to justify the investment. The Battelle report, presented last Thursday, Feb. 17, at a meeting of the Third Frontier Advisory Board, which helps guide the commission, suggested funding additional studies analyzing Ohio’s ability to capitalize on market opportunities in each of the six areas. See TECH Page 21
INSIDE New face in town
STEVE BENNETT ILLUSTRATION
Michael Deemer, a new executive with Downtown Cleveland Alliance, will focus on reducing the office vacancy rate — currently 22% — in the city’s center. Read Stan Bullard’s story on Page 3.
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SPECIAL SECTION
Read up on 20 finalists for the 2011 NorTech Innovation Awards, which honor the region’s top technologies ■ Pages 15-18 ■
Entire contents © 2011 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 32, No. 8