Crain's Cleveland Business

VOL. 40, NO. 32

AUGUST 12 - 18, 2019

Source Lunch

Akron Colliers International has a Summit County real estate office Page 27

David Browning, CBRE Page 31 GOVERNMENT

Third Frontier awaits DeWine’s verdict

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The List Ohio’s largest public companies Page 28

HIGHER ED

UCATION

A CAMPUS TORN

By Jay Miller jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

The Ohio Third Frontier program is looking to approve spending at least $82 million before the end of 2019.

The 17-year-old program, which has spent more than $2 billion to stimulate new business development, awaits decisions from the administration of Gov. Mike DeWine on its future. Earlier this summer, the Ohio Development Services Agency released requests for proposals (RFP) looking to invest Third Frontier bond money to help grow technology businesses in the state.

The DeWine administration has been noncommittal about the program’s future. In an emailed statement, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the administration is examining how best to support new and growing businesses.

“Gov. DeWine and Lt. Gov. Husted are committed to making Ohio globally competitive and attracting growing industries, and Third Frontier has provided many benefits to Ohio businesses over the years. It has also continued to evolve,” Tierney wrote. “We are looking at ways to maximize these resources to take them to the next level.”

SEE FRONTIER, PAGE 30

UA faculty voices leadership concerns; administration wants to look forward

By Rachel Abbey McCafferty rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

A significant portion of the people tasked with carrying out the University of Akron’s mission of educating students — the union-represented, full-time faculty — have some serious concerns about how the institution is being run.

They don’t feel respected by top leadership, and they want to see an avalanche of changes put on hold

until a permanent president is put in place. University leadership, on the other hand, feels it’s already taken steps to address many of the faculty's concerns and that it’s time to look forward.

What’s left is a tangle of concerns and complaints as the university continues its search for yet another president and gets ready to start a new semester.

In early August, the University of Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors

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publicized the results of a survey of its members.

Akron-AAUP president Pam Schulze described faculty members afraid to speak up or make a wrong move and a university where that kind of culture permeates all levels.

Schulze, who is also a professor of child and family development, said the faculty union tried to use the university’s formal processes to resolve the concerns expressed in the

survey before going public; the initial release included a timeline of communications and attempted meetings.

“I really did not want to give the university a black eye,” Schulze said.

“I didn’t want the university to get bad publicity.”

About 40% of bargaining-unit faculty at the university responded to the survey, which was fielded in March.

The faculty union does not represent adjunct faculty, visiting faculty or faculty at the university’s law school.

SEE AKRON, PAGE 7

INSIDE

SPORTS BUSINESS

Cleveland’s immigrant past is a roadmap to its future Page 12

Past two decades have been a jumping-off point for former staffers

Focus: Immigration in NEO NEO success story, via China: Restaurater Jai Wei Page 15 Q&A: Laura Bennett Page 15 Entire contents © 2019 by Crain Communications Inc.

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Cavs’ success a springboard

By Kevin Kleps kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps

Len Komoroski counts more than 40 alumni from the Cleveland Cavaliers’ business department who are at a vice president level or above with another company, institution or sports team.

The list, which spans the past 25 years, includes more than a handful of executives with Legends (a global agency owned by the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees), a few top staffers at Playhouse Square, the

seven-year stint in which president of the NHL team he led the business operain Las Vegas, the CEO of a tions of the Philadelphia Major League Soccer club Eagles, the Cavs had yet to and key leaders with the Athit the LeBron James jacklanta Hawks, Detroit Pispot in the NBA lottery. tons, Memphis Grizzlies “We were the fourth and Milwaukee Bucks. team in a three-team Komoroski, who joined town,” Komoroski said. the Cavs as president in In the 16-plus years 2003 and was elevated to Komoroski since, the Cavs with James CEO 10 years later, has worked with the vast majority of the became a force on and off the court, group. He said keeping track of their the organization ended Cleveland’s success from afar has “been im- 52-year championship drought and mensely gratifying, and for us to play the superstar made a pair of highly publicized exits. a small role in that is great.”

When he came to Cleveland after a SEE CAVS, PAGE 8

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Welcoming Week casts Cleveland as a global city Global Cleveland will host a series of events to celebrate unity and showcase companies and organizations “We’re an immigrant city. ...

We’re pretty lucky to have a pretty open-minded, immigrantwelcome constituency that we work with in Northeast Ohio, and we want to tell the story.”

By Lydia Coutré lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

In an effort to highlight Cleveland as an international, globally connected city, Global Cleveland is hosting this year’s Welcoming Week, a series of events to celebrate unity and the work of immigrants in the city.

The events, which run Sept. 13-20, align with a national Welcoming Week. Last year, that week included more than 2,000 events in 400 communities with more than 80,000 participants, according to Welcoming America, a national nonprofit that supports diverse communities and

— Joe Cimperman, president of Global Cleveland

offers a roadmap to becoming more inclusive toward immigrants and all residents.

Part of Welcoming Week in Cleveland will involve showcasing companies and organizations as globalfriendly employers and highlighting

“all these different places that tell a story in Cleveland that has been all too often, unfortunately, latent, which we want to turn blatant,” said Joe Cimperman, president of Global Cleveland.

“We’re an immigrant city. … We’re pretty lucky to have a pretty

open-minded, immigrant-welcome constituency that we work with in Northeast Ohio, and we want to tell the story.”

Over the past seven years, an average of about 3,700 new immigrants have moved to Cuyahoga County, Cimperman said. The aim, he added, is to see that number grow and eventually begin helping last year’s group and welcoming the city's new group of immigrants.

“Our goal is to work all the time with our international communities and our companies to realize that prosperity is possible,” he said.

The week includes a series of events and features, from a naturalization ceremony to an interfaith

Guidance at every turn.

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More on immigration For a deeper dive into immigration’s importance to the region, see the Focus section, pages 12-15

service and luncheon to Global Cleveland’s Passport Party, where attendees will bring their passport, meet others and share stories. If they don’t have a passport, they can receive an application to get one.

Khizr Khan, a constitutional lawyer and Gold Star father, will be available for a book signing and will participate in a forum at The City Club of Cleveland. The week also includes a breakfast discussion of E1/ E2 visas. And beginning Monday, Sept. 16, participating cities and townships throughout Cuyahoga County will proclaim themselves as a welcoming city or township during their various government meetings.

On Wednesday, Sept. 18, Alexander Mann Solutions and Global Cleveland will host an invitation-only cocktail reception and networking event for VIPs at the newly renovated Alexander Mann Solutions office in the Erieview Tower. The event will celebrate and promote networking among Cleveland’s top global executives, innovators and influencers.

Cimperman will host the event, which will feature special guests including, among others, Rosaleen Blair, the London-based CEO and founder of Alexander Mann Solutions; Fareed Siddiq, managing director of Merrill Lynch and a Cleveland-based immigrant; and Noel Webb, a Canada-based co-founder of technology innovator Karen HR. Alexander Mann Solutions is a London-based company that specializes in talent acquisition and recruiting management services. In 2012, the company was looking for a headquarters to open its first service center in the United States. Although Cleveland wasn’t initially on its radar, a handful of local organizations (including Global Cleveland), made a big push for the city, where the company ultimately chose to locate, said Adam Giffi, marketing manager for Alexander Mann Solutions.

Since then, the company has been growing exponentially, he added. In working with Global Cleveland to find areas with which to partner, Welcoming Week came up.

“We decided there was no better way to show that Cleveland is an international, globally connected city than by demonstrating an organization, Alexander Mann Solutions, that lives and breathes that now in the city every day,” Giffi said.

Cleveland is connected to the world in many ways that residents may not realize, Giffi noted, and Welcoming Week is a way to show that.

“It means a lot to us both as Clevelanders and global citizens that Cleveland is seen and recognized as the international city that it is and that it is an important player in the business world,” Giffi said. “And the proof is not only Alexander Mann Solutions’ growth and the stuff Global Cleveland’s doing, but all of the people that are going to be collected in that room.”

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Loss of Ohio tax break has attorneys fuming Recently passed state budget bill excludes lawyers and lobbyists from business income deduction

By Jeremy Nobile

“(Lawmakers) haven’t stated any rational basis for treating lawyers different than any other similarly situated business in that tax code.”

jnobile@crain.com @JeremyNobile

The morning after the state passed a budget in mid-July, Ohio’s practicing attorneys found themselves the targets of a seemingly unfair, poorly worded and potentially unconstitutional tax provision that impacts finances for the entire profession.

Late into budget negotiations, lawmakers inserted a change to the corresponding bill, House Bill 166, that excludes lawyers and lobbyists from Ohio’s business income deduction.

The change exclusively targets those groups and no others.

“I’m not disappointed. I’m pissed,” wrote Brittany O’Diam Horseman in a July 18 Facebook post venting about the change.

O’Diam Horseman is managing partner of O’Diam & Estess Law Group in Beavercreek, a small firm of seven women that specializes in elder law.

In a followup with Crain’s, O’Diam Horseman said she crunched the numbers with accountants and found that losing the deduction could cost her firm “tens of thousands of dollars I now have to reallocate that otherwise might’ve gone to people or sales or things like that.”

Exclusion from the tax break is a jarring loss for the small business.

“Ohio’s new law effectively declares that, just because I’m a lawyer, I owe more than the 10 other small businesses in the commercial complex where I

— Mary Amos Augsburger, CEO of the Ohio State Bar Association

Contributed photo

work,” O’Diam Horseman’s post continued. “The dollars I earn are more deserving of taxation than the medical practice down the street or the accountant across town. My family should make do with less than the families of the owners of the engineering firms, the tech companies, the jewelers and the insurance agents.”

Mary Amos Augsburger, CEO of the Ohio State Bar Association, said the legal community is considering its options for getting that tax break restored.

“We are exploring whether we bring legal action,” Augsburger said, noting there seems to be support from members of the General Assembly. “(Lawmakers) haven’t stated any rational basis for treating lawyers different than any other similarly sit-

uated business in that tax code.”

The new tax codes would take effect in 2020.

An 11th-hour change The Ohio business deduction was first effective with 2013 tax returns.

It was enacted to provide business owners with a mechanism to exempt some of the income earned from pass-through entities, which include LLCs, LLPs and S corporations. It’s how most law firms, large and small — and many businesses in general — are commonly structured. The benefit of a pass-through comes in avoiding double taxation, where taxes would be levied on income from the business entity and an individual. As a

pass-through, the income flows through to the business owners.

The change in the tax code was championed under former Gov. John Kasich amid efforts to shape Ohio as a business-friendly state.

The language of the provision has been revised through the years. In its present form, it allows for the first $250,000 of income to be excluded from tax, with the remaining income taxed at just 3%. Any business organized as a pass-through can take advantage of that deduction — except, now, for lawyers and lobbyists.

“We are not happy about it and wonder why lawyers were specifically singled out,” said Gregg Eisenberg, managing partner of regional law firm Benesch.

Augsburger indicated the legal community was not aware of the changes in advance of the bill’s final draft, and there was seemingly no time for public debate or commentary about it.

Some factors in play may have been the notion that lawyers “abuse” the tax break, Augsburger said, although she is not aware of any instances of that.

There also may be a notion that all lawyers are rich and can do without the exemption — a perspective attorneys at small firms like O’Diam Horseman’s would dispute.

Other sources indicate the business deduction itself was targeted for elimination entirely during the course of vetting the budget this year.

But since some groups opposed that, it was preserved. Yet, sometime during the 11th hour of negotiations,

a provision singling out lawyers and lobbyists was inserted.

Crain’s reached out to Larry Householder, speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, for insight on what played out and the rationale behind the change.

An emailed response from Kristen Brett, majority outreach coordinator for the speaker’s office, didn’t wholly answer those questions: “Throughout the course of any legislation, policy initiatives and ideas are debated and revised until the final bill is ultimately passed. Debate on changes to the Business Income Deduction during the course of work on the budget bill, House Bill 166, were no different. The Ohio House and the Ohio Senate each advanced ideas in their respective versions of the budget bill, and the final language included in HB 166 was the result of discussions between the House, Senate and the DeWine administration. We should emphasize as well, the Ohio House, in its version of the budget bill, proposed several tax reforms, including the elimination of tax breaks for motor racing teams and people making campaign contributions. We believe the Ohio’s tax code is in need of reform and are interested in taking a closer look at the extensive list of tax breaks currently on the books in Ohio. Ohio’s goal should be a fair, consistent tax policy that has the lowest income tax rates possible. The way to achieve that is to move away from special breaks for a few in exchange for low rates for all.”

SEE TAX BREAK, PAGE 8

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Contractor disputes roil Villa San Bernardo project

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Construction on part of the former Villa San Bernardo religious property in Bedford as a $14 million senior citizens complex has ground to a halt as two of Akron's largest building firms are waging a lawsuit over the project.

In the meantime, construction subcontractors have filed a half-dozen mechanic's liens to protect their rights to be paid for work they have completed on the project, which called for renovating the former mother house and retreat house of the Vincentian Sisters of Charity, 1160 Broadway Ave., for affordable housing for seniors and disabled individuals. The project was supposed to produce 59 units of affordable housing in part of the 1930-vintage complex in a combination of renovations and a new structure.

Welty-Testa LLC, a company that Welty Building Co. of Fairlawn formed in 2016 to assume the commercial building business of Testa Cos. of Cuyahoga Falls, has sued Villa San Bernardo LLC and Testa chairman Paul Testa in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas for $3.6 million that it says it's due for work it completed on the project. Welty-Testa claims its contract was wrongfully terminated, along with other claims.

The case, filed on June 6, was assigned to Judge Nancy R. McDonnell.

Testa had not filed its answer to the complaint by Thursday, Aug. 8.

In its complaint, Welty-Testa maintained that Paul Testa and Villa San Bernardo LLC interfered with its work on the project, made unauthorized changes to the plans, and directed the subcontractors Welty-Testa hired to change their work. Those changes made it impossible for Welty-Testa to meet deadlines, according to the suit, and it was wrongly assured that it would be compensated for cost overruns.

Bedford city manager Michael Mallis confirmed in a voicemail received Tuesday, Aug. 6, that work on

Scaffolds stand unused at the Villa San Bernardo in Bedford, a sign work has stopped midstream at the proposed conversion of the former 1930s-era nun’s mother house to affordable senior housing. (Stan Bullard)

the project had come to a halt.

"We've been assured by the owner (Villa San Bernardo LLC) that it expects to resume construction soon," Mallis said.

Meanwhile, a total of $1.3 million in mechanic's liens have been filed by subcontractors for past-due sums they incurred working on the project, ranging from foundation work to installing electrical wiring. The liens were filed between May 31 and July 26, according to computer records of the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Office.

Several of the liens are for sums over $100,000.

The K Company Inc. of Akron, a heating and air conditioning firm, filed a lien May 31 for $372,523 for work completed between March 15, 2018, and May 9, 2019. Bechter Plumbing Co. of Akron filed a lien for $277,685 on July 2 for work it completed between May 1, 2018, and May 17, 2019. Schuler Painting Co. of Elyria filed a lien June 10 for $148,826 for work between Feb. 25 and June 4, 2019. Foundation Building Materials Co. of Carnegie, Pa., filed a lien June 12 for $138,337 for drywall and related materials it had supplied between

July 27, 2018, and May 31, 2019.

Another three subcontractors filed smaller liens totaling $138,738 against Villa San Bernardo.

Glazing Systems Inc. of Brimfield Township named Welty-Testa Builders LLC as the subject of a $29,830 lien, but attached it to the county land record for Villa San Bernardo.

Chris Burns, Welty chief operating officer, said in an interview last Thursday that it was the first time the company has sued a property owner on a development project. He said Welty is otherwise profitable and has a good supply of additional work. He declined to comment on how much financial impact the dispute has had on the company.

Paul Testa did not return two phone calls, and Joel Testa, president and chief operating officer at Testa, did not return a phone call by 6 p.m.

Thursday. The company also did not respond to an email to its website asking for comment on the case.

A 2016 news release on Welty's website said Welty-Testa was formed under a strategic partnership to share their strengths as construction companies and allow Testa to focus on real estate development projects.

The Quarter’s next step looms Snavely could add to its $60 million apartment project

By Stan Bullard sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltyWriter

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In what may become a $20 million project, Snavely Development Group is putting together the pieces to construct a 79-suite expansion to The Quarter, its Cleveland mixed-use apartment complex. The project will consist of a new five-story building and renovation of an existing building.

Through WD 25III LLC, the Chagrin Falls real estate development and ownership concern shelled out $2.5 million July 31 to acquire the three-story Painters Union Building, which has been at 2605 Detroit Ave. since 1925, and adjoining parking lots covering almost an acre, according to Cuyahoga County land records.

The seller was TEG Properties Inc. of Cleveland, which assembled the site in multiple stages since 1991.

Peter Snavely Jr., vice president of development at the family-owned real estate development and building

concern, said, "We're in closing mode," referring to closing financial documents to fund construction of the building. He declined to say how much the company raised for the project or its development cost.

Some of the investors in the project have used their own Opportunity Zone funds to invest in it, he said.

Constructing a five-story building with almost 80 units would cost $20 millon based on industry efforts.

Key city approvals are in place for the next phase of The Quarter, a $60 million complex of 194 apartments and 30,000 square feet of commercial space. The project's first phase transformed a derelict parking lot and park on the northwest corner of Detroit and West 25th Street near the foot of Veterans Memorial Bridge, which connects the West Side with downtown. Another part of the project, now underway, is adding affordable housing units to the landmark Forest City Building, which houses commercial tenants from the Ohio City Galley to the Beauty Shoppe, a co-working provider.

The Cleveland Landmarks Commission on June 25 approved a certificate of appropriateness for the project at 2605 and 2615 Detroit. The plan calls for upgrading existing apartments in the Painters Union Building and adding new retail tenants in it. One has already taken up a position in the structure: the Joy Machines bike shop. West and south of the existing building will rise a five-floor structure with apartment amenities, offices or retail space on the ground level. The site is near Hingetown and is just east of the 11-story Church-State apartments being constructed by a joint venture of several developers led by Hemingway Development of Cleveland.

The new Snavely structure would mirror The Quarter's recently completed buildings. Cleveland's Board of Zoning Appeals signed off on variances for the project July 15, primarily one that allows the new building to continue the building line established by the Painters Union Building west on West 26th Street.

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Park Place Technologies busy with deals, renovation Data center maintenance company based in Mayfield Heights is on an acquisiton roll, with 12 since 2016

By Scott Suttell ssuttell@crain.com @ssuttell

In a summer of big developments at Park Place Technologies, the Mayfield Heights-based data center hardware maintenance company last week hit another milestone: making its first acquisition outside the third-party maintenance (TPM) category.

Park Place last Tuesday, Aug. 6, announced it has bought Entuity, a global network performance monitoring software company with offices in Boston and London and annual revenues of about $10 million. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

This is Park Place’s 12th acquisition since 2016 and its second of 2019, following the purchase in April of MCSA Group Limited, a United Kingdom-based IT services provider.

But Chris Adams, president and CEO of Park Place, said the Entuity deal is noteworthy because it takes his company outside the TPM space and makes it possible to offer monitoring, automated maintenance, network operations center services, event management, probable cause and IT data analytics from a single supplier.

The bottom line in being able to offer that large suite of services, Adams said, is “we’ll be able to continue to drive uptime for our global customer base.” For Park Place and the 55,000 data centers it serves in more than 140 countries, maximizing uptime is the goal, because downtime is expensive.

Adams said Entuity, founded in 1997, is a well-established company in the network performance monitoring sector that provides the software analytics needed to keep networks performing at peak capacity.

Entuity’s technology over the next several months will be integrated with Park Place’s monitoring product, called ParkView, which is a secure, hosted service that proactively identifies system component failures.

Stephen Woodard, president and CEO of Entuity, said the combination “will yield mutual benefits for both companies and their customers,” as his company’s auto discovery and inventory capabilities, live topology, event management and probable cause analysis strengthens Park Place’s existing products.

The Entuity deal is just part of a flurry of recent activity for fast-growing Park Place, which has about 430 employees in its Mayfield Heights headquarters, among about 1,200

SNAVELY

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

Snavely said the company wanted to build on the success it's had with The Quarter. He noted the first phase was 100% leased until tenant leases began to expire and it still remains more than 93% leased.

Asked about all the other apartment units going in downtown and in nearby neighborhoods, Snavely said his company thinks there is continued demand for more apartments.

He added the project's proximity to downtown will benefit it as relatively few downtown workers live downtown, according to recent research by Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

"We just like the area between the area retail, the bike path, the (proposed Irishtown Bend) park and ac-

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Architecture and design firm Vocon handled Park Place Technologies’ $3.5 million renovation of 16,535 square feet of its 101,500-square-foot headquarters in Mayfield Heights. (Vocon)

Park Place Technolgies’ recent renovations include the addition of a map showcasing the company’s locations around the globe.

worldwide.

Park Place on July 30, unveiled a $3.5 million renovation of 16,535 square feet of its 101,500-square-foot headquarters at 5910 Landerbrook Drive. The renovation was handled by architecture and design firm Vocon, which has worked with Park Place on various projects in Northeast Ohio and globally since 2008.

(Vocon currently is working on renovations at Park Place’s offices in cess to downtown," Snavely said. "To me, the most exciting thing over there is the planned park. It's going to be a big connector for the neighborhood and builds on what is going on around it."

Tom McNair, executive director of the Ohio City Inc. neighborhood development corporation, called the project a "really important piece in the development of the Detroit Avenue corridor. It will fill a significant missing tooth in the street, which has seen $200 million development and 800 units of apartments over the last five years."

McNair said OCI is encouraged by Snavely moving on another phase because the firm has proven to be a "good neighbor to the neighborhood." The concept also won support, he said, when Snavely took the plan to the Franklin-Clinton Block Club last spring.

Houston and near Boston.)

Adams said in an interview that one of the main goals of the renovation was to “reinforce the culture” of Park Place, putting employees in a position to succeed by having access to technology that makes them more productive, upgraded workstations with sit/stand desks — and some nice perks, too.

To accommodate Park Place’s need for companywide meetings and

employee training, Vocon created what it calls a “combined, collapsible room” with movable glass walls that can support both uses. (The glass walls can be removed to create an open meeting space when needed.)

The space has four training rooms and a breakout area for smaller groups, as well as features such as writable wall surfaces and multiple screens for presentations.

On the lighter side of things, the headquarters now features what Park Place calls the “UpTime Cafe,” a coffeehouse and market staffed with a full-time barista and featuring technology that enables employees to buy items with a thumbprint scan system. The cafeteria is outfitted with some private rooms and tables that can be converted to pingpong tables.

Vocon also redesigned the company’s fitness room and remodeled locker rooms and showers. Park Place now is equipped to offer daily yoga and exercise classes.

Vocon said in a news release that the redesign “reflects Park Place Technologies’ brand and company culture.” For instance, there’s a colorful wall between the dining area and the training rooms that features the names of Park Place’s three founders and the company mission statement, and includes a map showcasing the

A five-floor lookalike is planned for The Quarter on the south side of Detroit Avenue in Cleveland. The drawing shows the existing three-story Painters Union Building, which will be retained as part of the project.

(Cleveland City Planning Commission)

The first units in the new building will be available in August 2020 and construction will be completed by October 2020, according to a docu-

ment Snavely provided.

The project's next phase will include studio and one-bedroom suites, the statement said.

company’s locations around the globe. Off the lobby, there’s a small store with Park Place gear.

Paul Voinovich, principal of Vocon, said the goal of the design is “to increase productivity, create energy and facilitate further growth and expansion.”

Continued growth at Park Place will come with a new partner in the fold.

On July 23, Chicago private equity firm GTCR announced that it plans to sell a stake in Park Place to Charlesbank Capital Partners of Boston.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter and to provide Park Place with “additional access to capital for growth,” according to a news release announcing the transaction.

Charlesbank describes itself as a “middle-market private equity investment firm managing more than $5 billion of capital.” It focuses on management-led buyouts and growth capital financings, “generally investing in companies with enterprise values of $150 million to $1.5 billion.”

GTCR bought Park Place in December 2015 from WestView Capital Partners of Boston, which had been the majority shareholder of the Mayfield Heights company since 2012.

A Park Place spokesperson said the GTCR stake was “approximately 50%.” A GTCR spokesperson said the firm would not comment on the deal, beyond the release. A Charlesbank official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

GTCR said in the release that since the 2015 acquisition, Park Place “has achieved strong organic growth by expanding its salesforce and technical capabilities.” The result of those initiatives, plus the acquisitions of the last few years, is that “revenue and EBITDA (grew) significantly under GTCR’s ownership,” the firm said in the release. Park Place does not disclose specific sales figures.

Adams, who joined Park Place in 2006 and became CEO in January, said he expects the company to “remain acquisitive” with Charlesbank in the fold.

He said an initial public offering could be considered down the line, but that Park Place has appreciated the flexibility of its private equity ownership: “One quarter’s numbers don’t particularly matter. What’s important is to be able to execute your long-term plan and the ability the reinvest in the business, the technology and your people.”

TEG Properties is led by Tom Gillespie, the owner of Ohio Citybased Getco Environmental, who has invested in several properties on Detroit and West 25th Street over the years. The site was originally scheduled for a nonprofit apartment building or condominiums, but both projects came to naught because of the Great Recession of 2008.

McNair described Gillespie as an early believer in the potential of West 25th and lower Detroit who has of late focused on updating older buildings rather than ground-up construction.

Among Gillespie's other holdings is the Jay Apartments, 2515 Jay Ave., a high-end apartment building in a structure known in the 1960s through the '80s as single-room-only rentals.

Gillespie did not return a phone call about the sale of the Detroit Avenue site by 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8.

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Many of the complaints center around one individual or role: executive vice president and chief administrative officer Rex Ramsier. At the time the survey was taken, Ramsier was serving in that role, as well as in the role of senior vice president and provost, a dual role that was supposed to be temporary. Since then, the university has split the role of provost into two: chief administrative officer and chief academic officer, a plan that had been approved but put on hold after Matthew J. Wilson announced his intention to step down as president.

In April 2019, after the faculty union survey was conducted and shared with the board of trustees, the plan to split the provost role resumed. The board named Chand Midha interim executive vice president and chief academic officer. Ramsier maintained his role as executive vice president and chief administration officer, and the role of senior vice president and provost was dissolved.

The chief academic officer, as outlined by the board, has oversight of duties related to the university’s academic mission, such as helping select and appoint deans, chairs and faculty and making recommendations on promotion, tenure and dismissal for faculty and academic staff.

The chief administrative officer is tasked with overseeing enrollment management, human resources and labor relations, as well as responding to complaints and grievances.

But the faculty union doesn’t feel enough has changed. In releasing the survey results, the Akron-AAUP is requesting the university take five actions to mitigate its membership’s concerns:  The union wants to meet with the administration to come to an agreement on how the provost’s duties, as currently outlined in the union’s contract, translate to the roles of chief academic officer and chief administrative officer.  The Akron-AAUP would like Ramsier to be relieved of all administrative duties related to the faculty, as he doesn’t have the faculty’s confidence.  After a new president is named, the union would like to see the university immediately begin a search for a new provost, doing away with the new chief academic officer and chief administrative officer roles.  The union would like to see any academic reorganization wait until a new president is in office.  The union would also like to see changes to faculty workload policies wait until a new provost is named.

The survey specifically asked respondents about the performance of interim president John C. Green and Ramsier. Neither fared all that well.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents ranked Green’s overall performance as poor; another 33% ranked it as fair.

And 81% of respondents ranked Ramsier’s overall performance as poor. A large majority of respondents also ranked him as poor on such measures as whether he treats faculty with respect and promotes the institution’s academic mission.

Ramsier said he has tried not to take the survey results personally.

Any decisions he has been part of were made with data behind them. If the faculty union had serious complaints, he said he would have expected grievances to be filed.

Schulze shared with Crain’s some of the issues the faculty have with Ramsier.

Many feel personally targeted or micromanaged, she said, afraid of taking a wrong step. That feeling has increased among faculty members as Ramsier has

P007_CL_20190812.indd 7

moved up the ranks over the years.

Schulze said she thinks Ramsier is a “product” of the university’s culture, which thrives on a lack of pushback.

“It’s really an atmosphere of so much fear that has grown on this campus,” she said.

Joseph M. Gingo, chair of the University of Akron’s board of trustees, doesn’t see the benefit of publishing the survey results now, when the university will soon have a new leader.

And that new leader will be in a position to make decisions about some of the concerns in the survey, like workload and staffing, he noted.

Gingo praised the work Green has done as interim president, saying he “re-established the university’s credibility” after the leadership turmoil the university has faced in recent years.

As for Ramsier’s performance, Gingo said Ramsier was often the point person sharing “bad news” under the past few administrations. Ramsier may not have done everything right, Gingo said, but he did tackle the major issues with which he was tasked.

“The person who delivers the bad news is not necessarily loved,” Gingo observed.

Ultimately, he added, he supports Ramsier. Gingo also said he wouldn’t choose to remove someone from the leadership team now, so close to a new president being named. It should be up to that new leader to choose their own team, he said.

Ramsier said he thinks a lot of the complaints in the survey have already been addressed, as they took place when he was balancing two roles. That could sometimes cause confusion about “which hat” he was wearing when making decisions, he said.

“The splitting of the roles has taken away, I think, a vast majority of the basis for the complaints,” Ramsier said.

Green agreed, noting that the board is “committed” to searching for a non-interim chief academic officer once the presidential search is complete. That seems to answer the question of whether the university plans to do away with the split provost role.

And Green takes issue with the faculty union’s request that Ramsier be removed from overseeing any activities related to faculty, because he views that as the union trying to dictate who the university chooses to represent it in dealings between the two parties.

That’s two requests. The debate around whether the university and the faculty union need to sit down and discuss the wording of their existing contract gets a bit more complicated. The parties have differing accounts of what was said in meetings discussing — and not discussing — the issue. When asked, their opinions on the matter couldn’t be more different.

The faculty union’s position is that the university can’t “impose their own interpretation of what the word 'provost' means,” Schulze said. The union claims that has to be negotiated and that all mentions of a provost in the contract represent an agreement of the union to work with the chief academic officer, the associate chief academic officer or a designee of the chief academic officer.

Ramsier, on the other hand, said the university does not see the need to renegotiate the contract to change the language surrounding the provost title; in the past, the specific title of the person working with the faculty union hasn’t been an issue.

That brings the parties to the last two requests made by the union: putting a pause on both academic reorganization and workload policy changes.

The academic reorganization discussions have indeed been on hold in recent months, but Green said he will be giving a report to the board of

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How will survey results affect presidential search?

As the University of Akron grapples with its faculty union’s public complaints about how the institution is being run, it also continues the search for its next president.

Public statements, like the ones in the University of Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors’ recently released survey, can shape a presidential search.

They highlight an institution’s culture and constituent concerns, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C. Such statements can give candidates insight into issues on the campus they seek to lead and allow them to address those during the search process.

Pam Schulze, president of the Akron-AAUP, said she worried about how releasing the survey could affect the presidential search, but she added

that she wanted the future president to be informed and be “able to come here and deal with these issues.”

“If we can’t come together and work together on the university’s problems, we can’t solve them,” Schulze said.

Joseph M. Gingo, chair of the university’s board of trustees, said he doesn’t worry that the release of the survey results will affect the presidential search, because he thinks candidates are already “well aware” of the ongoing situations at UA. “I am not concerned,” Gingo said. “I think we have the right type of people.

They understand what the problems are. And they really understand the most significant problem we have is the financial situation that we’re facing.”

Gingo said his goal is to have a new president in place before the spring semester. — Rachel Abbey McCafferty

trustees in executive session in August. After that, the board will decide whether to move forward.

Green said there are arguments for and against waiting until a new president is named. On one hand, he said, some argue that an academic reorganization should be part of a larger strategic planning process; on

the other, there’s an argument against putting the burden of the “end of a conversation that’s been going on for 15 months” on a new president.

Schulze is on the strategic plan side.

“I’m not afraid of change at all,” Schulze said. “Institutions have to change over time. That’s OK. But it should happen as the result of a

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thoughtful process, not just, let’s throw some spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks today.”

The workload policy discussion seems to be moving forward. The workload rule, which defines how much time a department’s faculty should spend on teaching versus on other activities, such as research, has been around for at least 20 years but wasn’t always formally followed, Green said. The union doesn’t contest that, but Schulze takes issue with the fact that Ramsier is overseeing the work when he is no longer supposed to be overseeing academic issues.

Green said he asked all units to submit draft policies in the spring and, since the process began before the provost role was divided, he asked Ramsier to continue overseeing it after the new roles were put in place. Ramsier said the university has been working to create a fair, consistent policy draft for units to follow based on one of the simpler draft policies submitted by a unit. The existing rule does allow for flexibility, including differences based on the type of degrees a program offers.

Ultimately, these discussions aren’t happening in a vacuum. Recent years at the University of Akron have been tough and full of change – and more change, at least in terms of leadership, is certainly on the way.

Until that happens, there’s no telling how the university and its professors will be affected.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

CAVS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

As is the case with players who contribute to deep playoff runs, the business successes have proven to be a jumping-off point for former Cavs staffers, who were recruited for prominent roles elsewhere.

Komoroski said “there’s no perfect script” for knowing when it’s time for an employee to take on a new challenge, but “it’s great to see leaders evolve.”

The Cavs have had their fair share — more than most. Here are a few of their stories.

Adding to the ‘toolkit’ James’ infamous “Decision” in 2010 was devastating to the Cavs organization.

Sezin Aksoy, who started the Cavs’ business analytics upon her arrival in January 2009, was able to find some positives.

“It gave us a chance to really grow other parts of the business,” Aksoy said. “It gave us a toolkit of what levers to pull when we need them.”

With James, sellout crowds at Quicken Loans Arena (now Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse) were the norm. That was great for the team’s revenue, but it didn’t provide as much of a lift for those who were studying why people made ticket-buying decisions.

“Is it the promotion you’re having that game, is it the day of the week or the opponent? You’re able to learn about your customers and segment them,” Aksoy said. “In prior seasons with high demand, the signals aren’t as strong. You have less to work with from a learning standpoint.”

Aksoy, a former American Airlines pricing analyst, helped the Cavs create a dynamic pricing model for single-game tickets. At the time, only a few teams were using that practice, which is now an industry standard.

The Cavs’ business analytics team now approaches double digits, which is almost double the number from 2013, when Aksoy left her position because her husband, a physician, landed a job at UCLA Medical Center.

Aksoy — who in January was named senior VP of global data strategy and analytics at AXS, a leading ticketing provider — appreciates that the Cavs were “open-minded” about new approaches during her tenure.

“You don’t have that in a lot of other organizations,” she said.

The ‘perfect opportunity’ Kerry Bubolz was the first person Komoroski hired after taking over the Cavs’ business ops in 2003.

The pair had worked together during stints with the Cleveland Lumberjacks, and Komoroski had long

TAX BREAK CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

A followup question about how lawmakers square “fair and consistent” tax policy with eliminating perks for only certain professions was not immediately addressed.

Questions, few answers The exclusion of the tax break is likely unconstitutional for how it singles out a particular business, said Richard Fry, chair of the taxation group for Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs.

Furthermore, the new language as written is also overly broad, said

P008_CL_20190812.indd 8

Len Komoroski, who joined the Cavs as president in 2003, has overseen the $185 million renovation, along with the renaming, of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. (Cleveland Cavaliers)

More online For a comprehensive list of Cavs alumni who have landed prominent jobs elsewhere, see Kevin Kleps’ Sports Biz blog this week at: CrainsCleveland.com Bubolz

Estis

known of Bubolz’s desire to have a prominent role with an NHL team.

In 2016, a few months after the Cavs had won that elusive title, Bubolz was offered his dream job: president of the NHL expansion team that was headed to Las Vegas.

“If there was ever a perfect opportunity, it was with Kerry,” Komoroski said.

Bubolz, who had been the Cavs’ president of business operations since 2013 and was with the organization for more than 13 years, said he loved everything about Northeast Ohio, with the exception of the weather.

“I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily an expert in anything, but I had a chance to see excellence in every aspect of the business,” he said. “Knowing what success looks like is more important than having expertise in every area.”

When he arrived in Vegas, he said, his group was working against several negative narratives: “It was a bad name (the Golden Knights), a bad logo, we had a bad expansion draft and you shouldn’t put a hockey team in the desert.”

Vegas advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018, becoming the first expansion team in the four major U.S.based sports leagues to move on to the championship round. The Knights also have been at or near the top of the NHL in “every single busiMary Jo Dolson, a veteran tax expert with Skoda Minotti, creating confusion about how the changes apply to businesses that provide legal services in addition to other work — such as Skoda Minotti. The same confusion applies for companies with in-house lawyers or lobbyists.

“The fear I have, looking at the budget bill, is it’s not real clear,” Dolson said. “Like an accounting business with a law firm in it: If you’re a pass-through entity, and some income comes through the law firm, is income from the law firm just not allowed to be taken? This is something that has to play out to see where it ends up and how aggressive the state becomes with it.”

Another complicating issue creeps

Narain

Yavitch

ness metric,” Bubolz said, including merchandise and season-ticket sales.

Getting the chance to have an impact with an organization from Day One has “been the most rewarding professional experience of my career,” Bubolz said.

‘Ultimate game-changer’ Chad Estis will never forget the night the Cavs won the lottery in 2003.

“We had the whole sales team at the arena to man the phones for the anticipated demand, and that’s exactly what happened,” recalled Estis, then a VP of sales.

The group “went nuts” after it was revealed that the Cavs would pick first in the draft. The draft class that year was terrific, but James, the unquestioned top choice, “was the ultimate game-changer,” Estis said.

The Cavs took a break from selling tickets at 1 a.m., and staffers returned later that morning for another rush.

It was a far cry from 2001, when the Cavs, at just a few thousand, had one of the lowest season-ticket bases in the league.

“When I took the job there, it was almost a little shocking to me how bad things had dropped off,” said Estis, an Avon High School graduate who played basketball for Ohio University.

Even with James, it took a couple

years for fans to really buy in, Estis said. By the time the Cavs played in their first Finals in 2007, Estis, then the chief marketing officer, was being recruited by the Dallas Cowboys.

He wasn’t looking to leave, but the opportunity — an executive VP of business operations role for an NFL team that was getting set to build a state-of-the-art stadium — was one he couldn’t refuse.

Estis remains involved in all aspects of the Cowboys’ business, but he’s also heavily involved with Legends, for whom is he an executive VP. “The Cavs will always hold a special place for me,” Estis said. “When they won the championship, I was as fanatical as one could be.”

Opening doors Garin Narain’s “first real” job out of college was with the Cavs. The University of Florida graduate climbed the ranks in the team’s communications department, eventually becoming director of basketball communications in 2011.

A year later, he left for a VP of public relations position with the Atlanta Hawks. By 2015, he was a senior VP. He credits Cavs leadership for the learning opportunities he was afforded.

“That was one side of it,” Narain said. “The second side was the team’s on-court success really opened up doors. I was able to meet a lot of people in the NBA because we were always in the playoffs and we played in

“How do you enforce that language? It’s so poorly written, it’s going to cause administrative problems for the department of taxation.”

— Richard Fry, chair of the taxation group for Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs

up with firms that have offices in Ohio in addition to other states. Exactly how the codes could apply is murky.

“How do you enforce that language? It’s so poorly written, it’s going to cause administrative problems for the department of taxation,” Fry

said. “Is this going to affect those companies with in-house lawyers and lobbyists? Taken literally, it should. I think it would be best if there were legislation enacted to eliminate that provision and we go back to treating all Ohio businesses equally and all Ohio businesses get

the Finals. I also met a lot of people in the media.”

In Atlanta, Narain was in charge of the PR department at 31. The job certainly hasn’t been easy, with crises that stemmed from racially insensitive comments made by former general managers Danny Ferry and Wes Wilcox, and former co-owner Bruce Levenson. There was also an ownership transition, the renovation of State Farm Arena and the construction of a new practice facility.

“I’ve been able to really grow as an executive,” Narain said. “I was able to grow in Cleveland, but there is certainly something different when you are the guy kind of calling the shots.”

Narain will always be fond of Northeast Ohio. It’s where he met his wife and where his daughter was born.

Even now, he’s surrounded by some familiar faces. The Hawks’ new coach is Lloyd Pierce, and two of his top assistants are Melvin Hunt and Chris Jent. All three were part of Mike Brown’s coaching staff during James’ first Cavs stint.

“There’s definitely a special sort of kinship with the guys that were in Cleveland,” Narain said.

‘Midwest spin’ Hallie Yavitch said she’s “one of the fortunate few.”

She loved her 14-year career at Playhouse Square — the final four years of which were spent as the assistant director of programming. She loved her 10 years with the Cavs, which featured a 2017 promotion to VP of event booking for Cleveland’s busiest arena. And she rang in 2019 by moving to Los Angeles to become the VP of booking for Staples Center and Microsoft Theater.

“I was not looking to leave,” Yavitch said. “This opportunity came up, and why I continued to pursue it was in five years maybe, when I was looking to leave, this job might not be available. I had to take a chance on me.”

She’s still adjusting to the faster pace of Hollywood. And she’s happy that several agents and managers have responded favorably to the “Midwest spin” she’s put on a few situations — the answers to which are usually needed “yesterday” in her new locale.

One of her greatest lessons from her time with the Cavs is a simple one: Sometimes a penny is just a penny.

“That’s helped me here,” Yavitch said. “No company wants to consistently be in the red. You have to be in the black, but at least the mentality is a little different.”

A key part of the mindset, according to Komoroski, is that every challenge presents an opportunity.

“It’s a bit like Cleveland itself,” the CEO of the Cavs and the FieldHouse said. “We have a phenomenal city, but we’re always being overlooked.” that deduction.”

O’Diam Horseman suggested that smaller firms in particular, impacted by losing the exemption, may need to consider raising rates, restructuring their practices or leaving the smallfirm environment altogether to “flock to large firms” because of the additional financial burden.

“We are small business owners, and we are essential partners to other small businesses and large businesses alike. We should be treated the same as other small businesses. The State of Ohio should be ashamed of itself,” O’Diam Horseman’s post concluded. “Thanks for nothing, Gov. DeWine, (Rep.) Rick Perales and Sen. Bob Hackett. I’ll be sure to remember this next time I vote.”

8/9/19 3:13 PM

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Channel Products moves into the research business

By Rachel Abbey McCafferty rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

Channel Products is ready to expand beyond the gas ignition business.

The Solon company’s been operating in that space since 1972. James S. Becker, chief technology and innovation officer, said Channel Products has historically been constrained to the markets it has always served: users of gas ignition components like gas grills and industrial appliances. But the company has experience in a variety of disciplines, and it has “the technology and the creativity and the ability” to serve other markets, he said.

Enter Spotted Yak Solutions, the company’s new research and innovation business.

Becker is overseeing the work at Spotted Yak, which offers design, engineering and product development services.

The idea for a research and innovation business like Spotted Yak arose about two years ago, said Teresa C. Lindsey, Channel Products’ president and chief operating officer.

That’s when she and Becker began brainstorming ways to take Channel Products “to the next level.” The idea was to offer services that Channel Products’ existing customers could use but that would also help expose the company to new markets and allow it to diversify.

“While we are very strong and have

Lindsey

Becker

a very strong brand and presence in the gas ignition segment of the world, we absolutely are capable of far more than that,” Lindsey said, "and Spotted Yak is our avenue to help us reach that potential.”

Channel Products is owned by Weinberg Capital Group, which acquired it in 2011. Channel Products chairman Ronald Weinberg told Crain’s in 2018 that the firm saw the potential for Channel Products to grow as an electronics manufacturer, but that it needed to make some changes.

Lindsey, who had been working at Weinberg Capital, has been leading Channel Products since 2012. She puts a strong focus on company culture and on going above and beyond for customers and employees alike.

Currently, Spotted Yak is a group within Channel Products, located at the company’s headquarters in Solon. Lindsey said she hopes Spotted Yak becomes its own self-sustaining entity in the future.

The name, Spotted Yak, is intentionally open-ended. The team liked

the way it sounded, as well as the fact that yaks thrive in tough environments.

“And we were really trying not to rope ourselves in with a name but rather let our efforts define what Spotted Yak means,” Becker said.

Channel Products announced Spotted Yak’s launch in July, but it’s been up and running since January.

Spotted Yak already has been hired by outside companies to work on projects, but none has been completed yet. Lindsey declined to discuss specific customers, as much of the work is still confidential.

There are three Channel Products employees who have been assigned to Spotted Yak, and the group also works with outside contractors. Becker said he plans to draw on university intern and co-op programs for Spotted Yak as well, and he has already been working with an intern. In total, Channel Products has around 200 employees, with about 55 of those in Ohio.

A lot of Spotted Yak’s initial projects are related to the spaces Channel Product has worked in before.

But Becker said it also has started to expand into new markets, such as spa and therapeutic solutions.

Becker added he thinks Channel Products’ “proven track record” in manufacturing and design will set Spotted Yak apart in the research and innovation lab space, as will the company’s manufacturing capabilities. Channel Products has nearly 50 patents to its name.

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Goodyear disagrees with Mexico plant conditions criticism

By Miles Moore/Tire Business

Four members of the U.S. House of Representatives are criticizing Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for its refusal to allow them to tour its Mexican tire plant during a recent fact-finding trip on labor conditions in Mexico.

Goodyear said it disagrees strongly with the accusations made by the congressmen in a letter they drafted.

The representatives, led by House Trade Subcommittee chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., also requested a formal response from Goodyear regarding complaints by former workers about poor working conditions, low wages, illegal termination and discrimination at the plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, which opened in 2017.

“We are disappointed that Goodyear was unwilling to accommodate our request for a plant tour, and that the security team also rejected our in-person request during our visit to San Luis Potosi on Saturday, July 20,” Blumenauer and the other representatives wrote in the July 29 letter to Goodyear chairman, president and CEO Richard Kramer.

“We are also disappointed that an iconic American company like Goodyear, which is shedding jobs at home while building new facilities in Mexico, is failing to provide its workers in Mexico with basic labor rights

that are recognized internationally and under Mexican law,” they wrote.

Besides Blumenauer, the signatories of the letter are Democratic Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Terri Sewell of Alabama and Jimmy Gomez of California. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appointed all four to serve on the House Democratic Working Group to secure changes in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that would, according to the letter, ensure bipartisan support for the trade deal.

The representatives requested Goodyear’s response within two weeks of the date of the letter.

The letter accused Goodyear of paying less than $2 per hour to some workers, with highest-paid workers earning just over $6. Less than six months the plant opened, conditions were so poor that workers went on a wildcat strike demanding improved conditions, it said.

Goodyear officials couldn’t be reached for comment, but issued a statement. “We strongly disagree with the statements made about our working conditions and labor practices, and expect to provide a comprehensive response to the letter within the allotted timeframe,” the company said.

Moore is senior Washington reporter with Tire Business, a sister publication of Crain’s Cleveland Business.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Opinion From the Editor

Cutler knows what businesses need to succeed

Editorial

Up for debate If you watched the Democratic Party’s two sets of presidential debates this summer, you might have a number of thoughts.

Among them: Do I really want to pay attention to presidential politics this early? Also: Is there a way to make these and other political debates more useful?

How you spend June and July evenings is your own concern.

But the second question deserves serious consideration, and Ohio is fortunate to be among the states where that’s happening.

An event on Monday, Aug. 12, at The City Club of Cleveland, “No Debate About It: The Future of Political Debates,” will convene a panel of three academics and a journalist to examine, among other issues, why the quality of debates among candidates seeking office has declined; how social media and other platforms have usurped the traditional role of debates; and, critically, how debate commissions formed in a few states might serve as a model for improvements.

The Ohio Debate Commission, launched last year, makes Ohio one of four states — along with Indiana, Utah and Washington — with such a statewide collaboration. Jill Miller Zimon, project director of the Ohio commission, was among the experts quoted in a recent Washington Post article that examined ways to make political debates better at all levels. Their good suggestions: “No opening statements, allowing more time for substantive answers to questions, and for responses to the other candidates. Topics and questions sourced entirely from voters, which could be gathered in advance. Comparison graphics about candidates’ positions offered in real time. Less conflict-oriented framing in coverage of the debates with phrases that evoke prizefighting: marquee matchups, winners and losers, and explosive faceoffs.”

Zimon told us that the commission’s first goal was to establish a political environment that encourages debates in Ohio and “invests in the tools of democracy,” and it did well by those measures last year, producing substantive debates in the state’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Ohio won’t have big statewide races again until 2022, though Zimon said the commission likely

would seek to put together debates if there are high-profile statewide ballot issues next year, as there could be on issues such as gun background checks or the recently passed House Bill 6 coal/ nuclear bailout. She said the commission and its many civic and media partners also are working to incorporate more innovative technology during debates. Crowdsourcing candidate questions from the public was a start during the 2018 debates, Zimon said, but more can be done to reach the goal of helping voters better understand candidates and their positions.

“We want to create an environment that helps both the voter and the campaigns,” Zimon said.

Democracy is looking a little fragile these days. We’re encouraged that Ohio’s debate commission is being proactive in reviving this form of engagement between politicians and the public, and we hope it can provide a template for other states to do the same.

Raise a glass

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer conglomerate, last week bought Cleveland’s Platform Beer Co., a deal that brought out predictable critiques on social media that the craft brewer had sold out/sold its soul, etc.

Don’t be that person. See the deal for what it is: a local success story.

Platform, founded in 2014 in Ohio City by Paul Benner and Justin Carson, made a good product, grew nicely on its own, then found a partner that will help it continue to grow. As part of AB InBev’s Brewers Collective, Platform now will be able to offer its nearly 100 employees better health care and new perks, such as a 401(k) and parental leave.

The company no longer will be a local, independent brewer, and for some craft beer lovers, that’s a turnoff. But Cleveland doesn’t have many of these types of deals, so let’s toast the new future of a business that worked hard to get where it is — and now will do so on a larger stage.

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

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

CLEVELAND BUSINESS P010_CL_20190812.indd 10

Managing Editor:

Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com)

Contact Crain’s

216-522-1383

Read Crain’s online: crainscleveland.com

Sandy Cutler’s father offered plenty of advice to his growing son, as many parents do.

One of those pearls of wisdom was right on point when Cutler, the former CEO and chairman of Eaton Corp., was nearing the mandatory retirement age of 65 from the power-management company.

“Don’t retire away from something; retire to something,” his dad had told him.

So in 2016, he didn’t just retire away from running a $20 billion corporation with nearly 100,000 employees. He retired to a highend French-American restaurant, Cru Uncorked, which he runs with his wife and son.

Cutler shared what he’s learned from his 41-year career at Eaton, his civic leadership in Northeast Ohio and his new career as a Elizabeth small-business owner during the Greater McIntyre Cleveland Partnership’s Middle Market CEO Dialogue on Aug. 7 at Cru Uncorked in Moreland Hills.

Chief among Cutler’s insights, which he learned as an entrepreneur, is the need for our region and state to simplify the process of starting a small business.

“We just about drowned, and we were fortunate because we had working capital or we wouldn’t have made it through the first five months,” he said.

He’s right. Most small-business startups don’t have a former Fortune 1000 CEO at the helm. Making it simpler for the little guy, rich or poor, to get a business off the ground means making our economy better.

Cutler suggests the state implement an ombudsman system, similar to one in North Carolina, to help entrepreneurs navigate the certifications, regulations and forms required to open small businesses. “We know small business is one of the real engines for employment in our state. And we want entrepreneurs in our state, so we want to give them all the care and feeding that we can to make this an easy process for them,” he said.

Cutler also shared some of the ways he’s worked as a small-business owner to ensure success. Fine dining is a far cry from power management, so he studied hard, from location and parking, to tables and chairs and how to limit noise in the restaurant. He interviewed 800 people to find out what they liked and didn’t about their dining experiences.

“Sandy Cutler has never had an epiphany in his life. Everything is well thought out, well planned and strategic,” said Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO Joe Roman, who guided the conversation with Cutler.

Moving to another topic, Roman referenced Cutler’s long commitment to civic involvement and asked what one priority he’d like to see the community tackle in the next few years.

The former Eaton CEO, who was actively involved in the effort to reform Cuyahoga County government a decade ago, answered: “Elect a new mayor and a new county executive who can carry us to the next level.”

Cutler warned, though, that finding a qualified, experienced leader who understands the complexity of government structures is key because one year of bad government means five years of recovery, something our region would struggle to endure.

“We’ve got to create a system here in our county where Republicans, Democrats and independents feel it’s important to train leaders and not get to six months before an election and throw someone in there and see if they can swim,” he said.

Citizens must push the political parties to identify now who their top five candidates are so they can be trained and engaged on task forces “so if they are elected, that the first year is not just a wanton disaster,” Cutler said. “We would never put an executive into a job with a lack of training like we put these people into.”

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

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

Please include a telephone number for verification purposes.

8/8/19 4:51 PM

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7.5 A c r es of La nd zoned for offi c e or r etai l

Personal View

The economic case for Trump as the G.O.A.T.

By David McClough

serve as governor of the Federal Reserve System.

For a century, these nominations warranted no pubIn time, historians will rank Donald Trump based lic attention. Presidential nominations were passed along to the Senate for confirmation. Once confirmed, on the record of his presidency.

I am not an historian, so I don’t need to wait to as- governors assumed the responsibility of determining sess this presidency. For me, this presidency has been monetary policy. The anonymity was intentional by deabsolute gold. You see, I am an economics professor sign. Much like the Electoral College, the conceivers of these institutions recogwhose primary responsinized that too much debility is to teach econommocracy is dangerous beics. In this capacity, I can cause people vote based make a compelling arguon self-interest. In effect, ment that Donald Trump is the Greatest-of-Allthe presidency and moneTime, or, to paraphrase tary policy are too importsports talk radio, the ant to permit voters final G.O.A.T. say. Were it not for Trump, When assessing the Americans might not have Greatest-of-All-Time, learned that such lofty poclearly defined criteria sitions exist. Were it not for are essential. While criteTrump, I would never have found articles (pluria vary, there is always some “reason” to anoint ral) in newspapers (plural one individual above all again) reporting on the others. Whereas historiSarah Silbiger/Bloomberg significance of these nomans and political scieninees. The nominees elictists might consider a The Trump presidency has ited extensive press coverpresident’s effectiveness age because the president delivered an extraordinary nominated provocative establishing key precepolitical allies rather than dents in the formation of assortment of examples and the typical academic our fledgling nation, execonomist or banker. panding the nation’s bor- applications of economic More recently, the presiders, or managing one of principles, theories and the many national crises, dent has threatened to reI am not inclined to trod conventions that deviate from move Jerome Powell as upon the turf of serious the standard introduction chairman of the Fed. The scholars from those represident, of course, canvered disciplines. Rather, imposed on unsuspecting not fire Powell, again inmy singular criterion is undergraduate students. tentional by design to insulate monetary policy quite simple: to what extent does the president contradict convention and dis- from the short-run focus of politics. I eagerly await rupt the status quo regarding the topic I need to teach whatever may be next.

As with the unquestioned commitment to the beneon any given day? In this capacity, Trump is right up there with the biggies. fits of trade, the president has pulled back the curtain The Trump presidency has delivered an extraordi- to reveal a bit more of the workings of the Fed, which nary assortment of examples and applications of eco- functions, with some exceptions, unchallenged. The nomic principles, theories and conventions that devi- president has publicly demanded that the Fed lower ate from the standard introduction imposed on interest rates to promote more robust economic unsuspecting undergraduate students. Most obvious- growth. While he is ridiculed because he thinks he can ly, President Trump threatened and actually imposed influence the Fed, which he cannot, maybe his point is tariffs on imports as he initiated implementation of his worth considering. The Fed’s hawkish fear of inflation “America First” campaign promise. Since the mid- contributes to anemic economic growth, which con1990s when China was admitted to the World Trade strains employment opportunities for the most ecoOrganization and the North American Free Trade nomically vulnerable workers of our society and wage Agreement went into effect, U.S. trade policy has, at growth for the employed. Perpetually low interest least in name, promoted “free” trade. Trump’s inten- rates alter how individuals must approach retirement. tional and unprovoked interference with established With no appreciable source of interest income, worktrade relations disrupts supply chains, employment, ers are practically forced to participate in the riskier investment and profitability. Regardless of political capital markets. It appears the long-term focus of the party, no other president has even hinted at challeng- Federal Open Market Committee, the policymaking ing trade relations, so firms seized upon the opportu- body of the Fed, to promote economic growth and stanity to invest trillions of dollars abroad to exploit the bility has morphed into a long-term focus on well-bebenefits of free and unfettered trade with the U.S. ing of banks and the bankers who benefit.

The policy and proposed policy of this administraThe winners, as always, are the owners and executives of businesses best able to leverage the opportuni- tion demands the attention of students and affords inty to avoid U.S. taxes, regulation and more expensive structors an opportunity to call attention to beliefs U.S. labor. The losers, of course, are the workers, their about trade and the Fed long held nearly in consensus. families and the communities devastated by the aban- The Trump administration is not governing based on donment of U.S. production facilities throughout the theory but rather is acting based on observed reality. country. The decline is slow and practically unobserv- Theory is a simplification of reality, which means theory able unless one is directly affected, but the skeletons is not reality. Simplification requires assumptions, of factories, warehouses and formerly thriving small some quite heroic. Maybe it is time to question some of towns serve as evidence of the transformative impact the consequences of “free” trade, and maybe it is time of an inscrutable, almost dogmatic commitment to the to revisit the mission and function of the Fed? Regardtheoretical benefits of “free” trade. less, class discussion is more real than ever before.

More recently, among the myriad improbable, unexpected and unimaginable actions of a sitting presi- McClough is assistant professor of economics at Ohio dent, Trump has rained attention on nominees to Northern University.

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Focus IMMIGRATION

The transfusion Cleveland needs

A city built by immigrants needs to embrace newcomers again to build its future

By Mary Vanac clbfreelancer@crain.com

C

leveland has been a city of immigrants and migrants since founder Moses Cleaveland and his team of land speculators arrived in 1796 as descendants of English settlers.

During the Industrial Revolution, Europeans and African Americans from the South stoked steel furnaces, sewed clothes, machined tools, built buildings and worked the docks and railroads here.

Today, a new wave of immigrants from Asia and the Middle East is helping to build the city’s technology and information sectors, especially health tech.

Even though immigrants can challenge public services and some employment rates, most economic experts say they believe that foreign-born workers add more to our economy than they subtract. And some add that young immigrants, especially immigrant entrepreneurs, hold our region’s economic future in their hands. “(Immigrants) are an integral part of Ohio’s economic success and key to our industrial and commercial strength,” according to a 2018 report by the state’s new Office of Opportunities for New Americans. “Ohio’s economy is strong, but to maintain its momentum, the state requires an infusion of hard-working, highly skilled workers and entrepreneurs.”

A history of newcomers European immigrants helped build the Ohio and Erie Canal and rail networks in Cleveland in the late 1820s, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History at Case Western Reserve University. Since then, the need for workers has spurred immigration and migration to the city.

“It’s the workforce that drives this,” said John Grabowski, associate professor of applied history at Case Western Reserve University and senior vice president for research and publications at the Western Reserve Historical Society.

The most substantial and diverse migration to Cleveland occurred from 1870-1914, during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Grabowski said.

P012_013_CL_20190812.indd 12

Illus

At the time, many Southern and Eastern Europeans fled their homes because of land shortages, increased military conscription and persecutions, particularly of Jews. The lure of jobs created a powerful pull to Cleveland, leading the city’s population to quickly double as immigrants filled new jobs in emerging industries, especially steel, making Cleveland the fifth-largest U.S. city in 1920.

Not everyone was happy about the flood of immigrants, despite industries needing the workers. “We forget, a lot of people coming in were not welcome,” mostly because of ethnic or economic rivalries, Grabowski noted.

During World War I, tens of thousands of African Americans migrated from the South for jobs here at a time when the United States restricted immigrants from Eastern Europe and China.

Later, in 1965, the United States opened its doors, creating an immigration quota system that is largely unchanged today. “The things that got you in were having a job skill that Americans don’t have or reuniting a family,” Grabowski said.

Partly as a result, the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population reached a 100-year high of 13.7% in 2016, wrote William H. Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution in a September 2018 blog post.

But in the Cleveland metropolitan area, the percentage of native-born to foreign-born was around half that — about 6% — in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That disparity caused some institutions, such as Global Cleveland, to sound the alarm. If Cleveland fails to attract its share of immigrants, it could be left in the economic dust.

Fears vs. needs That said, some policy experts blame immigrants and refugees for stagnant wage growth, the loss of some job opportunities for native-born Americans and undue stress on public services.

“All of the net gain in the number of working-age (16 to 65) people holding a job has gone to immigrants,” wrote Steven A. Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., and Karen Zeigler, a demographer for the center, in a June 2014 report. A larger percentage of immigrants in that age range are working than some native-born Americans.

“Immigrants have made gains across the labor market,” Camarota and Zeigler wrote, "including lower-skilled jobs such as maintenance, construction and food service; middle-skilled jobs like office support and health care support; and higher-skilled jobs, including management, computers and health care practitioners."

Other experts say Cleveland and the nation will be left behind if they fail to attract their share of immigrant entrepreneurs, who bring new ideas and jobs to the region. The aging U.S. popula-

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tion, with the median age at an all-time high, also presents problems for the future of the workforce and the economy.

“Immigrants are such a key part of the entrepreneurial spirit in America. Immigration has been at the root of this country since the beginning, and we need to hold on to it and encourage it,” said Bill Draper, an early pioneer of the venture capital industry, in a July 2017 blog post by the National Venture Capital Association.

Today, a quarter of U.S. entrepreneurs are immigrants, according to the venture capital association. In addition, immigrants have founded 51% of startups valued at $1 billion or more, and one in three venture-backed entrepreneurs are immigrants.

“Silicon Valley would not be half as successful without the immigrants that have founded and been involved in so many startups since the beginning of the venture capital industry,” Draper said.

'This unique moment of time'

Group photo of Eberhard Manufacturing Co. employees in Cleveland, circa 1910. Like many factories of its day, Eberhard drew much of its workforce from recent immigrants to the city.

(Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library)

P012_013_CL_20190812.indd 13

Cleveland mirrors the nation, in terms of the economic impact of immigrants.

“It would be wonderful if we had American-born entrepreneurs creating this innovation, but in reality, a lot of these ideas and technologies are being dreamed up in other places,” said Ray Leach, CEO of JumpStart Inc., the entrepreneur support and funding organization in Cleveland. Leach helped found JumpStart in 2003.

“The better job we can do attracting that talent and connecting it to our most important institutions, the greater the likelihood we’ll have to commercialize those technologies,” he added.

It’s clear that the ebbs and flows of the U.S. economy have been linked to immigration, said Aram Nerpouni, CEO of BioEnterprise, the Cleveland organization that has nurtured biosciences companies in the region for 15 years.

Although neither JumpStart nor BioEnterprise keeps track of the immigrant entrepreneurs they help, many of those entrepreneurs have come from India, China and Israel.

“Cleveland is in this unique moment of time,” Nerpouni said.

“Everyone talks about how we were once a top-10 city. We still have that in our bones. Part of our opportunity is to grow back into those bones. Immigration is the only way we are going to grow faster.”

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IMMIGRATION

HBC incubates entrepreneurs in Clark-Fulton Hispanic Business Center helps turn business dreams into brick-and-mortar reality for young Latin Americans

There are Ohio codes to be followed, proper bookkeeping practices to be learned. If you have a restaurant, how do you maintain a rapport with the health inspector? How do you speak (in English) to a good accountant?

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This is where the Hispanic Business Center steps in. Composed entirely of bilingual staff privy to the

going-ons of Clark-Fulton’s Hispanic community, HBC’s primary function — incubating Latin-owned business ideas into eventual brick-and-mortar operations — may be needed more than ever.

In the midst of an $8.3 million, 21-kiosk Centro Villa 25 (also known as “El Mercado”) installment on West 25th Street, a swath of young Hispanic entrepreneurs in their teens and 20s are hoping to take the reins on small

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ometime during his teenage years in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Delfin Carasquillo decided he wanted to be a clothing designer. He had been following the Instagram accounts of artists in San Juan, Miami and New York. Upon moving to Cleveland with his family, he decided he’d pursue such a career himself.

Arriving in the States, Carasquillo had little money, save for his father’s.

He had no concrete college plans, nor was he fluent in English. But he did have a dream: to one day operate on a binational level.

“I want to one day go to San Juan,” he explained, sitting at a table at Las Tienditas, a hub for Latin small business in Cleveland's Clark-Fulton neighborhood. “One day, I see myself here. And I see myself there.”

For someone like Carrasquillo, the reality of growing a boutique clothing brand, or any other business, isn’t as simple as opening an Instagram account, although that's a necessity.

+

+

clbfreelancer@crain.com

business development in time for Centro Villa’s slated completion in 2020. And HBC is here to spark them.

Jenice Contreras, executive director of the HBC and a native of the ClarkFulton community, said the center’s incubation process for would-be Latin-American entrepreneurs is just part of the economic leg-up.

Grants from $1,000 and up are awarded to applicants based on prowess and creativity, and rent is paid for at the Las Tienditas hub for six months.

How to talk to customers? Yes. How to understand and speak specific English business terms? Sure, if needed.

“I like to say we provide business support in a nonjudgmental way,” Contreras said in a phone interview in July. “We want (them) to learn financials, growth strategies. I want to first of all know things like, ‘What are your long-term goals?’ We’re going to drill (our applicants) like that.”

It was through the HBC, located on the intersection of Clark Avenue and West 25th, that 22-year-old Lalo Rodriguez found the path from idea to incubation to brick-and-mortar and his own coffee shop. Called Café Social Latinoamericano, Rodriguez’s Mexico-inspired cafe — he grew up in Venezuela and Guanajuato, Mexico — is a pan-Latin-American pastry shop and coffee counter that serves family-inspired flan, panna cotta and passionfruit parchita cake, among other treats. All of Rodriguez’s offerings follow a specific set of rules: They’re all from Latin America, and their sales support programs that give back to their respective communities.

After attending Cleveland Institute of Art for two-and-a-half years as a sculpture student, Rodriguez decided

to take a different direction. With assistance from the HBC and his father, he opened his cafe in September 2018, at the back of Las Dos Fronteras Mexican Restaurant on Fulton Road.

He's just broken even so far, and at times the path has been “a little bit rocky,” he admitted.

“When you come to a personal business, you really do it all,” he added. With HBC, “it was kind of a cool mix of deciding the place, learning financials, advertisements, knowing how to make the drinks.”

He doesn't recommend anyone like him trying to go it solo, without tapping into the resources available. “Let’s just say that looking stuff up on the internet will only get you so far," he said.

As for Carrasquillo, who worked directly under HBC coordinator Randy Cedeño, the mentorship was a crash course in coming-of-age entrepreneurship.

Though less than a year out of his HBC guidance, he is still laboring toward his markers for success: to save growth cash ($340 on a recent order of T-shirts); working second shift at National Safety Apparel; to expand his online store on Big Cartel; to network with admired designers on Instagram, such as Cülturä Clothing Co. in Cleveland or Fred the Key Streetwear in Miami — the latter an idol of his.

“Todos operan en niveles,” Carrasquillo said. Everything operates in levels. “To manage your business correctly, you have to know exactly what you have to do, what you must experience.”

His San Juan boutique is still on the horizon, but he's not about to give up.

“It’s not totally impossible,” he said. “You just need the contacts.”

++ ++ +

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Lalo Rodriguez’s Cafe Social Latinoamericano is part of a tide of new Hispanic businesses rising in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

(Contributed photo)

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IMMIGRATION

Beijing-born restaurateur cooks up NEO success Chef/owner Jia Wei — with two upscale restaurants — said he found his comfort zone in Northeast Ohio

By Mary Vanac clbfreelancer@crain.com

D

uring summer break before his senior year at Oberlin College, Jia Wei realized that job openings for classical or jazz trumpet players were far and few between.

The music major from Beijing, China, watched his classmates become high-school music teachers or used-car salespeople rather than Cleveland Orchestra members.

“It was really depressing. All those years of hard work, to have no future in classical music,” said Jia Wei, who, according to Chinese custom, goes by both his first and last names. “I decided I had to do something else to make a living.”

But what?

“I always loved to eat,” he noted with a smile. His mother had kicked him out of her kitchen while he was growing up, preferring to create meals by herself. Curiosity about how his mother prepared such wonderful food drove Jia Wei to become a chef and restaurant owner in Northeast Ohio. “It gave me the passion about cooking,” he said.

Jia Wei is among the many immigrants who create cultural diversity — and jobs — in Northeast Ohio.

“There’s a richness to Cleveland in food and neighborhoods now,” said John Grabowski, associate professor of applied history at Case Western Reserve University and senior vice president for research and publications at the Western Reserve Historical Society, pointing to an explosion of ethnic-food restaurants in the region over the last 20 years. “Artisanal anything is a major seller in the United States now.”

Jia Wei’s restaurants also are helping to feed the latest wave of immigrants to the U.S. and Cleveland.

“From 2000 to 2017, the top three countries where immigrants migrated from were China, India and the Philippines,” wrote William H. Frey, a

Jia Wei in the bar of his newly opened Wild Mango restaurant in Beachwood’s Legacy Village. Jia Wei employs a total of about 40 people at both of his Wild Mango restaurants. (Mary Vanac for Crain’s)

senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, in a September 2018 blog post. That was especially true in regions that have lagged in immigrant attraction, such as Greater Cleveland. Of the estimated 118,540 foreign-born people in Greater Cleveland in 2017, 36.4% were from Asia, second only to Europe (39%), according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population reached a 107year high of 13.7% in 2016, Frey said, the percentage in the Cleveland metropolitan area was only about 6% that year, according to the Census Bureau.

After graduating from Oberlin Col-

lege, Jia Wei went home to Beijing to study cooking and restaurant management under his uncle, a hotelier.

“He hooked me up with great

“On the menu, we have a lot of French influence, Italian influence, south-ofthe-border influence.

It’s multicultural. We are like a big melting pot.”

— Restaurateur Jia Wei

chefs,” Jia Wei said. “I shadowed them, got all the basics.”

Soon after, he returned to Oberlin to rescue a dying Chinese restaurant called Mandarin, where he had worked part-time while a student. It was one of only two Chinese restaurants in the small college town.

“I bought the business in 1994,” he said. “I had a $200 budget to do the renovation.”

Jia Wei used his creativity to change the ambiance of the restaurant. “Over a summer, I completely transformed that place,” he said. “I got a magic marker and wrote calligraphy on the wall, Chinese recipes with Chinese characters.” He crafted

lights out of dollar-store baskets and chairs out of electrical conduit.

Business at the revamped eatery was so good that two years later Jia Wei was able to buy the Chinese restaurant that had put Mandarin out of business. He employed about 20 college students parttime and did much of the other work himself. “I did everything. I cooked, waited on tables, bartended,” he recalled.

Then, he rolled out a new concept for Oberlin: a chef-driven, multicultural restaurant. He called it Weia Teia, a play on the Mandarin and English words for “taste.”

He wanted to combine quality ingredients from all over the world with his experience and cooking techniques “to create something wonderful.”

“On the menu, we have a lot of French influence, Italian influence, south-of-the-border influence,” said Jia Wei, who rejects adjectives like “Chinese,” “Asian” and “Asian fusion” for his food. “It’s multicultural. We are like a big melting pot,” he explained.

In 2000, Jia Wei opened a second Weia Teia in North Olmsted. About a year later, he changed the name to Wild Mango.

Jia Wei sold his two Oberlin restaurants in 2016. “That’s when I was planning to open another restaurant on the East Side,” he said. “I was spreading myself too thin.”

He opened another Wild Mango in Beachwood’s Legacy Village earlier this year, employing a total of about 40 people at both restaurants.

Jia Wei said he doesn’t believe he faced any barriers — or had any advantages — as an immigrant chef and restaurant owner in Northeast Ohio.

“For anyone, it’s a lot of hard work,” said the married father of four.

He added he has no plans to expand outside Greater Cleveland.

“Northeast Ohio is all I know,” he said. “This is my comfort zone. It’s good to me.”

Q&A: Laura Bennett

Senior vice president of e-consumer for North America, Chubb Ltd. Laura Bennett moved to the United States via Canada in 2001 to earn her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in the U.K., Bennett immigrated to Canada with her family at age 16 and lived for four years in Ireland while working for Canada Assurance Life Insurance Co. in Toronto.

Bennett and her family moved to the Cleveland area after her husband got a job at Progressive. She and Alex Krooglik, an Australian native, founded Embrace Pet Insurance in Mayfield in July 2003. Bennett became a U.S. citizen several years ago.

Earlier this year, Embrace was acquired by NSM Insurance Group of Conshohocken, Penn., for undisclosed terms. Bennett has moved on to a position with Chubb Ltd., the Swiss insurance company, where she was hired to build and manage an all-digital property and casualty product for millennials. Bennett now spends alternating weekends in Northeast Ohio and Miami, Fla., where her Chubb division is headquartered. — Mary Vanac Why did you come to the United States?

I was working in insurance in Toronto, and I realized I needed to move on from my company. I assumed that I needed to leave insurance. If I got my MBA, I thought I could focus more on my skills. I ended up at the Wharton

P015_CL_20190812.indd 15

School. This is my fourth country, so it wasn’t a big deal for me to move to the United States. I am in awe of people who come here without knowing the language. It’s hard enough when you do speak the language and culturally look like you fit in.

You moved to Cleveland at a time when JumpStart Inc., our region’s entrepreneur development organization, was just getting started. How did that work out?

Cleveland turned out to be phenomenal place to start and run a business, even though, at the time, Cleveland had no entrepreneurial ecosystem. At first, it looked a little bleak because we needed to raise money. But we ended up being one of JumpStart’s first portfolio companies. No wealthy person in Northeast Ohio had ever thought to invest in a startup. JumpStart was just training people to become angel investors.

Did you feel like an immigrant in the United States, considering you had moved three times before?

Yes, totally. Even though everybody speaks English, and we all look the same (Caucasian), it’s the culture and mindset of the people that makes you feel like an outsider. One

of the biggest differences between the United States and Canada is health insurance. In most of the world, health care is provided by the government. Here, I was afraid to get sick.

Did your status as an immigrant help you as an entrepreneur?

I think being an immigrant gives you a huge leg up on being an entrepreneur. The people who choose to go from one country to another have characteristics like grit and persistence and long-term vision.

They’re not worried about taking a controlled risk. They’re willing to put up with unpleasant things like losing all your friends. You need these skills to be an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is extraordinarily hard work.

Was there a time when your entrepreneurial grit and persistence paid off?

We were raising venture capital funding in 2008. It was during the financial crisis, and it was the worst

time to raise money. We were running out of money quickly. We had a promise from a venture capital firm, but no money yet. I woke up one morning and almost couldn’t get out of bed with the anxiety and fear of not being able to make our next payroll, so I called my mentor in Toronto and said, “Can I drive up there and talk to you?” I couldn’t share the stress with anyone else.

He saved us, really. He bridged our company with a loan until the venture capital money came in.

Any words of advice for other immigrant entrepreneurs in Cleveland?

You must build your local network.

There are lots of organizations to help immigrants. Don’t be shy; ask people to help. Learn English, if you don’t know it. Bond with people, but don’t just stay in your own cultural group. Embrace your new environment. Recruit multiple mentors. Ask people for referrals. People are happy to help you succeed, especially in Cleveland.

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CRAIN’S AWARDS

NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS T he women profiled here serve organizations that touch nearly every aspect of Northeast Ohio, from the arts to the workforce, from education to poverty, from elder care to tech innovation. Their energy, determination and devotion are helping to make our region a better place to live, work and grow.

Pages 16-26

Illustration by zonadearte/iStock

Kathryn “Kay” Carlson

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Title: President and CEO, Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, Shaker Heights Most recent education: Master of environmental management, Duke University

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Kay Carlson provides stability, passion, direction and focus to the staff of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.

Inheriting the organization’s $350,000 annual deficit, Carlson worked tirelessly to create a sustainable and profitable pricing model. She made difficult staff cuts and rebuilt trust between the nonprofit and its donors, board members and the community, and implemented an Entrepreneurial Operating System focused on vision, people, issues, process and data to provide a clear framework for aligning planning and structure with the center’s goals.

Now, the Nature Center, which is halfway to its $6 million capital campaign target, meets its annual financial goals. As a result, it is completing a four-year series of capital improvement projects.

“What has impressed me the most about Kay is her ability to develop and expand her skills as she moves from one challenge to the next,” said Jim Dixon, chair of the center’s board of trustees. “As the Nature Center has moved into its capital campaign, Kay has moved to a new level of sophistication and achievement as a fundraiser on a day-to-day and strategic basis.”

Carlson is also deeply involved with the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership, which focuses on the health of a waterway where the Nature Center is located. “(Kay’s) depth, thoughtfulness and conscientiousness are immediately apparent. With a tendency to learn and listen before speaking, she has a wonderful ability to apply the appropriate response, knowledge or assistance to each unique situation,” said Doan executive director Victoria Mills.

Tamra Billinghurst-Black

Anita Bradley

Christine Bucknell

Julie Chase-Morefield

Title: Corporate vice president, New York Life Insurance Co., Cleveland Most recent education: Master of business administration, St. John’s University

Title: Executive director, Northern Ohio Recovery Association, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of social work administration, Cleveland State University

Title: Executive director, Northern Ohio Chapter, A Kid Again, Twinsburg Most recent education: Bachelor of sociology, Kent State University

Title: President and CEO, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, Lorain Most recent education: Bachelor of communications, Bowling Green State University

On and off the job, Tamra Billinghurst-Black finds ways to develop others into strong leaders.

She directed New York Life’s training and quality team before joining its human resources department and overseeing training and strategic learning. Her work aided the insurance company in becoming one of the top global training organizations.

Soon after joining the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland in 2015, Billinghurst-Black recognized that despite its limited financial resources the nonprofit needed to invest in the people who nurture and lead its clubs.

So, she began donating her time to support the development of BGCC staff and leadership, and has developed quarterly training for everything from time management to unconscious bias.

“The training has made a significant difference at our clubs,” said BGCC president and CEO Ron Soeder.

In 2018, Billinghurst-Black received the Outstanding Board Volunteer award from the Boys & Girls Clubs Michigan/Ohio Area Council. And this past February, New York Life presented her with its Applause Leadership Award for her work at the company and in the community.

The Cleveland membership of New York Life’s Black Organization for Leadership and Development employee resource group has tripled with her as a leadership sponsor.

Billinghurst-Black also serves on the Sisterly Relations, Membership and Undergraduate Advisory committees of the Alpha Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

In 2016, the White House honored Anita Bradley as a Champion of Change for her work in the field of addiction recovery and the National Alliance on Mental Illness presented her with its Cultural Competence in Mental Health Award in 2019.

Bradley founded the Northern Ohio Recovery Association (NORA) in 2004 to help those addicted to alcohol, tobacco and other substances. The agency, which started in a 2,500-square-foot office, recently purchased an 18,000-square-foot building.

NORA has 38 full-time employees, including peer recovery support specialists and recovery coaches. It offers inpatient and outpatient treatment programs, case management and annual continuing-education credits through its training institute.

Over the years, Bradley developed the ROPE Project, which increases medication-assisted treatment maintenance after detoxification and integrates psychosocial services. NORA can place patients in bridge housing after they complete treatment to slow down the integration rate and increase the chances of sustained sobriety.

Bradley, who serves on the board of Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services, created intervention programs for people using prescription medications when opioid and heroin overdoses spiked.

Further, Bradley provides internships for social work students attending area universities, enabling them to gain experience working in a recovery organization and with clients receiving treatment.

Christine Bucknell is determined to get the work done and do it at the highest level. Within a few years of joining A Kid Again, she set about improving brand recognition by elevating programming, marketing and networking and creating collaborations with other nonprofits. A Kid Again provides support to families of children with life-threatening illnesses.

“The Northern Ohio Chapter of A Kid Again was started in 2008, which everyone now knows was not the ideal time to start a nonprofit,” said Tim Martin, board chair of A Kid Again’s Northern Ohio Chapter. “Our struggles, however, continued well beyond the economic rebound as we repeatedly failed to make the necessary impact in the Greater Cleveland market. That all changed in 2013, when we were lucky enough to hire Christine Bucknell.

“To look back on where our organization stood at that time, versus where we are today, is truly remarkable and due almost solely to Christine’s determination to make us successful,” he added. “I’m so grateful that the families we serve have someone so committed to our cause and to the continued advancement of the special memories we help to create.”

Prior to Bucknell’s leadership, A Kid Again’s annual fundraiser was a dinner party for about 100 people that generated around $9,000.

Now, the annual event boasts 375 attendees and revenue has grown from $65,000 in 2012 to $535,000 in 2018.

Julie Chase-Morefield’s visionary leadership style has resulted in innovative and transformative growth at Second Harvest.

The staff has grown from eight in 2004 to 24 people today, and the budget increased from $617,000 to $2.84 million. It is families who reap the benefits. Second Harvest distributes more than 9.5 million pounds of food and grocery products to those in need.

“Julie Chase-Morefield has the ability to know what needs to be done and inspire those around her to reach until the goal is at hand,” said SueAnn Naso, president of Staffing Solutions in Cleveland.

Under Chase-Morefield’s leadership, the nonprofit tripled the size of its warehouse; launched Kids Cafes programs to provide evening meals to children; created a backpack program that provides food for children to have during the weekends; and developed a farmers market initiative to grow 2 million pounds of locally sourced food for 20,000 families.

In 2015, the Lorain County Difference Makers honored her with its Rising Star award. She also serves as board treasurer for the Ohio Association of Food Banks.

“Julie Chase-Morefield has quietly but very powerfully built the fourth-largest nonprofit based in Lorain County, helping thousands of people,” said Elizabeth Maiden, executive director of the Erie County Community Foundation. “Her vision and desire are to end hunger and she has built a network to help her do it.”

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Sara Daugherty

Alaine “Lannie” Davis-Frecker

Title: Executive director, Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development, Cleveland Most recent education: Executive MBA, The Ohio State University

Title: President and CEO, The Cleveland Leadership Center, Cleveland Most recent education: Juris doctor, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

Title: Director of operations and economic impact, Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center, Warren Most recent education: Master of city and regional planning, Rutgers University

Title: President and CEO, Julie Billiart Schools, Lyndhurst Most recent education: Master of arts in educational administration, John Carroll University

Jenice Contreras, who won the Governor’s Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan Award, approaches challenges with an eye fixed on success. She leads the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development, which operates as the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Business Center (HBC).

“Jenice is a trailblazer and has been at the forefront of many of the community’s revitalization and economic development initiatives.

She is a dynamic and passionate leader that will stop at nothing when she puts her mind to it,” said HBC board chair Maggie Rivera-Tuma.

Under Contreras’ leadership, HBC has expanded its programming, staff, budget and the number of businesses it serves from 254 to 419.

Moreover, she is working to reduce nonprofits’ reliance on grant funding by increasing revenue-generating opportunities. One such opportunity includes opening Centro Villa 25, a $14 million, 51,000-square-foot development that will offer office space for neighborhood-focused businesses and nonprofits, retail space for established and developing local businesses and a galleria for community events.

“Jenice is a true servant leader with a big vision for our community. Her dedication and commitment are unmatched, and she’s truly deserving of this recognition,” said Victor Ruiz, executive director of Esperanza Inc. and a member of the Hispanic Alliance Board.

Marianne Crosley is dogged about improving life in Northeast Ohio. Through her vision and leadership of the Cleveland Leadership Center (CLC), she has become the go-to person when organizations want to advance initiatives. She catalyzes leaders of public, private and nonprofit organizations, connects them with one another and inspires them to action.

In recent years, when the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland wanted big ideas to break the poverty cycle, Crosley helped launch The Innovation Mission. When Teach for America wanted to provide mentors, she designed a program and recruited top leaders to connect with young teachers.

When Crosley recognized that individuals lacked a venue when they had ideas for positive change, she launched the Accelerate Civic Pitch competition to nurture impact projects in a variety of sectors.

In 2018, the Cleveland Leadership Center launched the Stokes Civil Leadership Institute in collaboration with Cuyahoga Community College to offer programs that enhance engagement of civic leaders.

“Marianne sees obstacles as challenges, not barriers. Her optimism helped her create a coalition of leaders to advise the city on safety- forces recruitment related to the consent decree,” said Rachel Ciomcia, executive vice president of the Cleveland Leadership Center.

Sara Daugherty rises to the task of leadership and invests in the community.

In her short time at the Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center, she has standardized programs and processes to deliver more effective results to its entrepreneurs.

Daugherty facilitated creation of the Mahoning Valley entrepreneurs’ program, wrote the Mahoning Valley Opportunity Zone tracts and wrote a proposal that generated a $10.4 million BUILD grant for Youngstown.

“Sara has taken our organization from ‘entrepreneurial’ — aka unorganized — to an organization that is consistently creating more impact,” said Rick Stockburger, president and CEO of Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center. “Her unprecedented organizational skills have codified procedural aspects to thinking outside the box on how we can, as an organization and a community, move forward.”

In addition, the former Peace Corps volunteer serves on the boards of the Raymond John Wean Foundation, where she helped develop a racial equity and inclusion program; YWCA Mahoning Valley, where she helped bring STEM programming to the region; Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association; Junior League of Youngstown; and Economic Action Group. Daugherty also works regionally as part of Team Northeast Ohio’s Energy Storage Cluster and Jumpstart’s Entrepreneurship in Energy Group.

The board of trustees selected Lannie Davis, its first layperson, to lead Julie Billiart (JB) Schools because of her passion for children with unique learning differences and her understanding of how to strategically grow the organization.

Davis, an instrumental fundraiser, directed the charge to open a JB school in Akron three years ago. It was the first Catholic school to open in the city in 50 years. While managing building renovations, she also developed community partnerships.

“Julie Billiart Schools provide a tremendous educational experience to kids with special needs,” said David Roush, a member of the JB board. “After years of having huge waiting lists, Lannie became focused on expanding JB. She is providing the leadership so a JB educational experience is available to kids throughout Northeast Ohio.”

In addition to her work with JB, Davis is on the advisory board of Notre Dame College’s Academic Support Center, serves on the School Choice Ohio Board and is a member of the Union Club of Cleveland.

“She is always professional, always compassionate and always willing to build bridges between people and organizations,” said Gretchen Walsh, director emeritus of Notre Dame’s Academic Support Center. “Julie Billiart has always had an outstanding reputation, and we know it will continue to thrive and grow under the direction of Lannie’s fine leadership.”

The board and staff of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland are proud to congratulate our president, Susanna H. Krey, on being named one of Crain’s 2019 Notable Women in Nonprofits.

We are grateful for the contributions she has made alongside many partners to challenge the status quo, improve our community and endeavor to achieve equity for all.

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SUSANNA H. KREY, Senior VP, Sisters of Charity Health System President, Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland works to improve the lives of those most in need with special attention to families, women and children living in poverty.

The foundation works to end homelessness in Cuyahoga County and to reduce health disparities and improve educational opportunities in Cleveland’s Central Neighborhood.

As a Catholic organization, the foundation extends the values of Jesus Christ through the mission of our founders — the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine — and also works to sustain the ministries of Catholic sisters.

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NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS

Katie Eichenauer

Helen Forbes Field

Bethany Friedlander

Elaine Gimmel

Title: Executive director, Believe in Dreams, Beachwood Most recent education: Master of science in social administration, Case Western Reserve University

Title: Executive vice president of regional initiatives and general counsel, United Way of Greater Cleveland, Cleveland Most recent education: Juris doctor, Howard University School of Law

Title: President and CEO, NewBridge Cleveland Center for Arts and Technology, Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of arts in art history, criticism and conservation, Case Western Reserve University

Title: Executive director, Emerald Development and Economic Network Inc., Cleveland Most recent education: Master of science in social administration, Case Western Reserve University

Since joining Believe in Dreams, which strives to fulfill the dreams of disadvantaged youth, Katie Eichenauer has established a code of ethics; streamlined the recruiting, hiring and onboarding process of the growing staff; developed an employee handbook; and established measurable goals and metrics to increase accountability.

“She was able to take limited resources and help raise significant funds and brand awareness. Katie is extremely resourceful, inspiring — and her vision helps rally her board, employees and volunteers to want to achieve and surpass the organization’s goals,” said Believe in Dreams founder John DiJulius III. Further, Eichenauer successfully recruited women with a combined 30-plus years of experience in legal compliance, business management, marketing and human resources to successfully double the size of the organization, increase fundraising, and raise child poverty/trauma awareness in less than two years.

Believe in Dreams needed dream-makers, those people who coordinate a child’s dream experience, with social work or child counseling experience. However, because funding was limited, Eichenauer partnered with master-degree-level interns from Case Western Reserve University. The innovative solution helped the nonprofit expand the number of students it serves.

Eichenauer has created many such partnerships — including with Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Centers, and CWRU’s Center on Trauma and Adversity — to build upon the services Believe in Dreams offers.

Helen Forbes Field does not accept the status quo when it comes to issues that matter to Clevelanders. She is a leader in advocating for diversity, equality, inclusion and racial equity – conditions that are typically lacking in situations of poverty.

She facilitated creation of the United Way’s Equity Leadership Council, which addresses those issues and discusses best practices the nonprofit can implement to have a broader impact.

Forbes Field serves throughout the community. A skilled collaborator, she connected the Cleveland Museum of Art with United Way’s mentoring program to expand outreach. CMA teachers work directly with the students, who then visit CMA exhibits, where they review the artists’ work.

In addition, Forbes Field was integral to the launch of a CMA summer fellowship program for students who attend historically black colleges and universities. The students often secure placement in advanced education programs and opportunities to work in prestigious galleries and museums across the country.

“She is chair of the museum’s African American Advisory Committee. She founded our Friends of African and African American Art. Helen was instrumental in creating the strategic plan CMA adopted in 2017,” said CMA director William Griswold. “As gracious as she is smart and determined, Helen is a staunch advocate for the arts and diversity among the museum’s audience, board, staff and collections. She played a significant role in CMA’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan, hailed as a model for other, similar organizations across the country.”

NewBridge Cleveland Center for Arts and Technology, a social-emotional, arts and after-school education program center, promoted Bethany Friedlander from COO to president and CEO just two years after she joined the organization.

“Bethany ... has made our organization much nimbler to the changing landscape of youth programming and workforce training,” said NewBridge board chair David Legeay.

“She has built a quality team that trust her and embrace the vision of the organization.

Most importantly, the passion for our mission comes through to every student she touches and she handles every student interaction with an incredible amount of empathy.”

Under Friedlander’s direction, NewBridge was named a 2019 Best Employer in Ohio and earned the 2018 Gold Award Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.

She has implemented solutions to the external pressures that impact the organization, including arranging for full- and part-time staff to obtain trauma-informed certification and overhauling the youth program to better meet the demands of the changing out-ofschool time educational sector.

Committed to equity and inclusion, Friedlander had a gender-neutral restroom installed and disaggregated student outcomes data to allow her team to explore potential biases and inequities within their practices.

She also serves on the Executive Director Leadership Council at the United Way of Greater Cleveland, the board of Life Act and the Mental Health Taskforce of Cleveland’s Say Yes to Education initiative.

Elaine Gimmel received regular promotions during her 23 years at Emerald Development and Economic Network (EDEN) and last year was promoted to her current role for her skills and knowledge.

“Her compassion, empathy and dedication toward our clients is the reason why we are able to serve so many people with quality service; she sets the example,” said Shalesha Andrews, Housing Eligibility specialist at EDEN. In recent years, Gimmel has implemented numerous innovative solutions, including working with EDEN’s partner Place 4 Me, which represents 50 public and private agencies, to house 100 homeless young adults in 100 days. The groups exceeded their goal.

Also, recognizing the need for critical improvements to the Norma Herr Women’s Center, an emergency shelter, Gimmel successfully led fundraising efforts.

She also works with other community organizations, such as the Cuyahoga County Steering Committee to Prevent & End Youth Homelessness and the Partnering for Success Operating Committee operated by Enterprise Community Partners.

Moreover, she helps other women in the field.

“Elaine has built her career on empowering and mentoring women of all races, including professional colleagues as well as clients, some who have lost everything,” said Kate Monter Durban, assistant director at the Cleveland Housing Network. “Elaine is an amazing role model. She is incredibly generous and compassionate, but at the same time, she speaks her mind with clarity and conviction.”

John Carroll University

congratulates 2019 Notable Women in Nonprofits Honoree

DANI ROBBINS Director of Nonprofit Administration

Learn more about JCU’s Master of Arts in Nonprofit Administration and Certificate in Nonprofit Management

jcu.edu/nonprofit

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NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS

Caroline Guscott

Teri Harrison

Elizabeth Hijar

Shayna Jackson

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Title: Director of communications and external relations, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of public administration, Cleveland State University

Title: Founder and chair, Menlo Park Academy, Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of business administration in marketing, Ohio Northern University

Title: COO and general counsel, The Centers for Families and Children and Circle Health Services, Cleveland Most recent education: Juris doctor, Harvard Law School

Title: Chief clinical officer for adults, Crossroads Health, Mentor Most recent education: Master of social science administration, Case Western Reserve University

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Teri Harrison has an uncanny ability to synthesize input from many different populations, stakeholders and voices and arrive at a sound decision.

Harrison was volunteering at a school for gifted children when it shuttered. Within three months of that closing, she and several parents had opened Menlo Park Academy. The school now serves more than 500 students.

Evolving from parent volunteer to school founder and board chair meant Harrison had to educate herself on the needs of gifted students. She became part of the National Association for Gifted Children.

“Working alongside Teri has opened my eyes to the needs of gifted learners,” said Fraser Hamilton, board secretary for Menlo Park Academy. “Her research and insights, especially with regards to how a learning environment might be best suited for gifted learners, is amazing.”

The school has moved a couple of times since its 2008 founding and Harrison was integral to acquiring its current home in a former factory owned by Joseph & Feiss Co. She helped raise funds and secure financing for the $20 million building transformation.

In addition, Harrison is an adjunct professor at Cuyahoga Community College and an enterprise messaging engineer at Eaton Corp. She also leads a tutoring program with Eaton co-workers for refugee and other immigrant students at the Thomas Jefferson School in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

In 2018, Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity for Women awarded her its Honor Ring, its highest achievement, for her service locally and nationally.

“Elizabeth went from being a general counsel with goals of standardizing our contracts and agreements to helping to structure one of the most important collaborations in our organization’s history,” said Elizabeth Newman, president and CEO of the Centers for Families and Children and Circle Health Services. “Her ability to move from strategic to operational issues — often within the same conversation — is invaluable and truly sets her apart as a nonprofit leader.”

Elizabeth Hijar built a legal department from scratch and institutionalized contract management and approval systems, subsequently reducing legal expenditures for the centers by 50%. She also improved accountability and promoted a more collaborative culture.

A year later, the organization entered into an affiliation agreement with Circle Health Services (formerly the Free Clinic of Greater Cleveland) to operate as a single cohesive organization with an integrated approach to offering shared clients behavioral and primary health care. Hijar led the legal efforts, from exploration to completing the final agreement.

Known for leading with humor and authenticity, Hijar is responsible for the organization’s risk management, human resources, information technology, facilities and real estate. She has a knack for translating complex information to be more accessible to diverse audiences.

As a mentor, Hijar provides honest feedback and advice, encouraging her team to develop the confidence they need to take risks and not define themselves by failures or setbacks.

Hijar is also a director of the Hispanic Roundtable, promoting and celebrating the Latino community through discussion.

Shayna Jackson is leading the charge to implement evidence-based best practices at Crossroads Health, a community outpatient mental health center that provides services to more than 4,000 adults experiencing mental illness and substance abuse issues.

Those practices include training the nonprofit’s 220 staff members in providing trauma-informed care, which includes issues of safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment.

Jackson also has been integral to elevating women in social service fields by empowering them to create solutions in areas that need improvement.

“Shayna innately models building relationships through making connections.

Through her natural ability to empower other women to see their strengths and use them, she is building new leaders every day,” said Erin Kelley Turner, program manager, Crossroads Intensive Services.

“Shayna is a dynamic professional who understands her leadership style propels others to stand out and step into their own leadership abilities,” said Jessie Baginski, president and CEO of Leadership Lake County.

An alum of Leadership Lake County, Jackson continues to engage through professional development and networking. She is also on the board of directors for Rabbit Run, an outdoor theater for aspiring actors.

Caroline Guscott has been instrumental in raising the global profile of the Cleveland Museum of Art. As a result, CMA achieved record attendance of more than 770,000 in 2018 and membership levels of more than 32,000.

As part of her integrated, multiplatform brand campaign, large banners featuring the campaign tagline and placed on the exterior of the 1916 building have become a signature image in the art world. An online commercial she created as part of the campaign earned a regional Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2018. And PR News named her one of its 2019 Top Women in PR. Guscott, who is a member of Communications Executives and Art Museum Marketing Association and chair of the board of Engage!

Cleveland, also strives to advise other women in the field.

“Caroline sees the big picture and executes strategic, impactful marketing campaigns that support the business objectives of the organization,” said Amy McGahan, managing director of communications and marketing firm Dix & Eaton. “Beyond that, she is an inspirational team leader who truly cares about mentoring young professionals and about advancing women in and outside of her organization and industry.”

Congratulations Allison Q. Salopeck!

The Jennings staff and Board of Directors, together with the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, recognize the way you inspire joy in our service, innovation, advocacy and choices for older adults.

Donna Keegan Title: Executive vice president and COO, OhioGuidestone, Berea Most recent education: Master of arts in organizational management, University of Phoenix

Donna Keegan began at OhioGuidestone, which provides job training, addiction recovery, foster care and mental health services, as a residential cottage manager. She received greater responsibility with each of several promotions: to director of quality of management and training and HIPAA privacy officer and finally to her current role.

Keegan works to find solutions to help improve the lives of the more than 30,000 adults, children and families served by OhioGuidestone. As COO, she has worked to reduce the nonprofit’s role in the childcare business and make better use of its existing resources.

In doing so, she has grown revenue and clientele by 10% a year for the past five years.

In addition, Keegan strives to help women colleagues make bold decisions and hold themselves accountable.

“Donna is always looking for the positive in everyone. Her heart is totally invested in all who come through our doors,” said Deb Gault, director of OhioGuidestone’s foster care program.

Brecksville | Chardon | Garfield Heights | Shaker Heights

(216) 581-2900 www.jenningsohio.org

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Jean Koehler

Susanna Krey

Eileen Lane Beudert

Jenn Lasky

Title: Special projects coordinator, Urban Community School, Cleveland Most recent education: Juris doctor, University of Connecticut School of Law

Title: President, Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland; SVP, Sisters of Charity Health System, Cleveland Most recent education: M.Ed., Tufts University

Title: Executive director, A Special Wish Foundation Inc. Cleveland Chapter, Brecksville Most recent education: B.A. in mass communication, Miami University

Title: Executive director, The Edna House, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of science in criminal justice, Youngstown State University

In her short time at Urban Community School, Jean Koehler has created a mentoring program for alumni who want to make a meaningful contribution to students’ educational and professional development. To get families, students and the community to unite through school events, Koehler found businesses to sponsor the school’s annual 5K with gift cards participants could win.

Prior to her current role, Koehler was executive director of Summer on the Cuyahoga, where she grew the number of interns and the organization’s cash reserve. She also engaged alumni across the country through a giving campaign, newsletters and other programming, and connected them to opportunities in Cleveland to advance their careers.

“I served as board chair during the time Jean served as executive director of Summer on the Cuyahoga, a grass-roots organization dedicated to championing ‘brain gain’ for Northeast Ohio,” said Lynn-Ann Gries, managing partner of First Check Fund. “With only 1.5 full-time employees, Jean did everything at this young organization … from recruiting employers and student interns, writing grants and managing summer programming. All that was needed, she did, happily and energetically.

“Cleveland’s pool of smart, young talent is bigger and better today because of Jean’s dedication and hard work,” Gries added.

In 2017, Susanna Krey directed the Sisters of Charity Foundation team to research, design and implement the Innovation Mission. The mission launched with five fellows who participated in professional development workshops, independent research, collaboration and innovation to develop programs to fight poverty that are now gaining traction in the community.

She’s led recent foundation initiatives to help reduce chronic homelessness in Cuyahoga County and was lead partner of the Cleveland Central Promise Neighborhood to increase the number of high-quality early learning centers.

Krey also serves on the board of directors of Fund for Our Economic Future and on the Governance Committee of the Cuyahoga County Partnering for Family Success Program.

“Since the inception of the Fund for Our Economic Future, Sue Krey has applied her management acumen to championing development and racial equity in the Central Neighborhood and Greater Cleveland,” said Brad Whitehead, president of Fund for Our Economic Future. “In her role, she sits at the intersection of community and economic development, ensuring that broader regional efforts connect to neighborhood populations while ensuring that neighborhood-building efforts unfold in the larger economic context.”

Since its founding in 1982, Eileen Lane Beudert has taken the time to get to know every child participating in A Special Wish Foundation.

“Eileen is the most determined and compassionate person I have ever met. I have witnessed her interacting with the wish children, their siblings and families,” said Joe Ritzler, a partner at Ritzler, Coughlin & Paglia LTD and chair of A Special Wish Cleveland.

Under Lane Beudert’s direction, A Special Wish Foundation won the 2017 Community Playmaker Award from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Scene Magazine named it Best Children’s Charity in 2014.

She helped develop the nonprofit’s Sparkles of Joy program, which partners with more than 130 community organizations to provide inpatient and outpatient experiences until participating children are healthy enough to travel with their families on their big wishes.

She also established a Christmas program that connects companies with wish families.

“The realities of a sick or dying child are devastating enough and Eileen faces this over and over again, putting her own feelings aside to do whatever she can to put a smile on the face of these children and their families,” said Anna Rizk, director of Allied Global Marketing. “Her work in the community is truly remarkable, unparalleled and deserves to be recognized.”

Prior to her current role, Jenn Lasky spearheaded Open Door, a rehabilitation program for felons and habitual offenders. Now, Lasky, a former parole officer for the state of Ohio, looks for ways to honor the dignity of The Edna House, a sober-living program for women, many of whom were residents at Open Door.

Lasky developed a room sponsorship program where donors cover the costs of redecorating residents’ bedrooms. She directed excess funds to a capital campaign to purchase a former convent and school building that will house a new Edna House campus.

Lasky even invites first responders to The Edna House so they can see the other side of addiction. Her outreach garners financial support from first-responder and police communities.

“Jenn is a natural leader and dynamic person who engages people easily. She sets the bar high for herself and others and inspires all of us to do our very best work,” said Erin Becker, founder and board president of The Edna House. “Under her stewardship, foundation and private support has increased steadily.

“Running a nonprofit requires a person to wear many hats,” added Becker. “Jenn has met the demands with grace and poise. She has earned the respect and admiration of our board, staff, volunteers and, most importantly, our residents.”

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NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS

Natalie Leek-Nelson

Patricia LoPresti

Carolina Masri

Christine Matusik-Plas

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Title: CEO and president, Providence House Inc., Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of fine arts in fiber/textiles and photography, Baldwin Wallace University

Title: Executive director, The First Tee of Cleveland, Newburgh Heights Most recent education: Bachelor of arts in interpersonal communications, Marquette University

Title: Executive director, MedWish International, Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of science in educational psychology, Colegio Universitario de Psicopedagogía - Valencia, Venezuela

Title: Director of community impact, United Way of Greater Lorain County, Lorain Most recent education: Master of arts, University of Notre Dame

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Natalie Leek-Nelson is always eager to share her knowledge and passion with others. Under her guidance, Providence House has become a national model in the prevention of child abuse and neglect and the preservation of families.

To address the growing issue of crisis nurseries and generate funding for Providence House, Leek-Nelson is working to develop a digital consulting framework and learning community of crisis nurseries. The nonprofit received its first revenue-generating contract in January 2019.

She leads the charge on legislative strategies that include refining crisis care facility regulations. She is also working with a group of child welfare agencies to develop and share a continuum-of-care model to inform Ohio’s framework of services in response to the Family First Preservation Services Act. Since 70% of the children in need are from Cleveland’s East Side, she is spearheading a campaign to construct a 20-bed crisis nursery in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood.

“She has communicated a vision and strategy that elevates the board, staff and communities to reach amazing heights. As we execute that strategy and deliver more services to more families and more children, there is no one I have greater confidence in leading the team than Natalie,” said Jane Cronin, senior vice president and corporate controller at the Sherwin-Williams Co. and member of the Providence House board.

In addition to her work at Providence House, Leek-Nelson spearheaded the development of client referral software to help nonprofits manage client connections to human services.

Under Patricia LoPresti’s direction, First Tee of Cleveland has grown from one to four locations and increased the number of youth participants it serves in schools.

LoPresti has a talent for cultivating relationships.

As such, she has built a network of more than 100 volunteers who work with her full-time staff of six and 12 part-time coaches.

In looking for new opportunities to introduce people to The First Tee, she launched “Best Time on 9,” an event for influential potential women donors to learn about the organization while playing games on the ninehole golf course and networking. In the same vein, she rolled out the Grit, Gratitude & You Breakfast, which attracts more than 300 local business leaders; and Taste of the Tee, in partnership with Tri-C’s Culinary Arts Program, that pairs participants with future chefs.

“Two words come to mind when I think about Pat: ‘passion’ and ‘energy.’ Her passion and energy for The First Tee of Cleveland is truly unbelievable,” said Whitt Butler, managing partner of Ernst & Young LLP’s Akron office and board chair of The First Tee of Cleveland. “She consistently does whatever it takes to provide greater impact for our current participants while also looking to expand the number of participants impacted by this youth character development program.”

In addition, LoPresti was integral to the creation of The Patty Wood Girls Leadership Experience, in honor of former board member Charlie Wood’s wife Patty. The program supports girls as they learn to “stand up and speak up” as leaders and explores such topics as communication, self-confidence and goal-setting.

Carolina Masri, recognized in 2014 as one of the 25 most powerful women by People Magazine en Español, steered MedWish through strategic change after joining the organization in 2015.

“Under the leadership of Carolina, I have never questioned that this is the direction the organization is heading,” said MedWish founder and board president Lee Ponsky. “She works tirelessly to push MedWish to the next level and achieve the ambitious goals we wish to accomplish. She has cultivated an incredible team committed to our mission and has taken this organization to amazing heights in the last four years.”

Under Masri’s direction, MedWish purchased a new building, established it as the $11 million organization’s world headquarters and relocated its 30,000-square-foot warehouse.

In addition, she developed a new staff evaluation process for annual reviews and goal-setting and set a standard for consistent staff coaching and the value of mentorship.

She also implemented external initiatives to raise the organization’s profile in the community.

In 2018, Masri was a panelist for “Crisis in Venezuela: Responses & Perspectives from its Diaspora,” a presentation hosted by the Cleveland Clinic, to share her perspective. In May 2019, Masri and her team ran a breakout session at the Compassion, Ethics and Excellence in Global Health Summit hosted by the Task Force for Global Health’s MedSurplus Alliance and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

Because of Christine Matusik-Plas’ efforts, United Way of Greater Lorain County has more than 150 collaborative partners.

Through these relationships, Matusik-Plas developed collaboratives that deliver measurable results in educational achievement, living-wage employment and optimal health. She also led the development of the United Community Assistance Network, a collaboration of eight nonprofits that decreased the frequency with which low-income working families experience financial crises.

Matusik-Plas assisted in the development of the Collaborative Improvement Advisor, a 12-month development program that has trained more than 40 professionals who now serve as internal consultants to the collaboratives.

“Christine has transformed how we work with other nonprofit agencies in our community. In the past, we felt like we were carrying the burden of service alone or, worse yet, constantly competing with other agencies for scarce resources. Today, we know that we can count on our colleagues to respond to the need in our community and to work with us in preventing problems in the first place,” said Major Robert Sears, Elyria Salvation Army.

In addition to her work at the United Way, Matusik-Plas serves on the county’s Homeless Task Force and manages her church’s involvement with Family Promise of Lorain County.

Congratulations!

Julie Chase-Morefield

PRESIDENT AND CEO

Growth by Design

Northeast Ohio’s economic development engine at work

SAVE THE DATE on being named one of Crain’s Notable Women in Nonprofits 2019 Additive Manufacturing Cluster of Ohio Annual Conference 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 20 The program will provide manufacturers of various sizes and business models with perspectives on the available opportunities for implementing AM in their organizations over the next five years. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies and information about regional resources to help them remain competitive in the evolving manufacturing landscape.

5510 Baumhart Road | Lorain, Ohio 44053 www.secondharvestfoodbank.org

P022_P023_CL_20190812.indd 22

Growing hope in our region by creating pathways to nutritious food.

Visit neohioamcluster.org and click on 2019 conference for additional details and to register.

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Caitie Milcinovic

Nicole Mullet

Judy Payne

Debra Pence-Meyenberg

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Title: Director of organizational advancement, Cleveland Public Theatre Most recent education: Master of business administration and master of fine arts in theatre management, Yale University

Title: Executive director, ArtsNow, Akron Most recent education: Master of arts in education, University of Akron

Title: Co-founder and executive director, Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank, Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of arts in social science, University of Michigan

Title: Executive director, America SCORES Cleveland, Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of arts in environmental policy and analysis and Russian language, Bowling Green State University

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Colleagues know Caitie Milcinovic for her compassion toward Cleveland Public Theatre audiences and artists and her ability to seamlessly manage and organize the art institution’s many moving parts.

“Upon arrival at CPT five years ago, she immediately assessed our current state and made a plan for the future which has played a major role in our income growth of 25%.

She moved quickly from ‘fundraiser’ to ‘lead strategist’ with a keen sense of and commitment to mission,” said CPT executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan.

In the five years she’s been at CPT, Milcinovic tripled major gifts, grew fundraising from $1.04 million in fiscal year 2014 to $2.05 million in FY18 and increased contributions from 66% ($1.57 million) of total revenue to 75% ($2.74 million).

Her work to support the growth of CPT’s education programs has resulted in the organization serving 250 more children every year with long-term, ongoing arts training, Bobgan added. She has also built a sustainable funding model for Station Hope, a neighborhood festival that engages 3,000 audience members every year in confederations about equity and social justice, and has played a lead role in developing CPT partnerships with United Way, MetroHealth and Y-Haven.

In addition to her work with CPT, Milcinovic volunteers with Equality Ohio in Columbus, Cleveland International Film Festival and the American Red Cross.

As the first executive director of ArtsNow, Nicole Mullet has built a thriving organization that supports and enlivens the arts sector, pulls together a variety of stakeholders and provides value to artists advancing their work.

“It’s not every day that you encounter an individual who can singlehandedly change a community,” said Howard Parr, executive director of the Akron Civic Theatre and board chair of ArtsNow. “Through her genuine desire to help and her astounding work ethic, Nicole has reshaped the arts and culture sector in Greater Akron. She has brought together arts organizations that previously viewed themselves as fierce competitors, enabling them to see that they can advance their mutual self-interests more effectively through partnership.”

Mullet developed and launched SummitLive365.com, a clearinghouse of arts and culture opportunities, upon learning that potential audiences didn’t know about cultural offerings in the community.

In 2017, Mullet won a Knight Arts Challenge grant to create a role for a corporate concierge, a person to connect businesses with artists who can meet their needs. And this year, at the behest of Akron mayor Dan Horrigan, she began leading the creation of a citywide cultural planning process to understand community needs and shape art offerings.

Further, Mullet nurtures and acts as a mentor to women in nonprofit fields as a member of numerous arts and community organizations. As a member of the board of United Disability Services, she led an ArtsNow initiative to support organizations that want to make their spaces more welcoming and sensory-friendly to individuals with disabilities.

Judy Payne is a catalyst for change.

After learning that more than 66% of low-income families don’t own a children’s book, Payne created a resource to change that narrative.

Five years later, her Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank has engaged more than 6,000 volunteers (from book sorters to accountants) and 900 partner organizations to put more than 2 million books in the hands of more than 100,000 at-risk children.

Parents now read to their children from books they’ve received from home-visiting agencies; Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program; preschools; and more. And children receive books at a variety of locations, including summer lunch programs, pools, recreation centers, neighborhood festivals, the laundromat and grocery stores.

“Judy Payne must be related to the Energizer Bunny. As the executive director of a startup organization, she has successfully juggled many balls — seeming to add more with every new idea she gets — and she does it with infectious enthusiasm, practical intelligence and warm humor,” said Deena Mirow Epstein, a Kids’ Book Bank board member and retired senior program officer of the George Gund Foundation.

The Ohio Department of Health recently recognized Payne’s efforts by honoring her with the Friend of WIC Award and, in 2016, Social Venture Partners acknowledged her work by honoring her with its Big Bang Award.

Payne also participates in the Fun(d) First and 100 Women Who Care giving circles.

America SCORES Cleveland strives to teach kids how being physically active, creative and working in a team can nurture them. Working with Cleveland Municipal School District leaders who have differing reasons for wanting the America SCORES Cleveland in their schools means Debra Pence-Meyenberg must creatively align stakeholders to ensure their focus remains on the children.

“America SCORES Cleveland was on the brink of being shut down when Debi started as executive director,” noted Laura Mimura, vice president of corporate communications for KeyBank and SCORES governance committee chair. “The organization now serves more than 1,000 urban youth in 10 Cleveland municipal schools.”

Pence-Meyenberg expanded the SCORES program to include additional schools and grade levels. She also looks for innovative fundraising methods and ways to gain nonmonetary support. That includes getting sporting-goods stores to donate equipment and helping parents and students communicate the mission and impact of the program.

“Debi is very in tune with the Cleveland nonprofit community, constantly seeking opportunities to partner with Cleveland organizations to best meet the needs of the youth and families SCORES serves. In doing so, SCORES has become a dynamic organization, evolving the depth of our impact over the past 15 years,” said SCORES development manager Olivia Sonnefeld.

Pence-Meyenberg is also active in the Say Yes Cleveland After School and Summer Taskforce, Higher Education Compact and United Way Council of Agency Executives.

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STAY IN THE KNOW with Crain’s email newsletters Subscribe FOR FREE : CrainsCleveland.com/enewsletters

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NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS

Tequila Pennington-Calwise

Elizabeth Peschges

Carrie Pleasants

Beth Cohen Pollack

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Title: Founder and CEO, Lady Bound Girls Mentoring and Leadership Organization, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of science in education, Walden University

Title: Vice president of culture and strategy, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of business administration in marketing and entrepreneurship, University of Illinois

Title: Executive director, Fair Housing Center for Rights & Research (“The Housing Center”), Cleveland Most recent education: Master of arts in geography, Kent State University

Title: Director of organizational advancement, Wingspan Care Group, Shaker Heights Most recent education: Master of public administration in health care administration, Cleveland State University

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Thirteen years ago, Tequila Pennington-Calwise designed an after-school club for middle school girls who routinely cause problems in their schools. The club provides mentoring, leadership and lessons to girls in four Cleveland schools.

“Tequila Pennington-Calwise’s contributions to the Euclid Park School community are immense and life-changing. In fact, she has impacted the lives of hundreds and hundreds of young ladies through her Lady Bound Program,” said Euclid Park School principal Jennifer Woody. “For some of the Lady Bound scholars, she is the most dependable and exemplary female role model in their lives and, for me, one of the greatest gems of the Euclid Park community.”

Pennington-Calwise was a 2018 Cleveland Cavaliers Every Fan Community Service and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Salute to Excellence honoree and received the 2019 Ohio Department of Education TORCH Award for her work.

“People want to be a part of something that makes a difference. Service, dedication and caring are powerful assets any nonprofit organization thrives on. Tequila exhibits these characteristics outside her nonprofit and so willingly shares her talents and expertise,” said Sandra Brinson, chair of the Alpha Omega Foundation.

In addition, Pennington-Calwise is a resident educator mentor for the state of Ohio’s mentoring program for those who just received their licenses to teach. She also is a teacher/ classroom mentor for Office of Field Services at Cleveland State University, where she accepts preservice educators for internships.

In just a year, Elizabeth Peschges helped the Rock Hall increase its employee engagement scores by 8%. Under her leadership, the nonprofit won the 2018 Smart Culture Award.

“Liz is a trusted leader with a reputation for integrity and quality, focused on achieving results and delivering improvements. Self-motivated and spirited, Liz serves as a key contributor to the ongoing success of the Rock Hall. Every day, Liz demonstrates the determination to face each challenge head-on,” said Greg Harris, CEO and president of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Peschges developed and implemented the organization’s first professional development program, which gives staff access to an online learning system that includes a management track; launched onsite workshops on topics ranging from cultural intelligence to recognizing harassment in the workplace; and created a directors’ workshop series for senior leadership that delves into topics such as unconscious bias.

Previously a winner of Crain’s Archer Awards for Professional Development, Peschges also established the Rock Hall’s Culture Club, a diversity, equity and inclusion committee to ensure employees are heard and fans receive the best possible experience.

Away from the Rock Hall, she helps other HR professionals grow their impact.

Carrie Pleasants has been promoted multiple times since 2008, when she joined the Fair Housing Center for Rights & Research.

Pleasants’ team researches gaps of fairness in area communities.

Those could be anything from ordinances that discriminate against people with disabilities who need to call for police or other emergency services or mortgage lending. Research is conducted through testers who, like secret shoppers, behave as prospective homebuyers and meticulously record their experiences while interacting with housing providers.

Under her leadership, the Housing Center received the 2019 Social Justice Advocates of the Year award from the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority recognized the Center with its Mae E. Stewart Award of Accountability for being “passionate about displaying a respectful and responsible living community.”

“I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Carrie for years in her various roles with the Housing Center,” said Emma Petrie Barcelona, director of Compliance for EDEN Inc. “She … navigates astutely — with a quiet and calm demeanor — the political and challenging nuances of fair housing work, never backing down from telling the story of why fair housing is still something that must be fought for, paid attention to and continually worked toward for Northeast Ohio’s people and communities. Carrie has sustained a great team of fair housing practitioners — all while navigating the challenging nonprofit funding environment.”

Beth Cohen Pollack has significantly expanded the scope and impact of fundraising and communications activities for Wingspan Care Group and its nonprofit affiliates Applewood Centers, Bellefaire JCB and Lifeworks Adult Autism Services.

In this role, she has identified and pursued new funding streams to serve victimized youth, expanded the donor and volunteer base, launched outreach to young professionals to generate new supporters and ideas, and trained the organization’s board and staff in community and media relations.

Pollack also launched a successful $12 million capital campaign that resulted in funds for a pediatric psychiatric hospital, a medical clinic for individuals with autism and other specialized needs and expansion of the school for autism.

She was instrumental in developing a public awareness campaign that spotlighted youth homelessness in Cuyahoga County.

“Beth Pollack’s success as a community advocate and as a businesswoman is because of three common denominators: Beth leads from her heart, inspires with her values and acts with intellectual vigor,” said Adam Jacobs, president of Wingspan Care Group.

Pollack also engages women in the community as a member of the Professional Women’s Network at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

“Beth Pollack is an exceptional professional. She is a collaborative, mission-driven individual who successfully galvanizes others to do good in our world and works for those most vulnerable in our world: children,” said Erica Rudin-Luria, president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

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LEADERSHIP, COMPASSION AND MISSION Congratulations to

Donna Keegan, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, for being honored as a Crain’s Notable Woman in Nonprofits.

Mary Ann Ponce

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Title: Director, Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, Chagrin Falls Most recent education: Bachelor of science in business administration and accounting, Stonehill College

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Mary Ann Ponce launched the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival to empower filmmakers with a stage for their stories, to help her community grow and learn, and to honor her filmmaker son, who died at age 20 from leukemia.

The project started as a budgetless grass-roots effort, debuting with 93 films in 2009 for a total audience of 1,800.

In 2018, more than 200 volunteers turned out for the sponsor-funded event that screened 89 films, attracted 11,000 people from 28 states and generated about $1 million for the local economy.

Chagrin Documentary Film Festival has made MovieMaker Magazine’s “Top 50 film festivals worth the entry fee” seven out of the 10 years it’s been in operation. In addition to attracting filmmakers, the festival also attracts major film distributors.

Adding to the festival, Ponce in 2018 launched the Illuminate event to inspire high-school students to learn what’s happening outside of their communities.

Last year, more than 600 students viewed films delving into issues related to the environment, social awareness and more before participating in Q&As with filmmakers.

Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Arts announced it would provide a $20,000 grant to the festival.

www.OhioGuidestone.org

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Dani Robbins

Erika Rudin-Luria

Allison Salopeck

Shauna Sanders

Title: Director, Nonprofit Administration Program, John Carroll University, University Heights Most recent education: Master of public administration in public management, Cleveland State University

Title: President, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of science in social work, Columbia University

Title: President and CEO, Jennings, Garfield Heights Most recent education: Master of science in long-term care administration, University of North Texas

Title: Executive director, Malachi Center, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of business administration, Cleveland State University

Dani Robbins, the first full-time director of John Carroll’s Nonprofit Administration Program, sought input from every student at JCU before redesigning the program to better reflect the skills and education needed to prepare future nonprofit leaders.

Her retooling included enhancing faculty to include nonprofit leaders and overhauling course offerings, such as adding a cultural diversity class.

In addition, Robbins, who authored “Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives,” began providing free workshops on executive leadership, organizational culture, resource development and board governance to nonprofit executives in the community.

“Dani has been transformational in her time ... directing the Nonprofit Administration M.A. program at John Carroll University,” said Anne Kugler, associate dean for graduate and professional programs in the College of Arts and Sciences at JCU. “She has revamped the curriculum to be cutting-edge applicable to the nonprofit sector; enhanced the quality of instruction; developed a thriving community of learners/practitioners among her students; and invigorated community-university relationships.”

Robbins also leads John Carroll’s nonprofit community advisory committee and the faculty advisory committee.

“Dani is a strategic thinker, who has a rich and broad expertise in the field of nonprofit administration and strives to keep her program current and relevant,” said Eileen Saffran, founder and CEO of The Gathering Place and a member of JCU’s nonprofit community advisory committee.

Erika Rudin-Luria started in 2001 as the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s supporting foundations manager and, after numerous promotions, now is one of three female executives in the Federation’s large city executive group.

“Erika is a strategic thinker who can convert vision to concrete action plans. After only a few months in her new executive role, she is already recognized and respected as one of the most influential women professional leaders in her field in North America,” said Stephen Hoffman, president emeritus of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

Under Rudin-Luria’s leadership, the Federation has launched and expanded numerous initiatives, including establishing a new food pantry in Cleveland Heights, a homelessness prevention program, a financial distress roundtable and a Holocaust survivor initiative.

In addition, she was integral to developing the Federation’s latest strategic plan. As part of that, she created jHUB, a new way for interfaith couples to explore, discover and personalize the meaning of Jewish culture and values in the modern world.

“As a representative of the Jewish Federation, she also worked closely with United Way as a member of the Emergency Food & Shelter Program Board (EFSP) from 201517,” said Augie Napoli, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Cleveland.

Rudin-Luria is also an Executive Leadership Program fellow at the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership and serves on the oversight committee of the Berman Jewish Databank.

Allison Salopeck creatively finds cost-effective ways to further the mission of Jennings, a Catholic care and residential facility for older adults.

She facilitated a collaboration between Jennings and Northeast Ohio Hospice to develop Notre Dame Village in Chardon, a new community open to people of all faiths. She also championed the installation of new protective flooring in the Jennings nursing home to benefit residents at high risk for falls.

“Allison personifies the qualities of servant leadership,” said Sister Valerie Sweeney, chief mission leader at Jennings. “She gives of herself tirelessly whenever there is a need. She is a woman of vision, able to lead into the future by making wise decisions in the present. For Allison, the mission and values of Jennings are the driving force behind all she does.”

Articulate, transparent and advocacy-minded, Salopeck visits with state and federal legislators to help them understand the challenges facing service providers for the aged. She also is a mentor to gerontology students and administrators-in-training as a member of the advisory board for the Gerontology and Long-Term Care Administration Program at Kent State University.

Further, Salopeck is a member of the LeadingAge Ohio board.

“LeadingAge Ohio sought Allison as a board member because we desired the strength of her voice. She is unwavering in her commitment to bring clear-headed thinking to regulations that will reform the manner in which we provide quality services to aging Ohioans,” said LeadingAge president and CEO Kathryn Lasley Brod.

During her three years as executive director, Shauna Sanders has been instrumental in increasing Malachi Center’s outreach and programming to those in dire need.

She revitalized programming, particularly by enhancing socioeconomic learning in youth services and case management of homeless individuals. She also worked with community partners to provide housing to homeless seniors.

Under her direction, the community and family resource center expanded its youth summer Swim Camp partnership with The Foundry to include rowing, increased its partnership with Baldwin Wallace University to include psychology interns who can help assess children in the program and extended services to the larger refugee population.

“Shauna is deeply passionate about fulfilling the immediate basic needs of the homeless and impoverished community while also working tirelessly to advocate for services, like our after-school program and youth club, to mitigate the circumstances that contribute to the vicious cycle of poverty,” said Joe Spetz, a member of the Malachi Center board and vice president of Northeast Ohio Commercial Banking for Home Savings Bank.

With Sanders at the helm, Aetna named Malachi Center one of its 2019 Aetna Voices of Health.

Sanders is also a member of the North East Ohio Coalition for Homelessness, Ohio City Human Services Dialogue Group and the Baldwin Wallace Jacket Philanthropy program.

Brianna Schultz Title: Vice president, Workforce Development, Manufacturing Works, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of business administration in human resource management, Ashland University

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Brianna Schultz is passionate about helping children and adults become the best version of themselves through education, learning and development.

In 2017, she joined a U.S. delegation to Germany to learn from that country’s apprenticeship program. Since then, Schultz has more than doubled the number of members in the apprenticeship consortium, helped launch a machining apprenticeship at Max S. Hayes High School and established a new partnership with Alliance for Working Together to grow the number of apprenticeships in the region.

Schultz is chair of the learning and development special-interest group for the Cleveland Society for HR Management and sits on its board.

“Brianna set the standard for my future supervisors.

She had an open-door policy and, with abundant patience, taught our team members not only how to be good employees but how to be great leaders,” said Sylvia Rios, assistant director of the Career Development Center at Oberlin College. “Her heart for service and people was apparent in everything she did, and she was never above learning something new from everyone she worked with. She was willing to take on responsibilities that others did not want, and therefore, was recognized for her extraordinary ability to wear many hats.”

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would like to congratulate

Khrys Shefton on being named to the Crain’s 2019 list of Notable Women in Nonprofits.

Through her hard work and dedication, Khrys has helped Famicos Foundation stay focused on our mission to improve the quality of life in greater Cleveland through neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, and integrated social services. famicos.org

216.791.6476

@famicos

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NOTABLE WOMEN IN NONPROFITS

Khrystalynn Shefton

Jill Snyder

Jeannette Sorrell

Ruth Swetland Eppig

Title: Director, real estate development, Famicos Foundation, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of urban planning, design and development in real estate development finance, Cleveland State University

Title: Executive director, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland Most recent education: Bachelor of arts in dance, language and literature, Wesleyan University

Title: Founder, artistic director and conductor, Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, Cleveland Heights Most recent education: Artist diploma, Oberlin College and Conservatory

Title: Vice chair, board of trustees, Western Reserve Land Conservancy Most recent education: Bachelor of science in environmental biology, Smith College

Two years after joining the organization, Khrystalynn Shefton was promoted to director of the Famicos Foundation, a community development organization. Shefton, a member of the Urban Land Institute, The American Planning Association and the S.E. Regional Design Review Committee for the City of Cleveland, is the only woman African-American urban planner in the city.

Despite funding challenges a few years ago, Shefton helped Famicos gain Chartered Member status in NeighborWorks America, which opened doors to new sources of funding and support for the foundation. She also helped expand the impact of Famicos’ services from Glenville into the Hough and St. Clair-Superior neighborhoods.

“Khrys has unlimited energy. She’s a phenomenal multitasker, a quick thinker and a great leader,” said Don Dalton, director of asset management for Famicos Foundation Shefton steered the Glenville Neighborhood Revitalization Master Planning effort, which created the MyGlenville five-year Master Plan and is the model for the Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s $65 million Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, which is expected to create new jobs, homes and opportunities. She also was responsible for the Glenville Arts Campus.

Earlier this year, the Cleveland Restoration Society awarded Shefton the Celebration of Preservation Award for her work on The Madison building and the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning honored her with a Sunshine Award for her work on the Glenville Arts Campus.

Jill Snyder has made numerous significant contributions during her 22-year (and counting) tenure as executive director MOCA Cleveland.

“Jill is the rare director who not only has curatorial skills but also is a visionary and skillful nonprofit manager in the field,” said Brett Littman, director of The Noguchi Museum in Queens, N.Y. “She has been someone who has implemented many new ideas in the field and is always someone I turn to when I want to think through new ideas about board management, organizational structures and innovative programmatic initiatives.”

Snyder has expanded the museum’s reach through strategic planning and was integral to rebranding her organization to the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland from the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. The change signified the steps it was making to become an international force that attracted the attention of the contemporary art world along with a diverse group of artists and audiences.

“Jill understands that the role of museums within their communities has changed significantly during her tenure,” said Mary Ceruti, director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn. “First, she built an institution that responds to the specific contexts of her location and simultaneously built her community around the institution.”

Snyder also managed to raise funds during difficult financial periods to build a new location for the museum and launch its Open House initiatives, which include free admission and a diversity curatorship. She also was key to transforming museum guards into engagement guides who act as caretakers over the art as well as building and community educators.

Since launching Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra in 1992 without any money, Jeannette Sorrell has grown the organization considerably.

Apollo’s Fire, which operates on a $2.4 million budget, holds about 50 yearly concerts that draw more than 16,000 audience members to its Northeast Ohio home. The 70-plus-member orchestra also travels the world to perform at such events and venues as Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms in London, the Aspen Music Festival, the Library of Congress and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Her recent creation of an Apollo’s Fire Artistic Leadership Fellowship program addresses her concern for where the next generation of arts leaders, particularly in the music field, will learn the skills necessary to take leadership roles,” said Apollo’s Fire board president Chuck Bittenbender. “And her creation in 2017 of the Apollo’s Fire Community Access Initiative seeks to take music education and programming out into our community to break down financial and geographic barriers to arts participation.”

Sorrell, who won a Grammy Award for conducting this year, has also conducted for numerous others, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, the National Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and Opera St. Louis.

In addition, Sorrell serves on a grant-review panel for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Before launching the largest fundraising campaign in its history, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy averaged donations of about $4 million annually.

However, when Ruth Swetland Eppig set her mind to achieving a $35 million fundraising campaign goal, everything changed. As a result, current and planned gifts to the organization’s campaign already total more than $20 million.

Swetland Eppig launched the quiet phase of the campaign in 2018. First, she conducted a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the organization’s fundraising performance.

Then, she set a working goal and recruited a cabinet of eight volunteers to lead the solicitations with Conservancy staff.

The organization also benefits from volunteerism and gifts from her Sears-Swetland Foundation, where she serves as president and which funded the Conservancy’s Thriving Communities program to end urban blight, create parks and transform neighborhoods into safer, more vibrant places.

As well as her work with the Conservancy, Swetland Eppig is a member of the Cleveland Institute of Art board and chair of the advisory board at the Swetland Center for Environmental Health at Case Western Reserve University.

“Ruth is the quintessential volunteer, trustee and campaign leader. She understands the mission of the conservancy, passionately supports its broad-based work, leads through example and is exceptionally generous in so many ways,” said William Mulligan, managing director of Primus Capital Funds, trustee for Western Reserve Land Conservancy and cochair of the Campaign to Conserve, Connect, Sustain.

Linda Uveges Title: COO, The City Mission, Cleveland Most recent education: Master of nonprofit administration and leadership, Cleveland State University

www.crossroads-lake.org

SHAYNA JACKSON who is among Crain’s Cleveland Business’ Most Notable Women in Nonprofit

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER P026_CL_20190812.indd 26

More than 15 years ago, Linda Uveges starting working as a volunteer at The City Mission. Her exceptional leadership and willingness to take on new tasks resulted in reaching her current role.

As women completed their programs at Laura’s Home Women’s Crisis Center, which City Mission operates, many of them found it difficult to secure affordable housing. Uveges helped form the New Horizons housing initiative, which works with external organizations to find permanent, affordable housing solutions. The initiative doesn’t just provide a home, but also provides stability by providing women and their families with homeownership training.

Uveges has also forged partnerships and collaborations with such groups as the Legal Aid Society, Ohio Guidestone, Centers for Community Solutions and Care Alliance in response to changing client needs.

She serves in the community in additional ways. She is on the advisory board of the Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services and co-leads the Laura’s Home Missional Community, which facilitates relationships with volunteers, faith communities and others.

“Linda has been a change agent in this community and is committed to making an impact with her life and work,” said Rob Ziol, faculty member and director of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management at Cleveland State University. “She always makes time to mentor and meet with students, to help them learn and grow. She is a frequent speaker and facilitator in our Women’s Leadership Series, and her personal story inspires others to overcome obstacles.”

8/8/19 2:13 PM

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AKRON

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Colliers opens office to serve Akron area

By Dan Shingler dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

It took some time, but Colliers International now has a Summit County real estate office dedicated to serving Akron and the surrounding area.

Brian Hurtuk, managing director of the firm’s Cleveland office, also will oversee the Akron operations. He said he’s been working for more than two years to hire the people he needed in order to justify a physical presence in town. He recently made his fourth and fifth hires for the office.

“I can sleep now, a little,” Hurtuk said, joking, when asked if finding the right people was tough.

Colliers has opened a small, 1,600-square-foot office in Fairlawn’s Miller Landing Office Park on North Miller Road.

That followed the recent hiring of Cori Voltz and Jon Caiazza, both of whom were previously at SVN Summit Commercial Real Estate in Fairlawn and know the Akron market, Hurtuk said.

They joined Hurtuk’s initial Akron

hire, Lorin Schultz, who was brought on in 2017, and Scott Repie and Ed Matzules, whom Hurtuk hired in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

“Thank God Lorin is patient,” Hurtuk said Hurtuk, who originally unveiled plans to open an Akron office in August 2017 and said he has been recruiting to staff it ever since.

Other real estate firms might be glad he’s got the people he needs, too, so that their staffs aren’t on his radar. Area firms have been very aware of Colliers’ local recruiting efforts, officials from two companies told Crain’s.

Hurtuk said he’s likely not done for good, though, and probably will hire four or five additional new staffers for the Akron office, if and when he can find the right people.

All of Colliers’ Akron hires knew each other or worked together before joining the firm, they said, something that ultimately made Hurtuk’s re-

cruiting efforts easier.

As for whether the Akron and Summit County markets can take on another firm, most seem to think it can — including, of course, Colliers.

The firm was drawn to Akron by the spike in local development, especially downtown, and the increasing demand for land and space, Hurtuk said.

Gregg Cramer, vice president of economic development for the Greater Akron Chamber, said he always likes to see more firms come to town, especially big real estate firms such as Colliers, because they are good for business and good economic indicators.

“Colliers is a solid company. Them opening an office locally is an expression of confidence in both the community and the market here,” Cramer said.

Tom Fox, executive vice president of NAI Pleasant Valley, which has real estate offices in Akron and Beachwood in addition to its Medina headquarters, said it remains to be seen how the new market entrant will do.

But, he pointed out, while firms such as Colliers have been expanding,

there also has been consolidation among other firms that once competed. That includes Fox’s former NAI Cummins firm in Akron, which joined Pleasant Valley at the beginning of this year.

Fox and Cramer seem to agree with Hurtuk on one thing: Colliers, like any other firm, is likely to have more success serving Akron from a local office than from Cleveland.

“If you can say we have an Akron office and we have a Cleveland office, that helps, Fox said. “Real estate, in my estimation, tends to be a business where if you know a certain market and geography, it helps. You don’t try to be all things to all people. You need to specialize in an area.”

As for the market, it’s still stable, according to Fox. “It’s still steady. Certainly, on the industrial side of things, the market’s been steady. On the retail side it’s more questionable … but office seems to be doing better. The vacancies in the Akron area, along with the Cleveland area, are coming down,” Fox said.

Colliers new office won’t be starting from a standstill. It already won

business leasing out vacant space in Akron’s Canal Place development, where Schultz is working to find office tenants while Repie looks for users of industrial space.

It’s also working to sell the Huntington Tower, one of downtown Akron’s most significant structures with 27 floors and 127,000 square feet of rentable space. Matzules said Colliers capital markets group in Detroit secured that listing, but that the Akron office hopes to help sell the building, in which Huntington Bank will remain, he said.

Colliers intends to do a fair bit of work downtown but plans to work all of Akron and the surrounding area, where it’s seen particularly strong demand for vacant land, Hurtuk said.

Colliers has been growing in Northeast Ohio overall, so its growth in Akron should come as no surprise, said Hurtuk, who helped the firm as its first employee in Cleveland in 2012.

“Seven years ago this month, we were an office of one,” said Hurtuk, adding that between Akron and Cleveland Colliers now employs 48 people.

How hedgehogs might help make football safer

By Karen Farkas clbfreelancer@crain.com

The quills of a hedgehog, which cushion the mammal from harm when it falls from trees, inspired researchers to create a product that could one day prevent football concussions, cushion the inner soles of running shoes and protect soldiers.

Hedgemon recently received patent approval for its hedgehog-inspired impact protection technology.

The initial focus is to create a liner for football helmets to protect players from concussions, said CEO Emily Kennedy. The company plans to seek venture funding and supply or license its technology following a test this fall at a certified lab.

“We’ve had some preliminary conversations with all football helmet manufacturers,” Kennedy said. “We need the data to blow their socks off.”

It has been more than five years since Kennedy and others in the University of Akron’s graduate degree program in biomimicry began discussing how to prevent concussions, a frequent injury among football players of all ages. In recent years, there has been an increasing concern that concussions cause long-term brain injuries.

Biomimicry involves copying nature to solve human problems, so Kennedy and classmates, including Bill Hsiung, began investigating which animals had qualities to absorb impacts to the head and body.

They studied woodpeckers and bighorn sheep, but realized the bird’s beaks and sheep’s horns absorb only linear impacts, caused by direct blows to the head that knock the brain against the inside of the skull. They aren’t affected by angular impacts, caused by indirect or glancing blows that spin the brain against the inside of the skull, she said.

Research has shown angular impacts are more damaging to the brain than linear impacts, but no football helmet currently can absorb rotation-

P027_CL_20190812.indd P027_CL_20190812indd.indd 27 27

Hedgemon CEO Emily Kennedy holds a football helmet liner that utilizes the company’s design inspired by the quills of hedgehogs. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

al energy, Kennedy added.

They then discovered the hedgehog.

“We were surprised by that connection to the hedgehog, but in their behavior in the wild they fall pretty regularly,” she noted.

Hedgehogs — which are small, each weighing only about 1.5 pounds — escape predators by curling into a tight ball and falling from trees. Their 7,000 quills, which are arranged in overlapping layers, act as a shock absorber, so the animals are uninjured after they hit the ground.

Hedgemon was formed in 2015.

Kennedy said the name is a play on the animal and the word hegemony — the preponderant influence or authority over others. In addition to Kennedy and chief science officer Hsiung, who were the first two students in the world in 2017 to receive doctorates related to biomimicry, other company members are chief operating officer Nate Swift, who graduated with a master’s degree in physics from Case Western Reserve Universi-

ty, and chief design officer Douglas Paige, an industrial design professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. To create a prototype, they obtained several pelts from hedgehogs that had died naturally and observed two hedgehogs living at the time at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Hedgehog quills are mostly hollow and although they are light, they are very strong.

Using a 3D printer, the team created “impact protection modules,” squares of overlapping and pitched flexible polymer “quills,” modeled after the pattern of quills on hedgehogs. After numerous experiments to create the best pattern and flexibility, including dropping modules from high points, more than a dozen were inserted into a helmet liner, also created by a 3D printer.

Last October, the liner was inserted in a clear helmet and tested at ICS Laboratories in Brunswick. The lab is one of five in the country approved for third-party validation testing by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, which certifies athletic equipment, including helmets.

The Hedgemon helmet was put on a head form full of oil, which was subjected to linear and angular impacts at several velocities, Kennedy said. Their helmet was tested against other brand-name helmets.

“We found in some areas we outperformed other helmets, and in others we were not quite there yet,” she said. “For the first full-scale, 3D-printed liner, we were feeling pretty good.”

The team is making improvements to the modules and the liner, including adding more modules and making the liner more durable. They plan to use injection-molded parts for the modules and liner for the test this fall.

Hedgemon received $50,000 in startup funding from the University of Akron Research Foundation’s Spark Fund. After completion of the Spark Fund project, which included the helmet testing, the foundation licensed the technology to Hedgemon, which is

now in a coworking space at StartMart in Tower City Center in Cleveland.

As the company evolves, its team members hold other jobs. Kennedy is director of external relations for UA’s Biomimicry Research and Innovation Center. Hsiung is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego; and Swift is a design engineer at Moog Flo-Tork, a space and defense group firm in Orrville. Paige is at the Cleveland Institute of Art. To date, Hedgemon has raised $363,000 in nondilutive capital and equity investments, Kennedy said.

Sources include the Burton D. Morgan Foundation, FlashStarts, Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE), JumpStart, Lemelson Foundation, National Science Foundation and Ohio Third Frontier.

While the intellectual property belongs to the university, Hedgemon

was granted the exclusive license and is able to commercialize the projects.

The company plans to either supply or license its helmet liner technology to a football helmet manufacturer.

“We see ourselves as an R&D (research and development) company,” Kennedy said.

The company received patent claims for future personal and material impact protection products, using the hedgehog-inspired modules. They include body armor, athletic shoe midsoles, child car seats, fall-protection flooring, transport cases, electronics housing and automotive paneling. The company is seeking foreign-territory approval.

“The total market for Hedgemon’s impact protection technology exceeds $10 billion when other potential applications are factored,” the company’s proposal stated.

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PA G E 2 8

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A U G U S T 12 - 18 , 2 019 |

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

THE LIST

THE LIST

Ranked by market capitalization as of Aug. 1, 2019

Ranked by market capitalization as of Aug. 1, 2019

Largest Public Companies - Ohio THIS YEAR COMPANY

1

Procter & Gamble Co./PG One Procter & Gamble Plaza, Cincinnati (513) 983-1100/pg.com

2

MARKET CAP 8-1-2019 BUSINESS (MILLIONS) CATEGORY

TOP EXECUTIVE

$291,603.2

Manufacturing

David S. Taylor, chairman, president, CEO

Sherwin-Williams Co./SHW 101 W. Prospect Ave., Cleveland (216) 566-2000/sherwin.com

$47,091.6

Manufacturing

John G. Morikis, chairman, CEO

3

Progressive Corp./PGR 6300 Wilson Mills Road, Mayfield Village (440) 461-5000/progressive.com

$46,798.1

Insurance

S. Tricia Griffith, president, CEO

4

American Electric Power Co./AEP 1 Riverside Plaza, Columbus (614) 716-1000/aep.com

$43,853.9

Utility

Nicholas K. Akins, chairman, president, CEO

5

Marathon Petroleum Corp./MPC 539 S. Main St., Findlay (419) 422-2121/marathonpetroleum.com

$36,683.7

Energy

Gary R. Heminger, chairman, CEO

6

Welltower Inc./WELL 4500 Dorr St., Toledo (419) 247-2800/welltower.com

$33,919.8

Real estate

Thomas J. DeRosa, chairman, CEO

7

Eaton/ETN 1000 Eaton Blvd., Beachwood (440) 523-5000/eaton.com

$33,587.4

Manufacturing

Craig Arnold, chairman, CEO

8

MPLX LP/MPLX 200 E. Hardin St., Findlay (419) 421-2414/mplx.com

$31,550.3

Energy

Gary R. Heminger, chairman, CEO

9

Cintas Corp./CTAS 6800 Cintas Blvd., Cincinnati (513) 459-1200/cintas.com

$26,547.2

Uniforms; business services

Scott D. Farmer, chairman, CEO

10

TransDigm Group Inc./TDG 1301 E. 9th St., Suite 3000, Cleveland (216) 706-2960/transdigm.com

$25,490.7

Manufacturing

Kevin M. Stein, president, CEO

11

FirstEnergy Corp./FE 76 S. Main St., Akron (800) 736-3402/firstenergycorp.com

$23,614.3

Utility

Charles E. Jones Jr., president, CEO

12

Parker Hannifin Corp./PH 6035 Parkland Blvd., Mayfield Heights (216) 896-3000/parker.com

$22,175.4

Manufacturing

Thomas L. Williams, chairman, CEO

13

Fifth Third Bancorp/FITB 38 Fountain Square Plaza, Cincinnati (800) 972-3030/53.com

$20,751.9

Financial services

Greg D. Carmichael, chairman, president, CEO

14

Mettler-Toledo International Inc./MTD 1900 Polaris Parkway, Columbus (614) 438-4511/mt.com

$18,870.1

Manufacturing

Olivier A. Filliol, president, CEO

15

KeyCorp/KEY 127 Public Square, Cleveland (216) 689-6300/key.com

$17,373.9

Financial services

Beth E. Mooney, chairman, CEO

16

Cincinnati Financial Corp./CINF 6200 S. Gilmore Road, Fairfield (513) 870-2000/cinfin.com

$17,361.0

Insurance

Steven J. Johnston, president, CEO

17

The Kroger Co./KR 1014 Vine St., Cincinnati (513) 762-4000/thekrogerco.com

$17,190.1

Retail

W. Rodney McMullen, chairman, CEO

18

Huntington Bancshares Inc./HBAN 41 S. High St., Columbus (614) 480-2265/huntington.com

$14,083.5

Financial services

Stephen D. Steinour, chairman, president, CEO

19

Cardinal Health Inc./CAH 7000 Cardinal Place, Dublin (614) 757-5000/cardinalhealth.com

$13,910.5

Health care products and services

Mike Kaufmann, CEO

20

The J.M. Smucker Co./SJM One Strawberry Lane, Orrville (330) 682-3000/jmsmucker.com

$12,741.6

Manufacturing

Mark T. Smucker, president, CEO

21

Steris/STE 5960 Heisley Road, Mentor (440) 354-2600/steris.com

$12,605.9

Manufacturing

Walter M. Rosebrough Jr., president, CEO

22

American Financial Group Inc./AFG 301 E. Fourth St., Cincinnati (513) 579-2121/afginc.com

$9,060.2

Insurance

Carl H. Lindner III S. Craig Lindner, copresident, co-CEOs

23

RPM International Inc./RPM 2628 Pearl Road, Medina (330) 273-5090/rpminc.com

$8,574.1

Manufacturing

Frank C. Sullivan, chairman, CEO

24

Alliance Data Systems/ADS 3075 Loyalty Circle, Columbus (614) 729-4000/alliancedata.com

$7,972.9

Payment card services

Melisa Miller, president, CEO

25

Nordson Corp./NDSN 28601 Clemens Road, Westlake (440) 892-1580/nordson.com

$7,958.6

Manufacturing

Sundaram Nagarajan, president, CEO

26

L Brands Inc./LB Three Limited Parkway, Columbus (614) 415-7000/lb.com

$6,717.8

Retail

Leslie H. Wexner, chairman, CEO

27

Macy's Inc./M 7 W. Seventh St., Cincinnati (513) 579-7000/macysinc.com

$6,551.2

Retail

Jeff Gennette, chairman, CEO

28

Chemed Corp./CHE 255 E. Fifth St., Suite 2600, Cincinnati (513) 762-6690/chemed.com

$6,476.8

Health care; plumbing

Kevin J. McNamara, president, CEO

Largest Public Companies - Ohio THIS YEAR COMPANY

MARKET CAP 8-1-2019 BUSINESS (MILLIONS) CATEGORY

TOP EXECUTIVE

29

Owens Corning/OC One Owens Corning Parkway, Toledo (419) 248-8000/owenscorning.com

$6,134.8

Manufacturing

Brian D. Chambers, CEO

30

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co./SMG 14111 Scottslawn Road, Marysville (937) 644-0011/scottsmiraclegro.com

$6,046.9

Manufacturing

Jim Hagedorn, chairman, CEO

31

Lincoln Electric/LECO 22801 St. Clair Ave., Euclid (216) 481-8100/lincolnelectric.com

$5,109.1

Manufacturing

Christopher L. Mapes, chairman, president, CEO

32

TFS Financial Corp./TFSL 7007 Broadway Ave., Cleveland (800) 844-7333/thirdfederal.com

$4,821.0

Financial services

Marc A. Stefanski, chairman, president, CEO

33

Lancaster Colony Corp./LANC 380 Polaris Parkway, Suite 400, Westerville (614) 224-7141/lancastercolony.com

$4,224.5

Manufacturing

David A. Ciesinski, president, CEO

34

Wendy's Co./WEN One Dave Thomas Blvd., Dublin (614) 764-3100/wendys.com

$4,180.7

Restaurants

Todd A. Penegor, president, CEO

35

The Timken Co./TKR 4500 Mount Pleasant St. N.W., North Canton (234) 262-3000/timken.com

$3,284.2

Manufacturing

Richard G. Kyle, president, CEO

36

GrafTech International Ltd./EAF 982 Keynote Circle, Brooklyn Heights (216) 676-2000/graftech.com

$3,195.9

Manufacturing

David J. Rintoul, president, CEO

37

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co./GT 200 Innovation Way, Akron (330) 796-2121/goodyear.com

$3,073.9

Manufacturing

Richard J. Kramer, chairman, president, CEO

38

Cedar Fair LP/FUN One Cedar Point Drive, Sandusky (419) 627-2233/cedarfair.com

$2,889.2

Amusement parks

Richard A. Zimmerman, president, CEO

39

Medpace Holdings Inc./MEDP 5375 Medpace Way, Cincinnai (513) 579-9911/medpace.com

$2,800.0

Contract research organization

August Troendle, president, CEO

40

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc./CLF 200 Public Square, Suite 3300, Cleveland (216) 694-5700/clevelandcliffs.com

$2,603.3

Natural resources

Lourenco Goncalves, chairman, president, CEO

41

SITE Centers Corp./SITC 3300 Enterprise Parkway, Beachwood (216) 755-5500/sitecenters.com

$2,532.2

Real estate

David R. Lukes, president, CEO

42

PolyOne Corp./POL 33587 Walker Road, Avon Lake (440) 930-1000/polyone.com

$2,434.5

Manufacturing

Robert M. Patterson, chairman, president, CEO

43

First Financial Bancorp/FFBC 255 E. Fifth St., Suite 800, Cincinnati (877) 322-9530/bankatfirst.com

$2,412.9

Financial services

Archie M. Brown Jr., president, CEO

44

Applied Industrial Technologies Inc./AIT 1 Applied Plaza, Cleveland (216) 426-4000/applied.com

$2,281.3

Distribution

Neil A. Schrimsher, president, CEO

45

Dana Inc./DAN 3939 Technology Drive, Maumee (419) 887-3000/dana.com

$2,250.9

Manufacturing

James K. Kamsickas, president, CEO

46

Worthington Industries/WOR 200 Old Wilson Bridge Road, Columbus (614) 438-3210/worthingtonindustries.com

$2,211.4

Manufacturing

John P. McConnell, chairman, CEO

47

Owens-Illinois Inc./OI One Michael Owens Way, Perrysburg (567) 336-5000/o-i.com

$1,996.3

Manufacturing

Andres A. Lopez, CEO

48

Advanced Drainage Systems Inc./WMS 4640 Trueman Blvd., Hilliard (614) 658-0050 /ads-pipe.com

$1,950.2

Manufacturing

D. Scott Barbour, president, CEO

49

Greif Inc./GEF 425 Winter Road, Delaware (740) 549-6000/greif.com

$1,843.1

Manufacturing

Peter G. Watson, president, CEO

50

Installed Building Products Inc./IBP 495 S. High St., Suite 50, Columbus (614) 221-3399/installedbuildingproducts.com

$1,580.3

Home product installation

Jeffrey W. Edwards, chairman, president, CEO

51

Park National Corp./PRK 50 N. Third St., Newark (740) 349-8451/parknationalcorp.com

$1,521.6

Financial services

David L. Trautman, president, CEO

52

State Auto Financial Corp./STFC 518 E. Broad St., Columbus (614) 464-5000/stateauto.com

$1,418.5

Insurance

Michael E. LaRocco, chairman, president, CEO

53

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co./CTB 701 Lima Ave., Findlay (419) 423-1321/coopertire.com

$1,348.7

Manufacturing

Brad Hughes, president, CEO

54

Air Transport Services Group Inc./ATSG 145 Hunter Drive, Wilmington (937) 382-5591/atsginc.com

$1,297.4

Transportation

Joe Hete, president, CEO

55

Designer Brands Inc. (formerly DSW)/DSW 810 DSW Drive, Columbus (614) 237-7100 /designerbrands.com

$1,283.5

Retail

Roger L. Rawlins, CEO

56

Materion Corp./MTRN 6070 Parkland Blvd., Mayfield Heights (216) 486-4200/materion.com

$1,253.1

Manufacturing

Jugal K. Vijayvargiya, president, CEO

RESEARCHED BY CHUCK SODER (CSODER@CRAIN.COM)

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Numerical data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Marketintelligence.spglobal.com. Send feedback to Chuck Soder: csoder@crain.com.

P028_CL_20190812.indd 28

8/9/19 11:50 AM

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And bring them to life.

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FRONTIER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The Third Frontier program gives grants to universities, businesses and nonprofits to spur technical innovations designed to lead to new businesses. It has funded a wide variety of research that might lead to the commercialization of products. It has financially supported everything from resurfacing the test track at the Honda of American Manufacturing Inc. with a $6 million grant, to a dozen $200,000 grants to organizations, including the University of Akron and relink.org of Aurora, that are pursuing technology-based solutions to address the opioid epidemic.

Voters in 2010 authorized a renewal of the original 2002 bond issue, approving the spending $700 million over the next decade. Spending $82 million before the year is out will leave the bond fund with about $100

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

million in spending authority.

Ray Leach, CEO of JumpStart Inc., the Cleveland nonprofit business accelerator and investor, said he thinks that had the Third Frontier program and its money not been around, there would be significantly less startup activity in the state than there is. JumpStart has been the beneficiary of significant Third Frontier financial support and has used some of that money to fund other organizations that help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into viable businesses.

“I do think the outcomes of the program are such that it would be very hard to wind down this work,” he said. “The only way would be if there is a better alternative, and maybe there is, but I haven’t seen it.”

Leach added one important key to the success of the investments the Third Frontier program has made is the requirement that most grants have a matching private or local investment.

The current RFPs are for its Entrepreneurial Services Provider (ESP) program and its Technology Validation and Start-up Fund (TVSF). The ESP program funds a network of six regional nonprofits, including JumpStart, that offer technology entrepreneurs and early stage companies advice, technical support and entre to early stage and venture capital. The TVSF program provides grants to universities and other nonprofit research institutions to help transition technology from Ohio research institutions into the marketplace through Ohio startup companies. TVSF awards typically go to research programs at universities and other nonprofits, such as a $50,000 award to the Northeast Ohio Medical University for research into a commercial screening kit for gene therapy.

In 2018, the Third Frontier board awarded JumpStart $28.2 million to lead a group of entrepreneurial support organizations for 2018-20, includ-

ing BioEnterprise, which works with entrepreneurs to commercialize bioscience technologies; Flashstarts, a business accelerator and venture fund that provides capital and support services for tech companies; and the MAGNET Incubation Center (MIC), which helps turn manufactured product ideas into growing businesses.

Flashstarts, for instaance, uses its own money to support and invest in a young business, but is also one of the organizations that benefits, through JumpStart, from funding through the entrepreneurial support program. It can assist an entrepreneur in turning an idea into a business by providing help on things such as forming a corporation, filing the right tax forms and even naming the business.

“Early stage companies often need advice more than money,” noted Shannon Lyons, chief operating officer of Flashstarts. “The Third Frontier money has allowed us to work with hundreds of companies.”

Though the DeWine administration has so far been mum on how it will continue to support entrepreneurial efforts, the research foundation of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in July 2018 completed a study that offered an alternative.

In “Ohio Bold: A Blueprint for Accelerating the Innovation Economy,” the chamber’s research organization recommended accelerating the state’s business-building activity around four innovation platforms, which it called Next Gen Manufacturing, Future Health, Smart Infrastructure and Data Analytics.

“The statewide Innovation Hubs will focus on ‘industry-facing’ activities and specialized shared-use facilities to advance new-product development, process improvements and commercialization of new technologies through active connections to serial entrepreneurs, angel investors and seed-stage venture capital funds,” the report stated.

Advertising Section

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

To place your listing, visit www.crainscleveland.com/people-on-the-move or for more information, please call Debora Stein at (917) 226-5470 or email dstein@crain.com.

ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE

FINANCIAL SERVICES

HEALTH CARE

LAW

AECOM

AECOM

Ancora

NOMS Healthcare

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP

AECOM is pleased to announce the promotion of Brian Mihalcin, AIA to Architecture Practice Lead for the Cleveland office. He is responsible for managing and expanding a collaborative studio with a diverse portfolio of local and national projects. Brian has a professional degree in architecture from Kent State University and brings 30 years of experience with healthcare, K-12, higher education, and federal clients.

AECOM is pleased to announce the promotion of Matthew Drabic, P.E. to Principal and Director of Operations of the Cleveland office. Matt will oversee operations of the 45-person, fully integrated practice offering architecture, engineering, planning and landscape architecture. AECOM has provided professional design services for the greater Cleveland area for over 60 years.

Matt earned his engineering degree from the University of Dayton.

Ancora is happy to announce that James Chadwick has been named as a Managing Director and Head of our Alternatives group. In addition to his role as a Lead Portfolio Manager for a number of our Alternatives strategies, Jim will directly oversee the other members of the team and be responsible for the group’s direction and pursuit of future investment opportunities. Our congratulations go to Jim on his expanded responsibilities and we look forward to his growth within this leadership role.

Steven Devich has been appointed to Chief Information Officer of NOMS Healthcare. Steven wields over 20 years of experience and will focus on the development and implementation of NOMS’ IT strategy while leading his growing team to improve infrastructure, security and application development to assure NOMS remains ahead of the ever-evolving landscape of IT innovation and healthcare technology. Owner of Squarepeg Concepts, a consulting and software development firm, he has a rich history of performing process analysis, network design and software development across a multitude of industries for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500. Steve has a bachelor of science in business administration from Bowling Green State University.

Sarah D’Amore joins Taft as an attorney in the Business & Finance group, advising publicly traded corporations, private equity and venture capital funds, and private equity-backed and emerging growth companies on matters relating to capital formation, private placements, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. She received her undergraduate degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and her J.D. from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

LAW LAW

Benesch Deana Stein has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. She focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation with an emphasis on products liability. She was previously an associate at a large New York law firm where her broad practice included litigating and arbitrating commercial landlord-tenant, business dissolution, insurance/ reinsurance, labor and employment, anti-trust and workers’ compensation-related disputes.

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Benesch LAW

Benesch Lauri Cooper has joined Benesch as Of Counsel in the firm’s Health Care & Life Sciences Practice Group. She is an experienced health care regulatory and transactional attorney and public-law higher education attorney. Lauri has deep experience with hospital and physician health care matters, including CoPs, Stark, Anti-Kickback Statute, False Claims Act, and Medicare and Medicaid billing and compliance.

Nathan Nasrallah has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. He is experienced in commercial litigation, complex civil litigation, white collar crimes investigations and internal investigations. Nathan has represented various Midwest industrial companies, manufacturing and supply companies and utilities companies, and has experience in a number of aspects of the litigation process including case management, research, pleading, discovery and motion practice.

STAFFING & SERVICES

Direct Recruiters, Inc.

LAW

Benesch Jordan Call has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He represents and counsels employers in a broad range of labor and employment matters. Jordan represents employers in litigation before federal courts and state courts, and he represents employers in actions filed with administrative agencies.

Direct Recruiters, Inc. is pleased to announce that Brett Wallace has joined their team as Director of its Sports and Entertainment Practice. Brett brings to DRI 10 years of leadership experience with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns and, most recently, as Assistant Athletic Director at Syracuse University. Brett’s combined experience in the NCAA, NBA, NFL, and AHL will allow him to partner with clients to solve complex human capital solutions within the industry.

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SOURCE LUNCH

David Browning Managing director, Northeast Ohio market leader, CBRE Partially due to CBRE’s policy as a public company of only letting office leaders speak to the media, but also due to the perspective he provides from running its Cleveland office for more than 30 years, David Browning is likely the most-quoted real estate exec in Northeast Ohio.

He captains an office that has grown from a small outpost of the national brokerage to Cleveland’s largest commercial real estate services firm, with a second office in Akron.

Together, the shops field a group of more than 60 agents covering all commercial property types. Several practices with national followings have been spawned or grown big time from there, such as its corporate services group. He has served as president of the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors predecessor Cleveland group, among many civic activities. Browning grew up learning real estate from a grandfather who owned a Wisconsin property portfolio, met his wife, Mary, through an office deal in Chicago and joined CBRE at 21 while a researcher as a Portland, Ore., college student. — Stan Bullard

The Browning file Vacation place: Door County, Wis. Pleasurable pursuit: Golf Children? Four, all grown Mentor? Several. There are mentors for different things.

Favorite part of Cleveland?

Ohio City, Tremont and Gordon Square

Lunch spot Bold Food and Drink 1121 W. 10th St., Cleveland 216-696-8400

The meal Both had tacos with chicken or beef, seven in total. The Nashville chicken taco was a tasty surprise. One had iced tea, the other soda.

The vibe Bold inherited the cutting-edge design of the former Ken Stewart’s in the Flats. Affordable food in a high-design setting is the result.

The bill $40.40 with tip

Where do you live?

Downtown at the Flats at East Bank.

We sold our home in Avon and moved downtown because we could as empty-nesters. I gained more than an hour a day because I’m not on the road commuting. As a result, I’m probably better informed than at any time in the past when the day begins. We looked at several properties downtown and landed at Flats East Bank. When my wife saw the view of Lake Erie and the river, with a balcony, I knew that was it. If we move again, we’ll have to have a similar view — and definitely have a balcony. It’s great because we go to so many things downtown. It’s easy now to decide to go to a baseball game on the spur of the moment.

You’ve seen more than a few real estate cycles come and go. What have you learned through those experiences about the business?

My first had a great impact. That was during the era of double-digit interest rates, which was so difficult. I saw all these very experienced people in our Oakland, Calif., office who did not know where to turn. I’ve experienced at least four major downturns but nothing of that consequence until the Great Recession. You learn to watch the fundamentals. As far as the current situation goes, you wonder where it will blow up. Will we see multifamily overbuild? Industrial space is tighter than ever, and the office market is balanced. People say retail has been blown up. But we’ve had successful lifestyle centers. Trade wars are a concern. However, I do think we have a lot more run room in Northeast Ohio.

How do you size things up in Cleveland compared to when you first got here?

When I got here from Chicago in 1987, Cleveland was on a roll. What was happening in the Flats then was epic. The BP Building (now 200 Public Square) was just finished.

There was soon construction of office buildings at Playhouse Square and Public Square as well as Tower City Center. Then, it was like the music stopped. We were in this boom, then everything stopped. BP was a major loss for the city. We had to do a lot of work to get things in place to get change in place in the city. There were some dark days. I credit Joe Marinucci (president and CEO of Downtown Cleveland Alliance) for working hard to get people together. Then came the shift in the market as millennials wanted to live downtown. That created the market’s resurgence.

We have transformed 5 million square feet of office space into hospitality and residential space.

Then East 4th Street Neighborhood got started. Then the (Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority) created the bus rapid transit on Euclid (the Healthline). Now you walk around downtown and it has all come together. Downtown’s fabulous now.

If you weren’t a real estate executive, what would you likely, and like to, be doing?

I’d be in an entrepreneurial, service business. I started mowing lawns for people when I was 12. When I was 15, I started painting houses. With two of my best friends, we started a painting business. We spraypainted

barns, buildings and houses. We turned it into a not insignificant business. We had a lot of fun. There is a pride from doing that. The guy who hired me at CBRE later said he hired me because he saw the entrepreneurial streak from mowing lawns and running a painting business.

What advice would you give college graduates looking to land their first career job in business?

It starts by being well read in current business affairs. I like to see people who are engaged during their college years. There are many successful people who are willing to spend time with young people because they want to help and give advice. If you are sincere, you will find people who will give you that time. And listen.

The graduates I worry about are the ones who do that when they are in their job search. They’ve figured they were doing the college thing while they are in college and the job thing after.

What will the successful real estate broker of the future look like? Will artificial intelligence decimate brokerage ranks like so many other service industries?

Brokers will have to command the technology. But real estate remains a relationship business.

You will continue to need to know people. It’s the same thing as how a good broker handles a downturn.

Learn more about the business of your client. That will allow you to provide good counsel when they need it.

CLEVELAND BUSINESS 700 W. St. Clair Ave., Suite 310 Cleveland, OH 44113-1230 Phone: (216) 522-1383 www.crainscleveland.com Twitter: @CrainsCleveland Publisher/editor Elizabeth McIntyre Group publisher Mary Kramer Managing editor Scott Suttell Sections editor Michael von Glahn Creative director David Kordalski Web editor Damon Sims Associate editor/Akron Sue Walton Assistant editor Kevin Kleps Senior reporter Stan Bullard, Real estate/construction Reporters Jay Miller, Government Rachel McCafferty, Manufacturing/ energy/education Jeremy Nobile, Finance Kim Palmer, Government Dan Shingler, Energy/steel/auto/Akron Lydia Coutré, Health care/nonprofits Senior data editor Chuck Soder Cartoonist Rich Williams Local sales manager Megan Lemke Events manager Erin Bechler Integrated marketing manager Michelle Sustar Managing editor custom/special projects Amy Ann Stoessel Associate publisher/Director of advertising sales Lisa Rudy Senior account executives Dawn Donegan, John Petty Account executives Laura Kulber Mintz, Loren Breen People on the Move manager Debora Stein Office coordinator Denise Donaldson Pre-press and digital production Craig L. Mackey Media services manager Nicole Spell Billing YahNica Crawford Credit Thomas Hanovich Crain’s Cleveland Business is published by Crain Communications Inc.

Chairman Keith E. Crain Vice chairman Mary Kay Crain President KC Crain Senior executive VP Chris Crain Secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong CFO Robert Recchia G.D. Crain Jr., Founder (1885-1973) Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr., Chairman (1911-1996) Reprints: Laura Picariello, 732-723-0569 or lpicariello@crain.com Customer service and subscriptions: 877-824-9373 Volume 40, Number 32 Crain’s Cleveland Business (ISSN 0197-2375) is published weekly, except for the last week of December, at 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 44113-1230.

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THE WEEK Drink it in

mediately. The system, which is the corporate parent of St. Vincent Charity and 12 other Catholic health ministries in Ohio and South Carolina, announced the change on Aug. 7, a day after Dr. David Perse, the hospital’s previous leader, stepped down from that role. Perse, who led St. Vincent Charity since April 2011, will continue as an employed physician of St. Vincent Medical Group. Murphy joined the system in November 2018 as senior vice president of mission and ministry.

The largest beer conglomerate in the world slurped up Cleveland’s Platform Beer Co. Ever-thirsty Anheuser-Busch InBev announced Aug. 7 that it had acquired Platform — founded in Ohio City in 2014 by Paul Benner and Justin Carson — as the latest “partner” in its Brewers Collective, a portfolio of once-independently owned craft beer companies. Platform will be the 13th craft brand in the Brewers Collective when the deal closes around the end of the third quarter. Financial terms were not disclosed.

On the mend

New mission The Sisters of Charity Health System named Janice G. Murphy as the new president and CEO of St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, effective im-

P031_CL_20190812.indd 31

Platform Beer Co. owners Justin Carson, right, and Paul Benner at the brewery’s Ohio City taproom. Anheuser-Busch InBev has acquired Platform as its latest Brewers Collective partner. (Ken Blaze for Crain’s)

In a video message to Quicken Loans employees, Quicken chairman and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert told the workers, “Keep doing what you’re doing, because whatever you’re doing is going great — going

much better since I left a few weeks back, I noticed.” The video provided the first glimpse of Gilbert since he suffered a stroke on May 26. The 57-yearold billionaire was discharged in June from Beaumont Hospital in the Detroit area, and he has been at a Chicago rehabilitation center for about six weeks.

Cavs CEO Len Komoroski said in an interview, “Dan continues to make progress, which is great.”

In the money Cleveland-based TransDigm Group Inc. has something special in store for shareholders. The maker of aerospace components announced Aug. 6 that it will pay a large special dividend of $30 per share on Aug. 23. This is the fourth special dividend declared since 2014

by TransDigm, which does not pay quarterly dividends.

8/9/19 12:00 PM

NOW ANNOUNCING THE 2019

HEALTH CARE HEROES WINNERS AND FINALISTS!

Crain’s Health Care Heroes is the celebratory portion of Crain’s

INNOVATION FINALISTS:

Dr. Oliver Schirokauer, The MetroHealth System

Health Care Summit. These

Dr. Stanley Hazen, Cleveland Clinic

awards will recognize those who

R. Dan Allen, D. A. Surgical

are providing exceptional service and dedication to Northeast

PHYSICIAN/DENTIST FINALISTS:

Ohio’s health care sector. Join

Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, University Hospitals

Dr. Bernard Stulberg, Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

us at the event on Aug. 29 as

Dr. Kevin Dieter, Hospice of the Western Reserve

we recognize these individuals

NURSE FINALISTS:

making an impact and hear from a panel of six Northeast Ohio hospital CEOs.

Jennifer Gonzales, Cleveland Clinic Akron General Monica Nelson, Cleveland Clinic Akron General Lynn Hoffman, University Hospitals

PUBLIC HEALTH WINNER:

Dr. Heidi Gullet, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine

AUG. 29 • 8:30 AM Case Western Reserve University, Tinkham Veale University Center

REGISTER TODAY: CrainsCleveland.com/Crains-Events EVENT QUESTIONS: Email • clevents@crain.com

VOLUNTEER WINNERS:

Kay Nagy, Clinic Akron General Bob Earley, Unity Health

SUPPORTING SPONSOR

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Megan Lemke • mlemke@crain.com

CL_081219_FP Template.indd 4

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