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WEEKLY FOCUS: UNIVERSITY RESEARCH, Page 10 VOL. 40, NO. 33

AUGUST 19 - 25, 2019

Source Lunch

Akron Researchers believe their technology can battle algae. Page 15

Manufacturing

Daniel Hampu, chief operating officer, Fontus Blue Page 19

Middlefield Bank feeling heat from Ancora. Page 4 REAL ESTATE

Condos start a comeback Once a developer’s nightmare, for-sale units are returning to region By Stan Bullard sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltyWriter

GOVERNMENT

SHIFTING SHORES

Huntington Beach in Bay Village is an example of the shifting Lake Erie shorelines. (Photographs by John Quinn for Crain’s)

New legislation gives coastal property owners erosion funding options By Kim Palmer kpalmer@crain.com

In Ohio, about 87% of the Lake Erie coastline is privately owned, and those property owners are solely responsible for the upkeep of their part of the state’s shore.

Lakefront owners always have dealt with shifting shores, but the heavy rains and record-breaking water levels of the last two years have exacerbated normal loss. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the water levels in Lake Erie are 13 inches higher than last August and 31 inches higher than the

Heavy rains and increased water levels have added to the erosion along the shores of Lake Erie.

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long-term average. Those levels are expected to remain higher than average throughout the year. State Rep. Mike Skindell, a Democrat whose district includes a long stretch of shoreline in Lakewood, wrote recently enacted legislation that allows owners of Lake Erie-bordered property to create shoreline Special Improvement Districts, or SIDs, for the purpose of funding coastline construction and improvements. “What we were looking at was a method of financing, because what we were seeing is individual property owners could not afford to privately pay for erosion measures. And what they did, if they did anything, is put in the cheapest erosion control measure and not the best,” Skindell said. SEE SHORELINE, PAGE 17

For-sale condominiums — a market devastated in the real estate downturn that some developers said they would swear off forever — are coming back in the region at sites from Chagrin Falls to Rocky River, as well as Little Italy between them. Just a couple hundred steps from Presti’s Bak- Lamb ery and other goodies on Mayfield Road, buyers have started moving into The Quattro, a $13 million project finished this spring that added 26 units to the famous Cleveland neighborhood. It’s on Random Road next to Tony Brush Park and across the street from The Schoolhouse Condominiums in the former Murray Hill School. The modern five-floor building has a brick exterior with white concrete features — cast stone — to match the school and the neighborhood’s context. The interiors are out of HGTV, from open-floor plans to contemporary lettering on the door plates. The average cost at Quattro is in the $600,000s, although one went for $800,000. Russell Lamb, a founding principal of Allegro Realty Advisors of Cleveland who runs its investment division, said the group decided to do condos because there was little new product available, especially with the flat or ranch-style design sought by empty nesters and younger buyers. The project was also a change-up from other Allegro investments, a separate activity from its corporate real estate advisory practice. Most recently it had finished an $8 million project putting townhouses on Wade Park, where it heard prospects asking for larger units. SEE CONDOS, PAGE 16

8/16/19 3:48 PM

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New Stella Maris space could double client base By Lydia Coutré lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

In recent years, in the midst of the opioid crisis, Stella Maris has been dealing with lengthy waiting lists of people seeking to access the Cleveland nonprofit’s services in addiction treatment and recovery. With a growing staff sharing offices and treatment services held in cramped rooms, the organization has renovated its existing campus to maximize available space. And last fall, it added a temporary office structure, a trailer, to its campus in an effort to try to give staff and clients added space. But Stella Maris is still bursting at the seams with some clients “packed in like sardines,” said Carole Negus, director of nursing for the organization. Next month, Stella Maris will break ground on a 13,000-square-foot facility on its campus in the first phase of a project that will more than double the number of clients the nonprofit 7/17/19 10:12 AM can serve every year. In fiscal year 2018, Stella Maris served 1,420 clients, up nearly 39% from 1,023 clients in fiscal year 2015. The new facility, expected to open in May, will enable Stella Maris to serve an additional 2,000 people annually. The second phase, which is projected to be completed by fall 2021, will renovate existing space once services are shifted to the new building, which will be on its campus at the corner of Washington and Winslow avenues. “There will be no disruption in services,” said Daniel Lettenberger-Klein, executive director of Stella Maris. The nonprofit is in the midst of a $5 million building campaign to support the project. Stella Maris’ board of directors has committed $750,000 from the organization’s reserves, and the state of Ohio appropriated $750,000 to the project, which served as a catalyst for private funding. “We’re are raising the rest from private philanthropy, foundations, individual donors and corporate sponsorships, and that’s an ongoing process,” said board president Susan L. Gragel. To date, the nonprofit is a little more than halfway to that $5 million mark. On any given day, Stella Maris has a wait list of 100 to 150 people waiting to enter its detox facility and another 40 to 50 people on a wait list for its supportive housing dorm. The numbers have been elevated since around 2011, when the opioid epidemic hit with full force, Negus said. “We definitely needed more 7/9/19 11:07 AM space,” she said. “And this epidemic was really kind of overwhelming, to be honest.” In the last decade, Stella Maris has more than doubled its number of employees to 80 staff members today, and tripled its budget to a current operations budget of more than $5.4 million. The new facility on the Stella Maris campus will help modernize and expand its sub-acute detox treatment center in order to serve more people, creating separate treatment areas for men and women to improve client experience. It will also modernize

In this conceptual rendering of Stella Maris’ new 13,000-square-foot treatment center, the existing detoxifiation unit, slated to get an update in phase two of the project, is at left. (Contributed rendering)

Stella Maris’ services include: 

16-bed detoxification unit staffed 24/7 for men and women



Medically assisted treatment (Vivtrol)

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Partial hospitalization program for men and women



Intensive outpatient program for men and women



46-bed supportive housing unit for men



10-bed men’s recovery house



Eight-bed women’s recovery house



Family counseling



Job preparation and placement

Also, 1,500 people a week come to campus to attend 12-step meetings and visit Stella Maris’ supportive community coffee shop. 

Opioid crisis hits home There have been more opioid-related deaths in Cuyahoga County than anywhere else in Northeast Ohio. Deaths across Northeast Ohio have increased by 125% since 2015. County-by-county figures are for 2016.

Lake

Geauga

Cuyahoga Lorain

125

Sources: Medical examiner and coroner offices in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit counties © Here / Maps4News Crain’s Cleveland Business graphic

and expand the cafeteria from its current, outdated, too-small kitchen to accommodate additional clients and provide space for nutrition and wellness programs. The building will also establish a centralized intake and assessment location to more efficiently get clients into appropriate care. “So anybody will come there for all levels of care,” Lettenberger-Klein said. “The central intake will serve as a gateway for the entire facility, and that’s currently what’s a bit siloed in the trailer right now.” Roughly 9,000 square feet of the new facility will be dedicated to central intake and detox, compared to the current detox space, which is just 3,000 square feet, he said. In the second phase of the expansion plan, Stella Maris will renovate its existing detox center. The plan is to redo the façade and inside, retrofit the building to be

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greater treatment space, Lettenberger-Klein said. It will create a permanent home for the partial hospitalization program, which is currently in the trailer. They’ll also build out some office spaces for case management and therapy on the second floor. The first floor will be converted into a wellness center focused on holistic care with exercise equipment and more. Looking long-term, the first floor will also have space for potential medical services and outpatient psychiatric care. “We know at some point, it might be a decade away, if everything goes well, the opiate crisis will start going into remission,” Gragel said. “But we also know that addiction doesn’t go away, and so we are building (in) flexibility that if the community needs or types of treatment change, we can adapt our facility to meet that.”

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Demo Day lets startups make their pitch By Jay Miller

Laura Steinbrink, CEO of Brilliency, makes her pitch at Demo Day. (Flashstarts)

jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

Demo Day at Flashstarts is a little like the first preseason football game for rookies hoping to make the opening-day roster. In fact, this year’s annual event took place the same Thursday evening, Aug. 8, that the Cleveland Browns kicked off their preseason against the Washington Redskins at FirstEnergy Stadium, a few blocks from the Flashstarts office in Tower City. At Tower City, seven rookie entrepreneurs were getting their chance before a crowd of perhaps 200 people. Each entrepreneur got seven minutes to make the pitch they’d honed over the previous 12 weeks of training in Flashstarts’ accelerator program to get potential investors thinking about opening their checkbooks. Flashstarts is a 7-year-old startup business accelerator and micro venture capital firm devoted to building the next generation of Cleveland companies. Its leaders believe that some of the most profitable startup opportunities occur when software can be used to assist all manner of businesses. “We realized back in 2013 that the opportunity to generate wealth and create economic development in our city is with startups, and that it is truer today than it was seven years ago,” Flashstarts CEO Charles Stack said in his Demo Day pep talk before the presentations. “Our goal is to generate wealth for our investors and generate economic development for our region by creating wealth and jobs through startups.”

Like a football coach who may only need to watch a few snaps to decide which rookies will survive until the next week, seven minutes can be enough to keep an investor interested, said Lynn-Ann Gries, managing partner of the First Check Fund, which invests in early-stage companies. “Seven minutes is plenty of time,” she said. “Obviously, you follow up individually with the company and get access to their data. Depending on how much traction they have, you can write a check fairly quickly if it’s a relatively young company with an early idea that you can have a feeling is a good one and you’re willing to take a chance on it. That’s how a lot of these decisions get made.” Gries was a co-founder of JumpStart Inc., a nonprofit Cleveland venture development organization. There, she managed a $30 million fund that made early investments in 80 companies over the span of a decade. Though all the young businesses at Demo Day are software-based, they

each focus on different customer bases. Fontus Blue helps water systems manage their operations and reduce costs. Ghostwave Inc.’s technology will help self-driving vehicles and drones avoid collisions by blotting out the noise from other nearby radars, according to CEO Dean Zody. The audience for Flutter Social is people planning a wedding. Co-founder Kaleigh Gallagher described her business as a digital matchmaker that helps users find wedding venues and businesses to help with their event. For Michael Goldberg, co-CEO of Demo Day presenter Edifice Analytics, pitching a business to potential investors put him on unfamiliar ground, despite his many years on the other side of the pitch. “I think Demo Day is really good for reaching new audiences,” said Goldberg, who is associate professor of design and innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and a

venture investor. “They’re not going to write a check, necessarily, after hearing you pitch, but you hope that their interest gets piqued and you can have a follow-up conversation to give them more depth of what you’re doing.” Edifice Analytics has developed software to help large property owners and businesses find ways to save energy without setting foot in each building. In his pitch, Goldberg described $5 billion in spending annually on retrofitting older buildings to save energy and how Edifice Analytics has developed 70 algorithms that can, from a modest amount of data input without a physical visit, identify how money can be saved. Goldberg’s pitch didn’t end with an “ask” — the amount the company needs to raise to keep going — but the ask was a part of several of the pitches. One presenter, Capture Solutions LLC, has developed a software program to help managers on construction sites document workplace performance issues that may turn into legal issues such as worker accidents, discrimination claims or wrongful termination lawsuits. By digitizing forms, CEO Julie Sumner said, reports can be created on-site, instead of going back to the office to fill out paperwork. “We are looking for commercial construction companies with 10 to 200 employees,” Sumner said. “We need more users to validate the product and we are actively raising a half-million dollars that will give us runway for the next 12 to 18 months. The primary use of that money will be for staffing, sales and marketing.” Another presenter, ReCap, has de-

veloped a system of wearable sensors that monitor motion and provide live, visual feedback to help athletes and coaches identify and solve issues of improper technique that could lead to injury. Christopher Schroeck, chief technology officer, said the company is working on a $300 pitching sleeve, targeting a market of 3,700 professional pitchers and 10,000 college hurlers who are highly susceptible to arm injuries. “We are currently raising $200,000 to get to our next step,” he said. “We are looking for investors who are passionate about the sports world and want to take motion-capture to the next level. We are also looking for service providers to help us cut costs and help us get to market as quickly as possible.” Several presenters were returning for a second round of investment, including Brilliency, whose software streamlines communication between utilities and their customers. The young company went through the Flashstarts accelerator in 2016 and has been helped by the accelerator program since, as its product has evolved. “I have had calls and email inquiries and conversations that I had not had before,” said CEO Laura Steinbrink a few days after her Demo Day presentation. “People in the community, in the startup world, look forward to it.” For Stack, Demo Day is an annual highlight. “This is always my favorite day of the year,” the Flashstarts CEO told his audience as he kicked off the evening. “And it will be my favorite day of the year until the Browns win the Super Bowl.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Ancora pressures Middlefield to seek sale or board revamp GET YOUR PIECE

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Ancora Advisors has been particularly busy as an activist shareholder lately, and the next target in its sights is Middlefield Banc Corp. The Mayfield Heights investment adviser is pushing the parent organization of The Middlefield Banking Co. to engage in a valuation and sale process, or otherwise to drive share growth by revamping the company’s current leadership, which is led by Shalersville native and longtime CEO Thomas Caldwell. “(Middlefield chairman William Skidmore) indicated the board is focused on its responsibility to maximize value to shareholders and details how the board evaluates the bank’s three-year strategic plan on a regular basis,” said Ancora CEO Frederick DiSanto in a letter included with an Aug. 8 regulatory filing. “While we applaud the board for undertaking this process, we do however believe the bank and shareholders are in a challenging situation given we are in the later stages of an economic cycle and loan growth and profit maximization will require hypervigilance by a senior management team that we believe may no longer be up to the task.” In the recent filing, Ancora expressed frustration with the “significant disconnect” between Middlefield’s private market value and current market value, which featured a 52week moving average price of $43.47 at the time. (The stock has trended upward in the wake of Ancora’s filing, which isn’t uncommon when an activist’s activity becomes public.) Citing conversations with prospective buyers, DiSanto asserts that the bank could be valued privately in the range of $65 to $75 per share. “And if they run that process and don’t get the price they think they should, I think replacement of the management team is needed,” DiSanto told Crain’s. Middlefield executives have declined to comment on the situation. Ancora has been invested in Middlefield for about two years and is one of the bank’s largest stockholders, owning 5.52% of it.

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high loan-to-deposit ratio of 96.5%, arguing that leaves little room to grow the loan portfolio without increasing funding costs, as well as its negative quarter-over-quarter loan growth and subpar return on average equity, or ROAE. The last Northeast Ohio community bank to face an activist shareholder was Wooster-based Wayne Savings Community Bank, which has about $478 million in assets today. Amid pressures to improve bank profitability, Wayne saw longtime CEO Stewart Fitz Gibbons resign in December 2016. After that, David Lehman, a board member, took an interim CEO role. That’s about the time New York hedge fund The Stilwell Group initiated its first proxy contest, urging the bank to improve, pursue a sale or refresh the board with a member of its choosing. It narrowly lost that contest, vowing to “be back next year” with another proxy battle if the bank wasn’t sold or improved. In summer 2017, Wayne hired current president and CEO James VanSickle II, who has improved the bank since then. Stillwell instigated another contest in the 2018 proxy season to remove Lehman from the board, but again lost, and by a wider margin. Ancora bought into Wayne at the end of 2017. Crediting VanSickle, DiSanto highlighted the bank as one that managed to fend off activist pressures by improving performance that’s underscored by a present ROAE of about 13.2%, compared with 7.4% at the end of 2017. Middlefield’s ROAE is closer to 10%, compared with 12.17% five years ago. “Perhaps if Middlefield’s board shares Tom’s views on remaining independent, then it could look at (Wayne) as an example of an alternative means to maximize value, which would be new senior leadership from a different organization that would come in hungry with a fresh perspective and would be far more likely to move with the sense of urgency so badly lacking today at (Middlefield),” DiSanto said in filings. Worth watching in the coming months is whether Ancora moves toward a proxy contest to force change at Middlefield. “We would hate to see this go in the direction of a proxy fight,” DiSanto said. “But we would if we have to.”

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Packaging company plants its flag in NEO Cleveland’s strong manufacturing base was attractive to ePac, which will have Solon space running soon By Rachel Abbey McCafferty

EPac uses digital printing to make flexible packaging such as wrappers and pouches for snacks or pet food. (Contributed photo)

rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

Northeast Ohio will soon be home to another manufacturing company. This one, ePac Flexible Packaging, aims to serve small businesses in the communities where it’s located. “The business is built to serve the customers and the community in that region,” said Tim Novak, managing partner at ePac, which makes flexible packaging such as wrappers and pouches for snacks or pet food. The company uses digital printing, instead of more traditional modes of printing, which Novak said allows it to offer customers faster turnaround and a lower cost to entry. That’s because the company just needs an emailed file to get started instead of having to create a new printing plate for each project. EPac got its start in 2016 with a plant in Madison, Wis., and has been expanding ever since. The company’s model requires local buy-in, with each new facility the result of a partnership with someone at the local level who can invest in and operate the business, Novak said. It has some similarities to a franchise model, but ePac is fully partnered with its local operators. The local operations share consolidated resources like IT, financing and marketing.

“We need it to happen. With the way sales are going, we need the presses to be on and running, because we’re at a point right now where we can’t build fast enough.” — Tim Novak, managing partner at ePac

In Cleveland, the company is partially owned by Novak’s private investment firm, Woodhaven Capital Partners. Novak is heading up the Cleveland operation, as well as several others. Novak’s family owns a food manufacturer, Sokol and Co., in the Chicago area, and he was involved in the business growing up. Investing in

something like ePac, where he also got to operate the business, made sense. Currently, he lives in the Boston area, near another recently opened ePac site he’s operating. A location like New York City might be home to a lot of big brands, but the companies there outsource much of their manufacturing work, Novak said. Cleveland was an attrac-

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tive location for ePac because of its strong manufacturing base. “Cleveland and the surrounding area, it’s essentially a hotbed for co-manufacturers,” he said, adding that its base of manufacturing employees and its location near a number of other Midwest cities also made it a good spot for ePac. In November 2018, ePac hired a sales representative for the Cleveland market, who started pre-selling the territory. While ePac worked to get a local manufacturing site up and running, orders have been filled from other ePac locations across the country. In Cleveland, ePac’s sales team has been reaching out to manufacturers, not individual end brands.

Signing an agreement with one manufacturer could lead ePac to agreements with a variety of end users, Novak said. EPac will be leasing an approximately 20,000-square-foot building at 30315 Bruce Industrial Parkway in Solon for its Cleveland-area manufacturing. Novak said the company can typically build out a plant within 90 days, and his goal is to have the Solon facility producing by the end of the year. “And really, it’s not like we hope that happens. We need it to happen. With the way sales are going, we need the presses to be on and running, because we’re at a point right now where we can’t build fast enough,” Novak said. He estimated that ePac would invest in more than $5 million worth of equipment to start the Solon location. Solon mayor Edward Kraus said ePac will be a “great addition” to the city, and he thinks its services will complement the city’s existing business base. The city tries to ensure that the businesses joining its community are a good fit, he added. By the end of 2021, ePac wants to employ about 70 people in Solon, Novak said. Currently, there are two sales representatives in the Cleveland market, and he’s looking to hire about 20 individuals for positions ranging from customer service to equipment operation.

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Pregnancy centers get big boost from state Centers, which are criticized for their anti-abortion stance, will get $7.5 million in funding over two years By Lydia Coutré lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

Pregnancy centers that promote alternatives to abortion saw a significant funding increase in the most recent state budget, a move that has some celebrating Ohio’s commitment to needy pregnant women and families, while others call the centers “fake women’s clinics” that provide misinformation about abortion and pregnant women’s choices. The operating budget allocates $7.5 million over two years to the Ohio Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which funds several crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy resource centers throughout the state. The funds come from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Recent past budgets have set aside $1 million, administered through the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. This budget’s allocation not only is higher, but it’s up from the $5 million that was proposed in earlier versions of the state budget bill before it went into the conference committee. John Fortney, a spokesperson for the Ohio Senate Republican Caucus, said that members are “very much pro-life” and that they believe that these facilities “offer hope and guidance and understanding, along with solid referral services and other medical knowledge that expecting moms would find helpful.” The centers — which in Northeast Ohio are often nonprofits that rely heavily on donations and volunteers — typically offer parenting classes, material goods like diapers, pregnancy tests and other resources to pregnant women and young families, often at little or no cost. Many don’t offer medical care, but some do. According to Ohio Right to Life, there are at least 140 pregnancy help centers and maternity homes in Ohio that assist women in crisis pregnancies with the support needed to have their child. About 30 to 40 centers are in Northeast Ohio. In past budget cycles, four to six centers statewide accessed the funding. Among those was Coleman Professional Services, a provider of behavioral health and rehabilitation services headquartered in Kent, which has a pregnancy center among its services that was able to expand with the help of state funds. Lauren Blauvelt-Copelin, vice president of government affairs and public advocacy for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, called the increase in funding another “egregious example” of lawmakers’ misuse of time and tax dollars in their “ideological obsession with banning abortion access.” She said pregnant women are looking for their full range of options, which isn’t provided by these centers, which she deems “fake women’s clinics.” The centers add “confusion, frustration and possibly a time delay” in women accessing the health care they seek, which could be a range of choices about their pregnancy. In 2013, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio published a report looking at the practices of crisis pregnancy centers, examining whether they were forthcoming about the fact that they wouldn’t refer for abortion or whether they provided medically accurate information. “What we found was that the majority of them did not disclose their bias on this issue, that they came to this from an anti-abortion standpoint and

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wouldn’t refer, and also that many of them spread lies and misinformation and use coercive practices to convince individuals that abortion was not the right choice for them,” said Jaime Miracle, deputy director at NARAL ProChoice Ohio, a grass-roots, pro-choice advocacy organization. Some centers have been known to link abortion to breast cancer or future infertility — claims that have been disproven. Though early studies showed a relationship between prior induced abortions and breast cancer, more recent studies have called the previous ones methodologically flawed and have not found a causeand-effect relationship between the two. According to the Mayo Clinic, “generally, elective abortion isn’t thought to cause fertility issues or complications in future pregnancies.” Jamieson Gordon, director of communications and marketing for Ohio Right to Life, said that the pregnancy centers her group has talked to in the state that have received funding in the past have been able to expand services. She said the pro-choice movement has a “profit motive” to call centers “fake women’s clinics” and to characterize them as disingenuous about what services they offer. “Women, when they find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, have no idea what to do,” Gordon said. “And quite often, they’ll go into an abortion clinic. And an abortion clinic will sell them an abortion. And pregnancy centers do a good job of giving them options, counseling and saying, ‘Hey, this is what happens in an abortion and you need to know that. And this is what happens if you were to parent and we can help you if you want to place your child for adoption.’ ” Coleman Professional Services received grants in 2013 and 2017 from the Ohio Parenting and Pregnancy Program. The first round of funding helped Coleman’s pregnancy center build up material goods that are provided alongside supportive services; provide outreach and develop marketing materials; and make inroads in reaching out to community partners and local OB-GYN practices that refer women to the center for counseling and other services, said Bill Russell, Coleman’s chief officer of

Portage behavioral health, who oversees clinical services offered in Portage County, including the pregnancy center. The most recent award, which was for a little over $110,000, helped build upon that, he said. “We were able to secure some pretty key connections with local OBGYN practices, and we’ve seen a volume of referrals come in there for not just supportive, but clinical (services),” Russell said. “So I think we’ve secured kind of an entrenched branding within our community of what we do at the pregnancy center.” Russell said Coleman, which

Pregnancy centers typically offer parenting classes, material goods like diapers, pregnancy tests and other resources to pregnant women and young families, often at little or no cost. Many don’t offer medical care, but some do. iStock

doesn’t refer for abortions, serves as a “middle ground” to meet moms and families where they are and help them get the support, tools and other resources “they need to make whatever decision they need to make about their family planning.” “As a nonprofit behavioral health provider, really, our core mission — I don’t know how you can be an advocate strongly one way or the other without compromising your individual attention to a client’s needs, to a family’s needs,” Russell said. Before the expansion, the center’s running active caseload was between 90 to 100, he said. Since the state funds helped expand services and outreach, Russell estimates that number is closer to 150. He added that Coleman “absolutely” intends to pursue more grant funding from the program, now that it has been renewed and increased.

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Grants represent a “large” opportunity for the pregnancy center, Russell said, but it also subsidizes a lot of their services by billing for the clinical portion of the work. Other centers that spoke with Crain’s were less certain they would pursue the funding. Denise Shaw, executive director at the nonprofit Birthright Lake Inc., said that pregnancy center, which has been in Lake County since 1973, is nonjudgmental in providing resources to clients and allows them to make their own decisions. The center, which doesn’t offer any medical care or refer out for abortions, is a local chapter of Toronto-based Birthright International, an international network of pro-life pregnancy centers. Subsisting on fundraisers, donations and some grants, Birthright Lake employs just two paid staff members and relies on about 20 consistent weekly volunteers, as well as another 20 who work on annual fundraisers, Shaw said. The agency hasn’t received state funding in the past, and Shaw wasn’t aware of the pool of money from the state but said the increased funding is “important to support families and provide them with the resources that they need to take care of their children.” Toni Sabo is the director of another local Birthright chapter, with offices in Lakewood, Cleveland and Parma Heights. Birthright of Cleveland, which was founded in 1970, also is not a medical clinic, but rather a social service group, she said. It offers counseling and refers women to other community resources that they might need to carry their pregnancy to term, such as housing or financial help. All services are free. Sabo said Birthright of Cleveland, “strictly a pro-life agency,” doesn’t currently receive any state funding and is completely funded by private donations from individuals and churches. With no paid staff members and 25 to 30 volunteers, the organization’s only overhead is keeping the offices open, she said. Whether the chapter would consider state funding depends on whether it comes with any strings attached or any requirements that would not align with the nonprofit’s charter, Sabo said.

She praised the decision to increase funding for centers like hers. “I think that sometimes women feel like they have to have an abortion because they don’t have the resources necessary,” she said. “I think it’s a good move that the state is willing to give monies to organizations that provide alternatives to abortions, so women don’t feel like they have to have an abortion because they can’t afford to have a child.” Womankind in Garfield Heights is a pregnancy center that does offer medical and prenatal care as a clinic with certified and licensed medical professionals, said its interim executive director, Barbara Anthony. She said this distinguishes Womankind from other pregnancy centers. “We don’t slant politically one way or another,” she stated. “Our goal and mission is to be nonjudgmental to any woman that comes through the door.” The nonprofit does not refer out for abortions. Relying on private donations and some grant funding, Womankind provides free medical care for prenatal care up until about 28 weeks, at which point there are support staff in place who help transition women to the third trimester and postpartum period. They connect pregnant women with Medicaid and WIC and offer counseling and baby items to clients for free. Womankind hasn’t received state funding. “I would imagine that our board of trustees may in the future want to discuss this further to see whether or not that’s a route that they would like to take,” Anthony said. “However, up until now, we have not.” Miracle said the added funding for these centers means “additional harassment and misinformation” for women in the surrounding communities. She would have liked to see this funding go to organizations that provide medical care, which many, unlike Womankind, do not. “At the very end, we actively took real money away from real health care and gave additional funds to these centers, which is completely unacceptable in our state,” she said. How many of these centers will access the $7.5 million now available to them remains to be seen.

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Opinion Personal View

Platform Brewing is a success story, not a ‘sellout’ By Heather Roszczyk

Editorial

Fresh start Gary L. Miller on Oct. 1 will become the 18th president of the University of Akron. Few, if any, of the previous presidents of the university — founded in 1870 as Buchtel College — took the job facing the type of leadership challenge that will greet Miller, currently chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Since the 2014 retirement of Luis Proenza after 15 years as president, the university has been led by short-termers: Scott L. Scarborough from 2014-16 (a particularly tumultuous tenure); Matthew J. Wilson from 2016-18; and, since May 2018, interim president John C. Green. That churn is not a formula for success, and it has made it difficult for the university to tackle the big issues facing most institutions of higher education: shifting demographics, rising costs, sharpening the academic focus. Miller has a doctorate in biological sciences from Mississippi State University, and he’ll need to apply the rigors of the scientific method to get one of Northeast Ohio’s most important institutions fully back on track. One of the most important items on Miller’s to-do list will be to repair university leadership’s relationship with its union-represented, full-time faculty members, who, as Crain’s education reporter Rachel Abbey McCafferty wrote in a recent article, “have some serious concerns about how the institution is being run.” A survey of members of the UA chapter of the American Association of University Professors reflected, broadly, a feeling that faculty aren’t respected by top leadership, and specifically, a desire to begin a search for a new provost; to eliminate the new chief academic officer and chief administrative officer roles; and to reconsider the university’s approach to an academic reorganization. That’s a lot to grapple with coming in the door. Faculty members might be off base with the specifics of some of their concerns, or the degree of importance they place on them. Regardless, Miller will need to call on his administrative experience — in addition to the Wisconsin-Green Bay job, he has been

chancellor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, provost at Wichita State University and dean of the college of arts and sciences at the University of the Pacific — to get leadership and the faculty working together. The University of Akron in March put on hold an academic reorganization plan proposed by Green that envisioned, for instance, creating a new College of Polymer, Miller Chemical and Biological Sciences and a College of Innovation, while dissolving the College of Applied Science and Technology. It was appropriate to pause that process while the search for a new president was underway. Miller surely will have thoughts of his own, and since a meaningful reorganization must include input from deans, chairs, school directors and the Faculty Senate, his skills in relationship-building will be put to the test. Miller sounded all the right notes in his introduction last Wednesday, Aug. 14, praising Akron’s “exceptional” faculty and staff, and saying that throughout the presidential search process — one conducted privately in hopes of drawing the strongest potential field of candidates — he was impressed by the “deep sense of optimism” around the university. “I share this optimism,” he said. Back in February 2018, when Wilson was still relatively early in what looked like it could be a successful presidency, we wrote in an editorial, “We like where the Zips are headed.” That optimism turned out to be misplaced, at least from an organizational point of view. (The academic side, thankfully, has proved resilient.) We urge all parties at the university to embrace a fresh start. The region is better when the University of Akron is at its best. It hasn’t exactly been that of late, but it has all the assets a university needs to thrive. We hope Miller is the person to restore leadership stability and confidence in the institution’s direction.

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In 1991, the band R.E.M. released the album “Out of Time,” and thousands of angsty teens lost their minds. Having achieved modest success since their formation in the 1980s, R.E.M. had a solid following but were not yet mainstream. All that changed when seemingly overnight “Losing My Religion” could be heard playing on approximately every radio station, everywhere. Suddenly, some people’s favorite band was everyone’s Roszczyk favorite band. They had become too successful and were no longer cool in the eyes Dear of many kids. They were sellouts. skeptics: Earlier this month, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced its acquisition of 5-year-old We cannot Platform Brewing Co. in Cleveland. Accord- afford to ing to interviews with Platform’s owners, support their deal includes a continued ability to lead daily operations and maintain creative this control. It’s a smart deal for Anheuser- “sellout” Busch because it allows them to increase their foothold in the craft beer market. And line of it’s an attractive deal to Platform because it thinking. allows them to hire more employees and offer competitive benefits like a 401(k). Haters immediately took to social media and the underbelly of the internet (aka the comment sections) to foretell the certain demise of the microbrewery. “Well, so much for that,” wrote one skeptic, while a commenter on the Cleveland.com story said, “The American Dream. .. build a good company ... sell it for lots of money ... watch that good company get destroyed and dissembled by a large corporation…” Well, here are my thoughts, dear skeptics: We cannot afford to support this “sellout” line of thinking. This is a double standard exclusively applied to creative and service-based businesses. For example, tech businesses are not only encouraged to sell out, they are expected to. “Angels” are willing to invest in startups in the hope that the business will be acquired and they’ll reap the benefits. Indeed, cheers could be heard up and down the I-77 corridor when McKesson bought CoverMyMeds for $1.1 billion in 2017. So I ask, why should a beer business looking to grow in the market be held to a different standard? Now, if they lose their innovative, craft focus and start selling cheap beer, opting for corn or rice instead of barley, I’m with you. They’ve sold out. But adding resources doesn’t equate to losing creative cool. Growth is a strategic choice that a business makes every day, and Northeast Ohio’s lagging economy cannot afford consumers who punish businesses that choose growth. While it can be exceedingly satisfying to discover a hidden gem of a cafe or hole-in-the-wall restaurant, how long can we expect a business to succeed as a best-kept secret? Certainly, it is understandable to fear a change in quality during any business’s ownership transition. But let us put our Midwestern distrust of success aside and view scaled growth not as something that only happens on the coasts, and not as the exclusive realm of software startups, but as something to be celebrated in all types of business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the corner, losing my religion and drinking a craft beer. Roszczyk is the innovation and entrepreneurship advocate for the city of Akron.

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.

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Innovative Legal Counsel for Today’s Business Client PRACTICE AREAS

Personal View

Buckle up, business leaders, the 2020 election is coming By Chris Berry

We are now under 500 days until the general election, and the third Democratic presidential primary debate is less than a month away. Roughly two-dozen Democrats are running for their party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump. This will be an election season like no other as the traditional rules of politics have been ripped up and tossed aside. For leaders of businesses both big and small, understanding and preparing for this roller coaster is essential to protecting your brands and interests. In elections prior, the playbook was simple: Democrats might attack Wall Street and the energy industry and Republicans would support free trade. But for 2020, the only thing certain is uncertainty. Attacks on individual businesses, industries and their leaders are now fair game from both sides. For businesses across America, it’s not a matter of if — but when — your interests will be challenged. To the credit of President Trump, and political colleagues on the other side of the aisle like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., America’s politicians are using technology to take their message straight to voters. And in 280 characters or fewer on Twitter, Trump has put dozens of companies and their leaders in the spotlight. Boeing, Facebook, Merck and dozens more have gotten the president’s attention on Twitter. Those with Ohio ties include Ford, Nordstrom, General Motors, Toyota, Amazon and Macy’s. But you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 corporation to get the presidential treatment. In Youngstown, the local United Auto Workers Union head Dave Green got an unexpected scolding from Trump this past March in which the president told Green, “to get his act together and produce.” The cause? General Motors’ decision to shut down the Lordstown auto plant. Also in Youngstown is Phantom Fireworks, which made national news over the Fourth of July weekend. The Mahoning Valley company donated celebratory explosives to Washington, D.C.’s holiday weekend festivities and Trump tweeted his thanks to the company. As a result, Phantom Fireworks had numerous bomb threats called into its corporate office. And it’s not just Trump bringing the political spotlight to businesses and industries. At the first Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio committed to abolishing private health insurance. Sen. Bernie Sanders showed up in June at Walmart’s annual shareholders meeting and presented a proposal aimed at giving workers representation on the company’s board. In May, thousands of McDonald’s workers in more

than a dozen cities across America walked off their jobs to demand greater pay and expanded rights. Several Democratic candidates joined in support of the McDonald’s workers and their protests. Businesses that simply try to ignore the political and technological realities of today are putting themselves, and their stakeholdBerry ers, in a dangerous situation. Developing a plan and being prepared for what’s coming in 2020 is as important to Ohio’s business community as ever. As the saying goes, the best day to start was yesterday, but today will work, too. First, start paying attention to the news and campaign issues. Understand what the candidates are saying, how they’re saying it and look to establish trends. In politics, this is called opposition research. Campaigns do it on both themselves and their opponents. They identify weaknesses and strengths and try to figure out what their opponent will try to do ahead of time. Next, put a plan in place for both what you expect and what you don’t expect to happen. Think of it like football: There are offensive and defensive coordinators and gameplans, and you need both to be successful. As business leaders, put plans in place with this same mindset. Finally, be prepared to respond in force and with extreme speed. Social media has redefined the 24-hour news cycle, and the most important medium for news in presidential politics is Twitter. It’s where the candidates, their campaigns and the journalists who cover them live and work. There are no such things as deadlines anymore, and you certainly can’t wait and hope for issues to pass. In politics, responding with decisive quickness is called rapid response. Campaigns have entire teams within their operations whose only mission is to follow the news and react to it — both for offensive and defensive purposes. For businesses, your plans should include not just how you respond but how you plan to make speed a critical component of it. In years past, businesses and their leaders could stay far away from politics, but, like it or not, the rules have changed. We’re now living in a time when ignoring political debates is no longer possible and, for business leaders, understanding the 2020 campaign is a necessity. Your business’s future may depend on it.

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Letter to the Editor Minimum wage not only tool to improve job quality In “A higher minimum wage may hurt as it helps” in the July 29 issue of Crain’s, Murat Tasci stated, “Minimum wage is a very blunt tool to improve the condition of workers.” Regardless of how blunt it is, increasing the minimum wage is an important tool. But he’s right that in Northeast Ohio, it is not our only tool. Finding ways to use other tools to address business talent needs and to improve the quality of jobs for workers will be crucial as the minimum wage debate rages on at the local, state and federal levels. Wages are typically the first aspect of job quality that comes to mind, and for good reason. It is a foundational piece of the puzzle. But wages do not exist in a vacuum, nor do they make up the totality of a person’s experience at work. The National Fund for Workforce Solutions’ Quality Job Framework and Pacific Community Ventures’ Moving Beyond Job Creation Report cite a number of other features that can improve job quality for workers, including career development,

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wealth-building opportunities and external linkages to community resources that can help stabilize workers’ personal lives. Northeast Ohio is ripe with innovative approaches to improving job quality, including Manufacturing Works’ Apprenticeship Consortium, the worker-owned Evergreen Cooperatives and at my own organization, Towards Employment, we offer an employer-based, employee coaching service called Achieve Solutions. We have seen that when employers invest in these type of supports, workers are more successful on the job and businesses see demonstrable improvements in retention and attendance. Programs like these are a mutually beneficial proposition for both businesses and workers and further enhance our community’s toolbox for improving the quality of work. Grace Heffernan Senior project manager Towards Employment

8/15/19 4:20 PM

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Focus

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

TEAMWORK SPOKEN HERE

Research today often seeks to solve large societal issues that require input from multiple disciplines. (Case Western Reserve University)

Funding needs make research more collaborative, interdisciplinary By Rachel Abbey McCafferty rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

s research funding has gotten harder to come by — and as the problems researchers are looking to solve have gotten more complex — university research has become more and more collaborative.

Case Western Reserve has taken steps to diversify its research funding streams, in part to protect it from those federal funding concerns, Rivera said. In recent years, it’s sought research funding from the state of Ohio, nonprofits and industry. Funding priorities have changed in recent years, and all kinds of funders are interested in investing in interdisciplinary research, noted Jerzy T. Sawicki, vice president for research at Cleveland State University. Colleges and universities have had to adapt and be more collaborative in response. For example, Cleveland State partnered with Kent State University on the TeCK Fund, which focuses on funding commercialization of research. Combining the two universities’ research portfolios gives them more opportunity for commercialization in fields as diverse as drug de-

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Federal funding, the primary source of research funds for universities, has been constrained in a variety of ways in recent years. From the scope of interest to the budget allotments for each agency to the uncertainty of a government shutdown, those constraints are a concern for Case Western Reserve University and for higher education overall, said Suzanne Rivera, CWRU’s vice president for research and technology management.

Colleges and universities have had to adapt as more funders show interest in investing in collaborative research. (Cleveland State University)

velopment and liquid crystals. “We thought that together we are stronger,” Sawicki said. Ultimately, collaboration plays an increasingly large role in university research, both across institutions and across disciplines. That’s necessary to solve the large problems of the world, such as environmental sustainability or social inequality, Rivera said. “If it’s a big, intractable problem and it hasn’t been solved already by one discipline, it’s going to take an interdisciplinary team to solve the problem,” she said. And universities have the opportunity to bring different parts of the community together — creating interdisciplinary teams, yes, but also joining the nonprofit and for-profit sectors on projects. SEE FUNDING, PAGE 14

University research is big business in Northeast Ohio

he research and development activities of the state’s 14 public universities had an economic impact of about $1.4 billion on the Ohio economy in the 2016-17 academic year, according to a report by Economic Modeling Specialists International (Emsi), a Utah-based labor market data analyst hired by the Inter-University Council of Ohio. That was equivalent to supporting 18,489 jobs that academic year and doesn’t include research powerhouses like Case Western Reserve University, which is private, Emsi said in its May 2018 report, “Analysis of the Economic Impact and Return on Investment of Education: The Economic Value of the Public Universities of Ohio.” In addition, Ohio’s public universities earned $11.4 million from licensing or optioning technology developed by their faculty and staff in 2016-17, according to the report. Emsi also found that clinics and medical centers related to those 14 public universities, including Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, had an economic impact of $3.7 billion on the state in the 2016-17 academic year, which is equivalent to supporting 56,726 jobs. — Mary Vanac

8/15/19 2:42 PM

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

Kent’s AMLCI seeks to broaden its expertise By Judy Stringer clbfreelancer@crain.com

It’s not a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, but Torsten Hegmann is more than eager to apply the “if you build it, (they) will come” wisdom to expansion of Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI). Founded as the Liquid Crystal Institute in 1965, it was the world’s first research center focused on the basic and applied science of liquid crystals. Research inside it walls ushered in, among other applications, the proliferation of flat-panel displays used in today’s most popular con-

sumer devices like TVs, cellphones, tablets and smartwatches. Hegmann joined the institute in 2011, and was hired as associate director in 2018 — the same year its moniker was changed to reflect the broader scope of inquiry and exploration happening inside the labs. In July, he became the first permanent director since the institute was renamed, replacing interim director John West. During an interview last week, the longtime liquid crystal researcher said his top priority as AMLCI’s chief is widening the breadth of the institute’s expertise through greater partnerships with other research labs — both inside and outside Kent State — more commercial and govern-

ment interaction and new hires. Hegmann plans to accommodate the added personnel via buildout of the lower level in the university’s 2-yearold Integrated Hegmann Sciences Building, which is located less than half a mile from AMLCI headquarters and where the institute’s newest “soft matter” researchers will share space with those from Kent State’s Brain Health Research Institute and other study areas. “We have very unique and visible

strength worldwide in liquid crystal materials, but to continue to be competitive as an institute we need to grow and create critical mass in affiliated materials, specifically the types of materials that interface with liquid crystals, since the research is moving in that direction,” he said. “And if you want to interface liquid crystals to, say, biology or medicine, for example, you need people who know something about biology or medicine or biological materials.” Some of Hegmann’s own research involves exploiting nanocomposites in liquid crystals for drug delivery to the brain. He also is co-founder of Torel LLC, a company commercializing stickerlike liquid crystal sensors

that would alert firefighters and other first responders to the presence of toxic gases and vapors. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length. What drew you to the study of liquid crystals? I did my undergraduate and graduate education at the Martin Luther University in Germany. This is in principle recognized as the birthplace of liquid crystal research, going back to the 1920s, so there is a long tradition of people there working on particularly the chemistry of liquid crystals. Pretty much the first time I looked at these materials myself under a polarized light microscope, I got hooked. How did you become affiliated with AMLCI? I came to Kent State in April 2011 to give a regular invited seminar to the Liquid Crystal Institute, as it was called back then. I overheard conversations among the faculty that the position for Ohio Research Scholar, which is a program funded by the state of Ohio, was available. I applied and got the position.

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How has the institute evolved since then? The field of liquid crystals has changed and that is happening in labs and at research centers all over the world. We see a lot of expansion into biology and medicine, as well as optical applications that are not displays, such as sensors or any kind of responsive materials — for example, elastomers or polymers that respond to light or other kinds of stimuli. There are a lot of new applications that field has seen and that is representative of the research that is going on now in the institute. But it is going to take people with a broader range of expertise to be competitive as the field continues to evolve. Hence, the expansion away from just the Liquid Crystals Institute to the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute. What are some examples of the interplay between liquid crystal and other research disciplines that will have an impact on new technologies/discoveries? One of the most promising areas, I think, is biology and medicine. It will not necessarily only be what we call “bench-to-bedside” technologies, but there will be applications in very fundamental biology: How do cells move, how do cancer cells proliferate, etc. In that area, we have some very logical affiliations with the Brain Health Research Institute, a very new institute at Kent State. A second area is sensory and adaptive materials, materials that respond in any way, shape or to their environment. They might change color or deform or produce an electric current. The third ties into energy, energy storage and transmission, and environment. If we can create materials that can potentially harvest the energy of the sun and store that energy in unique ways very efficiently, we are directly reducing our human impact on the environment as well. There will always be a liquid crystal footprint on displays, but it’s a very unique state of matter and it will have unique applications in areas well beyond displays.

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UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

UA spinoff’s 3D cell models tackle cancer OncoSolutions’ work could speed creation of next-gen drugs NEO universities target cancer

By Mary Vanac

While nearly 14% of all drugs in clinical trials eventually win approval from the Food and Drug Administration, only 3.4% of investigational cancer drugs were approved from 2003 through 2013, according to a study from the MIT Sloan School of Management. In addition to professor Hossein Tavada and his colleagues at the University of Akron, here are some of the other cancer research studies being conducted by Northeast Ohio universities:

clbfreelancer@crain.com

University of Akron professor Hossein Tavana and his colleagues are developing tools that could dramatically speed up creation of the next generation of drugs to treat an aggressive form of breast cancer. If all goes well, these tools could be available to pharmaceutical companies in five or six years, likely through OncoSolutions LLC, the spinoff company the researchers and the University of Akron Research Foundation have created to commercialize the tools. And if a pharmaceutical company uses the tools, in another decade or so it could develop drugs that make a difference in the lives of triple-negative breast-cancer patients. “The bad news is, that’s the reality” of drug development, said Joe Jankowski, chief innovation officer in the Office of Research and Technology Management at Case Western Reserve University. “I almost look at these as generational advances that will hopefully impact our kids. But the flip side of it is, the public knows that even though it’s hard, it’s worth doing.” Historically, cancer cells have been studied using two-dimensional cell models. “You put cancer cells on flat substrates, let them grow, treated them with cancer drugs and then, based on the response, made a judgment call about whether the drug was effective or not,” explained Tavana, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at UA. But there’s a big problem: Up to

Case Western Reserve University:

used to treat brain cancer (led by Dr. Anthony Berdis).

JJUsing

JJDeveloping

artificial intelligence to help predict patient response to breast cancer therapy and outcomes (Dr. Anant Madabhushi). JJDiscovering

why breast cancers become resistant to therapies and how to improve drug response (led by Dr. Ruth Keri, in connection with Cleveland Clinic). OncoSolutions got its start in a University of Akron lab. Clockwise from bottom are Stephanie Lemmo Ham, OncoSolutions CEO; Elyse Ball of the UA Research Foundation; and Hossein Tavana, associate professor and OncoSolutions’ chief technology officer. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

95% of the drugs tested by this two-dimensional method failed in clinical trials in 2011, said Stephanie Lemmo Ham, CEO of OncoSolutions, in a webinar explaining her company’s technology. She is one of Tavana’s former graduate students. “Only 12 cancer drugs were approved in 2011 when 900 went into clinical trials,” Ham said, adding that it cost $800 million to develop the dozen drugs that succeeded. “The lowest clinical testing success rate of all therapeutic disciplines is oncology, at only 5%,” she said. Tavana, Ham and their collaborators at the University of Michigan and Georgetown University have been de-

veloping three-dimensional models for triple-negative breast cancer to bridge this success gap between in-vitro and clinical testing for almost 20 years. This type of cancer got its name because it isn’t driven by the three most common female hormones. “The need is really from lack of appropriate models that can be used not only to understand the biology of the cancer but also to discover new anti-cancer drugs,” Tavana said. “We usually start from free-floating single cells,” he explained. “We have developed a technology that aggregates these cells into a ball of cells. We call them spheroids. These are 3D models of cancer cells.”

Cleveland State University: JJDeveloping

a therapeutic agent that greatly improves the effectiveness of temozolomide, the main drug

OncoSolutions, with Tavana as co-founder and chief technology officer, is commercializing this spheroid-forming technology to provide drug companies with “biologically relevant, 3D cancer cell cultures to filter out ineffective cancer drugs earlier in the process to save time and money,” Ham said. “Ultimately, those resources can be focused on cancer drugs that are more likely to succeed and allow more cancer drugs to get to the market faster and cheaper.” The company also made sure its free-floating spheroids could be used by equipment that most pharmaceutical companies already own. Unlike other 3D cell models that require

a novel treatment that could reduce the growth of cancer in humans (Dr. Michael Kalafatis).

Kent State University: JJDeveloping

a vaccine to prevent and treat breast cancer (led by Dr. Gary Koski). JJDesigning

and developing metal-based chemical systems and applications in biological systems with a long-term goal of improving cancer therapy (Dr. Yaorong Zheng). — Mary Vanac

highly specialized equipment, the OncoSolutions model uses conventional plate wells — flat plates that looks like trays with multiple well indentations that function like small test tubes — and robots that fill the wells. Tavana noted that this automation significantly decreases cost and increases testing throughput. The University of Akron Research Foundation is a minor shareholder in OncoSolutions, said Elyse Ball, assistant counsel and project manager for the foundation who mentored Tavana and Ham in a program called National Science Foundation I-Corps and then helped them co-found the company. SEE RESEARCH, PAGE 17

What’s as important as great research? Funding! By Dan Shingler dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

There’s more to supporting local university technology than running classrooms and laboratories. All of that know-how can come to nothing if there aren’t investors to turn it into profitable ventures. That’s not lost on area universities, which have come up with creative ways to provide funding to researchers and their new companies — and sometimes to expose students to entrepreneurialism in the process. Take the Northeast Ohio Student Venture Fund. Started at the University of Akron in 2008, the fund has grown from its single-school beginning to include six area colleges and universities, thanks largely to a $250,000 grant it received in 2014 from Hudson’s Burton D. Morgan Foundation and the state of Ohio. Since then, Kent State University, Walsh University, Notre Dame College, Case Western Reserve University and The College of Wooster have all formed chapters to participate. Venture Fund executive director Daniel Hampu said he hopes to get every college and university in Northeast Ohio involved in the fund. “Any student can participate, both

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“[N]ow we have a couple of startups that we’ve converted into equity... .” — Daniel Hampu, NEO Student Venture Fund executive director

undergrads and graduate students,” Hampu said. Each school fields a team of students that invests $10,000-$25,000 in a new company, usually an earlystage startup. Often, it’s a business spun out of their own university. Hampu declined to disclose the fund’s rate of return, but did say it’s had more investments pan out than go south so far — not an easy accomplishment when focusing on early-stage companies often seeking their first investment.

The fund’s investments so far have yielded paybacks on convertible debt, but the fund has not yet exercised an option to convert its debt to equity, which is how traditional venture capital firms often cash out of their most lucrative investments. That’s changing though, Hampu noted. “About a year and a half to two years ago, we switched to focusing on converting, rather than repayment. So now we have a couple of startups that we’ve converted into equity, one of which is Akron Ascent Innovations, which is a Bounce (Innovation Hub) tenant and a UofA spinoff. They make a dry adhesive and are on the eighth floor of Bounce. Another one is WISR in Cleveland,” he said, referring to a company that offers alumni-engagement tools for schools. Returns aren’t what Hampu likes to talk about the most, though. He prefers to discuss the impact the students’ activity is having overall. Altogether, the fund has invested a little more than $350,000 in 17 new companies — more than it received in grant funding. Those funds are particularly important to target companies, Hampu said, because it’s often difficult for early-stage companies to get their first investments, while follow-on investments are easier to attract. SEE VENTURE, PAGE 17

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UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

FUNDING

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

“Universities occupy a unique space,” Rivera said. “They’re both the seat of tradition and the source of innovation at the same time.” A lot of trends in research are driven by funding agencies, said Paul DiCorleto, vice president for research and sponsored programs at Kent State. But there’s also a realization that collaboration can lead to new ideas. KSU has embraced the collaborative approach to research in recent years, launching its Brain Health Research Institute, which counts outside entities like medical systems as members, and expanding its liquid crystal institute to include other advanced materials. “Taking down the walls means opening the channels for communication,” DiCorleto said. A table full of neuroscientists are going to think about a brain health question a lot differently than a table of engineers or poets would, he explained. Another benefit is that a collaborative approach makes grant proposals better-rounded in terms of expertise and, thus, more competitive, said George Chase, director of STEM research at the University of Akron. If a As federal funding has become more constrained, institutions are moving to diversify their research funding streams, seeking more support from topic of research is fairly specialized, nonprofits and industry. (Case Western Reserve University) with only a few researchers studying it, they may have more success col- School of Health & Medical Human- grant applications, as it shows a projlaborating together on a proposal in- ities. ect’s broader impact, Goodner said. stead of competing against one an“It’s the rare lab that has all the exJohn Carroll University, a predomother. pertise they need in order to really inantly undergraduate university, And it’s not just the big research pull off the kind of work that needs to and Oberlin College, an undergraduschools looking to collaboration to be done today,” Goodner said. ate school, have also seen collaboratap into these funds. One of the factors that Hiram can tion take a more prominent role in The key for a researcher at a small- bring to a collaborative, multi-insti- their research efforts. er school like Hiram College is to tution team is its size, and the fact Funders want to see collaboration make sure they’re explaining why that it primarily serves an undergrad- across disciplines, and there’s particthey’re the best person for the project uate population that the college can ular interest in funding projects with — and to find StheGrimm.qxp right collaborators, involve in the 03-07John 2/23/2016 10:43 AM research. Page 1That under- regional collaborators, said Erica said Brad Goodner, director of the grad involvement can be attractive in Kennedy, director of sponsored research at John Carroll. “There’s no room for silos anymore,” she said. David Kamitsuka, acting dean at Oberlin, said collaboration has always been a part of research. But the “challenge of realizing resources” Schools have learned that a collaborative approach can often lead to and the “ease of communication” more innovative solutions. (Cleveland State University) have made it more prevalent today, he added. ened pressure on universities to sities to serve as “engines of economAside from an increased focus on commercialize their research. The ic development” for their regions, collaboration, there’s also height- public increasingly looks for univer- Rivera said. But that kind of work is expensive, and there isn’t a lot of fedMinimum Delivery:1Pallet eral funding for commercialization. SEPT CWRU tries to reinvest its royalty 12 payments on licensed intellectual OUT-OF-STATE HOLDING COMPANY ORDERS property back into its research activities as a way to help support that IMMEDIATE SALE! work. Other funding in this space 8 PROFESSIONAL OFFICE CONDOMINIUMS comes from philanthropy. 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AKRON

UA technology poised to After fast start, help fight algae blooms Summit ESID sees

growth slow down

By Dan Shingler

By Judy Stringer

dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

clbfreelancer@crain.com

Some researchers from the University of Akron and an entrepreneur partner think they have new technology that could help solve some vexing problems dealing with underground chemicals and clean up bodies of water like Lake Erie. The first chemicals they are targeting are fertilizer components that too often find their way into area watersheds and, ultimately, to the lake and other bodies of water, where they can create ugly and even dangerous algae blooms. That happened, perhaps most famously, when toxic algae shut down the water supply for Toledo in 2014, but the problem is a persistent one for Lake Erie. “That’s the next thing we’re trying to address,” said Linda Barrett, an associate professor of geosciences at Akron, who developed the technology alongside David Perry, professor emeritus of chemistry. Their device can be calibrated to detect other chemicals, too, Barrett said, but algae nutrients seemed like an important set to go after as they seek to commercialize the device. It works a bit like that magic spectrometer on the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” using light to do chemical analysis, Barret explained. A small, pointed probe about an inch in diameter is plunged into the ground to a depth of up to about 1 meter. In the end of the probe is a laser and a lens. The laser sends light out and the lens catches the light that’s reflected back from the adjacent soil and analyzes its spectrum. Then algorithms use that data to determine if target chemicals are present. Barret said the technology also can “in principal” determine specific concentrations of those chemicals, and that’s something researchers are working to perfect in the commercial device. While that work continues, it’s very early in the development of the company that hopes to commercialize the technology, S4 Mobile Laboratories, said Barrett and Chris Matney, an entrepreneur from Colorado who has invested in S4 and is now the company’s CEO. The company’s immediate goal, he said, is to raise money to build a new prototype that would be automated, enabling it to do more testing more quickly and autonomously. “Currently, we are working on funding to build the automated prototype. Right now, it’s attached to the back of a truck,” Matney said. Automating the device would enable it to search grid patterns on its own, Matney said. S4 has received some funding from private investors and some government grant money. Officials hope to get more grant funding from the state but are preparing to raise some investment capital to build the automated prototype. “We need about $6 million to get this done,” Matney said. The device already has proven its ability in the field. Before it was targeting fertilizer-related chemicals, the technology was conceived as part of an archaeological research project, Matney said. It was used to help

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This 2016 satellite image shows an algae bloom in Lake Erie. S4 Mobile Laboratories thinks its technology can fight blooms. (Contributed photo)

detect Native American burial grounds by identifying chemicals associated with decomposition. He said the device was also used to help recover the remains of Linda Pagano, an Akron teenager killed in the mid-1970s and mistakenly buried in a potter’s field as an unidentified body until her grave was dug up and she was finally identified last year. Matney said S4 was actually incorporated in 2015 but has since gone well beyond its initial scope of detecting remains. It’s time to broaden the scope of the device’s use and move to commercialization, he said. “The coolest part of the technology, from my perspective looking at it for the business end instead of a purely scientific angle, is that the technology is extremely flexible. We started out as a research project for archeology, looking for graves that couldn’t be disturbed … but there are many commercial applications,” Matney said. Ultimately, he and Barrett predict the device will be adopted by government agencies, real estate developers, the mining and agricultural industries, and others. Government agencies and possibly farmers or farm service providers likely will be the first customers because of the new emphasis on detecting fertilizer chemicals, Barrett said. Those working to protect Lake Erie and other bodies of water say they’re glad that’s the case. Just describing how the device works to those involved in battling algae and hoping to improve farm profitability elicits both excitement and hope. “I’m very interested in the technology … What you’re talking about is something that could be an enormous help for a project we’re working on,” said Matt Fisher, vice president of the Lake Erie Foundation. Fisher said his group is working with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on a project to study the effect of fertilizer runoff on smaller bodies of water and that being able to analyze the soil along and near waterways would be a great help. More importantly, he said, the de-

vice could be a great bridge between farmers and those who seek to protect Lake Erie from algae — a relationship Fisher said has been perceived as far more adversarial than it is or needs to be. The device could be used to help tell farmers how much fertilizer, or even how much of a certain fertilizer component like nitrogen, is already in their ground, he said. “Farmers are businessmen,” Fisher said. In other words, they don’t want to waste money fertilizing ground that doesn’t need it, possibly to the disadvantage of their crops. “If this would truly help and not be a burden to them, they would use it,” Fisher said. Ron Wyss agrees. He’s a board member of the Lake Erie Foundation, but for a living he farms carrots, soybean and corn in Northwest Ohio and leases part of his 1,200 acres to other farmers. “It could be an important piece of equipment to help us as farmers … our main challenge is: How can we keep nutrient levels just where they need to be?” he said. That’s just the sort of reaction Matney and Barrett hope to hear from other farmers, too. If all goes well, they said, the device soon will be able to work for them by producing 3D maps of fertilizer concentrations for all of their fields. Right now, the company is still housed at the university, but Matney said it’s looking for its first independent space, which he said likely will be in Akron. “We’re looking at some space in (the) Bounce (Innovation Hub) now,” Matney said, noting that the facility has big enough spaces S4 will need to build prototypes and begin production. Assuming all goes well, the company hopes to unveil its prototype and then offer units for sale, though no timeline has been set. Matney said he envisions the company as an equipment, rather than a service, provider, ultimately making its money by producing and selling the devices to farmers and others.

A new plan to roll out low-interest loans to certain Summit County homeowners who make energy-efficiency improvements builds on a program that was first aimed at commercial businesses. Summit County executive Ilene Shapiro announced in June that residential property owners in communities that have joined the Akron-Summit County Energy Special Improvement District (ESID) — of which there are 13 so far — soon might be able to pay for new lighting, windows, roofing and other energy-saving improvements via their tax bills. Commercial developments in downtown Akron, Barberton and Bath already have done so. ESIDs are made possible by the Ohio Revised Code, according to Chris Burnham, president of the Development Finance Authority of Summit County, which is spearheading the county’s 2-year-old ESID program. Cities, townships and villages become affiliates by passing local legislation. But they can only join after a neighboring municipality becomes a member, Burnham explained, so the rollout is spreading from Akron outward. Along with Akron, Summit County commercial ESID communities include Bath, Barberton, Copley, Coventry, Cuyahoga Falls, Fairlawn, Lakemore, New Franklin, Norton, Springfield and Tallmadge. Richfield Village has passed ESID legislation and is in the process of finalizing paperwork, Burnham said. Green has introduced an ordinance, which is awaiting a vote. “We’re now working with Hudson,” he said. Once a community joins the district, organizations within its boundaries can voluntarily have their properties assessed to secure upfront funding — called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing — for improvements that save or generate energy. The special assessments are then added to the property owner’s tax bill. In 2018, the DFA’s first full year under the ESID program, the agency financed more than $12 million worth of PACE projects on three commercial developments, including Cascade Plaza in downtown Akron, Akron Rubber Development Lab in Barberton and Crystal Clinic in Bath. Greg Simms, director of innovation and sustainability at the Akron Rubber Development Lab, said the company, which tests rubber and plastics materials, turned to the DFA after hitting a roadblock in a plan to consolidate three separate Akron facilities into adjoining office buildings in Barberton. “During the middle of the renovation project, we found that we had a shortfall because of changes in the scope of work and uncovering things we did not know about. As a result, we were not going to be able to finish the first phase,” he said.

Because the office buildings had not been updated for “20 to 30 years,” according to Simms, many of the renovations planned would add energy effiBurnham ciency to the site, which enabled the company to qualify for PACE financing. A $2.52 million bond package from the DFA paid for installation of a 79,000-square-foot white roof, nine rooftop HVAC units, a water cooling tower, new exterior walls and doors, and LED lighting. “In short, it allowed us to get the first phase of our construction done on time and move 20 people over there,” he said. “Now, we have about 25 of our 100 employees working out of that building.” Simms said the main benefit of PACE, especially for smaller companies like Akron Rubber Development Lab, is that the loan term can span up to 15 to 20 years, a longer repayment period than conventional banks offer. While the commercial program does not tout itself as a low-interest offering like its residential counterpart — in which interest rates currently range between 2.99% and 8.9% — the commercial packages are fully amortized at a fixed rate, Burnham said. Unlike debt, PACE financing also does not show up on a business’ balance sheet, according to Simms, and it is tied to the land, rather than the property owner, and stays with the property following any ownership transition. “For the community, if we for any reason were to fail or move, these taxes continue on with the property itself, so they are transferable to the next owner of the property,” he said. “The community doesn’t lose out.”

Their own pace Despite getting off to a gangbuster start with three PACE projects in 2018, this year has been a little slower on the commercial front. Burnham said that while a couple of deals “are in the pipeline,” none is close enough to disclose publicly. A lot of the delay has to do with the time it takes to assemble complicated bond packages, he said. Another issue, however, has been the rate at which municipalities adopt the necessary legislation. Burnham presents the commercial ESID and PACE concepts during council or trustee work sessions, he said. Once the necessary ordinances are drafted and introduced, which can sometimes be several weeks later, they are not typically voted on until the third “reading” after introduction. “Not every council meets every other week, so three readings can take a few months,” he said. “Frankly, I thought we’d be farther along with the commercial side of it than we are, but communities move at the own pace — no pun intended.” SEE SUMMIT, PAGE 16

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CONDOS

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Quattro’s 26 units range from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, Lamb said, “larger than you would ever build them as apartments.” A for-sale project also was more desirable to the neighborhood, he said. “It would have been easier to do apartments,” Lamb said, because lenders require half of a condominium project’s units to be sold before they’ll commit to financing. It also requires more planning up front to create materials for prospective buyers. In Quattro’s case, it had pre-sales for half the units when it started construction last year. As always, a real estate developer will not clear profits on a condo until enough units sell to satisfy the construction loan. However, Allegro puts a broader spin on that. “We see it as more of a capital play,” Lamb said, in contrast to a property it plans to hold for a long time, such as an apartment building. It also has those. For instance, Allegro is building an $8 million, 49-suite project that it plans to finish next June for students or young professionals on Euclid Avenue between East 115th and 116th Street, near Case Western Reserve University and other University Circle institutions. In the meantime, a site has been excavated on Hilliard Boulevard near

The $13 million Quattro project added 26 condos to a Mayfield Road neighborhood that features Presti’s Bakery in Cleveland. (Stan Bullard)

Rocky River’s border with Lakewood for The Rockport, a five-floor building that will house 24 ranch-style condominiums when it is completed next year. The suites have either two or three bedrooms and range from $335,000 to $665,000 apiece, according to Kim Crane, a Howard Hanna real estate agent who is handling the sales. “There is huge demand in the west suburbs for one-floor living,” Crane said, and most of the existing condominiums are more than 20 years old. She has four serious prospects so far. That is a big switch from most con-

do developments. The Rockport development team is fronting the cash to get rolling and will close a loan for the project as soon as they land presales with buyers reassured by seeing the project underway. The developers are Brent Zimmerman, a co-founder of Saucy Bistro, who also operates Zimmerman Development Co. of Cleveland, and three of the principals of Pride One Construction of Medina. Pride One also serves as the contractor for the job. “It’s so hard for people to commit to buy something before they can see

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it taking shape and can make their plans knowing they’ll have their unit on a certain date,” Zimmerman said of launching a condominium development and then closing the financing. “The other factor is that existing home inventory in the west suburbs is so tight. And there’s little new product.” Zimmerman said designing the suites as flats also allowed the team to get enough density to make a go of the 0.9-acre site overlooking Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks. Rocky River does not provide tax abatement for real estate development, Zimmerman added, so the project had to be a for-sale project. “If Rocky River provided tax abatement, it would have been multifamily,” Zimmerman said, as apartments need the abatement to get going with existing market rents, and lenders are more willing to do apartments. However, the high-end single-family homes nearby that people may sell to downsize to condos make the condos a realistic purchase for some. And, at the same time, young professionals with school-age children may want to be in the suburb’s school district. Home builder Bo Knez said he has done, and is doing, both condominium and townhouse projects. The founder of Knez Homes of Concord Township said townhouses tend to be fee-simple projects, which means the buyer owns the land underneath their unit. Fees for homeowner associations to take care of landscaping and snow shoveling for townhouses, he said, are lower than the overhead for condominiums. “With a townhouse. the homeowner is responsible for his or her own roof,” Knez said. “With a condominium, the association has to take care of the roof that someone might not pay for, which means higher fees.” He said the company tries to stick to townhouses when it can and will do condominiums based on other factors, such as what the site requires. Knez is constructing condominiums at Bell Tower on Bell Street near downtown Chagrin Falls and is sticking with

condominiums, because that is what the prior developer of the site had planned. The suites resemble a series of attached, single-family homes. Their cost is in the $600,000 range. In downtown Cleveland, Knez has sold 10 fee-simple townhouses in a 12-unit phase of the Avenue Townhouses at East 13th Street and Superior Avenue it undertook earlier this year. They cost about $400,000 each. The firm also recently got city approval for another 17 units fronting on Superior in front of Zaremba Cleveland’s original townhouses that were put in before the housing bust. Demand for the units has been strong, Knez said. “You’re minutes away from Playhouse Square and the ballpark,” he said. “There’s no other fee-simple (new development) available downtown.” The smaller neighborhood and suburban projects show a potential ray of hope for downtown for-sale housing, which would likely need to be condominiums, but little more than that. Large parcels on the fringes of downtown are scarce, which likely means future projects will go on smaller, more costly, central sites. That requires more density and height, which augers for condominiums. Putting in a 100-condo project currently requires 50 pre-sales. That is exponentially tougher than landing a dozen advance sales. Mark Vogel, senior managing director at Berkadia Mortgage Capital’s Cleveland office, suspects downtown might accept condos, though he has never fielded a request for a construction loan for one. Still, he wonders if the time for such thinking on a large scale has passed. “A lot of the movement toward apartments is really contrary to owning a condo,” Vogel said of the favored development type since the end of the Great Recession. “People don’t want to be tied down with anything. The potential cost of unloading a condo in a downturn is a little scary. That’s all part of the new mindset in housing.”

SUMMIT

“It’s a great tool because it does not involve the city’s money, and it’s really available to just about anyone with a good project.”

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Hudson economic development director Jim Stifler said his team has met with the DFA, but the ESID program has not been introduced to council. Given the city’s preoccupation with a second phase of its downtown redevelopment plans and upcoming elections, Stifler said he’d be surprised if legislation to join the district was adopted before November. Still, he’s eager to see Hudson jump aboard. While the city does not have many “large empty buildings” awaiting renovation, Stifler said the availability of PACE loans would be a welcome addition for business attraction and retention. “It’s a great tool because it does not involve the city’s money, and it’s really available to just about anyone with a good project,” he said. Stifler also envisions the assessment financing as a nice fit for planned updates to a former commercial property that Hudson is renovating for its new city hall. The LED lighting transition alone was projected at “several hundred thousand dollars,” he said. Burnham said landing Hudson is important because it gives DFA access to “some of the county’s more industrial areas in Twinsburg and Macedonia.” “I think as we go north and all the industrial stuff up there, there’s lots opportunity among properties that have

— Jim Stifler, Hudson economic development director, on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing

not been updated in some time and large facilities that can see big benefits from energy efficiency projects, such as lighting at a distribution center,” he said. “I’m anxious to get up there.” On the residential front, existing commercial ESID members will have to pass a second ordinance to approve a residential PACE loan program, which will financed by California-based Renovate America, according to Burnham. Some — like Akron, Barberton, Copley, Coventry, Cuyahoga Falls, Lakemore, Norton and Tallmadge — have moved forward with residential ordinances. It’s conceivable, he added, that as new communities join, they will do both commercial and residential at once. “What the DFA is doing right now is going around and asking member communities if they want to opt into the residential,” he said. “Our role there is to educate the public.”

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include a port authority if a municipality was not able to participate. “I would think we could be ready To place your listing in Crain’s Cleveland Classifieds, to go by the next year’s construction contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455 or email sjanik@crain.com season,” Zahirsky said of the Lake County effort. The SID legislation allows government entities to participate in financing, but some cities may be limited in how much funding is available to leverage. “It is very important for our residents to have as many options as possible to protect their property with the rising lake levels,” Bay Village Mayor Paul Koomar said. Bay Village’s Huntington Beach has been hit with a “one-two punch” of heavy rainfall and unrelenting wave activity out of the north, resulting in the disappearance of much of the suburb’s popular beachfront. Much of Huntington Beach’s popular beachfront in Bay Village has been washed away. (John Quinn for Crain’s) Given financial constraints on the “All those things are done to try to struction can be divided between the has been on the forefront of develop- city’s budget, “We truly would not lessen the impact on the adjacent multiple owners. ing what could be the first Lake Erie have the capacity to take care of those improvements,” Koomar said. property, but those things have only “In a lot of cases, erosion protec- Shoreline SID. Koomar also is skeptical of the been in place for the last five to 10 tion structures are going to be more “We are looking at everything. We years, and there is a lot out there that effective if implemented over a lon- are looking at public finance lenders, practicality of requiring multiple we are kind of left with.” special lenders and public entities owners to go in together and share ger stretch of shore,” Cencer said. With the stringent standards of the Skindell stresses that the legisla- with bond funds,” said Peter Za- costs in Bay Village. The diversity of Corps of Engineers now in place, the tion’s goal is to create a holistic ap- hirsky, director of coastal develop- the city’s coastline and the differing most common erosion control meth- proach to protecting the shoreline. ment at Lake County Ohio Port & ages of existing erosion control meaod used along the Lake Erie shore are However, the legislation was written Economic Development Authority. sures creates barriers to cooperative expanses of stone that form revet- so that any property owner could opt “I think it is a benefit to lenders. It is improvement along the Bay Village like a lien that stays with the proper- shore, he said. ments, or seawalls meant to dissipate out of the SID. “It could happen that way, (where) ty, which gives a lender security.” wave energy. The shoreline SID program is in Skindell had municipal bonds in the nascent stage of awareness, and With the SID, a collective of prop- you have one mile of coast line with one erty owners can implement longer, parcel not participating,” Skindell said. mind when the SID legislation was details still need to be ironed out. As consistent stretches of seawall, mak- “If a property owner does not want to introduced, but the final version al- Skindell said, “It is relatively new leging the project more cost effective. participate, they do not have to.” lows a mix of financing to fund a islation, so it is going to take a little The Lake County Port Authority project. Financing could expand to bit of time.” Shared design, permitting and con-

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The legislation, which went into effect in March, allows funds borrowed for energy or lakefront improvement to be repaid via a special assessment on a property tax bill over a period of up to 30 years. The loan to pay for the improvements is then tied to the property and does not count as private debt, allowing more financial flexibility to property owners while ensuring repayment even in the case of foreclosure. Today, any construction on or affecting the shoreline requires an arduous permitting process involving both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, but that policy has not always been in place. Desperate property owners have been known to use tires filled with concrete, large chunks of excavated asphalt from highway construction and makeshift walls constructed of rusted-out automobiles to protect shorelines from erosion. In addition to illegal fill, Lake Erie’s coast is littered with older, questionable erosion-control measures that can intensify wave energy and harm neighboring shorelines, said Mark Cencer, director of coastal engineering at KS Associates Inc., a civil engineering and surveying firm that works in coastal management. “The ODNR and the Corps of Engineers will make you monitor a site for years and do surveys,” Cencer said.

RESEARCH CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Medical startups are generally more challenging to develop than other types because of the regulatory approvals and funding needed to market their products. OncoSolutions is a little different because it is a cell-based assay platform for pharmaceutical companies, so it doesn’t need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, Ball said. “More broadly, I would say that deep-technology startups — the kind of startups that are formed based on cutting-edge university research — tend to be challenging because they often involve a riskier technology idea and physical manufacturing and supply chains,” she said. “Deep-tech startups are also really rewarding because you get to actually see the product that’s being made — it’s not just computer code — and it builds on the strong manufacturing base we have in Northeast Ohio.”

VENTURE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Those 17 companies have gone on to raise another $9 million of capital, which Hampu said illustrates the “multiplier” effect of the students’ investments, as well as validating those investments as more seasoned investors follow on. The activities of the Student Venture Fund also prepare students to be entrepreneurs or to work in the world of venture capitalists themselves, said Michael Goldberg, associate professor at the Department of Design and Innovation at CWRU’s Weatherhead School of Management and the adviser for his students’ venture fund team. He also runs a small venture capital fund on the side, and while students started out perhaps a bit less critical than an investor should be, Goldberg said Hampu has taught

“These models are really important as a next-generation technology for cancer research.”

Tavana recently landed more than $2 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to take his cancer cell-aggregating technology to the next step by “creating a greater complexity of native tumors,” he said. The improved cell model will embed cell spheroids “in a 3D network of native proteins containing stromal cells,” which mimic the architecture and matrix composition of solid-breast tumors. Creating a more realistic testing environment is vital to understanding the interactions between the cells

and their surroundings. “There are a lot of studies from anAdvertising Section imal models and from in-vitro research that show that these interactions are really key to the progression of cancers,” Tavana said. “If it was just cancer cells alone, it would be much easier to eliminate. But these interactions render cancer cells proliferaTo place your listing in Crain’s Cleveland Classifieds, tive, invasive and resistant to drugs.” Tavana and his team will spend the next four or five years validating their contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455 DocuSign Envelope ID: 3733B7F2-2033-4BB7-A855-6FF36AF09DCC improved cell model. “After initial studies with cancer cell lines, we will expand this model to patient-derived or email sjanik@crain.com cells toward our goal of making this technology a personalized medicine tool,” he said. BUSINESS FOR SALE BUSINESS FOR SALE “These models are really important as a next-generation technology Profitable Business For Sale Commercial Trucking for cancer research,” Tavana said. Retiring after 35 years Company for Sale “There is plenty of evidence now that 2 Acre Recycling Facility Sales $3,111,187 what we have used in the past is not SW Cleveland Location mike@empirebusinesses.com relevant anymore. We need new 28,000 Sq. Ft. Bldg & Whs www.empirebusinesses.com models of tumors to eventually help 440-461-2202 5 Million Avg. Annual Sales with translation of technology to Serious Inquires Only clinical practice and then, hopefully, Email clbboxreply@crain.com make a difference in patients’ lives.”

them to do better analysis. “Early on, I thought students sometimes forgot they were the investors and not the company,” he said. “The organization has evolved nicely to give students the perspective of those deploying the capital, though.” The Venture Fund isn’t the only effort to connect capital to local university startups. Kent State has the TeCK Fund, which has $600,000 to help researchers at KSU and Cleveland State University develop prototypes of their technology and move toward commercialization. Each school put up $150,000 and the state of Ohio put $300,000 toward the effort. “If they have a working prototype, it makes it easier to raise capital,” said Stephen Roberts, director of technology commercialization at Kent. The fund previously distributed an earlier round of $800,000 in funding and has helped researchers build

such things as bicycles designed for people with Parkinson’s disease, new fuel cells and liquid crystals that can detect certain chemicals. All of these efforts are important in terms of bringing more tech from local universities into the market, where it can create wealth, jobs and tax revenue. Many economic developers particularly like the Student Venture Fund model, though — because they say it both provides capital and trains students to be future investors and entrepreneurs. That last part may be more important than the first two, say folks like Jerry Frantz, senior managing partner at the startup support organization JumpStart in Cleveland. “I think that creates a huge positive effect around the exposure … and hopefully that builds a next group of venture investors and a group of the next students that understand the process,” Frantz said.

— Hossein Tavana, University of Akron associate professor and OncoSolutions’ chief tech officer

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REAL ESTATE

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DISCLAIMER: All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. 8/14/19 12:04 PM

8/16/19 3:46 PM

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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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.

ACCOUNTING

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MANUFACTURING

Meaden & Moore

ERIEBANK

Benesch

Dickinson Wright PLLC

Telling Industries, LLC

We are pleased to announce that Michelle O’Gara has joined Meaden & Moore as a Senior Manager in the Firm’s Tax Services Group. Prior to joining Meaden & Moore, Ms. O’Gara served as a Senior Manager at MCM CPAs & Advisors LLP, a large regional firm based in Louisville, KY. With over 10 years of experience, she specializes in tax planning and general business consulting with startups/entrepreneurs, closely-held businesses, family groups, high net worth individuals, and trusts.

Maggie Dempsey has joined ERIEBANK as SVP, Private Client Solutions. Maggie brings her 30+ years of financial services expertise in providing advice and guidance for high-net worth clients. Maggie develops personalized solutions to meet the financial goals of her clients through the wide array of ERIEBANK’s private banking and investment products and services. A graduate of John Carroll University with an MBA from University of Pittsburgh. Serving on the Jennings Center development committee.

John Dagon has joined Benesch as an associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. He focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, including contract disputes and business torts. He also has experience litigating product liability matters and defending clients in medical and legal malpractice claims.

Madeline Fleisher has joined Dickinson Wright’s Columbus office as Of Counsel. Ms. Fleisher is an energy and environmental attorney who focuses on assisting clients in the areas of utility regulation, energy permitting, climate change solutions, water quality, and related policy issues. She previously worked at the Environmental Law & Policy Center and the U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental Defense Section. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Yale University.

Telling Industries, LLC, a manufacturer of premium metal framing products, is actively expanding its product line to include state-of-the art innovations for the construction industry. During this exciting period of expansion and growth, Telling would like to welcome several talented key team members to its ranks. Rick Rabe, is named Supply Chain Director. Rick comes to Telling with 25+ years’ experience in purchasing, materials management and manufacturing management. In his role, Rick will oversee all supply chain activities for Telling. He holds both a C.P.M. and CPIM certification and is actively involved in the supply chain field.

BANKING FINANCIAL SERVICES ERIEBANK Jim Burke has joined ERIEBANK as VP Commercial Banking. With over 20 years of working with business owners, Jim brings his extensive knowledge of commercial lending and cash management solutions to help companies meet their capital needs for expansion or growth. Additional expertise in partner buyouts and acquisitions. Specializing in SBA, CRE, C&I and professional practice financing. A graduate of Case Western Reserve and Lake Erie College. Serving board member on the Business Advisory Council.

Western Reserve Trust Company James P. Oliver has joined the Western Reserve Trust Company’s Board of Directors. Western Reserve is an independent, administrative trust company headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Oliver, a distinguished trust, estate and corporate lawyer with the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, joins current Western Reserve Board members Thomas Allen, Karen Bozzelli, John Epprecht, Bill Karnatz, Jr., Dominic Perry, Mark Swary and Charles L. White.

BANKING LAW ERIEBANK Suzanne Hamilton has joined ERIEBANK as VP, Commercial Real Estate. Suzanne has been providing financial expertise to clients since 1991 with specialties in lending, underwriting, and analyzing commercial real estate. Suzanne’s experience spans all of CRE: office, industrial, multi-family, retail, mixed-use, and special-purpose. A graduate of Otterbein with an MBA from OSU. Suzanne serves through board leadership with Human Rights Campaign, Gordon Square Arts District, and Urban Land Institute.

Singerman, Mills, Desberg & Kauntz Co., L.P.A. Singerman, Mills, Desberg & Kauntz Co., L.P.A. is pleased to announce that Dylan Mook has joined the Firm as an Associate. He received his J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 2018, won the best brief award in the Dean Dunmore Moot Court Competition and was named to the Order of Barristers. Dylan’s practice includes transactional and litigation work. He received his B.A. from Quincy University in 2014 and is a member of the St. Ignatius High School Youth Alumni Committee.

LAW

Benesch Brian Mielcusny has joined Benesch as an associate in the firm’s Corporate & Securities Practice Group. He focuses his practice on counseling private equity funds and their portfolio companies, as well as the firm’s public and privately-held clients, with respect to a wide range of transactional matters, including leveraged buyout transactions, mergers and acquisitions and equity financings. LAW

Benesch Yelena Katz has joined Benesch as an associate in the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. She works with employers on a variety of federal and state labor and employment matters, including issues arising under the FLSA, ADA, ADEA and Title VII, as well as other federal and state employmentrelated laws. She has experience representing clients in collective and class action wage and hour cases as well as in NLRA litigation and counseling. LAW

Benesch John Breig has joined Benesch as an associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. He focuses his practice on all aspects of civil litigation, both state and federal. John also has experience handling administrative, appellate, and land use and zoning matters.

• Plaques • Crystal keepsakes • Frames • Other Promotional Items

P018_CL_20190819.indd 18

C O N TA C T

PRODUCTS

Preserve your career change for years to come. Laura Picariello Reprints Sales Manager lpicariello@crain.com (732) 723-0569

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP Anthony Andricks has joined Taft’s Real Estate practice. He represents a wide variety of commercial real estate clients in the acquisition, disposition, leasing and development of real property. In 2015, Anthony was recognized by the National LGBT Bar Association as one of America’s 40 Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 for being distinguished in his field and for demonstrating a profound commitment to LGBT equality. He earned his J.D., summa cum laude, from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2012.

MANUFACTURING

Telling Industries, LLC Brian Lanigan, has recently joined Telling Industries as its Operations Manager. Brian brings valuable skill sets gleaned from his prior leadership roles in the manufacturing industry both domestically and abroad. In his new role, Brian will lead the operations of the Telling plants for optimal safety, service and quality through the development of his team. Brian holds a Six Sigma Blackbelt Certification and is APICS CPIM Certified.

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LAW Telling Industries, LLC Benesch

NEW GIG?

LAW

Megan Parsons has joined Benesch as Of Counsel in the firm’s Litigation and Transportation & Logistics Practice Groups. She has broad experience in transportation and logistics, general corporate law, capital raising and commercial transactions.

John Greminger, has been promoted to National Sales Manager at Telling Industries. Over his ten years at Telling, John has continued to demonstrate his expertise in the metal framing industry to the benefit of our customers. John will work with his sales force to bring Telling to the next level of sales, customer enhancement and innovation.

NONPROFITS

Koinonia Homes Susan Chiancone has been appointed chief financial officer, Koinonia, the region’s leading provider of day, residential and employment services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She joins the team with robust experience in finance and financial operations. In her role, Chiancone will serve as the organization’s primary financial steward while working to fulfill its mission to meet each individual with IDD’s needs and personal growth through community participation.

REAL ESTATE

Pickard Commercial Group Please join us in welcoming Evan Pannell, Sales Associate, to Pickard Commercial Group. Evan holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from the College of Wooster. Pannell Pannell started as an intern at Pickard in 2016 and received his license in 2017. Evan is in the current class with Torchbearers. Pickard Commercial Group is also pleased to welcome Margaret Slesnick as our newest Sales Associate. Margaret Slesnick has Slesnick been a licensed commercial real estate professional since 2016. Margaret focuses on office leasing, industrial and multi-family property sales and brings an entrepreneurial flair to Pickard Commercial Group with her varied background.

8/16/19 10:55 AM

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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SOURCE LUNCH

Daniel Hampu Chief operating officer, Fontus Blue Executive director, Northeast Ohio Student Venture Fund We caught up recently with Dan Hampu — not easy to do, as he has two jobs, two young children and often a slew of students and entrepreneurs vying for his attention. He is both chief operating officer of Fontus Blue, an Akron startup that provides water analysis and management software-as-a-service to water treatment plants, and executive director of the Northeast Ohio Student Venture, which runs teams of student investors at area schools. ¶ Fontus takes up half or more of his time these days, but the Venture Fund involves teams of student investors from six area colleges and universities, so it’s no small job, either. ¶ Normally a lunch-packing calorie-counter, we met Hampu at downtown Akron’s Chameleon Café — a popular spot for both the salad and the sandwich crowd, especially at lunchtime. — Dan Shingler

The Hampu file Recreational activity “I love playing coed softball with my wife … but I love all sports.”

Summer read “One of my favorite books is ‘Shoe Dog.’ It’s about the founding and development of Nike.”

Favorite quote “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford

OK, I’ve never asked you this, but now seems like a good time. How old are you? I’m 32. How old did you think I was? Late 30s? You seem to be involved in too much stuff to be 32! I’ve had people guess I was 40 or 50. … I can shave my facial hair and look 21 or grow a full beard and look 45. Where did you grow up? In Alliance, Ohio. I currently reside in Canton, in Plain Township, near Walsh University. Did you go to high school in Alliance? No, I went to high school at a private school in Cleveland called the Hawken School.

Lunch spot Chameleon Cafe 23 South Main St., Akron 234-334-3603

The meal One had a half BLT sandwich with sweet Thai mayo and iced tea, and the other had a Baja summer salad and water.

The vibe Customers quickly filled the sidewalk tables. Inside, the kitchen and counter dominate a small, colorful space abuzz with activity and chat.

The bill $19.82 with tip

That must have been like homecoming, seeing all those other kids from Alliance your first day there. Ha — no. I was the only one. I would say my high school experience is one of the most unique things about me. My parents both worked in Alliance, so we got up at 4 a.m. every day — my sister and me both — and for six years they drove us up here for school … and I played four sports, so I never got home until 8 or 9 o’clock. You interact a lot with students, but you’re not a university employee, right? No, I worked for the University of Akron Research Foundation previously. That’s how I got involved with Fontus and the Venture Fund.

We first met you through the Student Venture Fund at the University of Akron, but it’s more than just one school now, right? There are six chapters now, so it’s not all one specific university. The chapters are the University of Akron, Kent State University, College of Wooster, Notre Dame College, Walsh University and Case Western Reserve University. Are you done expanding? No, we want to keep expanding. I just talked to Bara Watts (director of entrepreneurship) at Oberlin College this past week at the Flashstarts (venture fund) demo day, where I was presenting Fontus Blue. Some of her interns are working with the accelerator at Flashstarts and I was talking to her about how she could get her students involved. Ideally, I’d like to have all of the Northeast Ohio schools involved. How much money are the students investing? We have between $10,000 and $25,000 in each fund (per school per round). There are usually two rounds, one in spring and one in fall. How many companies have you invested in so far? The total right now is 17 — we’ve deployed just over $350,000. And the startups have been able to leverage that into $9 million. So altogether, after we came on, they raised $9 million. Any home runs yet? Home runs, no. We’re really excited about that multiplier, though. We have had some companies that were sold and were repaid on our debt … But we didn’t convert it to equity.

You’re also running the operations at Fontus Blue. How did you get involved there? I had become a board member while I was with UARF, because they (Fontus) were a faculty-based spinout from the University of Akron. I met the faculty member (associate professor Christopher Miller) about five years ago and developed a good relationship with him at UARF. Then last October, he said they were trying to scale and needed more support. Since I was familiar with the company, I said I’d love to come help. How is it going? It’s going well. Water is still an issue. We’re just trying to support more and more facilities. At the end of last year, I think we had 18 customers with three dashboards built to support them. We essentially plan to double both of those numbers this year. I think our current total now is about 27 customers and we have some more good leads in the pipeline. What’s new at Fontus? Tomorrow (Aug. 13), we’re going to be launching a new lead monitor. That’s a big issue at a lot of facilities. … Our calculations can tell you how much scaling is being formed on your pipe wells. You don’t want too little, because you might expose lead pipe, but you don’t want too much because you can’t get any water pressure. It sounds like this is more than just capitalism for you? It is. At its core, it’s really about helping people. We’ve all heard about Michigan, but there are a host of other water-management issues we’re trying to help people with.

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 33 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. Copyright © 2019 by Crain Communications Inc. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, OH, and at additional mailing offices. Price per copy: $2.00. Postmaster: Send address changes to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. 1-877-824-9373. Subscriptions: In Ohio: 1 year - $64, 2 year - $110. Outside Ohio: 1 year - $110, 2 year - $195. Single copy, $2.00. Allow 4 weeks for change of address. For subscription information and delivery concerns send correspondence to Audience Development Department, Crain’s Cleveland Business, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI, 48207-9911, or email to customerservice@crainscleveland.com, or call 877824-9373 (in the U.S. and Canada) or (313) 446-0450 (all other locations), or fax 313-446-6777.

THE WEEK Lofty goal

Taking the helm

The W.T. Grant Lofts, a 73-suite building at 248 Euclid Ave. in downtown Cleveland, sold for $9.9 million to a limited liability company led by Jason Friedman, an executive of the former Associated Estates Realty Corp. Friedman, the managing member of JA Friedman Capital of Beachwood, said he was attracted to the property by its status as a historic preservation project and the popularity of living in downtown Cleveland. “I feel that I have uncovered a gem,” he said. Friedman said he plans to upgrade the suites as they become available because current rents at the complex are not achieving the potential of such a property on Public Square.

The University of Akron’s board of trustees unanimously approved naming Gary L. Miller as the school’s next president. Miller, currently chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, will join Akron on Oct. 1. He will be the university’s 18th president, the most recent to take the helm in the tumultuous five years since Luis Proenza stepped down. (See editorial, Page 8.)

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Rolling out

The apartment section of the W.T. Grant Lofts has changed hands for $9.9 million. The sale does not include the first-floor retail space, which MRN of Cleveland continues to own as a retail condominium. (Stan Bullard)

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority announced its schedule for offering free Wi-Fi on its vehicles, at transit centers and at select stations. In September, downtown trolleys, along with buses on the city’s East Side (Hayden District),

the Cleveland State Line and the HealthLine, will have free Wi-Fi available. About eight vehicles per day will come online after that. Wi-Fi will be added to Triskett District and Paratransit vehicles in the fall and on railcars beginning in January.

Global view Gov. Mike DeWine heads to Japan next month on a trade mission to attract new businesses from the country that is Ohio’s top investor nation. Official meetings and events are scheduled Sept. 8-13. DeWine’s office said there are “more than 72,860 Ohioans employed at 852 different Japan-owned establishments across the state. Japan also was the fifth-largest export market for Ohio products in 2018. Ohio firms shipped more than $1.67 billion worth of products there.

8/16/19 2:32 PM

SIX HOSPITAL CEOS – ONE ROOM

Featuring the Hospital CEO Forum and Health Care Hero Awards Join Crain’s Cleveland Business as we take a high-level deep-dive into the top issues facing the health care sector while celebrating the nurses, doctors and other heroes dedicated to patient care and innovation.

PANEL DISCUSSION: Hospital CEOs MODERATOR: Elizabeth McIntyre, publisher and editor, Crain's Cleveland Business PANELISTS: Dr. Akram Boutros, president and CEO MetroHealth System Dr. Cliff Deveny, president and CEO Summa Health

CRAIN’S

HEALTH CARE

HEROES

INNOVATION FINALISTS: Dr. Oliver Schirokauer, The MetroHealth System Dr. Stanley Hazen, Cleveland Clinic R. Dan Allen, D. A. Surgical

Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, president and CEO Cleveland Clinic

PHYSICIAN/DENTIST FINALISTS: Dr. Bernard Stulberg, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center

Thomas J. Strauss, president and CEO Sisters of Charity Health System

Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, University Hospitals

Grace Wakulchik, president and CEO Akron Children's Hospital Thomas F. Zenty III, CEO University Hospitals

Dr. Kevin Dieter, Hospice of the Western Reserve NURSE FINALISTS: Jennifer Gonzales, Cleveland Clinic Akron General Monica Nelson, Cleveland Clinic Akron General Lynn Hoffman, University Hospitals

AUG. 29 8:30AM

Case Western Reserve University, Tinkham Veale University Center

PUBLIC HEALTH WINNER: Dr. Heidi Gullet, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine VOLUNTEER WINNERS: Kay Nagy, Cleveland Clinic Akron General Bob Earley, Western Reserve Hospital

MAJOR SPONSOR

SUPPORTING SPONSOR

TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Megan Lemke • mlemke@crain.com

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8/15/19 11:48 AM