May 2007 Issue

Accepting the Miller Challenge
Some who heard it refer to it as Sam's talk, as in "What did you think of Sam's talk?" I prefer to call it the Miller Challenge. Detractors tell me beer drinkers will think it's a taste test. Still, I prefer Miller Challenge to Sam's talk, but either way, that's not the point. What's important is what Sam Miller said on a cold day in March. The Ball Room at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven was filled with 550 business professionals, equally split between women and men, with an average age 40 years youn...

Commercial Development

Quick Reaction
It's not quite a Bermuda Triangle, but the modern retail universe is an exciting and challenging one, existing among the complex intersections of investment opportunity, consumer demand, tenant needs and community preference. Still, the present-day retail development journey can be as rewarding as any in our American history of shopping. Retailers today conduct more up-front research to better understand the community in which they propose to do business. They consider how they might modify traditional ...

Seeing Green
The exterior of Premier Toyota in Amherst looks like any other dealership - a glass box stationed on a sea of concrete, expansive enough to hold 552 vehicles. It contains all the elements necessary for business-as-usual in the world of auto sales and service: parking lot lights - 117 of them, to be exact - seating for customers; service bays for repairs; and, of course, plenty of inventory. But it's what customers don't see at the dealership that makes General Manager Bob Fisher most proud. "Business ca...

Cover Story

Man in Motion
Don Washkewicz couldn't get the engine grease out from under his fingernails. For his first six months at Parker Hannifin Corp., the 23-year-old Washkewicz removed defective hoses from about 300 truck engine starter motors. For the later portion of 1972 into 1973, the graduate from the Fenn College of Engineering at Cleveland State University spent his days in a truck garage cramming his arm into the narrow gap between an 18-wheeler's engine and frame, wrenching off a large nut to remove the hose. The h...

eIndustry

In Theory
For years I've teased my cousin that she was born with a long tail, like a monkey. I even produced the (Photoshop) photo of the hairy appendage. Now that she's 13, she doesn't accept the tail story anymore though her younger brother is still convinced he originally had three eyes - again thanks to my addition with Photoshop. In recent years, the Long Tail has become part of e-Industry's standard vocabulary. The term comes from an article by Wired magazine Editor Chris Anderson, which he turned into the ...

Manny Awards

2007 Manny Awards - Biggest Breakthrough
Back in Gear A poor economy couldn't stop FDC Machine Repair Inc. When the economy took a downward turn at the end of 2001, FDC Machine Repair Inc. of Parma, feeling the brunt of its effects, had to tighten its belt. "We were being squeezed against the wall a little bit," FDC President Fred DiCenso remembers. And that pressure didn't loosen up for another two years, creating tough times for the company that had just moved into a brand new 30,000-square-foot facility. But at the end of 2004...

2007 Manny Awards - Manufacturing Excellence
Manufacturing is becoming more global and more competitive every day, and yet the people in the business of making things in Northeast Ohio are finding new ways to grow and innovate despite this challenging environment. For them, quitting is not an option. In the following sections, we celebrate 15 companies of all sizes, ages and ownerships that have exhibited success in the areas of adding new jobs, creating great workplaces, designing new products, making a breakthrough and charting growth. In the ni...

2007 Manny Awards - New Job Creation
Healthy Impact Thommen Medical USA is building its sales and marketing workforce in Cleveland. Native Clevelander David Gentile saw the move to Cleveland as the right decision. Thommen Medical USA, a subsidiary of Thommen Medical AG in Switzerland, relocated its implantology business headquarters operations from Oklahoma to downtown Cleveland's Idea Center last September, initially employing 15 in administration and sales positions. "We were looking for a metropolitan city that would offer...

2007 Manny Awards - New Product Development/Innovation
Innovating Instant Interaction Turning Technologies' breakthrough response system is creating hype in the marketplace. "The TurningPoint audience response system is an amazing way to facilitate learning, decision making and group dynamics," says Mike Broderick, CEO of Youngstown-based Turning Technologies. Such hype is well grounded, in fact, when it comes to this breakthrough system, which combines Microsoft PowerPoint software with a range of response devices - from handheld units called...

2007 Manny Awards - Top Growth
Wise Investments Trek Diagnostics devotes its resources to maximizing its customers' value. Some say you reap what you sow and in the worlds of R&D, manufacturing and distribution, this is especially true. Just ask Mike Burke, CEO of Cleveland-based TREK Diagnostics, a global manufacturer and distributor of automated systems and products for microbiology diagnostic testing, serving the clinical, pharmaceutical and veterinary laboratory markets. "We invest tremendous resources in all produc...

2007 Manny Awards - Top Manufacturing Companies
Company Name Top Executive City Website American Foam Products Inc. Charles R. Luck Painesville www.americanfoamproducts.com American Greetings Zev Weiss Cleveland www.americangreetings.com American Spring Wire Timothy Selhorst Cleveland www.americanspringwire.com Applied Industrial Technologies David L. Pugh Cleveland www.applied.com Argo Tech Michael S. Lipscomb Cleveland www.argo-tech.com Automated Packaging Systems Mike Searcy Streetsboro www.autobag.com Babcock & Wilcox John Fees Barber...

Experience That Counts
In Grant Thornton LLP's 14th annual Survey of U.S. Business Leaders, responders identified thrilling customers by exceeding their expectations and standing out from the competition as a key ingredient for success. Internally, the prestigious accounting firm with 500 offices and 20,000 employees in 110 countries refers to that synergy between experienced, committed staff and delighted clients as the Grant Thornton Experience. "We feel we have a passion for what we do," says Richard Gross, assurance partn...

In Your Corner
In 1944, when John W. Bricker, a three-term Ohio governor, two-term U.S. senator from Ohio and a former candidate for vice president of the United States, founded his law firm, American manufacturing stood at the height of its worldwide dominance and influence. Today, although the landscape has changed considerably, manufacturing remains critical to the American economy, and Bricker & Eckler LLP has burgeoned into a full-service law firm that boasts a substantial clientele of individual manufacturing co...

NEONow

Catching Copycats
More than 85 percent of small-business owners are unaware that their patents or trademarks issued in the United States do not protect them from piracy or counterfeiters overseas, says a top intellectual property (IP) enforcer for the U.S. government. Wayne Paugh, a senior advisor to the U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Commerce, says more small- and middle-market business owners are becoming victims of the $250 billion in IP theft every year....

Time for Change
"Give me a C-L-E-V-E-L-A-N-D!" And so it went. The biggest cheerleaders of the city gathered in late March at the House of Blues to forecast the development of a whole new city, encompassing a vibrant, urban downtown that includes Whiskey Island, University Circle and Public Square. "My philosophy is simple: I think we need to build a new city," says Bob Stark, seated under the big lights with fellow developer titans Steve Strnisha, Doug Price, Nathan Zaremba, Ari Maron, as well as Executive Director of...

Too Little, Too Late
A vacation resort might still be in the cards for Lorain County, but the chances of a European consortium heading the development is unlikely after three years of failed attempts to purchase South Amherst quarry property from American Stone Industries Inc. Since 2004, Trans European Securities International LLP has promised to buy the nearly 1,000 acres from American Stone - entering into numerous buying options and a contract agreement in 2005 - in order to build a premier $1.2 billion golf and vacatio...

Trend Spotter
The weather, sports scores and lottery numbers may be out of his realm, but National City Corp. Chief Economist Richard DeKaser can predict the U.S. economy. In late March, DeKaser was named the most accurate economic forecaster for 2006 by the nation's top-selling newspaper, USA Today . He previously charted third in 2003 and fourth in 2004. The newspaper asked the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to conduct anonymous surveys with 41 economists in each quarter of last year. Each economist received a sin...

Off the Clock

Antique Abode
Cross the threshold of the Chagrin Falls home of Christian Boehm and you will take a step back in time where French-colonial style meets modern-day amenities. Set back on a private cul-de-sac, Christian, vice president and director of marketing and merchandising for the Tom James Co., has made the 4,850-square-foot mansion a home with his wife, Kelli, and two daughters Madison, 10, and McKenna, 8, and countless antiques most would have to travel thousands of miles to see. Their two-story French colonial...

On the Run
A gym bag always sits in David Gilbert's car just in case. After his daily two-hour morning workout, Gilbert, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, never knows when he will get the opportunity to squeeze in a quick run during the day. Gilbert is seemingly always training. For most, running is a way to stay fit. But for Gilbert, it's a passion that has inspired him to run nearly 20 marathons and, in the past few years, compete in triathlons. "It is such a great mental release - mo...

Ohio Entrepreneur

A Game of Telephone
These days Chris Courtney is growth focused. "In today's economy, I'm of the opinion that you can't just sit back and wait for [work] to come," says Courtney, co-owner of C.W. Courtney Co. in Mayfield Heights. Late last year after Courtney and his brother/partner, Doug, acquired Garrett & Associates, a land surveying and civil engineering firm, they were faced with a dilemma. As co-owner of these two land surveying firms, Courtney needed his employees to concentrate more on long-term growth. "In the civ...

Chain Reaction
Like most kids, Scott Cowan learned to ride a bike when he was five or six years old. He rode throughout his childhood and college years. "I rode even after I got my driver's license," recalls Cowan. "But I wasn't a bike dude." After graduating from Miami University in Oxford with a degree in geography, Cowan started to take his biking more seriously. While not cycling competitively, he began biking longer distances for pleasure - doing night rides along the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail. "You smell...

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