BONDED BLOCKS - Crain's Cleveland Business

By JAY [email protected]

Larchmere Road on Cleve-land’s East Side is getting a$2.4 million facelift thisyear.

That’s the good news and the bad

news for businesses on Larchmere.For shopkeepers along aging thor-

oughfares like Larchmere, which isnear Shaker Square, the prospect offresh pavement and sidewalks —and maybe fresh landscaping anddecorative benches — is helpful be-cause it can attract new customers

and generally make the street amore inviting place to spend money.

But first, the business ownersmust endure months — in the caseof Larchmere, from May until Octo-ber — of orange barrels, parkingbans, treacherous temporary side-walks and sometimes even blockedentrances. All of that can reducecustomer flow and sales so severelythat it can sink a struggling restau-rant or other fragile businesses.

By MICHELLE PARK [email protected]

Most of the real estate empire thatdeveloper Richard M. Osborne sayshe has spent 50 years amassing soonwon’t be his if it’s snapped up in auc-tions he has agreed to in order to payoff a bank and resolve the bankrupt-cies of three of his companies.

Between two planned auctions,more than 200 of Osborne’s proper-ties — much of it in Lake County —will be for sale as part of a proposedagreement to settle debts that heand his entities owe to RBS Citizens.

Seventeen properties valued atmore than $11 million are to be auc-tioned this Wednesday, April 30, atthe Crowne Plaza Hotel in Indepen-dence. They include a 453-spaceparking garage near the new Cleve-land Convention Center, roughly120 agricultural acres in Chardonand several commercial properties.

It is the largest dollar-volume com-mercial real estate auction scheduledfor Northeast Ohio that HannaChartwell executives can recall.

“Not a lot of people own as muchproperty as Mr. Osborne does, sothat makes it unique,” said Mac Big-gar, president of Hanna Chartwell,the commercial brokerage arm ofHoward Hanna that conducts auc-tions.

“There will be some bargains tobe had,” Biggar said, noting that Os-borne’s vacant properties are avail-able for “greatly reduced prices.”

The second auction, which willtake place on May 31, will put on

the block some 220 industrial, com-mercial and residential parcels Os-borne owns, according to Biggarand Osborne.

Auction proceeds will be usedfirst to extinguish any liens on theproperties, then to pay RBS Citi-zens, a creditor of three of Os-borne’s companies that filed bank-ruptcy two years ago.

If the properties sell, Osborne es-timates he’ll be left with 20 or 30properties.

“I have a lender that I have to payoff (and) that’s probably the bestway to do it,” he said.

The impending auctions are in-cluded in a proposed settlementagreement filed in U.S. BankruptcyCourt in the Western District ofPennsylvania in the bankruptcycases of Oz Gas Ltd., Great PlainsExploration LLC and John D. Oil &Gas Co.

The companies filed for Chapter11 bankruptcy protection in Janu-ary 2012, stating their financial dif-ficulties were a direct result of thedrop in the price of natural gas. RBSCitizens, which had lent the compa-nies approximately $30 million, re-quired that the loans be less than65% of the companies’ reserves, andas a result of the decline in naturalgas prices, that requirement wasnot met, according to court records.

$2.00/APRIL 28 - MAY 4, 2014

Entire contents © 2014by Crain Communications Inc.

Vol. 35, No. 17

07447083781

717 TECHNOLOGY

STRONGERBrandmuscle is growing rapidly,and its expanded operations aremuch more seamless ■■ Page 5

NEW

SPAP

ER

See BLOCKS Page 6 See OSBORNE Page 8

Osborne empirewill dwindle soon

JANET CENTURY

Larchmere Road, which is near Shaker Square, is in the midst of a $2.4 million makeover.

Developer hasmore than 200 of his propertiesheaded to auction

BONDED BLOCKSLarchmere Road merchants band togetherto better survive months of streetscaping

$906,000Total appraised value of 11Osborne family propertiesCrain’s has identified asheaded to a May sheriff salein Lake County. For moredetails, see Page 8.

20140428-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_-- 4/25/2014 2:37 PM

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2 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM APRIL 28 - MAY 4, 2014

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being extracted elsewhere in theUnited States, is a boon to industry,the University of Akron’s Weiss said.Not only will companies get a newsupply of close-in raw materials, butthose materials can be derived fromnatural gas much more cheaplythan they can be made from crudeoil overseas. U.S. companies alsoget methane that costs half or one-third as much as it does for overseascompetitors, making it cheaper tofuel heat-intensive production ofthings like plastics, polyester, paintsand synthetic rubber, he said.

‘Disadvantage’ disappearsWeiss is far from alone as a born-

again optimist.Nearly every national trade asso-

ciation and local economic develop-er involved with affected industrieshas become a booster for shale gasdevelopment. The American Chem-istry Council, for one, has been quickto point out how new supplies ofnatural gas and NGLs are fuelinggrowth in the chemical industry.

Last Wednesday, April 23, theAmerican Chemistry Council notedthat its “Chemical Activity Barome-ter” hit its highest point since 2008.The day before, it called attention tocomments from Vice President JoeBiden, who noted in a speech hegave in Ukraine to support hy-draulic fracturing that “53% of U.S.manufacturing companies operat-ing in China have expressed interestin reshoring or investing in U.S.projects to benefit from the successof domestic shale developments.”

At a recent Canton RegionalChamber of Commerce event, PaulBoulier, vice president of businessattraction for Team NEO, told at-

tendees, “Everything you’re goingto touch for the rest of your lives isderived from these feedstocks. Wewere at a competitive disadvantagein terms of feedstock. … Now that’sgone away,” he said.

Boulier wasn’t just speaking as abooster of Northeast Ohio. He holdsa masters degree in plastics engi-neering, and he previously held se-nior management positions atNortheast Ohio plastics companiesincluding A. Schulman Inc. andCore Molding Technologies.

Not that it takes an expert to see amegatrend like this. In Ohio, there al-ready have been about $19 billion inshale gas infrastructure investmentsannounced for the Utica shale. Thoseinclude pipelines to gather the gasand to move it to processing centershere and on the Gulf Coast, as well asfor plants that will remove NGLsfrom the Utica’s so-called “wet gas.”

But that amount pales in com-parison to what the U.S. chemicaland plastics industry is spendingnationwide, as it builds facilities touse NGLs and create goods like bot-tles, clothing, toys and just aboutany other product made or imag-ined in the last 50 years. Boulier saidthere are more than 100 majorchemical projects being developedin the United States. They representa $72 billion investment, which willresult in $67 billion in new chemicalindustry output annually, he said.

Fueling growthThe $67 billion question for

Northeast Ohio, of course, is towhat degree will the region partici-pate in and benefit from this newbounty of raw materials.


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Gas production fuels excitementOhio’s shale gas drilling is producing valuable byproductsBy DAN [email protected]

There’s not much drilling for shalegas in Northeast Ohio, but thedrilling that takes place throughoutthe state still will have a large impacton the region’s plastics and chemicalindustries that rely on natural gas forraw materials.

“The plastics industry is salivatingover this. With natural gas, you alsoget byproducts like ethane andpropane and these can be cracked tomake (plastic raw materials) ethyl-ene and propylene,” said Bob Weiss,chair of the polymer engineering de-partment at the University of Akron.

His knowledge of the topic isn’tjust theoretical. At the University ofAkron, Weiss and his students helpengineer polymers derived from thenatural gas byproducts.

Just a few years ago, U.S. plasticcompanies were moving productionabroad, as domestic supplies ofethane and other raw materials con-tinued a decades-long decline.

But that has changed, as Ohio isplaying a major role in restocking thenation’s supply of the materials, col-lectively referred to as “natural gasliquids,” or NGLs.

The state’s production of NGLshas gone from virtually zero threeyears ago to about 23,000 barrels aday in 2013, said Jennifer Van Dinter,spokeswoman for Bentek Energy, aColorado-based energy analyticscompany. That was before drillingtook off, as it’s expected to this year.

“We think this year, 2014, it will bemore on the order of 123,000 barrelsa day,” Van Dinter said. At currentprices, that’s about $450 millionworth of NGLs per year.

That production, along with NGLs

Volume 35, Number 17 Crain’s Cleveland Business (ISSN 0197-2375) is published weekly, ex-cept for combined issues on the fourth week of December and fifth week of December at 700 WestSt. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 44113-1230. Copyright © 2014 by Crain CommunicationsInc. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio, and at additional mailing offices. Price per copy:$2.00. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Circulation De-partment, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48207-2912. 1-877-824-9373.

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Subscriptions: In Ohio: 1 year - $64, 2 year - $110. Outside Ohio: 1year - $110, 2 year - $195. Single copy, $2.00. Allow 4 weeks forchange of address. For subscription information and delivery concernssend correspondence to Audience Development Department, Crain’sCleveland Business, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, Michigan, 48207-9911, or email to [email protected], or call 877-824-9373 (in the U.S. and Canada) or (313) 446-0450 (all other loca-tions), or fax 313-446-6777.

See GAS Page 6


By CHUCK [email protected]

There’s a reason why Brandmuscle ex-pects to keep breaking the sales andprofitability records it just set. The lines between the three marketing

technology companies that merged to formBrandmuscle largely have been erased, accord-ing to CEO Phil Alexander.

Now the combined company is starting to roll.

Brandmuscle added 11 national and interna-tional brands to its list of 175 clients since late2013, and it posted double-digit increases in salesand profitability in the first quarter, hitting newrecords in both categories.

That growth should continue now that Brand-muscle is operating as one seamless company,Alexander said.

“No one talks about what we were. Everyonetalks about who we are,” he said.

The final stitches that unite the three former

companies — BrandMuscle Inc. in Cleveland,Centiv Services of Chicago and TradeOne Marketing of Austin, Texas — now are inplace.

The new version of the company’s Brand-Builder software weaves together technologiesfrom all three businesses.

APRIL 28 - MAY 4, 2014 WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS 5

INSIGHT

See SEARCH Page 9See BRANDMUSCLE Page 12

TWIST CREATIVE

Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona “really adopted”Twist Creative’s “Unfinished Business” advertising slogan for theTribe. The idea came from a conversation with a fan.

Putting its twist on the Tribe’s roots

By KEVIN [email protected]

Prior to November 2013, the ClevelandIndians hadn’t hired an external agencyto focus on a brand campaign in morethan five years.

To earn the Tribe’s trust, and some ofits advertising budget, Twist Creative ap-pealed to the team’s — and the city’s —

roots.“Cleveland as a city has really evolved

and has really connected people with itsdetermination and personality,” saidMike Ozan, who founded Twist with hiswife, Connie, in 2000. “We very muchthought it was important to connect theteam to that same sentiment. That deter-mination, we all feel it and love it.”

The end product was an “Unfinished

Business” campaign that gained someearly momentum on Feb. 28 when NickSwisher — the $14-million-per-year firstbaseman who never seems to have any-thing but a sunny day — passed out T-shirts that displayed the slogan duringspring training.

In one of the preseason spots pro-duced by Twist and Authentic Films, aCleveland-based company run by thehusband-and-wife team of Kevin Kerwinand Kate O’Neil, Indians players JasonKipnis and Michael Brantley are shownputting on their jerseys and hats.

To win Indians’ trust, and business, TwistCreative appealed to team’s bond with city

See TWIST Page 16

MCKINLEY WILEY

Brandmuscle, under the direction of CEO Phil Alexander, has added 11 national and international brands since late 2013. The company now has 175 clients.

Secretivesearch ispubliclyscrutinizedKent State facultyand some expertsquestion approachto president hireBy TIMOTHY [email protected]

“We’re embarrassed.”That’s how a cadre of Kent State

journalism faculty and alumni — ina full-page ad in last Tuesday’s Dai-ly Kent Stater, no less — expressedtheir disgust for the university’s ar-dent refusal to release the short listof finalists considered to take overfor departingpresident LesterA. Lefton or de-tail how it spent$250,000 on thesearch.

For the 11sponsors whopaid $1,071 forthe ad, it’s a mat-ter of pressingtheir employer tofollow the state’spublic recordslaws. The univer-sity, however,says it has turnedover all relevantdocuments as re-quired by law andis now focused on honoring Leftonand welcoming the new president,Beverly Warren, now provost at Vir-ginia Commonwealth University.

Kent State’s secretive searchprocess is in stark contrast to thetransparent presidential searches atneighboring public universities inAkron and Youngstown, both ofwhich have disclosed applicants’names. Cuyahoga Community Col-lege also released the names of thefinalists for its presidency in March2013, but only after being houndedby The Plain Dealer.

Perturbed Kent State faculty,meanwhile, suggest the secrecycould create a hostile work environ-ment mired in mistrust.

Lefton

WarrenBRANDMUSCLE BULKS UPCEO says blending of three technology companies hasmeant sales and profitability records, plus unified vision

“No one talks about what we were.Everyone talks about who we are.”

– Phil Alexander CEO, Brandmuscle,

on the expanded company



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Until recently, it was looking asthough all of Ohio’s gas and NGLswould be processed on the GulfCoast.

Last month, however, Brazil’s oiland gas service company, Ode-brecht, announced it will spend $4billion to $6 billion on an ethyleneproduction plant on the Ohio River,near Parkersburg, W. Va. It said it’shoping similar facilities and relatedmanufacturing companies willspring up to help build a regional

industry cluster.Ohio is gearing up to participate.

The state’s economic developmentagency, JobsOhio, has asked Cleve-land State University to study howthe Utica’s production might fuelchemical and plastics industrialgrowth here.

“We’re doing a study of the na-ture of the hydrocarbons that willbe coming and, based on that, willtry to draw some scenarios of wherethe downstream industry couldgo,” said Andrew Thomas, a CSU

researcher and executive in residence.

That study, which started at theend of March, will be done by theend of the year. It will give the statea better picture of the NGLs thatwill be produced and processed lo-cally. With that information, eco-nomic developers should know bet-ter how to pitch the state tocompany’s looking to expand theirU.S. operations for plastic andchemical manufacturing, Thomassaid. ■

Gas: CSU studying Utica’s productioncontinued from PAGE 4

Blocks: Newer shops could feel impact Believing that a proactive ap-

proach might soften the financialblow that has capsized businessesalong other renovation routes, themerchants and property owners ofLarchmere banded together early inthe streetscape planning processnearly two years ago. As a result ofthat process, they now believethey’ll be able to better absorb ahalf year of turmoil.

Among the tactics some proper-ty owners are considering are ap-peals for property tax reductionsduring the time of the upheaval.Their early involvement also haschanged the way the reconstructionwill be scheduled, reducing theamount of time that normal opera-tions of any one property will bedisrupted.

“We’re really quite excited,” saidSusan Rozman, owner of Fiddle-head Gallery, a nearly 2-year-oldcraft showroom on Larchmere. “Ifind that people don’t pay attentionto traffic problems unless they real-ly hamper people getting into yourstore for a long period of time.”

Rozman believes that the renova-tions will have a greater impact onthe youngest shops.

“Maybe people won’t be asleisurely to meander to find a new-er shop,” she said.

Tackling taxesLarchmere has a handful of arts

and crafts shops like Fiddlehead. Italso boasts a lively mix of neighbor-hood staples like hair solons, delisand an auto body shop, mixed inwith a handful of upscale restau-rants and several dozen shops sell-ing antiques and clothing from re-sale to vintage to high-endEuropean apparel.

Rozman doesn’t own her build-ing, so she’s not involved with theplan to appeal for lower propertytaxes. But others are responding tothe idea from Charles Bromley, aconsultant with the Shaker SquareAlliance, a community organizinggroup. Bromley has been talking toproperty owners about seekingproperty tax relief as a group thatwould argue for a temporary reduc-tion in the assessed value of theirproperty because of the financialdamage their retail tenants will in-cur.

The tax savings could offset rentreductions to retail tenants whomost directly suffer financially be-cause of the road work.

In the past, individual propertyowners have filed for reductions af-ter suffering through the turmoil ofmajor street repair. But this effort isbeginning before the work starts sothat it can benefit retail businesses

while they are suffering, not after-wards, when it may be too late tooffer relief.

Businesses do fail when streetsare torn up, parking is banned and,worst of all, barricades are thrownup that block entrances to shops. Ithappened on Euclid Avenue afterthe Greater Cleveland RegionalTransit Authority in 2004 began torebuild the city’s main thorough-fare to accommodate the bus-rapidtransit now known as the Health-Line.

That redevelopment is consid-ered a success, with new business-es now opening along the route.But the dust and debris that accom-panied the road rebuilding has-tened the death of a handful of Eu-clid Avenue businesses, includingNew Best Gyros and Pizza House in2006 and the Cleveland AthleticClub in 2007.

Heidi Rivchun, the owner of Con-servation Studios, a Larchmereshop that restores antique anddamaged furniture, and two otherproperties on the street, said she in-tends to seek reductions in proper-ty taxes from the Cuyahoga CountyBoard of Revision for her proper-ties.

“All they have been doing is rais-ing the taxes as it’s been, eventhough we’ve been through a pret-ty critical period since 2008,” shesaid, though she’s not sure the ef-fort will be successful. “At the veryleast, it’s an important exercise forall of us.”

Rivchun said if she is successfulin lowering her tax bill she will passalong the savings to her tenants, in-cluding Bon Vivant Larchmere, aFrench bistro. “It’s a small placethat could face a crisis” if businessslows down during the reconstruc-tion, she said.

One block at a timeOther property owners, though,

believe they can ride out the tur-moil without tax relief.

Ron Meister, who owns twobuildings on Larchmere and oper-ates Shaker Quality Auto Body onone of the properties, said he’s notgoing to seek to lower his taxes.

“That’s a good way to choke offincome to the city, and what’s thepoint?” he said. “We’re going to beinconvenienced for summer —that’s all it is. I would rather just paymy taxes and get my services.”

He will, however, have signsmade that will point customers toalternate entrances to his bodyshop.

A key factor for the Larchmereshopkeepers was working with thecity of Cleveland as it planned thespecifications for the redo. GregStaursky, co-executive director ofthe Shaker Square Area Develop-ment Corp., said his group, theLarchmere Community Associa-tion and the Larchmere MerchantsAssociation all participated in ear-ly conversations with city engi-neers.

The city agreed to do the work ona block-by-block basis rather thanclosing traffic in one direction orthe other as work progressed andthe community groups acceptedthe longer time frame that schedulewould entail.

“There was a critical part early onworking with the city of Cleveland,”Staursky recalled. “It could havebeen done a little bit faster if theyshut the street down and caused areal inconvenience, but not onlythe merchants but the area resi-dents spoke out in favor of doing it(block by block) and maintainingtraffic.” ■

continued from PAGE 1

JANET CENTURY

Ron Meister, owner of Shaker Quality Auto Body on Larchmere, isn’t going toseek lower property taxes during the road’s construction.


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Osborne: Developer calls banks ‘thieves’ At the time of the bankruptcy pe-

titions, RBS claimed the total bal-ance due on the companies’ noteswas about $30 million. Since then,RBS has been paid about $15 mil-lion, and claims it now is owed $17million to $19 million, according toRobert S. Bernstein, managing part-ner at Bernstein-Burkley P.C., thePittsburgh-based law firm repre-senting Osborne’s companies.

Per a filing on March 19, RBS hasagreed to accept $10.8 million in fulland complete settlement of eachand every claim against the debtorsif it receives the entire amount on orbefore June 30. The filing does setforth terms of possible extensionthrough Sept. 30.

Now, the companies await a bank-ruptcy judge’s action on a motionthey filed to approve the agreementbetween them, Osborne, RBS andother entities, pursuant to whichHanna Chartwell is to sell off real es-tate to pay RBS and allow the com-panies to reorganize and continuetheir business.

‘They put me in trouble’In addition to Lake County, the

properties to be auctioned are inCuyahoga, Ashtabula, Richland,Portage, Summit and Geauga coun-ties, per a listing agreement filedwith the court.

Meanwhile, 11 Lake County prop-erties, which have an appraised valuetopping $900,000 and are ascribed toOsborne or an Osborne trustee, areheaded for sheriff sale in May.

When it comes to some propertieshe’s “let go” to sheriff’s sale, Osbornesaid he didn’t have the money to paythe taxes.

Buyers in the auctions will re-ceive properties free and clear ofany liens, Biggar said. Osborne isnot permitted to bid in either auc-tion, he noted.

Osborne has made other effortsto pay down the money he said heborrowed from RBS Citizens for oiland gas exploration: Crain’s report-ed in July 2012 that he sold roughly800,000 shares of Gas Natural Inc.,the company he leads, to pay downthe RBS debt.

“Every bank I did business withchanged the rules,” Osborne said.“All my loans were current, I nevermissed payments and the banks areall calling the loans.”

According to Osborne, several ofhis lenders changed loan terms, andothers hiked interest rates.

“I made all my money off of bor-

rowing money off of banks and pay-ing them back, and when they got introuble, I wasn’tin trouble,” Os-borne said.“They put me introuble.

“They’rethieves,” headded. “Theythink they’reabove the law.”

When askedfor comment on matters relating toOsborne, representatives for RBSCitizens Financial Group and FifthThird Bank said the banks do notcomment on litigation. Inquiriessent to a few other institutions Os-borne named were not answered byCrain’s deadline last Friday, April25. ■


Osborne

■ Crain’s on Twitter: @CrainsCleveland■ Crain’s on Facebook: Facebook.com/CrainsCleveland■ Crain’s daily e-newsletters: CrainsCleveland.com/register

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More than 320 people attended Crain’s 2014 CIO of the Year Awards reception on April 15 at LaCentre in Westlake. The event honors NEO’s

leading information technology executives.

CIOOF THE YEAR

2014

2014 CIO of the Year Award Winners

Terabyte Award RecipientDr. Martin Harris,

The Cleveland Clinic

Small Non-Profit OrganizationToby J. Miletta,

Eliza Jennings

Large Non-Profit OrganizationJeff Mowry,

Cuyahoga County

Small Private CompanyRob Sable,

Alliance Solutions Group

Mid-Size Private CompanyRachel Johnson,

The NRP Group

Large Private CompanyMatthew Dickerson,

SIRVA

Public CompanyAmy Brady,

KeyCorp

In Partnership With

1. Brad Nellis, director of NEOSA,

welcomes guests from the podium.

2. Winners and finalists pictured,

from left, are: Rob Sable, Michael

McManamon, Dr. Martin Harris, Amy

Brady, Jeff Mowry, Rachel Johnson,

Russell Grindon, Gary K. Conkol and

Toby J. Miletta. Not pictured is winner

Matthew Dickerson and finalists Chris

Fuss, Kathy Golovan, Dale Phillips,

Deborah Piccus and Ron Steiger.

3. Dr. Martin Harris poses with sponsors

Margi Shaw and Ravi Marwaha from

First Communications.

4. MCPc was so supportive of teammate

and CIO of the Year finalist, Dale Phillips,

they campaigned for him with stickers.

THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER GREAT EVENT!

1 2

3

4

Co-Presented by

Networking Sponsor Video Sponsor

2014 Terabyte AwardSponsor

Display Sponsor Supported byAlumni Hall of

Fame Sponsor

Check out our post-event coverage at CrainsCleveland.com/CIO

Search: HR consultant says new president must ‘build trust’ Still, others suggest a closed

search process ensures confidential-ity for high-profile candidates whomight not want to risk their currentgigs. A backlash of sorts erupted, forinstance, at Youngstown State whenthe campus learned its president ofless than a year was a finalist for thetop job at a university in Illinois.

“I get the transparency argumentand understand it and to a degreesupport it, but it does have an im-pact on pools,” said Jamie P. Ferrare,managing principal at AGB Search, aWashington, DC-based firm han-dling the current Youngstown Statesearch. “There’s no question aboutit.”

Karl Idsvoog, an associate profes-sor at Kent State and one of thesponsors of the ad, called the confi-dentiality argument “a bunch ofhorse hooey” and stressed the needfor transparency at public institu-tions.

“What does it say about the edu-cational leadership of an institutionthat witnesses this and not a singledean or department head is sayingword?” Idsvoog said.

Déjà vu?This isn’t Kent State’s first rodeo

when it comes to withholding presi-dential search records. The universi-ty only released the names of its fi-nalists from the search that broughtthem Lester Lefton in 2006 after theAkron Beacon Journal drafted a law-suit, according to Karen Lefton, thepaper’s former general counsel andnow an attorney in private practice.Lefton said Ohio Supreme Court hasbeen clear that these sorts of recordsare public.

The Beacon Journal, to its credit,has led the charge in recent weeksdemanding the university turn overmore records related to the searchthat brought Warren.

“This seems very blatant,” saidLefton, who is not related to KentState’s current president. “I do notunderstand what their thinking is. Iwish we could get to that. Is theresomething they think they’re pro-tecting? They named their new pres-ident a few months ago, and if theythought they were protecting some-thing during the process, that timehas come and gone.”

Last week, the University of Akronunveiled its short list of candidates,which included former Ohio Statefootball coach Jim Tressel, to replaceoutgoing president Luis Proenza inJuly. Youngstown State’s openprocess revealed that Tressel alsoapplied for that presidency.

Starting this week, the Universityof Akron will hold open forums withits finalists. Kent State did nothing ofthe sort. Baldwin Wallace University,a private institution in Berea, evenheld open forums with its finalists toreplace Richard Durst in 2012.

Jonathan T. Pavloff, chair of Uni-versity of Akron’s presidential advi-sory and screening committee anduniversity trustee, said the open fo-rums weren’t a knee-jerk reaction toKent’s search but rather part of theAkron’s search process from thestart. In addition to the open forums,the finalists will meet with variousconstituency groups around cam-pus, including faculty and adminis-trators.

“I’m expecting a very lively inter-action between the audience and theparticipants,” Pavloff said.

Trust buildingLori Long, a human resources

consultant and an associate profes-sor at Baldwin Wallace, said KentState may have alienated some ofits stakeholders. She said the confi-dentiality one might expect in acorporate search isn’t possible in auniversity setting.

“It’s important to get stakehold-er buy-in, especially when that per-son has to influence so many differ-ent groups — donors, alumni,students, faculty,” Long said. “Theyall have very different interests inwhat they want or expect from apresident.”

Long said Warren — who, ofcourse, had no involvement in how

Kent State’s search was structured— needs to “make an effort to shareinformation and make decisionsthat build trust moving forward.”

Warren’s selection as KentState’s president has been well re-ceived, but faculty, particularlythose in the journalism sequence,have had a hard time acceptinghow the search was conducted.

“This goes against what weteach, and we really believe in theidea of public records and account-ability,” said Jan Leach, a Kent Stateassociate professor and former ed-itor of the Beacon Journal.

Leach and 27 other members ofKent State’s School of Journalismand Mass Communication faculty

signed a resolution that demandsthe university immediately releaseall records covered by the OhioPublic Records Act, including thoseused by the university’s search

firm, related to the search. The res-olution also urges the university topledge that all future executivesearches be conducted in “strictcompliance” of the state’s publicrecords and open meetings lawsand “reflect our institutional com-mitment to transparency.”

“Intellectually, I accept the argu-ment that some people require con-fidentiality to be considered forthese top-level jobs,” said Leach,who chairs the journalism se-quence. “I get that. I do believe apublic institution is bound by thelaws of the state it’s working in andthat supersedes that concern. Youhave to understand this is a publicuniversity. This is what happens.” ■

continued from PAGE 5TENURES AT THE TOPA look at Kent State’s presidentialhistory the last 51 years:

■ Robert I. White, 1963-71■ Glenn A. Olds, 1971-77■ Brage Golding, 1977-82■ Michael Schwartz, 1982-91■ Carol A. Cartwright, 1991-2006■ Lester A. Lefton, 2006-14■ Beverly J. Warren: Will assumepresidency this July


Jim Tressel doesn’t have aPh.D. Jim Tressel has never runeven a small college.

Jim Tressel could have re-vealed his knowledge of theinfamous tattoo scandal to in-vestigators on four differentoccasions. Each time he wassilent. “A deliberate effort toconceal the situation,” theNCAA said.

Jim Tressel remains underan NCAA “show-cause” penalty, a strictprobation, until the end of 2016.

Jim Tressel should be the next presi-dent of the University of Akron.

Full disclosure: I am an Ohio Stategrad. But I also think I’m right.

Ten, 20 years ago, putting a figure likeTressel into the president’s office of a Di-vision I university would have been un-thinkable. But things have changed oncampus.

As the economy improves and tuitionsoars, college enrollment nationwide hasactually started dropping for the firsttime in decades. (Akron’s enrollmentthis spring is down nearly 5% from lastyear.)

Some institutions are onthe edge of what’s being calleda death spiral: Enrollmentdrops, deficits are created,cuts are made, tuition is hikedand enrollment drops again.

Trustees at Akron, facing a$15 million deficit next schoolyear, last week voted to hiketuition and fees and eliminatemore than two dozen acade-mic programs. This comes af-ter other cuts and even some

layoffs earlier this academic year.The university also is sitting on more

than $400 million in debt. It’s crisis time.To steer clear from the spiral, the

school needs three things: more stu-dents, more financial support and a lean,mean organization. Enter the coach.

Once he’s named president, the mediacoverage will come, as will national at-tention — easily the most the universityhas ever received. And the old coach willget lots of face time.

Tressel’s reputation as a master ofone-on-one engagement is legendary.He makes it a point to speak, listen andconnect with everyone he meets. Thosewho say it’s an act haven’t witnessed it

up close. I imagine more than a few financial

supporters and high-achieving highschool seniors will get the full Tresseltreatment.

I also believe the university needs tobe ready for a storm of criticism. Tres-sel’s lack of traditional credentials andhis sullied past are going to bring outscores of critics. These are the same folkswho said a young coach fromYoungstown State would never be ableto go from facing the likes of MissouriState and Hofstra to Penn State andMichigan.

In reality, a university president isn’tin the lectures or the labs. A degree onthe wall doesn’t matter much. The pres-ident’s job is to create a culture of suc-cess, to raise money, to attract talent andto build a consensus for positive change— the same skills Tressel has shown fordecades.

I’m not going to say that PresidentTressel will succeed like Coach Tressel,but I’m not going to bet against it either.

It’s a monumental risk. Many will sayit’s one the university can’t afford totake.

I say they can’t afford not to. ■


A lofty updateLeisure travelers rate airports on the quality of

food courts, the number of phone-charging sta-tions, the shops, the skylights. For businesstravelers, who make up the majority of plane

passengers, it’s all about four words: Easy in, easy out.Fly into LAX or O’Hare or LaGuardia and you’ll

quickly realize that on this important measure, Cleve-land Hopkins is a gem. Where else can you touchdown, pick up a car or jump on the rapid and be down-town, all in 45 minutes?

But even the most comfortable and dependableshoes need to be shined.

The décor of Hopkins’ main terminal — and baggagearea especially — can be accurately described as out-dated, with low ceilings, dreary lighting and sketchybathrooms. If a city’s airport makes a first impression,many parts of ours seem to be giving visitors the equiv-alent of a dead-fish handshake.

But that is changing. Last week, the airport revealedplans for a $20 million facelift to the ticket lobby, bag-gage claim area and facade.

Some critics will say the upgrades, announced lessthan three months after United Airlines pulled theplug on its Cleveland hub, are foolish. Why shore upand repaint the barn when two-thirds of the horseshave escaped?

In truth, the renovations are long overdue. The mainterminal should be a warm, airy welcome mat to a newCleveland, not a bleak look back to the days of GeorgeKennedy “Airport” movies. It should offer an atmos-phere that matches its easy-in, easy-out convenience.

The cash for the project is coming from unspentgeneral airline revenue bonds, so airlines, passengersand the airport itself will not face additional costs.

Smart business people and cities look at setbacks —whether it’s an unsuccessful product launch or the lossof airline hub — not as a failure but as an opportunity.We encourage the city and the airport to push aheadwith renovations and then keep going. We want areimagined airport befitting our reimagined city.

Step up

W e call the center of downtown PublicSquare, but if we wanted to be accurate,we’d call it “Public Squares.” Superior Avenue and Ontario Street gouge

the space into four smaller quadrants, allowing trafficand noise to rob the area of its potential as a pedestrianzone and green space.

The Group Plan Commission has bold and coura-geous plans to bring the pieces together and create astunning new center of downtown. The proposal callsfor the closing of Ontario Street in the square. Trafficon Superior will likely be limited to buses only. The re-sult will be 5 1/2 acres of park-like space.

If all goes according to plan, a summer night on Pub-lic Square will see families watching an outdoor movieon a massive lawn, children playing in a new fountainand couples chatting at cafes. Sounds great, right?

There’s a problem. The plan will cost about $30 mil-lion, and for the new spaces to be ready for a 2016presidential convention, construction needs to beginsoon. The project sits at a fork: action or inaction.

Daniel H. Burnham — the mind behind Cleveland’soriginal Group Plan of 1903 — famously advised,“Make no little plans.” We’d like to see the potentialfunders of this marvelous plan — corporations, foun-dations, the philanthropic community — step up soonand make no little contributions.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

JOHNCAMPANELLI

Former OSU coach should zip to top

Re: New arena proposed for Akron■ This would be huge for downtownAkron. The James A. Rhodes Arena isoutdated. — Adam Rosen

■ This is not the best use of taxpayers’money. (The arena would be financed bya 0.25% hike in the Summit County salestax.)

Those who proposed this idea are re-ally out of touch. — Sarah Reinbolt

■ The cost of the venture is actually rea-sonable considering its magnitude(9,000 seats is modest and practical), andit will convert the downtown area to amore beneficial, 12-month hot spot thatwill benefit area restaurants and retail.

This is a long time coming, but it willbe a great change. — Melvin Gaines

Re: Tressel a finalist for U. of Akron presidency■ Jim Tressel has the right backgroundand personality. UA is hurting in manyways right now. What is needed duringthis transition is a dynamic personalitywho can make things happen.

In a business where perception iseverything, cutbacks, freezes, layoffs andeliminating departments like theater arealways the wrong answer. They point toa dying institution. When things gettough, it’s time to be bold and make bigimprovements.

OPINION

PUBLISHER:John Campanelli ([email protected])

EDITOR:Elizabeth McIntyre ([email protected])

MANAGING EDITOR:Scott Suttell ([email protected])

TALK ON THE WEB

Reader responses to storiesand blogs that appeared on: www.crainscleveland.com

See WEB Page 11

POLL POSITIONSIs the practice of adjusting prices

for single-game tickets fair to fans?

Yes. It should cost more to see betterteams.

No. Prices should remain the same all season.

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Vote in the poll each week at:CrainsCleveland.com


Hiring Terry Bowden as the headfootball coach was good for the uni-versity’s athletic image. Now it’stime to be bold in other areas,rather than timid and conservative.It’s time to make visible moves thatmake students want to come. It’stime to move world-level researchbeyond polymers and become aleader in other areas of technologi-cal development, as well as otherarms of academia.

Ohio wants to be a world-leaderin renewable energy. That’s a goodplace to start. Northeast Ohio is anational leader in entrepreneurial-ism. There needs to be a programwhich speaks to that.

There are new, beautiful apart-ments for students popping up allaround the campus. Things arelooking good. It’s time to take it tothe next level. I believe that JimTressel is the person who can makethat happen. — Dave Andrews

Re: $20 million Hopkinsfacelift■ It’s about time!

The exterior of both the ticketingand baggage claim areas are embar-rassing. It’s old and dirty looking.When you stand out there in therain or snow, you get drenched. Ihope they also put in heat lamps forcold winter months.

Renovations at the airport andPublic Square downtown are longoverdue and will help to have a posi-tive effect on the image of Cleveland.God knows we need it. — Trey Drier

Re: Possible AT&T fiberexpansion■ What AT&T would have the pressand public believe is that they’re en-gaged in a massive new deploymentof fiber to the home service. What’sactually happening is that AT&T isupgrading a few high-end develop-ments where fiber was already inthe ground (these users were previ-ously capped at DSL speeds) andpretending it’s a serious expansionof fixed-line broadband.

At the same time, AT&T ispromising a massive expansion infixed line broadband, they’re tellinginvestors they aren’t spending

much money on the initiative, be-cause they aren’t. AT&T’s focus ison more profitable wireless. “Gi-gapower” is a show pony designedto help the company pretendthey’re not being outmaneuvered intheir core business by a search en-gine company.

If you read the AT&T press re-lease carefully, the company admitsas much. “This expanded fiber buildis not expected to impact AT&T’scapital investment plans for 2014,”notes AT&T.

That’s what they noted last year,and will surely say the same thingnext year. In fact, AT&T’s been reduc-ing their fixed-line CAPEX each year.What kind of major 1 Gbps broad-band expansion doesn’t hit yourCAPEX? One that’s either very tiny, orsimply doesn’t exist. — John Smith

Re: Lack of capital for local startups?■ Local startup activity andprospects are at an all-time high.They are not in any way stalled by alack of capital.

Although I think the negative toneof the April 21 article does a disser-vice to the high level of startup fund-ing activity in Northeast Ohio, the di-versity of commenters and theiropinions shows that Crain’s technol-ogy reporter Chuck Soder does agood job of continuing a dialoguethat is taking place more and morein town: How can we best serve andpromote the startup community?

While there are certainly gaps incapital in this region, and while the“series A crunch” represents a seri-


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FOR SALE OR LEASEWeb: Tressel should be Akron’s choice continued from PAGE 10 ous supply/demand imbalance,

these are national issues, not just is-sues confronting Northeast Ohiostartups.

Nonetheless, this communityneeds to do a better job of the follow-ing: educating and promoting angelinvestment and properly setting ex-pectations; understanding the na-ture of entrepreneurship and star-tups; and recognizing that not everystartup should seek outside capital.

To be successful, an entrepreneurmust realize that his or her goal is tobuild a great and sustainable com-pany. To steal a phrase I heard lastweek from Chris Olsen of Drive Cap-ital: “Build the company that youwant to build, not the one that youthink investors want to fund.”

— Morris Wheeler

■ The issue in Cleveland isn’t mon-ey. There’s more here than you canimagine.

It’s the level of understanding ofWeb 2.0 and the Internet of Thingsby potential investors — terms thatmost people with investable fundsdo not understand, especially inNortheast Ohio. The value of captur-ing a market using these trendshardly ever involves “making” some-thing and almost always involvescapturing users, eyeballs and ordownloads, something that portendsvalue based on usage and that re-quires monetization in ways that liveoutside the scope of understandingof the average investor here.

Our history as the center of the uni-verse for entrepreneurs in the indus-trial age required vast sums of moneyfor “capital goods.” That’s the legacyof an investment model that still bur-dens us today (but also why there isstill so much money here) and whymedical device startups have foundmore funding than almost anythingelse. Even most of the loans from thestate, banks and other sources arecommitments to fund buildings andequipment as opposed to software,especially as a service.

Now, mind you, a lot of these soft-ware startups and incubators aregetting behind ideas that even Ithink should have been passed over,but that’s the real problem — know-ing how to vet and coach a startupinto revenue. Charles Stack is thekind of experienced entrepreneurwho’s “been there and done that”and can tell a good entrepreneur andidea from a bad one. But having onlya handful of experienced entrepre-neurs who can vet and coach goodideas to the market isn’t enough.

We need more Stacks and morefunding to sprinkle around to do theearly vetting. Young entrepreneursneed a model of funding to demon-strate their ideas have market trac-tion, and if they don’t, you lose$50,000 to $100,000. If it hits, we cre-ate jobs and more funding to invest.

It takes risk, but it also takes expe-rience to know which ideas and en-trepreneurs are going to get the jobdone. — Ronald Copfer

■ I agree that follow-on funding istougher in Cleveland than on thecoasts or even in places like Orlando(which has a hugely growing startupscene), but it’s not impossible here.

I share a sentiment that many VCs(with cash) in the area share to thisday, and that is there are dollarsavailable if you have a unique idea,with a scalable business plan andtalented leaders.

Can you get the business to $1million, $5 million, $20 millionquickly? If not, cash will be tighteverywhere. — Tony Pietrocola

AKRON ZIPS.COM

Terry Bowden was hired as the footballcoach at the University of Akron in2012.



When It Gets Down to Business…Solon Gets It!The City of Solon welcomes these new businesses:Champs SportsIntelligent Mobile SupportRita’s Beauty CareRomeo’s PizzaSilver Commercial Cleaning, LLCTalmer Bank & TrustTitle Boxing Club – Solon

And thanks these real estate professionals for bringing new business to Solon: Terry Coyne – Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Kristy Hull – Newmark Grubb Knight Frank David Jezek – Developers Realty Eliot Kijewski – CRESCO Real EstateColin Knott – Developers Realty David Stover – Hanna ChartwellDon Woodard – Davis Development Group

Solon’s Got It!Prime industrial, office and retail sites at www.solonohio.orgCity of Solon • 34200 Bainbridge Road • Solon, Ohio 44139 • 440.337.1313 Peggy Weil Dorfman, Economic Development Manager • [email protected]

The Solon Select is a distinguished group of more than 800 businesses that have chosen to locate in the City of Solon.

The old BrandMuscle originallydesigned the software to help fran-chisees and branch managers local-ize their advertisements using artand design templates approved bycorporate. But now BrandBuilderalso lets local branches order smallbatches of printed marketing mate-rials and get them quickly, whichwas one of Centiv’s specialties. Andit gives companies a fast way to re-imburse or reward those branchesfor their sales and marketing ef-forts, using a TradeOne technology.

Roughly one-third of the newcustomers that Brandmusclesigned last year wanted all threeproducts, according to ClarkeSmith, the company’s chief strate-gy officer.

“Having that combined offeringin one place gave us a very com-pelling story to tell,” Smith said.

Habit-formingThe three companies all were

purchased by the Riverside Co., aCleveland-based private equityfirm, since September 2011. Themerger went into high gear in Janu-ary 2013, when the three compa-nies officially became Brandmuscle

(without the capital “M.”)Trying to weave those businesses

together was a challenging, time-consuming task, said Alexander,founder of the old BrandMuscle.Today, however, the offices feel likethey’re part of the same company,he said.

For one, members of the man-agement team are spread through-out Brandmuscle’s offices, and em-ployees regularly work withcolleagues in other states. And thedifferent offices are getting into thesame habits. For instance, all fiveoffices have adopted a traditionfrom the old BrandMuscle: EachMonday, they each hold a breakfastmeeting where they recognize em-ployees and celebrate victories.

Alexander knew the integrationwas going well when he noticedthat individual offices willingly let

go of accounts when another officehad a stronger relationship with agiven client.

Now that the integration is over,Brandmuscle can focus on growing.

“The efforts of last year will bearfruit this year,” Alexander said.

Alan Peyrat put it more bluntly. Apartner at Riverside, Peyrat saidBrandmuscle “could potentially seefour record quarters in a row.”

Working on the coreOther companies can do some of

what Brandmuscle does, but Peyratsaid he knows of no other companythat provides such a broad lineup ofsoftware and services.

And there’s plenty of business togo around, he added.

“There are still a huge number ofpotential customers who reallyshould be using our services whoaren’t using anyone’s services,” hesaid.

Alexander’s home is in NortheastOhio, though he has an apartmentnear the company’s Chicago office,which technically is Brandmuscle’sheadquarters.

However, the company’s office at1100 Superior Ave. in downtownCleveland — which houses about

Brandmuscle: 40% of company’s 400 employees are downtown continued from PAGE 5

By RACHEL ABBEY [email protected]

Mayfield Heights-based KeeneBuilding Products is planning tomove and expand its manufactur-ing space.

Keene has purchased 11 acres inEuclid from MNR Corp. for about$1.1 million, owner James R. Keenesaid in an email provided by a me-dia representative. The purchase in-cludes 11 buildings, some of whichare being rented out to tenants.There is a 12th building on theproperty that was not included inthe purchase, said marketing man-ager Melanie Debelak.

The company makes “buildingenvelope” and noise control prod-ucts.

Keene’s current plant, at 23555Euclid Ave. in Euclid, has 15,000square feet; the new plant, at 23700St. Clair Ave. in Euclid, has 43,000square feet. There is a total of about115,000 square feet of space spreadacross the 11 buildings, which willbe used for research and develop-ment, as well as rental properties.Keene’s headquarters will stay inMayfield Heights.

Debelak said the move wouldtake about 18 months. Keene ismoving two existing productionlines to the new site, as well asbuilding a third. In his email, Keenesaid the company plans to expandto five production lines in the nextthree to five years. The expansionwould create the need for about 10jobs this year and an additional 30in the next five years.

Keene has grown to 50 employeessince it was created in 2002. Thatnumber includes employees at De-pendable LLC, a floor product mak-er with a plant in Rocky River, andCansto Coatings, a specialty coat-ings maker with a plant in Cleve-land, both of which Keene Buildingowns.

Debelak said those plants will re-main open, but the new space willserve as the site for new develop-ments for all the companies. In thefuture, Dependable’s plant mightmove to the new Euclid location,Debelak said. ■

ON THE WEB Story from: www.crainscleveland.com

Keene Building Productsmoving to new location

160 of the company’s 400 employees— is home to the core of Brandmus-cle’s product development team.

That’s a big deal for Cleveland:Since the merger, Brandmuscle“has become more and more soft-ware centric and technology cen-tric,” Peyrat said.

The local office also houses mostof the company’s sales and market-ing employees as well as a few mar-keting services functions that theold BrandMuscle started a few yearsago.

But no department will be per-manently tied to one office, Smithsaid.

The Direct approachOne of those marketing services

is growing fast: A year ago, Brand-muscle employed two peopletasked with helping franchisees andbranch managers that wanted tomarket their services through socialmedia. Today, that content teamhas 10 employees, eight of whomare in Cleveland.

The team posts content on behalfof franchisees and branch man-agers. For instance, a team memberposting content on a DirecTV deal-er’s Facebook page might writeabout the Academy Awards, “Amer-ican Idol” and other programs de-livered via DirecTV, a Brandmuscleclient.

Alexander expects that team togrow.

“It could explode on us,” he said. ■

“Having that combinedoffering in one place gaveus a very compelling storyto tell.”

– Clarke Smithchief strategy officer, Brandmuscle,

on the company’s combined productofferings


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yhe fall of 2014

se LLP

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on:

GOING PLACESJOB CHANGES

FINANCIAL SERVICEAPPLE GROWTH PARTNERS: Tracy Coblentz to senior tax manager and director, Small Business Growth Services.MERRILL LYNCH: Katie Solvesky,Natalie Lariccia and Ben Kirkseyto assistant vice presidents; JonWagner, Eric Fuller, John Slyman,Raquel Pacheco, Joe Kendrewand William Miner to vice presidents; John Damiano, SteveMowry, Lee McCauley, CharlieBergman and Chuck Boulwareto first vice presidents; Phil Shultz,

Jim Chippi, Stephanie Draper,Dan Fuller and Ed Boehmer to senior vice presidents.

RISK INTERNATIONAL: Eric Kriegto managing director, Risk International Benefits.WESTERN RESERVE VALUATION

SERVICES LLC: Rand M. Curtiss todirector.

FINANCEFIRST FEDERAL LAKEWOOD: Jeffrey S. Bechtel to chief lendingofficer; Mary Ann Stropkay to senior lender, commercial banking;Ron C. Schultz Jr., Todd Urmsonand Kurt Raicevich to commercialbanking relationship managers; EllenWalsh to SBA specialist. KEYBANC CAPITAL MARKETSINC.: Mark Fisher to managing director, public finance group. KEYBANK: Kenneth M. Greaneyto vice president, investment solutionsspecialist, Key Private Bank.

HEALTH CAREUNIVERSITY HOSPITALS: GeorgeTopalsky, M.D., to internal medicalstaff.

INSURANCEWESTFIELD GROUP: Paula Mastroianni to integrated marketingservices leader.

NONPROFITCROHNS AND COLITIS FOUNDATION OF AMERICA,NORTHEAST OHIO CHAPTER:Catie Dargue to community development manager. VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA OFGREATER OHIO: Stephanie Aubill

to marketing communications manager; Kim Eberst to director,program operations.

REAL ESTATECUTLER REAL ESTATE: ChuckHeimaugh to sales associate, Fairlawn.

RECREATIONRIDGEWOOD GOLF COURSE:David Chuba to manager.

SERVICEDAVEY TREE EXPERT CO.: JedDay to vice president and generalmanager, residential and commercialservice line, western operations.RISESMART: Tony Santora to vicepresident. ROGERS CO.: Jim McGowanto project manager.

TECHNOLOGYBLUEBRIDGE NETWORKS: RogerMitan to senior technology engineer,data center solutions. PARAGON CONSULTING INC.:David Balzer and Anthony Lewisto Sitecore developers; Elaine Allento business development executive;Shaolin Hu to senior developer; EricStafford to staff developer.

TELECOMMUNICATIONCOX COMMUNICATIONS: Mark

Preston to regional vice president,outside plant/construction, Northeastregion.

BOARDSADOPTION NETWORK CLEVELAND: John Zaranec (OMGroup Inc.) to chair; Anita Millerto first vice chair; Lisa Buescherto second vice chair; MarissaBeechuk to secretary; TedGrabowski to treasurer.

BEACHWOOD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: Heathyr Ullmo(Peoples Bank) to president.

NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF GREATER CLEVELAND: Tanisha Rush topresident; Kamla Lewis to first vicepresident; Michael Valerino to second vice president; Amy Kulisheckto treasurer;Lisa Nelson tosecretary.

VOLUNTEERSOF AMERICAOF GREATEROHIO: RobGilmore(Kohrman Jackson& Krantz) to vice chairman.

Send information for Going Places [email protected].

Curtiss Bechtel Stropkay Fisher Greaney Dargue Aubill Eberst

Chuba Day McGowan Preston

Gilmore

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FROM OUR TEAM TO THE GEIS COMPANIES TEAM

Our legal team is proud to be a part of one of the county’s largest and most complex real estate transactions.

Cleveland | 216.781.1212 | www.walterhav.com

The Real Estate Attorneys of

Tyler Bobes

Jack Waldeck

Charles Riehl

Megan Zaidan

Todd Hunt

Heather BaldwinVlasuk

Sophia Deseran

Nick Catanzarite

Kevin Murphy Nathan

Felker

Geoffrey GossCarl Dyczek

Josh Hurtuk

CHANGING LIVES, EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IGNITES YOU?

n e o m e d . e d u

The Internal Revenue Service filed taxliens against the following businessesin the Cuyahoga County Recorder’sOffice. The IRS files a tax lien to protect the interests of the federalgovernment. The lien is a public notice to creditors that the government has a claim against acompany’s property. Liens reportedhere are $5,000 and higher. Dateslisted are the dates the documentswere filed in the Recorder’s Office.

LIENS FILEDRepo City Inc. Banc Auto Liquidators14550 Lorain Ave., Suite 1, ClevelandID: 34-1913407Date filed: April 2, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $889,120

Engle Road Realty Inc. Quality Inn & Suites7230 Engle Road, ClevelandID: 06-1724874Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $619,158

George Dixon Corp. Lancer Steak House7707 Carnegie Ave., ClevelandID: 34-1657828Date filed: April 14, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $230,702

Cabling Professionals Inc.P.O. Box 770284, LakewoodID: 14-1862921Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $147,938

Sam-Tom Inc. Royce Security Services3740 Euclid Ave., Suite 102, ClevelandID: 34-1965620Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, corporate incomeAmount: $97,666

Greensource LLCP.O. Box 24876ID: 26-4250003Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $94,213

Plastic Consultants Inc.1388 Gladys Ave., LakewoodID: 34-1338156Date filed: April 10, 2014Type: Corporate incomeAmount: $87,480

George Dixon Corp. Lancer Steak House7707 Carnegie Ave., ClevelandID: 34-1657828Date filed: April 14, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $84,834

Post Painting Inc.24816 Aurora Road, Bedford HeightsID: 34-1700614Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $59,897

Davcor International Inc.18579 Pearl Road, StrongsvilleID: 34-1787337Date filed: April 21, 2014Type: Unemployment, corporate income, civil penalty assessmentAmount: $51,788

Premier Restaurant Management3620 Walnut Hills Ave., BeachwoodID: 34-1722537Date filed: April 4, 2014 Type: Unemployment, civil penalty assessmentAmount: $45,919

Bradley Metal Fabrication Ltd.6211 Cedar Ave., ClevelandID: 45-2766043Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $45,846

Mathews Metal Works and Ornamental Concrete LLC7831 Clinton Road, ClevelandID: 26-4326447Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $42,192

CBR Regulatory LLC27800 Belcourt Road, Pepper PikeID: 26-2691670Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $37,357

South Euclid Cement Contractors Inc.5770 Alberta Drive, Lyndhurst

ID: 34-1890971Date filed: April 17, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $36,483

Dynomite Investments Inc.3250 E. Pleasant Valley Road, Seven HillsID: 20-5398009Date filed: April 11, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $34,826

Interactive Search Group LLC5500 Ridge Road, Suite 211, ParmaID: 27-0961280Date filed: April 11, 2014Type: Employer’s withholdingAmount: $32,215

Treehuggers Café Inc.1330 W. Bagley Road, BereaID: 26-2366244Date filed: April 21, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment, corporate incomeAmount: $26,634

Eagle Painting LLC291 E. 204 St., EuclidID: 20-3677576Date filed: April 4, 2014Type: Employer’s withholding, unemploymentAmount: $24,468

TAX LIENS

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Contact Nicole Mastrangelo at 216-771-5158 or [email protected].

Mixed in are shots of the city,Progressive Field and fans youngand old donning the Tribe’s “blockC” hats.

The commercial closes by saying,“It’s about unfinished business. Getready. Here comes the Tribe.”

“If you look at our team,” saidAlex King, the Indians’ vice presi-dent of marketing and brand man-agement, “it’s always about grit, it’sabout resilience, it’s about nevergiving up. That’s really what it wasabout — that attitude that they playwith more than anything else.”

‘Ask TERRi’King was hired by the Tribe in

2011 after a five-year stint at Procter& Gamble. Prior to moving toNortheast Ohio, King had spent theprevious 13 months as a brandmanager for the Cincinnati-basedconsumer goods giant.

He said one of his first tasks withthe Indians was creating “someconsistency with our look.” For that,King leaned on the Tribe’s longtimedesign partner, Contempo Commu-

nications.The Cleveland company created

a brand platform and “helped de-fine the use of our logo,” King said— which, these days, has meant amuch more prominent use of thered “block C” and fewer displays ofthe controversial Chief Wahoo.

Another element of the Indians’brand strategy was to “humanize”their players, and it didn’t hurt theTribe’s cause that prior to the 2013season the club hired a well-known,and affable, manager.

During spring training in 2013,the Indians and Twist partnered ona series of videos starring managerTerry Francona. In the “Ask TERRi”spots — a spinoff of Apple’s “AskSiri” feature — Francona gives Indi-ans players phones in order to im-prove the team’s communication.The hilarious videos show playersasking Francona for advice on suchrandom subjects as grilled ribrecipes, the ingredients used tomake marshmallows found in cere-al, how to properly wear a hat, andwhy the U.S. declared war in 1812.

The videos went viral, and alonger-term relationship between

Twist: Company foughtto be selected by Indians

Twist and the Tribe grew closer tofruition.

Mike Ozan, Twist’s president andchief creative officer, said that late inthe 2013 season the Indians toldTwist they were “going to ask otheragencies to come in and bid” fortheir business.

“We thought that was fair,” hesaid. “And we went in and competed

heavily for the business. I don’tknow what the other agencies putinto it, but we were unrelenting.”

‘I wear the uniform’Twist, which at the time was still

fighting for a longer-term partner-ship with the Tribe after the compa-ny’s brief work with the team inspring 2013, sent a film crew to theIndians’ American League wild-card game against the Tampa BayRays last Oct. 2.

A month later, the company,which has been headquartered at1985 W. 28th St. in Cleveland’s OhioCity neighborhood for the last 12years, was selected as the Indians’creative partner.

Ozan said Twist and the Indianshave “a multiyear contract in theo-ry.” There isn’t a long-term partner-ship on paper, he said, but the com-pany is approaching therelationship in that manner.

And it turned out that the post-season footage came in handy.

“Some of those images in ourbrand spot were from that (playoffgame) because we thought, ‘Hey,that might be a once-in-a-lifetimeopportunity to do these film por-traits of fans,’ ” Ozan said. “And youcan see it on their face. It’s real.”

The determined, gritty Clevelanderthat Twist shows in its Indians spotsare of course similar to the descrip-tions many fans and media membersgave of the Tribe last season.

To further connect the Indians —who, even during an unexpected runto the 2013 postseason, failed to draw20,000 fans per game for the secondconsecutive year — to the city, Twistbegan the “Unfinished Business”campaign with a simple concept.

“The broader idea,” Ozan said,“was ‘I wear the uniform.’ That wasthe start of the ideas you see,though it doesn’t really appearmuch in type right now.”

Josh Taylor, a Lakewood native

who is Twist’s director of strategyand development, said, “We shareownership of the brand. We sharethat connection.”

That appealed to the Indians, andespecially to Francona.

Taylor said the unfinished busi-ness idea came from one of themany conversations Twist had withIndians fans when it was creatingthe campaign.

“Terry really adopted that,” Tay-lor said. “The team adopted it, andwe packaged it.”

A new Twist on the TribeTwist will release different spots

throughout the season, “so thecampaign refreshes,” Taylor said.

“I think that was one of the chal-lenges that Alex (King, the Tribe’s VPof marketing) recognized from previ-ous years — that when the campaignlaunches at the beginning of the year,it’s basically the same spots that ap-pear in September,” Taylor said.“And by that time, fans are like, ‘OK,tell us something different.’ ”

The Indians wanted to build ontheir playoff appearance by focus-ing on their likable personalities,but they also realized they needed afew refreshers during the 162-gamegrind of the regular season.

“If you look at the campaign,there are a few chapters for the sto-ry of the season,” King said. “Andthe first chapter is before the seasonstarts. Spring is eternal hope andoptimism and excitement for theupcoming season. We felt like (Un-finished Business) was both takingwhat had been started last seasonand entering the playoffs, but alsoan attitude.”

Ozan believed his team couldhelp change the negative percep-tion some fans had of the Tribe pri-or to 2013. His company, which wasborn when he and his wife (who ison sabbatical but is expected to re-turn late this summer) transformedConnie’s c.ratka design firm into abigger business, “is growing veryrapidly,” Mike Ozan said.

“When you get right down to it,we’re about either changing or cre-ating conversations,” he said. “Wedidn’t like the conversation that wasgoing on around the team (the Indi-ans), and we felt like we could helpchange it.” ■


TWIST CREATIVE

Twist’s “Unfinished Business” ads for the Cleveland Indians also showcase determined and gritty Clevelanders.

SEE THE SPOTSFor more examples of Twist Creative’s “Unfinished Business” advertising campaign for the Cleveland Indians, go to:

tinyurl.com/kse4rzj

“If you look at our team,it’s always about grit, it’sabout resilience, it’s aboutnever giving up. That’sreally what it was about —that attitude that they playwith more than anythingelse.”

– Alex Kingvice president of marketing andbrand management, Cleveland

Indians, on the club’s “UnfinishedBusiness” ad campaign



WHO TOWATCH INFINANCE

Justin HortonWealth adviser / founding partner

Stratos Wealth Partners

E ach move Justin Hortonmakes is deliberate and

calculated, from his careerprogression to the strategies behind wealth plan-ning for his senior executive and attorney clients.

His tenure in the financial industry began as anintern with National City Corp., before advancingas a management consultant with Cleveland-based A.T. Kearney. It was there he planted theseeds for his current role by conducting financialplanning presentations for executives and help-ing Fortune 500 companies improve their prof-itability, before joining Lincoln Financial Advisorsin 2004.

Now as a wealth adviser and partner for Solon-based Stratos Wealth Partners, which he helpedfound in 2009, Horton provides a full range of fi-nancial planning support, including life insurance,long-term care, estate planning, investment andbusiness succession. He has about 75 clientsand manages about $50 million in assets.

“What I enjoy most about the business andhow the value comes into play is helping clientsunderstand how all the puzzle pieces of theirwealth planning fit into the bigger picture,” hesaid. “I feel like the quarterback on their team.”

It’s not uncommon for Horton to meet withclients five times a year to modify and structuretheir portfolio to achieve their goals.

“I take a comprehensive consulting approach,”he said. “A lot of my clients are concerned aboutretirement, and there are so many other factors,like the cost of college education to estate flowand beneficiaries. No two portfolios are thesame.”

Terri Eason, director of gift planning at theCleveland Foundation, with which Horton also is affiliated, regularly refers donors and other col-leagues to Horton for his financial planning exper-tise. She should know, as someone who’swatched Horton evolve since his intern days.

“I recall being comfortable enough to bringJustin in on client meetings because he was soprofessional and poignant,” said Eason, a formerdirector of nonprofit services and a mentor toHorton at National City. “He’s extremely purpose-ful in understanding and providing good serviceand relationship management.”

Horton is co-chairman of the Cleveland Foun-dation’s African-American Philanthropy Commit-tee and a board member of the Cleveland Zoo-logical Society. He also is immediate pastpresident of the Greater Cleveland Alumni Asso-ciation of Morehouse College, at which heearned a bachelor’s degree in finance. Hortonearned his master’s degree in business from theUniversity of Michigan.

He always is on the move. You may find himrunning around his neighborhood in ClevelandHeights, where he lives with his wife, Andrean, orplanning a trip domestically or internationally.“We have a trip to Spain coming up,” he said.“We can’t wait to explore.”

— Kathy Ames Carr

Matt MilcetichSenior VP / group head

KeyBank Derivatives

M att Milcetich wasbound for Chicago or

New York City as they aremajor financial centers, but

a job in derivatives at KeyBank kept him in Cleve-land.

While interning in the derivatives group at Key-Bank as he earned a master of science degreein financial engineering from Kent State Universi-ty, Milcetich found substantial opportunities here,liked the work and enjoyed working with col-leagues from around the globe. He also realizedhe enjoyed consulting with clients to find solu-tions to their problems more than the trader’srole he’d envisioned in a financial center.

“I probably would have moved back,” he said,as he figures Northeast Ohio might have drawnhim back at a later time in his career becausehis family is here and it is a great place to raisea family. Today he and his wife have a 1-year-oldson and a house in Shaker Heights, whichdivides the commute between his job at KeyTower and hers in Beachwood.

Most of Milcetich’s day is spent on the tradingfloor at Key, where he heads a group of 15 inCleveland and Seattle. He joined the unit freshfrom Kent State in 2006, initially working in com-modities, then working in the sales unit beforeadding trading in 2013.

Derivatives are financial instruments that com-panies may use to hedge their risks to changesin commodities or interest rates, to name a few.The derivatives group is a registered swap deal-er so it can handle about 1,000 trades annuallyfor its clients. Its trading book has a face valueof about $35 billion.

With last year’s promotion to head the group,he gained a strategic role in planning its future.

Douglas Preiser, Milcetich’s boss as chief op-erating officer of Keybanc Capital Markets Inc.,described him as “adept at developing creativesolutions to complex problems. He has greattechnical and communication skills. He has adeep understanding of the bank’s activities. Hecan express complicated concepts in a simpleway. He understands how his unit’s success re-lates to the bank’s success, which is not com-mon in young managers. He’s adept at seeingchange and preparing for it.”

Milcetich’s undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering from Cleveland StateUniversity. He had worked for Parker HannifinCorp. as a project engineer before pursuing a financial career.

A standout soccer player at Kent-RooseveltHigh School and at Cleveland State University,Milcetich said soccer has helped him developleadership skills, especially when he coached agirl’s soccer team in the Ohio Premier SoccerClub.

“Speak to a group of teenagers and their par-ents in a group and you’ll learn to weigh the im-pact of every word,” he said. He also serves astreasurer on the board of trustees of AmericaScores Cleveland. — Stan Bullard

Margie CarpenterFounder / owner

Bell Tower Advisors

T he realities of a male-dominated financial ser-

vices world, in Margie Car-penter’s estimation, left her

feeling dissatisfied with a career in investmentmanagement. She didn’t understand the need toclog one’s title with big important words. She feltdisconnected with the push to “grow by outra-geous numbers” in new clients and revenue.

“There was a process that we were stronglyencouraged to follow, using the same reporting,the same delivery in investment results toclients, and using industry terminology that didn’talways resonate with people,” Carpenter said. “Itwas a profession of men serving men.”

So after nearly 20 years of enduring the grindamong various investment advisory in NortheastOhio, she went out on her own in 2010 andformed Bell Tower Advisors, an investment man-agement firm that focuses solely on financialplanning for women.

“This is an underserved market. My idealclient is a midlife independent female — it does-n’t matter if she’s married, nonmarried, widowedor divorced,” Carpenter said. “I try to be as openand clear as possible about helping them under-stand what their financial picture means and howthey can realize their financial goals.”

Carpenter currently manages about 10 femaleclients with portfolio values of between$500,000 and $1 million. She plans to grow herclient base to a maximum of 30, which is a frac-tion of the client count she used to manage atother larger financial services firms.

“Some advisers have 300 clients,” she said.“When I opened Bell Tower Advisors, my goalwas not to be the top-growing or the most-prof-itable advisory firm. I want to make a profit so Ican live, but I really want to help women managetheir finances,” whether it’s appropriating inheri-tance dollars or navigating a divorce.

Joyce Poplar, who divorced two years ago,sought Carpenter’s services after initially meet-ing with a large banking institution and then a fi-nancial planner in Hudson.

“I’m 55, I work for the Cleveland Clinic, I havefour children, and for the first time I was com-pletely financially responsible, so I had to becareful with my strategy,” Poplar said. “The guyin Hudson came on so strong, and said, ‘Youneed me.’ That’s what my ex-husband said tome, so I said, ‘No, I don’t.’”

Then Poplar, a Chagrin Falls resident, cameacross Carpenter’s ad in a local newspaper.

“She was perfect,” Poplar said. “She teachesme, and I understand my investments. We re-view everything quarterly.”

Richard Nash, equity portfolio manager atWestfield Center-based Westfield Group, saidCarpenter’s personalized approach makes her avaluable asset to the investment community.

“I look at a person as stock and whether Iwould buy stock in that individual,” Nash said. “Iwould buy stock in Margie because it would besuccessful. There always would be an upwardtrajectory.”

When Carpenter isn’t meeting with clients,managing assets or blogging about them, she’slikely to be reading historical fiction, practicingyoga, rooting on the Browns or volunteering atthe Gathering Place, a provider of cancer sup-port for patients and families. The ClevelandHeights resident has two daughters, one in col-lege and the other in eighth grade.

Carpenter received her undergraduate degreein French from Bates College in Maine, and amaster’s degree in business from Emory Univer-sity in Atlanta. — Kathy Ames Carr

Stacy Feiner Director

SS&G Parkland

W hen it comes to help-ing companies

achieve efficiencies and im-prove top and bottom lines,

Stacy Feiner zeroes in on people, not numbers.Feiner, who attained a doctorate in clinical

psychology in 1997, joined SS&G Parkland as adirector in 2013. She coaches business ownersand executives, assists family businesses insuccession planning and works to help compa-nies strengthen the way they oversee, leverageand optimize talent.

Performance and talent management andcoaching are services Feiner has provided foryears, but SS&G Parkland — an entity of Solon-based SS&G Inc. that provides business valua-tion, management consulting and other servicesto clients — affords her a much bigger platformof ready, middle-market client companies, Fein-er said.

From an early age, Feiner felt “hard-wired” forbeing concerned that people live good lives.

“If I could wholesale my psychology to a busi-ness owner, and the business owner could cre-ate an environment where people could do theirbest work, feel productive and find communityand meaning in their work … I thought that wasa really positive way of impacting the world,”she added.

Business owners usually approach Feiner withconcerns such as not having good hiring prac-tices and feeling at risk because their compa-nies lack bench strength, she said.

In working with Feiner, Brad Sacks said hehas transformed the hiring process of his com-pany — More Than Gourmet, an Akron-basedmanufacturer of French stocks and sauces —and seen “great progress” with key executiveswho’ve improved their performance.

“We need to hire really great people, andthat’s a really easy thing said and a really hardthing done,” said Sacks, the company’s CEO.“What Stacy has been very instrumental in ishelping bring the science in developing an ap-proach and a process to find, screen and hirethe right kind of people. Then it moves into thenext phase, which is bringing them on board(and) managing that talent over time.

“There’s a direct savings in a way,” Sacksadded. “The cost of a bad hire is huge.”

There are “huge financial costs to underper-formance,” too, Feiner said.

Such underperformance can be rooted in anunsuccessful selection process, one’s manage-ment of a work force or a lack of talent develop-ment, she explained.

Feiner lives in Moreland Hills with her hus-band, Peter McCarren, and their two children.She loves the outdoors, is a member of theWestern Reserve Land Conservancy and gar-dens.

A grower of 30 to 40 basil plants in a typicalseason, she said, “I am definitely known forpesto.”

— Michelle Park Lazette

The next “Who to Watch” section will publish June 23and will focus on the legal sector. If you have suggestions,drop an email to sections editor Amy Ann Stoessel, [email protected], or call 216-771-5155 by noon Monday,May 19.

They’re advisers, accountants and consultants. And they’re all workingto improve their organizations — and their communities — with theirskills and knowledge. That’s why we think the members of this group are among those worth watching in Northeast Ohio’s financial sector.



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Danielle SyndorFinancial adviser

Merrill Lynch

W hen Bishara Addison says thather friend, Danielle Syndor, is “al-

ways trying to help someone,” she’snot really exaggerating.

Syndor started her career with MBNAin 2004, then began working for Bankof America when it acquired MBNA in

2005. Since 2011, Syndor has been afinancial adviser for the Merrill Lynchbranch on East 9th Street. There, shesaid she works with families and busi-ness owners who have “at least$250,000 in liquid assets to invest.”

The position allows her to combinetwo of her favorite things: Aiding oth-ers and managing money.

“I find that no matter where some-one is in life, people need good guid-ance,” Syndor said. “If you look atsomeone, overall the things they careabout the most are family, faith and fi-nances. Money is a portion of their lifethat can be very stressful, and I enjoyhelping them.”

Syndor said she spends at leasteight hours per month volunteering.

She is active in NAACP, is on theboard of trustees for Eliza Bryant Vil-lage, is the co-chair of Bank of Ameri-ca’s Ohio Black Professional Group,chairs the University of Phoenix Cleve-land Alumni Chapter and is on the eco-nomic opportunity advisory committeefor Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.

“She’s so humble,” said Addison, an

executive fellow with the ClevelandMetropolitan School District. “She isn’tsomeone who seeks the spotlight orthe recognition. She doesn’t just do agood job from 9 to 5. She is alwaystrying to help someone.”

Syndor never shies away from giv-ing advice on managing money, whichshe attributes to past help she re-ceived.

“I look at myself as someone whobenefited from others taking an inter-est in what I wanted to do — whetherit was career advice, life advice orpushing me to look beyond what mysituation was,” she said. “I talk withpeople about financial literacy and ca-reer steps, and I enjoy being able tobe a voice for them.”

Syndor lives in Shaker Heights withher two sons — Noah, 11, and Giles,9. She is actively involved with herchurch, Community Bible Fellowship inCleveland Heights, where she teachesa finance class.

“Between my work, my family, volun-teering and church, that takes up a lotof my time,” she said. — Kevin Kleps

Dominic BraultManaging director

Carleton McKenna

W hile growing up, DominicBrault’s father put in longhours at the Ford stamping

plant in Walton Hills, and his mom cleaned houses when shewasn’t watching the kids.

That work paid the bills, including the cost of sending thetwo Brault boys to private school.

Those memories still motivate Dominic Brault to work hardand to give back to the community.

Today, Brault is a managing director at Carleton McKenna,an investment banking firm in downtown Cleveland. He helpsbusiness owners sell their companies and raise cash from in-vestors. He also started the firm’s business valuation consult-ing practice. But he didn’t get to this point by chance.

One could say that his career path technically started dur-ing the summer after his freshman year at Case Western Re-serve University. Unlike most of his peers, he didn’t work aretail job that summer: He got an internship at managementconsulting firm Ernst & Young. And he spent the next threesummers as an intern at other companies, making the switchto investment banking in the process.

His academic strategy?“I’ll have a 3.5 (grade point average) instead of a 3.9 but

really have killer work experience,” he said.That experience also allowed him to find mentors and

make other connections in the local investment banking in-dustry at an early age. One of those connections helped himland a job as a junior analyst with FTN Midwest Research in2002, shortly after he earned a bachelor’s in banking and fi-nance from Case Western.

While moving through his career, Brault — who also hasworked for Longbow Research and Stout Risius Ross — has-n’t spent much time scanning Monster.com.

“I don’t look for job openings. I know what I want to do,and I just try to work my way into it,” he said.

Carleton McKenna hired Brault three years ago to start thefirm’s business valuation practice. But Brault also has “a littlemore creativity than your average valuation guy,” accordingto managing director Christopher McKenna.

But being creative isn’t enough, according to Brault. You’vealso got to have the guts to make your ideas known. Even ifit’s not a good idea, “it could stimulate thought,” he said.

And if it seems like a good idea? Don’t let it go until you’reconvinced it’s not. “If you don’t get to that point, don’t stop. Itcan’t be your boss’s responsibility to follow up,” he said.

He also says people shouldn’t doubt their decisions.For instance, if Brault hadn’t followed his exact career

path, he wouldn’t have met his fiancée, Rachael Futchi, andtheir 2-year-old son, Henri, “wouldn’t be on the planet.”

He considers himself lucky to have had good parents,Pierre and Christine, who worked hard and spent moneywisely.

“There are some who didn’t have the fortune of havinggood parents. Fortunately, I did,” he said.

— Chuck Soder

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Josha WalkerManager, Financial & Accounting

FirstEnergy Service Co.

C ompliance is the name of thegame for Josha Walker — and it’s

a game she’s worked hard to play.“I literally am that girl who came from nothing,” said the

first-generation college graduate and CPA. “What I realizedgrowing up, at some point I have to hold myself accountable… to be here is truly an honor and a blessing.”

Walker’s introduction to accounting took place when shewas attending a vocational high school in Akron, attendingclasses half the day and working half the day.

It was during that time she said she realized “there’s somuch more you can do.” Walker added, “That motivated meto seek higher education.”

She went on to earn her bachelor’s degree from the Uni-versity of Akron and her master’s in accounting and financialmanagement from the DeVry University Keller GraduateSchool of Management.

Walker — who has been with FirstEnergy since 2009 andin her current position since 2012 — today oversees a teamof eight, and she is involved in working with different FirstEn-ergy business units. It is her job to make sure the companyis following such regulations as Sarbanes–Oxley.

“The most challenging part is being able to assess therisk … what can go wrong,” she said. “It also opens thedoor for me and my team to help the business.”

Kevin Burgess, executive director, internal auditing forFirstEnergy, has known Walker since 2010, and he useswords like energetic and smart to describe her. He said thatshe not only has book knowledge, but knows how to apply it.

“She’s definitely got a lot of potential from a leadershipperspective,” he said. “She’s also very open and is not afraidto put her opinions out on the table.”

Prior to FirstEnergy, Walker worked at Deloitte & Touche,starting as an intern in 2003 and moving into a full-time au-diting position after college. Walker, who lives in Akron andhas two daughters, a 14-year-old and a 4-month-old, likes towork with what she calls her “proactive hat.”

“Let’s think ahead and already ahead of the game,” shesaid. “My view is a customer service view. … I want to be re-sponsive to the business needs.” — Amy Ann Stoessel

Effram KaplanManaging director /principalBrown Gibbons Lang & Co.

E ffram Kaplan’s foray into the finan-cial world began as an analyst trad-

ing S&P 100 and 500 options and futures. The business surrounding the investments of publicly

traded companies certainly was intriguing, but he wanted toknow more about what made the smaller businesses andmiddle-market firms tick. He transitioned from heavy analyt-ics finance into consulting for former accounting titan ArthurAndersen and Capgemini, a multinational professional ser-vices firm. Then he re-evaluated his career goals.

“I looked at the five years of my career and knew my nextstep would be for the long term,” Kaplan said. “I loved the fi-nance, strategy and advisory parts of my career.”

Armed with an MBA from the University of Chicago and aninternship at KeyBanc Capital Markets, Kaplan joined Cleve-land-based Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. in 2003 as an associ-ate. He since has worked his way up to managing directorand principal of the investment banking practice’s energyand environmental services group.

“This sub-sector has a very long runway from a careerperspective,” he said. “I get massive satisfaction in advisingclients, watching how the firm has grown and even seeing in-dustry associations turn to us for expertise because whatwe’re doing is of value.”

Kaplan guides environmental and energy clients on merg-ers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, and debt and equityplacement. His clients are involved in management of solidwaste, environmental engineering, metals, nontraditionalwaste (medical, nuclear and oil) and energy.

From coast to coast, Kaplan’s name is at the forefront ofan energy or environmental company’s mind when a corpo-rate finance assignment comes up, said Michael Gibbons,founder and senior managing director. Kaplan zigzags allover the country, meeting personally with clients to makesure their banking needs are met.

“He has single-handedly become one of the best environ-mental bankers in the industry,” Gibbons said.

He lives in Gates Mills with his wife, Stacey, and three chil-dren: Mia, Naomi and Simon. — Kathy Ames Carr



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Middle Market Banking

CM Wealth Advisors Congratulates

Douglas J. Smorag on his recent promotion to Senior Vice President

and Director.

CMwww.CMWealthAdvisors.com

216.831.9667

GreggLaSpisaExecutive VP

Axa AdvisorsLLC, Clevelandbranch

G regg LaSpisa views financial plan-ning as a way to help people.

LaSpisa said he thinks there’s a lackof education around issues such as re-tirement funds and higher educationcosts in today’s society. In previousgenerations, more corporations andunions took the lead on benefits likepension plans, he said, but, today, thatresponsibility often falls to individuals.

“The need has never been greater,”he said.

LaSpisa said the ability to help peo-ple is one of the main reasons he en-joys his job as the executive vice presi-dent of financial planning firm AxaAdvisors LLC’s Cleveland branch.

Axa focuses on financial advice forits clients, he said, not on selling itsproducts.

As executive vice president,LaSpisa, 40, still works with a small

group of clients, mainly on issues ofretirement and life insurance planning.He said he makes the process “clientinteractive” and eschews financial plan-ning jargon.

He also oversees the training of newadvisers, of whom there have beenplenty since LaSpisa joined the Cleve-land branch in 2005.

At that time, there were about 41advisers in Northeast Ohio, LaSpisasaid. Today, Axa has about 80 finan-cial advisers in the Northeast Ohioarea, which includes the Cleveland of-fice and some satellite locations.

The Cleveland branch’s territorystretches from Cleveland to Akron andfrom Toledo to Youngstown. It hasabout 15,000 clients, about 100 ofwhom LaSpisa works with personally.

LaSpisa was brought in to help growthe company’s Northeast Ohio territo-ry, which he has done organically overthe years.

The branch has tripled its revenuesince 2005, although LaSpisa couldn’tshare specific numbers. And, internal-ly, the Cleveland branch moved from aranking of No. 65 out of 66 offices inAxa’s network to No. 3 of 48 in 2013,

Tom Fraser President, CEO

First FederalLakewood

T he bank TomFraser leads

today is the same one he used to walkpast on his way to St. Edward HighSchool and the first at which he had anaccount.

In the time since the Lakewood na-tive became president and CEO ofFirst Federal Lakewood in January2013, it has broadened its reach,adding two loan production offices andplanning the July opening of a branchin Cleveland’s Gordon Square district.The bank has made a more concertedeffort to grow commercial loans, too.

The aim, Fraser said, is to doublethe bank’s assets over the nextdecade via a “good mix of quality busi-ness and home loans.” That will affordit the “scale necessary to address theregulations coming down … and givecustomers access to cutting-edgetechnology,” Fraser said.

“In the face of consolidation andfewer banks here (based in NortheastOhio), we’ve managed to grow andbuild a substantially sized communitybank,” he said.

First Federal Lakewood’s head-count, according to Fraser, stood at390 in mid-April, up 42% from 275 in2010.

Mike Adelman, president and CEOof the Ohio Bankers League, remem-bers a couple years back how someCleveland-area bankers told him heought to meet Fraser.

“They peer-to-peer identified him asa real mover and shaker,” he said.“Younger (with) fresh ideas.

“He’s really engaging and sincereand present,” Adelman said. “In thecurrent era of technology and multipledemands … a lot of people pridethemselves on being multi-taskers.

Whatever the situation is in front ofhim right now, he’s focused on it.From what I can see, it looks like he ispulling together a solid team of individ-uals to really put that institution on atrajectory to do some greater things.”

Fraser joined First Federal in 2007,serving previously as chief lending offi-cer and chief operating officer. Priorto that, he was a member of the teamthat launched in the early 2000s West-field Bank.

Jon Park, chairman and bank leaderof the Westfield Center-based institu-tion, said Fraser proved a significantcontributor to Westfield’s early suc-cess and growth.

“Tom is a quick study,” Park wrotein an email. “He’s especially skilled atmonitoring current economic andbanking industry events from which hedraws insight and perspective to guidedecisions.”

Fraser earned a bachelor’s degreein economics and a master’s degree inhistory at John Carroll University.

“I always had an interest in servingour communities,” Fraser said. “I wantFirst Federal to be part of the vibrantgrowth and fabric of Greater Cleve-land. (I’m) particularly proud of the factthat we’re now lending in more neigh-borhoods in Greater Cleveland than weever have before.”

Fraser lives in Lakewood with hiswife, Mary Ellen, and their three chil-dren. For the better part of 15 years,he refereed men’s college basketballgames. A couple times a year, he stillreferees high school basketballgames.

He is on the board of the OhioBankers League and Beck Center forthe Arts, and also is a member of the executive committee for Youth Challenge, a Westlake-based groupthat brings together children with physical disabilities and youth volun-teers for sports and recreational activities.

— Michelle Park Lazette

LaSpisa said. The company rankingtakes factors like revenue and produc-tivity into account.

Raymond Sussel, a financial adviserat Axa, said the branch has grown dra-matically since LaSpisa arrived. He saidLaSpisa has a nonconfrontational lead-ership style, but he’s willing to go to batfor his advisers when an issue arises.Sussel, who has worked since 1986 atAxa and the company that came beforeit, said he enjoys the autonomy thecompany gives its advisers. Sussel ispart of Stratus Advisors within Axa’sCleveland branch.

LaSpisa said he prefers to take aconsultative approach when workingwith his top advisers. He views it asmore coaching than managing.

Before LaSpisa joined Axa’s Cleve-land branch, he had been working in itsChicago office, which he joined just afew months out of college in 1995.LaSpisa has a bachelor’s degree inbusiness management with a minor infinance from Loras College in Iowa.

Outside of work, LaSpisa said he en-joys spending time with his family — helives in Lakewood with his wife, Melis-sa, and their four children — goinggolfing and watching Cleveland sportsteams and the Chicago Cubs. He alsois a board member for the OhioRangers Football Club, a youth soccerprogram, and America Scores Cleve-land, a nonprofit that combines soccerand poetry in an afterschool program.

— Rachel Abbey McCafferty#CRAINWTW



LARGEST INVESTMENT ADVISERSRANKED BY ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT LOCALLY(1)

Rank

CompanyAddressPhone/Website

Total regulatoryassets undermanagement

locally(millions)(2)

Total numberof local

accounts

Minimumindividualaccount

(thousands)

Portfolioanalysts on

staff Compensation for servicesChief investment

officer Top local executive

1CBiz Financial Solutions Inc., dba CBiz Retirement Plan AdvisoryServices6050 Oak Tree Blvd. S., Suite 500, Independence 44131(216) 447-9000/www.cbiz.com

$6,161.2 493 $1,000.0 5 Fixed fees, percentage of AUMand hourly Brian Dean Luke F. Baum

president

2MAI Wealth Advisors LLC1360 E. Ninth St., Suite 1100, Cleveland 44114(216) 920-4800/www.maiwealth.com

$3,536.5 1,085 $500.0 12Fee only based on assetsunder management or set feefor non-investment services

Gerald H. Gray Richard J. Buoncoremanaging partner

3CM Wealth Advisors Inc.30195 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 250, Pepper Pike 44124(216) 831-9667/www.cmwealthadvisors.com

$2,551.0 101 $5,000.0 NA Percentage of assets undermanagement, fixed fees Cynthia G. Koury James W. Wert

president, CEO

4Rehmann Financial29065 Clemens Road, Bldg. B, Westlake 44145(440) 356-4520/www.rehmann.com

$1,335.1 670 $250.0 10 Fee or commission Jeffrey PhillipsJoseph P. Heiderregional managingprincipal

5Fairport Asset Management3636 Euclid Ave., Cleveland 44115(216) 431-3000/www.fairportasset.com

$1,266.6 1,485 $1,000.0 4 Fee only JT MullenJohn Silvis

Kenneth ColemanHeather Ettingermanaging partners

6Fairway Wealth Management LLC6055 Rockside Woods Blvd., Suite 330, Independence 44131-2317(216) 573-7200/www.fairwaywealth.com

$917.0 133 $2,000.0 5 Fee only, based on assetsand/or scope of services Mark S. Weiskind Daniel R. Gaugler

CEO, managing director

7Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC3500 Embassy Parkway, Akron 44333(330) 375-9480/www.sequoia-financial.com

$916.2 3,793 $0.0 4Percentage of assets undermanagement, fee andcommission

Thomas A.Haught

Thomas A. Haughtpresident

8McDonald Partners LLC959 W. Saint Clair Ave., Cleveland 44113(216) 912-0567/www.mcdonald-partners.com

$754.6 2,315 NA 2 Fee and commission Bill Hegarty Thomas McDonaldpresident, CEO

9MGO Investment Advisors Inc.24400 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 310, Beachwood 44122(216) 771-4242/www.mgo-inc.com

$557.0 2,604 $15.0 5 Percentage of assets undermanagement

Michael BradfordMoskal

Michael Moskalpresident

10Cornerstone Capital Advisors1507 Boettler Road, Suite G, Uniontown 44685(330) 896-6250/www.ccadvisors.com

$519.4 1,295 $100.0 3 Fee only Mario C. Giganti Mark W. Fearigoprincipal, senior adviser

11St. Clair Advisors LLC6120 Parkland Blvd., Suite 303, Mayfield Heights 44124(216) 925-5670/www.saintclairadvisors.com

$444.8 55 $5,000.0 2 Fee only, fixed or based onassets under management

David W.Sommer

Ronald E. BatesCEO

12Landing Point Financial Group36350 Detroit Road, Avon 44011-1506(440) 934-7100/www.ameripriseadvisors.com/team/landing-point-financial-group/

$404.3 2,326 NA 14 Percentage of assets undermanagement NA

Joe L. FlinnerCEO, private wealthadviser

13Inverness Holdings LLCOne Chagrin Highlands, Suite 440, Beachwood 44122(216) 839-5130/www.invernesswealth.com

$359.2 332 $750.0 8 Fee and commission Jeffrey vanFossen

Richard B. Rennerprincipal

14Vantage Financial Group Inc.6200 Rockside Road, Cleveland 44131(216) 642-7878/www.vanfin.com

$357.9 2,000 NA NA Fee and commission NA George Szeretvaipresident, founder

15Aurum Wealth Management Group LLC6685 Beta Drive, Mayfield Village 44143(440) 605-1900/www.aurumwealth.com

$325.5 118 $1,000.0 2 Fee only Michael T.McKeown

Eric N. WulffChristopher D. Bartmanaging directors

16Scott Snow (financial advisors) LLC24601 Center Ridge Road, Suite 175, Westlake 44145(440) 871-7669/www.s2fa.com

$295.8 70 $1,000.0 2 Fee only Scott P. Snow Scott P. Snowmanaging director

17Financial Management Strategies Inc.9050 Sweet Valley Drive, Valley View 44125(216) 642-1099/www.fmstrategies.biz

$205.6 413 $50.0 2 Fee only, percentage of assetsunder management Charles B. Elliott Jeffrey C. Knox

president

18Paradigm Wealth Management LLC159 Crocker Park Blvd., Suite 400, Westlake 44145(440) 892-5900/www.investpwm.com

$132.2 59 $500.0 2 Percentage of assets undermanagement Marnie Randel Douglas C. Kuhlman

managing partner

Source: Information is supplied by the companies unless footnoted. Crain's Cleveland Business does not independently verify the information and there is no guarantee theselistings are complete or accurate. We welcome all responses to our lists and will include omitted information or clarifications in coming issues. Should your company be on thislist? Send an email to [email protected] to request a survey.(1) Companies that are registered with the SEC as investment advisers but do not have full control over where their clients' money is invested are included in the InvestmentAdvisers list. This criteria is in keeping with the standard used by our sister publication, Pensions & Investments.(2) As of the most recent ADV filed with the SEC.

RESEARCHED BY Deborah W. Hillyer

Cuyahoga River dredging will be a relief for ArcelorMittalBy DAN [email protected]

While there might still be dis-agreement over a long-term solutionabout what to do with sedimentdredged to clear the Cuyahoga River,Cleveland’s major steel mill will getsome supply-chain relief with a de-cision to move forward next monthwith this year’s dredging.

ArcelorMittal relies on the river toreceive ore, and like a lot of GreatLakes steel operations, its Clevelandmill has been eager to replenish itsinventories after a brutal winter

shipping season that cut recent ship-ping volumes on the lakes by half.The company was quick to expressits gratitude with a decision onWednesday, April 23, by the federalgovernment to move forward withdredging.

“We are very pleased that the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers will bedredging the Cuyahoga River begin-ning this spring,” said Eric Hauge,

vice president and general managerof ArcelorMittal Cleveland, in anemail after the Corps’ announce-ment. “Dredging is essential to thecontinued use of the Federal Naviga-tion Channel on the Cuyahoga Riv-er, the vital means of delivering rawmaterials needed to operate theArcelorMittal Cleveland steel mill.”

The Corps said it will go aheadand dredge about 225,000 cubicyards of sediment from the river —enough to fill 9,000 intermodalshipping containers seen on railcars and semi trailers. It will dumpthe sediment in a confined dispos-

al facility near Burke Lakefront Air-port, which will contain any poten-tial contaminants.

The Corps had planned to dumpthe sediment, which comes from theriver upstream of the lake, out furtherin Lake Erie. But the Ohio Environ-mental Protection Agency and theCorps disagreed over whether theriver has become clean enough tohandle its sediment in that manner,temporarily halting dredging plans.

Now the Corps apparently willdo, for now, what both the OEPAand ArcelorMittal were hoping. Thesteelmaker weighed in on April 14

as well, saying “the need to dredgethe Cuyahoga River federal naviga-tion channel becomes more acuteeach day.”

Ore boats in mid-April were prac-ticing “light loading” to compensatefor river depths that were five to sixfeet below authorized limits, thecompany said, reducing the size ofeach boat’s shipment to the mill.

Politicians on both sides of theaisle, including both of Ohio’s U.S.senators, were instrumental and effective in urging the Corps tomove forward, according toArcelorMittal. ■

ON THE WEB Story from: www.crainscleveland.com



REAL ESTATEContact: Denise DonaldsonPhone: (216) 522-1383Fax: (216) 694-4264E-mail: [email protected]

Copy Deadline: Wednesdays @ 2:00 p.m. All Ads Pre-Paid: Check or Credit Card

AUCTIONS COMMERCIAL SPACE

FOR RENT

FOR SALE

AUCTIONTwo Farms and a Jeep81 Years Accumulation

12539 CLARIDON TROY RD. CHARDON, OHIO 44024. GeaugaCounty, 3.5 mile N of Burton SATURDAY – MAY 10, 2014 – 10:30 AMReal estate (265 Ac, 7 houses); one owner – 46 Farm Jeep (CJ-2A), PTO,orig. trailer – Preview: Sun. May 4, 1:30-3:30

AUCTIONEER/REALTOR:Russell T. (Rusty) Kiko, Jr., C.A.I., ext 115, 330-495-0923

[email protected]

KIKO Auctioneerswww.kikoauctions.com

CHARTWELL AUCTIONS | MAY 7NE OHIO COMMERCIAL, RESIDENTIAL,

OFFICE/WAREHOUSE & DEVELOPMENT LAND

For Brochure & Terms of Sale, Call: Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson or Mike Berland216-360-0009

ChartwellAuctions.comHanna Chartwell / Chartwell Auctions, LLC

Michael Berland, OH Auctioneer

PARCELS 1-19

COURT ORDERED SHERIFF’S SALE19 SINGLE FAMILY HOMESITES

IN MEDINA & STARK CO. MEDINA COUNTY COURT OF

COMMON PLEAS CASE # 12CIV1276 & STARK COUNTY COURT OF COM-

MON PLEAS CASE # 2012CV03984Dover Highlands Subdivision: Just south of Lafayette Rd. (SR 42), off Ryan Rd., 3 miles from downtown Medina & 5 miles from I-71: 6 Homesites with Pub Reserves from $19,343 - $21,344 Laurel Glen Subdivision: Heart of Brunswick just West of Pearl Rd., off Laurel Rd. near Laurel Square Shopping Center. 3 miles from I-71: 6 Homesites with Pub Reserves from $17,342 - $20,000Turnberry Subdivision: Just north of SR 162 near Fox Valley CC. 4 miles from downtown Medina and 3 miles from I-71: 2 homesites with Pub Reserves of $26,013 & $28,014 Emerald Estates Subdivision: 6 Homesites off High Mill Avenue NW, just east of SR 236 & less than 5 miles from downtown Canal Fulton. 15 minutes from Akron-Canton Airport and 30 minutes from downtown Akron: Published Reserves from $22,678 - $25,346For Brochure & Terms call Mike Berland, Court Appointed Auctioneer (216) 839-2032

OFFERED WITH PUBLISHED RESERVE PRICES 2/3RDS OF APPRAISED VALUES

PARCEL 21OFFERED WITH A PUBLISHED

RESERVE OF ONLY: $120,000GAS STATION WITH

C-STORE ON 1.04 ACRES 1975 N. DANBURY STATION RD.

MARBLEHEAD, OH 43440

Gas Station w/ C-Store of 2,304 SF on huge 1.04 acre corner lot. Complete interior/exterior restoration. Includes walk-in cooler, 2 upright freezers, refrigerated display case, 3 underground fuel tanks of 10,000, 6,000 & 4,000 gallons. Located at corner of Danbury Rd. & Bayshore Rd. just off SR 2, the store is on a peninsula close to the Erie islands, Put-in-Bay and Kelleys. Best location for Lake Erie Perch and Walleye. Attractions include Marblehead Lighthouse and Cedar Point. On-Site Inspection Dates: Tuesday, April 29 from 10:00 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. & Friday, May 2 from 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M.For Brochure & Terms call Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson (216) 839-2027


RESERVE OF ONLY: $95,0005,400 SF OFFICE/

WAREHOUSE CONDO 10143 ROYALTON ROAD N. ROYALTON, OH 44133

Move-in ready property in pristine condition. Located in Royalton Business Park, this is part of a Class A Flex bldg built in 2002. Three combined units totaling 5,400 SF with front door parking. Reception, 3 offices (2,200 SF), conf room, kitchen, warehouse (3,200 SF) with three 12’ DIDs. FINAL On-Site Inspection Date: Mon., April 28 from 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M.For Brochure & Terms call Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson (216) 839-2027


RESERVE OF ONLY: $12,5004,445 SF RETAIL/

SERVICE BUILDING 7428 LAKE ROAD

CHIPPEWA LAKE, OH 44215

4,445 SF One-story frame building in good condition. Corner lot of .36 acres. 16’-18’ ceilings with overhead loading door. Excellent opportunity for retail or office/warehouse for service business such as plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc. FINAL On-Site Inspection Date: Wednesday, April 30 1:00 P.M. to 2:30 P.M.For Brochure & Terms call Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson (216) 839-2027


RESERVE OF ONLY: $20,0003,000+/- SF

COMMERCIAL BLDG. 11501 ST. CLAIR AVENUE CLEVELAND, OH 44108

3,000+/- SF Commercial building on 5,310 SF site with adjacent 4,320 SF parking lot. Property features two storefronts with 120’ frontage on heavily traveled St. Clair Ave. Owned by same family for 40+ years. Zoned Commercial, the property is ideal for a variety of uses including retail, service, restaurant and more FINAL On-Site Inspection: Friday, May 2 from 1:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.For Brochure & Terms call Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson (216) 839-2027

PARCEL 25OFFERED WITH A PUBLISHED RESERVE OF ONLY: $10,000

CENTER RIDGE RD. & BRADLEY RD., WESTLAKE, OH 441455.6 ACRES ZONED GENERAL BUSINESSExcellent Westlake Comm Dev Opportunity. Exceptional visibility, high traffic counts. City water & sewer, perfect for a variety of commercial uses. For Brochure & Terms call Mark Abood, OH RE Salesperson (216) 360-0009

5222 Richmond Rd. Bedford HtsContractors Row. Lease or Sell, Stand

Alone Bldg.Office/Shop/Warehouse -- 4000SF

$249K

216-798-5199

Parma WarehouseAvailable

Clean, Safe and ClimateControlled. Reasonable rates

up to 3,500 SF

216-469-7582

CLASSIFIEDBUSINESS SERVICES

CHEAPKITCHEN CABINETS

Locally MadeProMark Cabinets(216) 453-3654

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By JAY [email protected]

Sentry Protection Products, aLakewood company that makesand sells column protection prod-ucts for use in factories and ware-houses, is shipping a container ofits bright yellow, impact-resistantbumpers to Europe on the first re-turn trip of the Fortunagracht, thefirst regularly scheduled cargo ser-vice between the Great Lakes andEurope.

“This is an incredible opportuni-ty for Cleveland, Northeast Ohioand Ohio,” said Pierre vanHauwaert, the company’s interna-tional sales and marketing repre-sentative and president of AplusBExport Management, a RichmondHeights export development firm.“This adds a whole new aspect tothe supply chain.”

The return trip to Antwerp, Bel-

gium, will include a mix of machin-ery and containers, as well as somelocal beer and a yellow school bus.

The Fortunagracht arrived inCleveland late on Friday, April 18,loaded with containers of con-sumer and industrial goods, windenergy parts, machinery and otherindustrial equipment. It is expect-ed to make monthly calls on Cleve-land through the end of 2014.

Mark Krantz, chairman of theboard of the Cleveland-CuyahogaCounty Port Authority, at a newsconference on Tuesday, April 22,said this is the first direct cargo ser-vice between a Great Lakes portand Europe in more than a decade.Until now, cargo originating fromor ending up in the Midwest had to

be shipped to an East Coast portand then put on a train or a truck.

Trorin Swartout, vice presidentof the Amsterdam-based SpliethoffGroup, owner of the Fortunagracht,said his company was pleased withthis first round trip. He said it willbe more than half full in both direc-tions.

This cargo service is a pilot project— essentially, a ship chartered bythe Port Authority. The hope is that,once the service is up and runningand shippers know they can rely onit, revenue from shippers will offsetthe $850,000-a-month cost of thecharter. A Port Authority projectiondeveloped last fall showed the ser-vice losing $136,250 in its firstmonth but ending its first year of op-eration with a profit of $8,750.

Will Friedman, the Port Authori-ty’s president, lauded his board forcommitting the funding for thiscargo service.

“The board deserves credit forthis foresight and, frankly, for theircourage in launching this,” he said.“It’s not every day that a public en-tity takes business risk.”

The Port Authority and SpliethoffGroup believe they can attract cus-tomers with a lower cost and fastertransit time to Europe.

Krantz said the response hasbeen so strong that SpliethoffGroup and the Port Authority areconsidering adding a second shipas soon as mid-summer of thisyear.

“We have been validated in thisearly response from shippers inboth Europe and the UnitedStates,” he said.

Krantz noted that cargo headingback to Europe has come from asfar away as Iowa and California.

Included on this first trip to Eu-rope was a yellow school bus thatACO Polymer Products Inc. in

Chardon is shipping to its corpo-rate parent, the Ahlmann Co. ofGermany, where it will be used totransport customers and othersaround the company’s hometownof Rendsburg.

Also, Great Lakes Brewing Co. isshipping a small number of cases ofbeer to a European trade show,with an eye to establishing interna-tional distribution of its Dort-munder Gold and Edmund Fitzger-ald brews. ■

Cargo service between Great Lakes and Europe sets sailON THE WEB Story from: www.crainscleveland.com

“We have been validatedin this early responsefrom shippers in bothEurope and the UnitedStates.”

– Mark Krantzchairman of the board,

Cleveland-Cuyahoga County PortAuthority


Bright idea■ InsideHigherEd.com examined ClevelandState University’s new strategy to get studentsto degree completion faster andcalled it “a pretty simple idea that’ssurprisingly uncommon.”

The gist: Students are allowed —and encouraged to register for anentire year’s worth of courses be-fore the fall semester.

“In this first year that ClevelandState offered the option, 60 percentof students used it,” according tothe story. “Officials expect that figure willclimb to 80 percent next year, as they contin-ue to advertise and sell the idea as a potential-ly money-saving tool.”

Cleveland State president Ronald M. Berk-man told InsideHigherEd.com, “I think it’sgoing to be of extraordinary importance to-ward completion. If you expect Course B tobe given in the spring, and Course B is thecourse you need to take before Course C, butit turns out Course B is not given in thespring. … Those are very, very real complexi-ties for students.”

The website noted that many ClevelandState students commute, have a familyand/or work part-time. Berkman says beingable to plan ahead, stay on track and savetime and money on the way makes it easier tobalance those responsibilities.

On ice■ TheAtlanticCities.com looked closely atwhy it’s a big deal that almost half the GreatLakes are still covered in ice.

As of April 10, “48% of the five lakes’ 90,000-plus square miles were still covered in ice,down from a high of 92.2% on March 6,” thewebsite said. That March figure “constitutedthe highest levels recorded since 1979, whenice covered 94.7% of the lakes.”

The story noted that as the Great Lakes “slow-ly lose their historically large ice covers over thenext few months, the domino effects could in-clude lingering cold water, delayed seasonalshifts, and huge jumps in water levels.”

This also is a big deal, at least in the shortterm, when it comes to commerce.

“More than 200 million tons ofcargo, mostly iron ore, coal, andgrain, travel across the Great Lakesthroughout the year,” TheAtlantic-Cities.com reported. “Even a littleice can make a big dent on this to-tal. Only three shipments of coalwere loaded up during March —69% less, by volume, than last year.”

Indeed, the Rocky River-based Lake Carri-ers’ Association, in its March shipping report,cited “ice formations, the likes of which havenot been seen in decades,” as a main factor is“severely (limiting) cargo movement in U.S.-flag vessels on the Great Lakes.”

Two more years?■ U.S. Rep. David Joyce, a Republican fromGeauga County, probably enjoyed reading arecent story in Politico.com about the 2014mid-term elections.

The story noted that House Democrats,“battered by Koch brothers ads and facing agrim outlook for the midterms, are providingthe clearest indication yet of how they plan torespond: By shoring up imperiled incumbentsand only the most promising challengers, butmost likely leaving some of the party’s upstarthopefuls to fend for themselves.”

Joyce at one time was a key target for De-mocrats, Politico.com said. But “many De-mocratic operatives … no longer think it’spossible to unseat” Joyce, a freshman who oc-cupies something of a swing district.

After starting the 2014 election with aroundthree dozen pickup opportunities, some De-mocratic strategists now believe “that figureis down to between 20 and 24,” Politico.comreported.

Barrio heads for a newneighborhood: downtown■ In a switch, Cleveland’s Barrio RestaurantGroup, which runs taquerias in Tremontand Lakewood, plans to open a downtownlocation at 5th Street Arcades partially be-cause of the city center’s growing residentialpopulation. Its focus also will be onevenings instead of serving the lunch crowd.

The neighborhood feel attracted Barrio,said Sean Fairborn, Barrio operating part-ner, as the local chain is “all about being aneighborhood destination.” He cited moretypical reasons for adding a Gateway-areastore as well, such as proximity to the Gate-way sports venues and East Fourth Street.

By Aug. 1, Barrio willoccupy a long-emptyhole on 5th Street’s southside — its last streetfrontvacancy — and will helpthe property strategical-ly, said Dick Pace, CEOof Cleveland-basedCumberland Group.Pace’s firm operates 5th

Street on the lower level of Residence InnDowntown Cleveland in the landmark Eu-clid and Colonial arcades between 530 Eu-clid Ave. and 527 Prospect.

The specialist in build-your-own tacos,tequila and whiskey will be open 4 p.m. to2:30 a.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.weekends. With hours extending past theworkday, Pace said, Barrio is designed tohelp build evening traffic to encourage mer-chants in the complex to stay open longer.

Barrio will have outdoor seating in sum-

mers as well as overflow seating in the ar-cades in the winter, Pace said.

— Stan Bullard

Valuation vet’s new gigoffers ‘wealth of resources’■ A Cleveland native who has spent his ca-reer advising business owners — often onmergers and other transactions — has sethis own succession plan into motion bymerging his one-man practice into another.

Rand M. Curtiss, who provided valuationservices through the firm he founded, Love-man-Curtiss Inc., for 28 years, has joinedWestern Reserve Valuation Services LLC asa director, and is its only professional inCleveland.

An affiliate of the Cleveland investmentbanking firm Western Reserve Partners LLC,Western Reserve Valuation Services up un-til now had been comprised of four execu-tives in Columbus who traveled to Cleve-land to serve clients in Northeast Ohio.

Now, local clients may turn to Curtiss,who has advised major public companies,privately held businesses and startups onvaluation and other financial matters fornearly three decades. Over that period, hesaid, he’s advised some 3,500 clients.

“I will be 64 this year, (and) I have lovedbeing a sole practitioner,” Curtiss said. “Butas I get older, some clients are saying …‘How long are you going to be around?’

“This is a chance for me to assure myclients that even if I’m not around that therewill be continuity of service for them,” headded. “And it gives me access to a wealth ofresources.” — Michelle Park Lazette

The ‘back pocket’ planis still a possibility■ The Cleveland Clinic remains in discus-sions about acquiring Akron General HealthSystem.

Through a spokeswoman, the Clinic con-firmed it was still in talks with the financial-ly hard-pressed Akron hospital, which it hadoriginally planned to acquire through a jointventure with Community Health Systems, afor-profit hospital giant based in Tennessee.

That deal, which was announced last Au-gust, soured in early Jan-uary, though Clinic CEODr. Toby Cosgrove toldCrain’s later that monththat it still was interestedin a takeover. AkronGeneral hasn’t said whoelse it might be talkingto, and a hospitalspokesman said lastweek that no announce-ments were imminent.

After the Clinic-CHSdeal fell apart in January,Akron General CEO Dr.Thomas “Tim” Stovertold Crain’s, “I’ve alwayshad reserve plans in myback pocket, which is ex-actly what we’re going tohave to do.”

Earlier this month, Akron mayor DonPlusquellic said Akron General and its rivalSumma Health System should merge. Bothhospital systems quickly dismissed the idea.

— Timothy Magaw

WHAT’S NEW

COMPANY: Osborn, ClevelandPRODUCT: 114-knot cutbackbrush

Osborn, a supplier of industrial brush-es, said the new cutback brush is usedfor angled removal of three or more lay-ers of coating from pipe ends.

The company worked with machinemanufacturers to develop the cutbackbrush to make removal of pipe coatingquicker and more cost-effective. Thebrush “completes the three steps in theprocess of standard coating removal si-multaneously,” according to Osborn. It’sdesigned to clean the pipe edge, removethe pipe coating and grind the coating an-gle, all at one time, the company said.

“Osborn wanted to solve a common is-sue in pipeline construction: preparingthe coated pipes for welding,” said JeffNaymik, marketing manager at Osborn.“The ½-inch thick coating has to be re-moved from the pipe end and leave an an-gle so that when welded together thepipe can be properly recoated to preventcorrosion.

Previously available only from suppliersin Europe, the cutback brush features “alarger diameter and more knots than anybrush currently produced in North Amer-ica,” Osborn claims.

For information, visit www.orborn.com.

Send information about new products to managing editor Scott Suttell at [email protected].

REPORTERS’ NOTEBOOKBEHIND THE NEWS WITH CRAIN’S WRITERS

THEINSIDER

THEWEEK APRIL 21 - 27

The big story: Philips Healthcare temporar-ily has suspended production operations at itsmedical imaging facility in Highland Heightswhile it works to improve its quality controlprocesses. Philips stopped production voluntar-ily, but the shutdown was prompted by process-related issues that federal regulators identifiedduring a recent inspection. However, “there isno indication” that those issues have affectedthe safety of the medical imaging machinesmade at the facility, Philips said in a statement.Philips makes computed tomography scannersand molecular imaging machines in HighlandHeights. “Our customers can remain confidentin the safety of our products,” the company said.

Zip it: The University of Akron, the city ofAkron and Summit County hope to develop an$80 million, 9,000-seat arena across from CanalPark in downtown Akron that would serve as thehome court for the Zips’ basketball teams and avenue for other sporting and entertainmentevents in the city. Summit County would ownthe arena. County officials are expected to askvoters in November to approve a 0.25% increasein the county’s sales and use tax to be used, inpart, to fund the design and construction of thefacility. The city and university are expected toprovide land for the project.

Cleared for takeoff: Cleveland Hopkins In-ternational Airport is in line for a $20 millionfacelift. The city-owned airport hired interna-tional architecture/engineering firm Leo A Dalyof Minneapolis and the Cleveland firm VanAuken Akins Architects LLC to provide designservices for renovations to the airport. The tick-eting and baggage areas have been criticized bypassengers as outdated. The fixes may helpCleveland Hopkins attract new airline service.United Airlines is ending its hub service at theairport in June. See editorial, Page 10

Gamesmanship: The Cleveland Brownssacked Bernie Kosar as a preseason televisionanalyst. The Browns said they “are in discussionswith Kosar on potential new roles” and noted hestill could be part of the pregame broadcasts inthe preseason. Kosar responded with a state-ment indicating he believes “this decision stemsfrom my slurred speech impairment, which is adirect result of the many concussions I receivedwhile playing in the NFL.” The fan favorite saidhe hopes WKYC-TV, Channel 3, will “reconsiderutilizing my in-game talents and overlook myconcussion-induced impairment. I want every-one to know that I still bleed Brown and Or-ange.” WKYC president and general managerBrooke Spectorsky denied that Kosar’s some-times-slurred delivery impacted the controver-sial move.

A wanted man: Former Ohio State footballcoach Jim Tressel is a popular guy: He’s one ofthree finalists for the presidency at the Univer-sity of Akron, where he’s now an executive vicepresident, and one of six finalists at YoungstownState University, where he used to coach. TheAkron candidates will meet various universitystakeholders, including faculty and students,through early next month. Youngstown State’ssearch committee late last week interviewed thesix candidates via Skype.

If the GOP won’t have us …: Cleveland isamong 15 cities that have been asked to submitproposals to host the 2016 Democratic Nation-al Convention. In addition to Cleveland, thecities in the running are Atlanta, Chicago,Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Mi-ami, Nashville, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia,Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City. Cities in-terested in bidding to host the convention mustsubmit their proposal by 5 p.m. on June 6.


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