Ohio’s Commitment to Entrepreneurs

June 11th, 2009

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned that Ohio has many innovative programs and services to help Ohio entrepreneurs and small business owners encourage sustainable growth. One program is the Ohio Department of Development's Ohio Edison Technology Incubator Program, which assists technology-oriented start-ups during their concept definition and development stages. A professional management team from each Edison Incubator provides expert business advice to their clients. These management teams can assist Incubator clients in areas such as concept evaluation, business plan development, capital acquisition, strategic business and financial planning, and access to technology and technical support. I recently spoke with Ray Leach, chief executive officer of JumpStart, Inc., a member of the Ohio Edison Technology Incubator Program.

JumpStart is a nationally recognized venture development organization that helps Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs succeed in rapidly growing their early-stage companies into large ventures. As part of its robust public-private partnership model, JumpStart recognizes the integral support of the Ohio Third Frontier program, the state's largest-ever commitment to expanding Ohio's high tech research, innovation, commercialization and company formation activities, which are increasing opportunities for all Ohioans.

Ray's career began at IBM and has been principally focused on information technology companies previous to creating and leading JumpStart in 2003. He is a Sloan Fellow and earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also earned a BA in Finance from the University of Akron. Ray serves on the boards of the Council of Competitiveness in Washington DC, the Red Cross Blood Services of Northern Ohio, and is the Chairman of the Invent Now Kids board of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum.

Ray brings energy and leadership experiences over the last twenty years to JumpStart and is passionate about all that Ohio has to offer.

Click here to read more about my interview with Ray.