The Ohio Third Frontier is Ohio's largest-ever commitment to high-tech job creation and economic progress. Created in 2002, the Ohio Third Frontier is an unprecedented commitment to create new technology-based products, companies, industries and jobs. In May, the Ohio Third Frontier was extended through 2015 indicating a widely held understanding by the populace that technology and innovation will lead to economic prosperity both today and for future generations.
The Ohio Third Frontier promotes economic growth by expanding the availability of investment capital needed to form new companies, supporting product innovation in established companies, facilitating commercialization of new products, funding collaborative projects between private companies and Ohio colleges and universities and nurturing Ohio's increasingly experienced pool of entrepreneurial management.
Watch this video to find out about how the Ohio Third Frontier is helping entrepreneurs find their opportunities in Ohio.
These days, some of the biggest ideas are coming from the youngest of minds. College students and recent graduates across Ohio are combining bold ideas with bold action, fueling the state's transformation one job at a time. hiVelocity caught up with a few of the young entrepreneurs who are making a mark on Ohio.
Patrick Yovanov, 22, Central Venous Catheter Home Care Device
Jason Owens, 23, Owens Technology
Nick Dadas, 28, University Tees
Paul Milligan, 21, QueVee
Danny Stull, 24, Venturepax
Stephanie Rucinski, 34, JoeMetric, Inc.
Year after year, Ohio consistently leads the U.S. in business start-up, growth and expansion because it offers entrepreneurs and small businesses all they need to succeed, including access to supply chain and markets, access to capital, access to knowledge and labor and access to a balanced life. Ohio’s low-overhead-cost structure and central location within easy reach of customers and suppliers in key industries also provide the most affordable choice for sales, distribution and manufacturing operations in North America.
Ohio has a number of programs for entrepreneurs, pre-seed funding opportunities, incentives, research programs and business assistance to help businesses grow and prosper, including Ohio Third Frontier, a 10-year, $1.6 billion initiative to expand high-tech research capabilities and promote innovation and company formation that will create high-paying jobs for generations to come.
In addition, entrepreneurs and business owners enjoy a work-life balance in Ohio that they can find nowhere else in the world. The convenience of travel, with short commutes from work to home, lower stress and give more time to priority family activities. In Ohio, you can build your business and love your life without having to sacrifice one for the other. It’s truly the State of Perfect Balance.
Click here to read the full story from hiVelocity.
I read a great article by The Plain Dealer about what Ohio's GrafTech International has been up to -- how their technology may be right in your pocket.
There is a little piece of Cleveland technology in the smart phone in your pocket, in the big flat-screen TV on your living room wall and in the high-end laptop you have been coveting.
It's a piece of graphite engineered to a high-tech thinness that makes it as flexible as paper without affecting one of its hallmarks -- the uncanny ability to sop up and dissipate heat better than any metal. Without it, the gee-whiz gadgets would burn up from the heat they generate.
(Source The Plain Dealer, July 17, 2010. Read the full story here).
GrafTech products, which include graphite electrodes, advanced carbon and graphite materials, and flexible graphite, are manufactured on four continents and sold in more than 80 countries around the world. Continuing a century-old tradition of global leadership, the employees of GrafTech are united in their dedication to common goals: continually improving productivity and safety, delivering the highest levels of quality and value to customers, and creating value for shareholders.
GrafTech has received funding from the Ohio Third Frontier for several projects. The Ohio Third Frontier is an unprecedented and bipartisan commitment to create technology-based products, companies, industries and jobs. Since its inception, the Ohio Third Frontier has created, capitalized or attracted more than 600 companies, has created nearly 55,000 direct and indirect jobs and helped create $6.6 billion in economic impact in Ohio, a 9:1 return on investment. The State of Ohio also helped GrafTech move its global headquarters to Parma, Ohio in 2006 with the Job Creation Tax Credit.
Click here to read more about what GrafTech's doing at its global headquarters in Ohio.
Millions in state and federal funding has recently been secured to launch a green and advanced energy business incubator in Warren, Ohio. The purpose of the incubator is to help foster the development of technology businesses in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley. Essentially, the businesses spawned from the incubator will produce parts for geothermal, solar and nuclear energy plants, increasing the number of tech jobs in the state.
The Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition (Nortech) will be lending its expertise on the incubator project. Rebecca Bagley, president and CEO of Cleveland-based Nortech, said that over the next 10 months Nortech will help to identify the site for the incubator. Nortech will also help the incubator's 26-person steering committee develop an operational plan.
So far, nearly $3 million has been secured for the project. About $2.2 million in federal funds will be used to help equip the site. Another $500,000 in state funds has been earmarked to purchase the incubator building. Operating capital is expected to come from both federal and state dollars, including Ohio Third Frontier, a bipartisan commitment to expand Ohio's technology business.
Click here to learn more about the advanced energy business incubator in Warren, Ohio.
I recently read the results from an Ohio Business Roundtable study, which found that Ohio Third Frontier has provided a 22 percent annual return on investment. In fact, according to the study, 50 percent of Ohio Third Frontier investment has already been repaid in sales and income taxes – with the investment forecast to be completely repaid to the state by 2014.
The Ohio Business Roundtable’s study reports that employment growth supported by high-tech business development has created faster technology jobs growth in Ohio – the eighth-fastest pace of growth in the nation – than in nearly any other Midwest state, creating employment opportunities for Ohioans across all work backgrounds, at double the pay of non-tech sectors.
Employment numbers show Ohio is also gaining traction in the advanced materials, biomedical and power and propulsion sectors that Ohio Third Frontier specifically targets for business development. Since its inception in 2002, Ohio Third Frontier has created or capitalized more than 500 companies and has created $6.6 billion in economic impact in Ohio, a 9:1 return on investment. Click here to learn more about the newly released Ohio Business Roundtable study.
