Instruments, Controls and Electronics is a high-tech industry consisting of companies that offer goods and services related to the research, development, and application of instrumentation, controls and electronics. The scope of the industry reaches to advanced sensor technology, distributed control systems, and advanced motion control.
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.
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.
Over the past decade, enrollment at U.S. institutions of higher learning has grown by more than 25 percent, reaching 18.5 million in 2007. Much of the growth is due to a boom in adult and distance learning – a trend that Dr. Michael Mark recognized nearly two decades ago.
While serving as director of adult learning services at a major state institution, his passion for quality education inspired him to seek a better way for his distance-learning students to obtain their course materials. Finding none, he created his own.
Two companies later, Dr. Mark is credited with creating a niche industry around the fulfillment of content and course materials for distance learning, career and multi-campus colleges.
A native New Yorker, Dr. Mark went to college at Ohio University and found that Appalachia was “just too pretty a place to leave.” And, when it came time to start his companies, the serial entrepreneur found the ideal business startup location in Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachia.
“I am here because of the Ohio Promise,” Dr. Mark shared in a recent interview with me. “My favorite thing about living in Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachian Region is that you can achieve professional success within the context of a fulfilling life.”
Click here to read the rest of my interview with Dr. Mark.
According to the National Business Incubation Association, business incubators generate up to 20 times more jobs than any other federally funded community infrastructure project – at a fraction of the cost per job.
Nearly 30 years ago, this insight inspired the creation of Ohio University’s Innovation Center. Since then, the first university-based incubator in the state of Ohio and only the 12th in the U.S. has nurtured more than 80 companies and created more than 1,000 jobs in Ohio’s Appalachian Region.
Focused on information technology, biosciences and alternative and sustainable energy, the Center offers a home – complete with offices, conference rooms, shared office equipment and advanced laboratory equipment that includes the only commercial wet labs in Southeast Ohio – where startup businesses in these industries can grow.
I recently spoke with Jennifer Simon, director of the Innovation Center. She pointed out that the entrepreneurs in Athens and the surrounding region want to stay. The business-friendly environment, growth opportunities and talented workforce fuel the growth of these small businesses, but the welcoming community and balanced lifestyle make them want to remain in the area.
Click here to read the full Ohio University Innovation Center story.
Big business doesn't always have to mean life in the big city. Some of Ohio's fastest-growing companies are proving that, becoming leaders in high-tech and service fields far from the outer-belts of Ohio's urban centers. A few of Ohio's home-grown entrepreneurs shared with hiVelocity about why they like where they live and why they plan to stay:
Steve Spoonamore, ABS Materials (Wooster, Ohio)
John Fusco, National Patent Analytical Systems, Inc. (Mansfield, Ohio)
Bill Whittenberger, Catacel Corp. (Garrettsville, Ohio)
Michael Mark, Ed Map (Nelsonville, Ohio)
Larry Triplett, Resource Systems (New Concord, Ohio)
Executives are realizing, in Ohio, they can find the perfect balance to successfully growing a business without sacrificing their life. Business owners profit from the bottom-line benefits of better work-life balance for their employees. Ohio’s low-cost, low-stress communities and combination of micropolitan and metropolitan cities provides executives and employees the resources and time to make any ambition achievable. Ohio truly is the State of Perfect Balance.
Click here to read the full story with hiVelocity.
According to the National Business Incubation Association, business incubators generate up to 20 times more jobs than any other federally funded community infrastructure project – at a fraction of the cost per job.