• Innovation + Job News

    4 September 2010, 3:13 am

  • Featured Stories

    4 September 2010, 3:13 am

  • Steel maker Timken Co. invests $50 million in Ohio

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Bearings and specialty steel maker Timken Co. says it will invest $50 million in its steel operations in Canton, Ohio, to help keep up with increasing demand, reports the Associated Press.

    The money will pay for installation of a new intermediate finishing line at the Gambrinus Steel Plant, which will improve efficiency and incorporate new technologies and processes. The line is expected to be fully operational in 2013.

    Read the full story here.

  • Ohio moves toward fast lane in electric, hybrid car development

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Paul Havasi of Cleveland gets a lot of stares from fellow drivers on his way to work. His three-wheeled electric NmG is a rare sight. But laugh all you want; his choice of transport is the way of the future, according to the many businesses and researchers in Ohio developing technology and products for hybrid and electric cars.

  • Ohio University’s research licensing income rises to $8.2 million

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Ohio University reported $8.2 million in income from its research technologies in fiscal year 2010, the majority of which came from licenses for health and medical advances for growth hormone and thyroid disorders, reports Ohio University.

    The university received more than $8 million from the Pfizer corporation from a license for a growth hormone antagonist.

    Read the full story here.

  • Ohio sensors surge on back of Wright-Patt, regional strengths

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    A camera that can read your fingerprints from six feet away. A system that can catch criminals in a 16-square-mile area. Tiny planes that can soar over an urban battlefield and tell friend from foe. All are signs that Ohio is emerging as a major force in 21st century sensor technology.

  • Ohio food plant expansion to create 169 jobs

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    A Massillon snack foods manufacturer says its new production facility in northeast Ohio will create 169 jobs, reports the Associated Press.

    Shearer's Foods says phase one of the project will create 79 jobs with a second phase creating 90 more jobs in January 2011.
     
    Read the full story here.

  • Q&A: Energize Clinton County's Mark Rembert

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Two years ago, Mark Rembert was a new college graduate working in a Philadelphia PR firm and thinking about joining the Peace Corps. He scrapped those plans when DHL Express announced it was shutting down its hub in Wilmington, costing thousands of local jobs. Instead, he and childhood friend Taylor Stuckert returned to help rebuild their hometown.

  • Milford firm’s biomass equipment picked for DOE research site, Penn State research

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    While deep thinkers continue to debate whether the chicken or the egg came first, one thing's for sure. In the biomass research business, AdvanceBio Systems of Milford is a leader. Two big deals this summer are proof.

    On Aug. 2 the company announced the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., is acquiring a Biomass Pretreatment Reactor System. Experts at the 27,000-square-foot Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility there will use the AdvanceBio system for projects to make fuel ethanol from cellulosic biomass cost-competitive.

    And on July 19 Penn State University awarded AdvanceBio a contract to supply a Bench Scale Hydrolyzer System for its Shared Fermentation Facility in University Park, Penn. The equipment will be used for research, development and demonstration of technology related to production of biomass-based fuels and chemicals from feedstocks. The company and school intended to collaborate on related research and development projects.

    Earlier this year the company released The Bench Scale System, designed for university and corporate R&D personnel working on pre-treatment of biomass for next-generation fuels. AdvanceBio's other products are the lab, pilot and commercial scale systems – each escalating in the volume of material to be studied. All can be used on things such as sugar cane, corn cobs, corn stalks, switchgrass and wood chips, says Richard C. Agar, P.E., a senior associate at the company.

    AdvanceBio's fuel and chemical consulting business began in 2007; the systems business began in '09, Agar says.

    Source: Richard C. Agar, P.E., AdvanceBio Systems
    Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

  • Video: You call THAT music?

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    A team of mechanical engineering students at Case Western Reserve University earlier this summer demonstrated their giant tesla coil -- an apparatus that produces extremely high-voltage, long-sparking displays. This one, they claim, not only produces long arcs of electricity, but can play songs. hiVelocity isn't sure about its future in concert halls, but we have to admit one thing: It has style.

  • University Heights company offers blue light special for insomnia, grogginess

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Get the winter blues? Have trouble waking up in the morning or falling asleep at night?

    You may not be getting enough blue light -- or, you may be getting too much. Lowbluelights.com, a company formed five years ago as a spinoff from research conducted at John Carroll University, says it has products for all of those situations.

    Richard L. Hansler, co-owner of Lowbluelights.com and director of the Lighting Innovations Institute at John Carroll, says the power of blue light came to, um, light in 2001 when scientists discovered that the blue part of the spectrum can affect the production of melatonin -- a hormone that helps you sleep.

    Hansler, a retired veteran of the lighting industry, says the company was formed after he was approached to develop an LED light to treat seasonal affective disorder, or SAD -- a sometimes debilitating bout of winter depression. There is some medical evidence that exposure to blue light can help lessen the problem, he explains.

    Likewise, blue light can suppress melatonin, causing a person exposed to the light in the evening to have trouble falling asleep -- just as it can help erase grogginess in the morning, he says. There is circumstancial evidence that melatonin suppresses some forms of cancer, Hansler says. To those ends, the company sells a host of products to either boost more blue light or filter it out.

    Lowbluelights.com's most recent product, a filter placed over the screen of the iPad, was launched after some users complained of insomnia after using the iPad, Hansler says. The company's most popular products, however, are glasses worn before bedtime to filter out blue light, allowing the natural production of melatonin.

    The company has three employees and is headquartered in University Heights.

    Source: Richard Hansler, Lowbluelights.com
    Writer: Gene Monteith

  • Cleveland rocks? JumpStart wants to make it so

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Nearly a decade ago, a group of community leaders decided to focus on Cleveland's economic future instead of its past, reports the Wall Street Journal.

    Tapping state and private funds, the group set out to create an ecosystem to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. JumpStart Inc. is a centerpiece of that effort.

    Read the full story here.

  • Toledo's MicroDevices grows on strength of advanced materials used in tiny devices

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Chris Melkonian, the CEO and founder of Midwest MicroDevices, says if you don't know too much about micro-electro mechanical systems, that's OK. He thinks you will soon enough.

    The downtown-Toledo-based company has continued to grow at a steady pace since its founding in 2004. Melkonian says Midwest's niche is a new and emerging MEMs market, focusing on unusual materials and incredibly tiny wafers — but the company can just about do it all.

    There are a dozen employees at Midwest MicroDevices. Most of them suit up head-to-toe in a "bunny suit" in what's known as a clean room. These employees work on devices often smaller than a human hair (think miniscule sensor of a car's airbag).

    "You won't find too many companies doing the kind of hi-tech work we're doing here in Northwest Ohio," Melkonian says. "I am very proud of that."

    The company has received a healthy dose of support from area and state institutions. Melkonian and Co. are graduates of the Regional Growth Partnership, which offered support, marketing and financing. The Ohio Department of Development provided an Ohio Innovation Loan to the company. The University of Toledo's Science, Technology and Innovation Enterprises have also partnered with the startup. "We've gotten a lot of support from University of Toledo," he says. "We collaborate with professors, we select students for internships and we hire graduates."

    Melkonian says he hopes to considerably ramp up business in the next couple of years, adding two more shifts and as many as 10 skilled positions.

    "I started a startup company at possibly one of the worst times you can," he says. "If the economy can start to turn around, and as we add more business, we'll definitely have a real jump in employees."

    Source: Chris Melkonian, Midwest MicroDevices
    Writer: Colin McEwen

  • State-backed venture funds carry risks, rewards

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    Any number of things can go wrong in a venture capital fund and even more can go awry if the state is involved, reports the Journal-Sentinel in Milwaukee.

    While the article uses the experiences of Iowa as a cautionary tale, it holds up Ohio as an example of success.

    Read the full story here.

  • Nextronex commercializes new solar power conversion system

    25 August 2010, 8:00 pm

    A solar array gathers sunlight for electricity. But something has to convert that energy from direct current to alternating current before it can be fed into an electric power grid. Toledo-based Nextronex Power Systems says it has come up with a simpler and more efficient way of doing that..

    Nextronex's target customers are utility-size solar installations. While competition is stiff, Peter Gerhardinger, the company's chief technology officer, says Nextronex has an advantage over suppliers that provide only inverters -- the box that converts DC to AC.
     
    "They rely on the integrator to determine how he's going to wire it, how he's going to lay it out. And so there's spawned a whole lot of intermediate type products," he says. "We took a fresh approach and, based on customer feedback, decided there's a need for a wiring kit that is not only the inverter, but that combines all the switch gear, all the fusing, all the monitoring into an easy-to-assemble system."

    The resulting cabinet is smaller than most in the industry, he says, and can be easily installed. Not just that, but rather than relying on only one big inverter, the Nextronex system uses multiple inverters that switch on and off as energy from the sun ebbs and flows during the day, resulting in less loss of power than typical one-box systems.

    Nextronex's system is in use currently at the 180th Air National Guard base in Toledo and at a site in Roswell New Mexico, with another three projects nearing implementation. The company has received $1.4 million local investments, including those from the Science, Technology and Innovation Enterprises and Rocket Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Regional Growth Partnership.

    The company was formed in 2008 and currently employs 10, says company founder James Olzak. But Olczak says Netronex expects to have "greater than several dozen people next year at this time."

    Sources: James Olzak, Peter Gerhardinger and Scott Thompson, Nextronex
    Writer: Gene Monteith