The Israeli firm has developed a reliable, low-cost, non-invasive, and portable cardiac system called “NICaS.” NICaS can screen large populations for unrecognized life-threatening cardiac diseases that are the number one cause of death in the world. The company plans to locate its manufacturing, marketing, sales and general management operations in Akron. It will employ 25-30 workers by the end of 2013.

“I am delighted to select Akron as the base for our new operations,” said Igor Granov, CEO of NI Medical. “I was very impressed with Akron’s health care and biomedical assets and skills as well as the ‘can do’ attitude of the city and state government.”

The City of Akron and State of Ohio will provide job creation tax credit incentives of approximately $150,000. The Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center will provide a forgivable loan of $350,000, if NI Medical meets certain agreed commitments for the creation of new jobs. GCIC is a multi-institutional product development and commercialization consortium, led by the Cleveland Clinic.

“Our work is made possible through a $60 million grant from the State of Ohio’s Third Frontier Project,” said Mark Low, GCIC managing director. “GCIC is pleased to support NI Medical in establishing its North American headquarters in Akron and we welcome them to the growing number of international companies that are locating their cardiovascular business operations here.”

“NIMedical’s decision further solidifies Northeast Ohio as a medical device hub,” added Tom Waltermire, CEO of Team NEO, a joint venture of larger regional chambers of commerce in Northeast Ohio. “The company joins the region’s rapidly expanding medical device cluster of more than 600 companies and 230,000 bioscience employees that provide a strong workforce, supply chain, and research base for expanding medical device firms.

The fourth annual awards program will recognize economic development efforts from throughout the 16 counties of Northeast Ohio that helped retain companies, create jobs and bring foreign investment to the region during the calendar year 2009.  This is the only event that honors regional economic development success.

Team NEO is now accepting nomination in the following categories:
• Business Attraction

• Business Expansion

• Business Retention

• Public-Private Partnership

• Foreign Investment

• Minority Business

• Asset Creation

• Workforce Development

• Fostering Entrepreneurship

Nomination forms and additional information for the 2010 Team NEO Economic Development Plus Awards can be downloaded at http://www.clevelandplusbusiness.com/About-Team-NEO/Impact-Awards-Information.aspx.  The deadline for nominations is March 10, 2010. Winners will be announced at the awards dinner, June 23, 2010.

Team NEO advances Northeast Ohio’s economy by attracting businesses worldwide to the 16-county Cleveland Plus region.  The organization is a joint venture of the region’s largest metro chambers of commerce.  Since 2007, the organization has attracted 29 new companies, more than 3,100 new jobs and $95M in annual payroll to Northeast Ohio, leading to a total annual regional payroll benefit of $260M.

The cities of Berea, Brook Park, Cleveland, Olmsted Falls and Parma, as well as the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport have engaged the Center for Public Management of the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University to study the potential for developing an aerotropolis around the Cleveland Hopkins Airport. An aerotropolis is conceptually similar to a metropolis, with an airport city serving as the central business district of the aerotropolis.  Geographically similar to the metropolis, the aerotropolis utilizes the airport as its central transportation node. The study will also include the potential for economic growth and development resulting from the designation as an aerotropolis.

The stakeholder sessions provide an opportunity for you to share your thoughts, ideas, expectations, and concerns for a potential aerotropolis.  The first round of sessions will be held on Tuesday, January 26; Wednesday, January 27; and Thursday, January 28, at the I-X Center, One I-X Center Dr., Cleveland, OH 44135. Additional sessions may be scheduled as needed. Times are noted on the registration page.

Space for each session is limited, so please register early. To register or to find additional information, please go to: http://urban.csuohio.edu/publicmanagement/aerotropolis_stakeholder_sessions_2010.html

Please forward this invitation to other individuals and groups that might be interested in this initiative. Refreshments will be provided.

If you experience difficulty in registering online, or choose to register by phone, please contact Barb Benevento at 216.687.2188

…its (Ohio’s) companies are in a great position to supply components that can generate electricity, investments, jobs and excitement. Around the world, wind is a booming, $40 billion-a-year industry that is growing at 30 percent a year, energy expert Richard Stuebi of the Cleveland Foundation said.”It’s the biggest, fastest-growing industry on the planet . . . and everyone wants to be part of it,” he said. 

Ohio trails only California in potential for developing wind turbines and components, according to the Renewable Energy Policy Project in a 2004 report for the U.S. Department of Energy.

That report said wind could create 11,688 jobs and add $3.9 billion in capital investments to Ohio’s economy.

Ohio might have surpassed California since then, as wind development has moved into the Midwest and away from California, said Ed Weston, director of WIRE-Net/the Great Lakes Wind Network, a Cleveland-based group of wind-power suppliers.

Ohio actively is organizing and promoting its wind-power supply chain, which includes 170 companies that make bearings, fasteners, control systems, composites, gear boxes, brakes, generators, metal coatings, gears, hydraulics, sensors and electronics needed to manufacture the 8,000 components found in a typical utility-size wind turbine.

When assembled, turbines cost about $2 million each.

Ohio suppliers range from alloy steel and bearing maker Timken Co. in Canton to ring-bearing maker Rotek Inc. in Aurora and Cardinal Fasteners in Cleveland.

Timken is a big player with its production of special-alloy steel that is engineered and produced in Canton, along with bearing systems and components for power transmission. The product list includes seals, lubricants and monitors.

Demand for the company’s specialized and proprietary steel is high and ”absolutely solid,” she said.

In addition, Timken recently signed an agreement that will allow Timken to make its steel in Daido Steel mills in Japan to better serve Asian markets, she said.

Wind products are a small percentage of the company’s overall revenue, but wind energy has been identified as ”the company’s most promising market,” she said.

For that reason, the company has invested more than $200 million in the past three to five years to expand in this market. It was the one sector in which Timken continued to invest through the recession, she said.

Investments have included plant expansions in South Carolina, China and Romania, and new facilities in India and China.

Timken’s wind business has grown as turbines have grown in size, especially the offshore turbines, and the reliability problems increased with that additional size, Crum said. ”That has hit Timken’s sweet spot,” she said. ”We’re becoming a major player now with the trend to bigger turbines.”

She cited offshore turbines in Scotland’s Orkney Islands that feature harsh surroundings. ”It was an extreme environment that required extreme engineering,” she said.

Turbine design has changed greatly in recent years — with turbines getting bigger and more efficient, said Tom Maves of the Ohio Wind Working Group, a state entity formed by the Ohio Department of Development.

A great position
Those bigger turbines with bigger components boost Ohio’s position as king of the wind-power supply chain, he said. That’s because of increased shipping costs for bigger parts.

”Ohio’s in a great position in the middle of the country, and that’s creating a good opportunity,” he said.

It seems that 50 out of 50 states claim “bio” as their next industry. In Northeast Ohio, we already know we’re a healthcare hub, but this decade, we’ll become a biomedical business hub. We will build on current clinical and business hubs of excellence in Imaging, Orthopedics and Cardiovascular, capitalizing on the work started by groups such as BioEnterprise, the Austen BioInnovation Institute and Cleveland Clinic’s Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center. Many Northeast Ohio manufacturing companies are already diversifying their customer/industry mix to manufacture medical devices. This will exponentially increase by 2020.  By fully launching a Cleveland Plus biomedical business attraction program in 2010 that blends VC attraction, clinical/research global expertise and Third Frontier, the Northeast Ohio region will make this biomedical business growth a reality.

Advanced energy is just another “buzzword” to some, but with our current base of companies and focused efforts of innovation, we can create real hubs of sector excellence HERE.  Thanks to the efforts of groups such as NorTech, the Great Lakes Wind Network and the Cleveland Foundation, we know that hundreds of Northeast Ohio firms already supply to wind turbine manufacturers; this will only increase as demand for clean energy increases. If we build a wind farm on the lake (which has been predicted for 2020), then OEM presence here for wind turbines is a greater reality. In addition to wind, our region is already recognized as a nationwide hub for fuel cell research and development. Rolls Royce’s recent expansion announcement and Stark State’s Fuel Cell Prototyping Center are testaments to that, with huge potential for continued growth.

Innovation and technology-based economic development programs not only allow us to harness new opportunities quicker and more effectively, as noted with biomedical and advanced energy, but also lead us to new technologies such as flexible liquid crystal displays.  LCD technology was created here in Kent – we all know that.  But without the infrastructure and system in place, the region didn’t do the work to build the business cluster here.  With the next iteration of this flexible technology and manufacturing process being pioneered here, we’re not letting that happen as NorTech leads the charge to create a different outcome this time. 

University and college initiatives such as the Ohio Wind Energy Research and Commercialization Center and the Ohio Bioscience Workforce Training Program will continue to position our region’s workforce and industry base for the future.  Scientific R&D spending in our region doubles that of the United States.  Programs such as Third Frontier and the robust intelligent economic development system now in place are making this possible.

But perhaps the most important difference between making the “teens” successful for the NEO economy is the state and local commitment to economic development.  As Team NEO transitions into new campaigns and capitalizes on the successes of existing efforts, we still don’t stray from our credo that a strong region is made up of strong communities.  Mutual support and collaboration will be more important than ever in making these buzzwords a reality.  We will continue to have it all, together.

Our region has tremendous opportunity to be the center of new industries and the next generation… if we actively participate and do our individual part to turn ”opportunity” into “reality”.  Team NEO’s CEO, Tom Waltermire and President of the Fund for our Economic Future , Brad Whitehead, will speak at the City Club of Cleveland this Friday, January 8 from noon - 1:30 pm about Northeast Ohio’s Economic Outlook for the Next Decade. Make it your resolution to attend this session, learn about regional initiatives and decide how you will contribute to making the next decade a prosperous one for the Cleveland Plus region.

For more information, click here. Hope to see you there!

ENERGY STORAGE

R. W. Beckett Corporation, (Lorain County), in collaboration with Energy Technologies, Inc., was awarded $1 million to investigate implementing lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology into a variety of distributed power storage appliances for utility and military markets, with applications for the civilian off-grid storage market.

Novolyte Technologies, Inc., (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University, was awarded $1.12 million to develop novel electrolytes for the next generation of lithium-ion batteries that will significantly improve performance and safety, and accelerate product commercialization.

GrafTech International Holdings, Inc.,  (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with Mobius Power, Nexergy, and the Center for Automotive Research at The Ohio State University, was awarded $965,000 to develop and commercialize a portfolio of expanded natural graphite thermal management products to improve performance, durability and safety of lithium ion batteries.

WIND ENERGY

Avtron Industrial Automation, Inc., (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with MAGNET, Morgenthaler Partners, and The University of Akron, was awarded $1 million to develop and commercialize a superior Absolute Magnetic Encoder for use in wind turbine applications. 
WASTE TO ENERGY

quasar energy group, (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with McCabe Engineering, Rockwell Automation, Seaman Corporation, Seepex and The Ohio State University, was awarded $2 million to scale-up and optimize a commercial demonstration facility that can process over 30,000 wet tons of biomass annually with more than 750 kW of electrical generation capacity. 

FUEL CELLS

Energy Technologies, Inc., (Richland County), in collaboration with Energy Conversion Devices, was awarded $1 million to develop and verify testing process and verification tools  to demonstrate the manufacturing repeatability of metal hydride fuel cell systems and their key subcomponents.

Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems (US) Inc., (Stark County), in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University, was awarded $999,770 to determine the long-term reliability of the Rolls-Royce solid oxide fuel cell. A method to predict performance will be developed so that qualification of the solid oxide fuel cell can be accelerated, and  reduce the time for entry into commercial stationary power markets.

Wellman Products Group, a Division of Hawk Corporation, (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with UTC Power, a division of United Technologies Corporation, was awarded $893,252 to lower the material costs of the integrated separator plates (ISPs) that will be incorporated into UTC Power’s new PureCell® 400 System, power plants by employing lower cost raw materials and processing methods.

Lockheed Martin MS2 Integrated Defense Technologies, (Summit County), in collaboration with Technology Management, Inc., was awarded $1 million to accelerate commercialization of solid oxide fuel cell based generator sets (gensets) and auxiliary power units (APUs) to the U.S. Department of Defense, which is an early adopter with a pressing need for the basic value proposition. This will result in jobs at Lockheed Martin in Akron, as well as at Technology Management, Inc. and other partners in the Ohio fuel cell supply chain within the next five years.

PHOTOVOLTAIC

Ferro Corporation, (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with the Edison Welding Institute, StratusNexus Technologies, and The Ohio State University, was awarded $1 million to engineer a vitreous frit system to reliably hermetically seal second and third generation thin film solar cells for the desired service life of the solar module. 

Five Star Technologies, Inc., (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with the Photovoltaic Innovation Center at the University of Toledo, was awarded $1 million to commercialize revolutionary inks that have been successfully demonstrated at test labs and alpha customers. The advanced inks enable a new generation of solar cells and can be incorporated immediately into existing cell fabrication lines.

To learn more about how the Ohio Third Frontier is growing the state’s technology economy and creating good jobs for Ohio residents, visit www.thirdfrontier.com.

As employees of regional business attraction agent, Team NEO, we can sometimes get caught up in our metrics: How many new business opportunities did we find? How many new companies did we help attract? How many new jobs were created?

At meetings with our board, advisory councils and funders today, we took a look at a much more important measure - that of the effect on people’s lives.

As you’ll see in the attached video, our business attraction work has enabled Northeast Ohio families to live a better life and look forward to a more optimistic future. As we approach the holiday season, there is no better gift to us at Team NEO than that of seeing these smiling faces.

Happy Holidays!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ekFqsavD4

This is such a special time of year. We give thanks as a nation. We celebrate important religious holidays. We make resolutions to a new year and turn over a new leaf. I’ve made a practice for many years to write down my Thankful Four…four things that I am “thankful for.” It is such an appropriate time to give thanks. Here is mine…what are yours?

People who Break the Mold. Our region (and our country) were built by people who were not satisfied, people who knew there was a better way. Rarely did everyone agree with them. Since they were plowing new ground, it usually was not neat and tidy. No big advance comes with easy answers…….whether it is a Medical Mart, redevelopment of the Goodyear HQ, moving and expanding the Cleveland Port…..name your favorite ambitious regional project. OK, they are not perfect, but how great to have mold-breaking vision at work in our region!

I am so thankful that Loyalty is a hallmark of Northeast Ohioans. There is something about us that keeps us committed to the cause. Compared to other parts of the U.S., people job-hop less here. They show up to work more often here. Heck, we even sell out Browns games when others play to a half-empty stadium. Newcomers tell me how open we are to people who want to get involved and contribute. Businesses we have attracted to the region tell us that this difference is very noticeable and very valuable.

Minutemen/women. Team NEO competes daily with regions that have been attracting business and growing for many years. To break into this elite group, we simply have to try harder and smarter than they do. That means fast response. Companies often come to check out the region with little notice. I am constantly amazed and delighted by how Northeast Ohio’s top business and community leaders respond when we call for help….NOW! When Team NEO shouts “To Arms!,” our local leaders make the time to help with the sale. This is another facet of the Loyalty noted above. We are blessed with so many leaders who will sacrifice when it means helping Team NEO bring good jobs to the region.

Next Generation. I commented last year about my excitement for what the next generation will bring us. That took on a personal note when my indomitable mother came up just short of her 99th birthday…. just prior to the birth of her second great-grandson. Each of us benefits daily from the work of those before us. Yet, the secret for NEO continues to lie to looking forward, not backward. Our emerging leaders see the potential of the future and do not dwell on NEO’s past. They know that our region has NEVER had more opportunity. Let’s help them seize it and run with it.

For all the challenges of the times, we have SO MUCH more to be thankful for than we acknowledge. Count your blessings and especially, find someone to thank at this special time of the year. What is your Thankful Four?

The idea was scoffed at — even ridiculed. Glenn Brown, the lead researcher on the project, was thought of as “crazy.” But other Kent State researchers signed on. That mad-professor technology has morphed from a brilliant idea to a homegrown LCD Kent-made wristwatch, and into technology that has shaped the last few decades.

Modern televisions, cell phones and laptop computers are just a few of the products that simply could not exist without the innovation of the KSU Liquid Crystal Institute, says director Oleg Lavrentovich. He estimates that just last year the liquid crystal industry — for flat panel TVs alone — was worth about $140 billion. There are an estimated 1,000 jobs in Ohio related to the technology, and “tens of thousands” more around the globe

“The success story is not associated with the number of people employed, but the increased quality of life,” Lavrentovich says. “Just about everything that carries information uses liquid crystal displays.”

In 2008, the institute hauled in about $17 million in research dollars from state and federal agencies, divided among liquid crystal researchers around Ohio.

“Scientific exploration can lead to enormous economy impact in just a couple of decades,” Lavrentovich says. “The 1960s in Kent is an example of that. From the first (liquid crystal) wristwatch in Kent to a $140 billion industry is just an illustration… it’s mind-blowing.”

Source: Oleg Lavrentovich
Writer: HiVelocity Staff