Last week, Fresh Water participated in a forum entitled "A City of Two Tales: Writing About Cleveland" at the Happy Dog in the Gordon Square Arts District. The event showcased the power of new media to spur civic dialogue and prompted an ongoing debate about telling the city's story to natives and newcomers alike.

The event was organized by Ohio City Writers (OCW), a nonprofit writing center that hosts classes and literary events on Cleveland's west side, and based upon a blog post written by Angie Schmitt of Rust Wire entitled "The Problem with Boosterism."

Following an introduction by OCW Director Frank Lewis, Schmitt kicked off the discussion by offering a critique of pro-Cleveland sentiment in the media and among civic leaders. Northeast Ohio frequently focuses on economic development projects with overstated economic benefits while failing to address genuine problems such as poverty and urban sprawl, she argued. Moreover, she added, Clevelanders often seem unwilling to listen to critiques of regional policymaking, and even become angered by criticisms intended to point out the city's problems.

Other panelists responded by arguing that while Northeast Ohio clearly has a lot of work to do in addressing its problems, the choice between "boosterism" and "realism" represents a false dichotomy. Writing or talking about Cleveland in honest terms typically means walking a fine line between offering a critique of what's wrong with the region and celebrating its successes, they said.

The topic prompted over 100 people to attend the event, which included occasional fights over the mic as well as shout-outs from the bar.

The next day, boosters and non-boosters alike lit up the blogosphere and Facebook with their takes on what happened at the contentious forum. A collection of their blogs can be found on Ohio City Writers' Facebook page.

The event also prompted a discussion about how Clevelanders can convey what's happening here to the national media, who some argued often rely on well-worn narratives about the Rust Belt rather than digging into the region's complexity.

Those looking to join the discussion or participate in future Write to Assemble events (Lewis is planning a poetry slam next) should visit OCW's website.


Source: Ohio City Writers
Writer: Lee Chilcote

The prevailing impression of regionalism that has been bandied about Northeast Ohio for the better part of a decade is all wrong, says a collaborative group of area nonprofits. While the consolidation of countless municipalities is useful, it is not intrinsically regionalism. True regionalism, they argue, is defined by economic activity -- not political boundaries.

NorTech was recently named a recipient of the State Science and Technology Institute’s 2011 Excellence in Technology-Based Economic Development (TBED) Awards. Now in its fifth year, the awards program identifies national models developed by states and regions to accelerate science, technology and innovation to grow their economies and create high-paying jobs.

NorTech won the Most Promising TBED Initiative award for its cluster model, which is currently being applied to advanced energy and flexible electronics industries. The model can also be applied to other industries.

"The SSTI award validates the NorTech model as a as a best practice approach to accelerate regional industry clusters,” says Rebecca Bagley, NorTech president and CEO. We look forward to continuing to apply our cluster development model to help companies grow, create jobs and attract capital to generate positive economic impact.”

NorTech is a nonprofit tech-based economic development organization serving 21 Northeast Ohio counties. As a catalyst for growing emerging technology industries, NorTech is leading efforts to develop regional innovation clusters that create jobs, attract capital and have a long-term, positive economic impact.

“The award brings external validation from national technology-based economic development practitioners for NorTech’s work and impact,” says Bagley. “From July 2010 to July 2011, advanced energy and flexible electronics cluster companies supported by NorTech have attracted $20.5 million in capital, created 171 jobs and generated $10.8 million in payroll.”


Source: Rebecca Bagley
Writer: Karin Connelly

What's the best thing a city can do to achieve more economic success? Increase its number of college graduates. Simply put: The most prosperous cities have the highest number of college grads. Efforts by CEO's for Cities and our own NOCHE -- dubbed the Talent Dividend -- are designed to up college attainment and thereby boost everybody's bottom line.

NorTech is accepting nominations for its 11th annual innovation awards, which highlight breakthrough technologies and innovations in Northeast Ohio.

“The innovation awards recognize those businesses and individuals and leaders who have created jobs and attracted capital to the region,” says NorTech president and CEO Rebecca Bagley. “The bottom line is recognizing companies that have had a positive economic impact.”
 
NorTech has held the competition since 2000, and this is the fourth year they have partnered with Crain’s Cleveland Business to identify businesses that have had both a positive economic impact and a social impact. “It’s pretty competitive,” says Bagley. “Last year we had 40 nominations.”
 
Entries are judged in one of five areas: advanced energy; advanced materials; biomedical, flexible electronics; and instrumentation, control and electronics. Within those areas, judges look at creativity, feasibility, collaboration and triple bottom line Impact -- social, economic and environmental.
 
Judges are selected from the wide geographic area that NorTech represents, and are leaders in a variety of industries, universities and economic development. “We try to mix it up,” says Bagley. “We make sure the judges are representative and a strong balance of people.”
 
The deadline for nominations is 1 p.m. on November 11. Individuals and businesses can nominate themselves. The nomination packet can be found on NorTech’s website.
 
“It’s important and exciting to be able to highlight all of the things that are happening here in the region,” says Bagley. “It gives people the sense of momentum as we go through an economic shift.”

 
Source: Rebecca Bagley
Writer: Karin Connelly

Tremont Electric is developing a new energy source with its recently patented nPower Wave Energy Converter (WEC). The four-year-old Cleveland company made a huge splash with its nPower PEG, a pint-size power plant that allows people to charge their hand-held devices while walking, running or biking. Their new product uses the waves of Lake Erie -- and ultimately larger bodies of water -- to generate commercial-scale electricity.
 
“We put it in something like a buoy and it rides the waves and is able to convert the waves to electric power,” explains Tremont Electric inventor, founder, and CEO Aaron LeMieux.
 
While other energy companies are exploring wave energy around the world, LeMieux says Lake Erie provides a great testing ground. “We can do the same thing here, but we can do it much more quickly because we can do it in a small boat versus a 200-foot research vessel,” he says. “The wave profile in Lake Erie -- higher frequency waves -- means faster test results.”
 
Roughly the size of an automobile, the nPower WEC is poised to help reinvent the manufacturing base of the Midwest into the clean energy job creator of the future.

"Our vision is to put Northeast Ohio at the top of the new clean energy economy," says LeMieux. “This is a brand new industry. It could be compared to the automobile industry.”
 
LeMieux says that jobs could be created across the board in manufacturing within the next two years as Tremont Electric secures funding and further develops the converter.

 
Source: Aaron LeMieux
Writer: Karin Connelly

Cleveland State University is part of an economic impact study of shale in Ohio and its potential to give a big boost to the state’s economy. Ohio State and Marietta College are also participating in the study, commissioned by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the Ohio Shale Coalition.
 
The study focuses on the economic impact of drilling for gas and oil in the Utica Point Pleasant and Marcellus shale formations that run along the eastern half of the state. “It would be a nice change for Ohio to be making money in gas and oil instead of losing it,” says Andrew Thomas, executive in residence in the Energy Policy Center at CSU’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs.
 
The group does not yet have concrete numbers on the oil and gas potential, but should have them by next year. But they do know that the natural resource could have a significant positive impact on a variety of industries in the area, from the steel and construction companies to manufacturers and associated businesses.
 
This study could improve industry across the board if the potential in shale proves to be what speculators believe it to be. “The big benefit and early benefit will be with the land owners,” says Thomas. “We’ve been exporting money out of the state for a long time. It would change the economy of Ohio.”

 
Source: Andrew Thomas
Writer: Karin Connelly

LineStream Technologies is growing by leaps and bounds in the automated software control market. The company was created in 2008 as a spinoff out of research done by CSU’s Zhiqiang Gao, director of the Center for Advanced Control Technologies and focuses on commercializing and simplifying control software.
 
Basically, LineStream products increase efficiency, are easy to implement, and therefore improve the performance of automated systems.
 
“Any product using a motor, we look to improve energy efficiency and life of that motor,” explains David Neundorfer, LineStream president. “We simplify the design process and lop off weeks of [development].”
 
The company is getting attention from some of the major players in the automation industry. They just licensed their software to Texas Instruments. “We’re going to be putting software in a chip platform in motor and motion controls,” explains Neundorfer.
 
The deal adds to the company’s rapid growth. “It’s very exciting and a large deal for us,” says Neundorfer. “Some of the larger companies in the industrial space are interested in our technology.”
 
LineStream has grown to five employees this year, expects to be at eight to 10 by the end of the year, and double in size again next year. “We’re hiring and ramping up to establish a relationship with Texas Instruments.”

 
Source: David Neundorfer
Writer: Karin Connelly

The ninth annual Green Energy Ohio Tour, held last weekend at 260 businesses and homes across the state, featured more than 160 solar, wind and green energy projects in Northeast Ohio. Yet while education was the tour's primary goal, it also communicated a critical, attention-grabbing memo to policymakers: this fast-growing industry is driving development and job creation in Ohio.

"With some of our legislators currently doubting the value of renewable energy, our tour sent a very strong message," says Bill Spratley, Executive Director of Green Energy Ohio. "The green energy industry is about creating jobs, and that seems to be one thing that resonates with this administration."

The renewable energy, energy efficiency and green design projects on the tour created or retained more than 2,000 jobs, according to the Ohio Energy Resources Division. In the first quarter of 2011, Ohio was also ranked number two among U.S. states in solar panel and wind turbine parts production.

Spratley says that large projects such as Lincoln Electric's wind turbine, as well as the growing number of homes and commercial businesses using solar panels to slash their energy bills, reveal an industry that's finally gaining traction.

"People now understand green energy, and they're going from 'curious' to 'serious,'" says Spratley. "We see people taking notes, particularly at solar homes, and then a year or two later I'll see them with their own solar homes."

Spratley added that Cleveland has "really stepped up" since the American Solar Energy Society brought its national conference -- and 5,000 people -- here in 2006. "People were very impressed with the enthusiasm in Cleveland," he says. "Now we have solar panels on Progressive Field, the Great Lakes Science Center, the Cleveland Musem of Art and many other locations."

Among the many Northeast Ohio projects featured on the 2011 tour were the Lincoln Electric wind turbine, Rockefeller Park Solar Demonstration, PNC SmartHome and Joseph McCullough Building at the Cleveland Institute of Art.


Source: Bill Spratley
Writer: Lee Chilcote

NorTech is helping to harness the alternative energy business and translate it into big business in Northeast Ohio. The Advanced Energy B2B Conference and Expo at the John S. Knight Center in Akron on September 14 and 15 will bring together the major energy players to network, educate and discuss the future of advanced energy.

"We will take a look at where we're heading and how we can beat the rest of the country," says Dave Krapinski, NorTech vice president. "The whole driving force is to provide a rich forum to come together and form collaborations."

The event will cover the major sectors of advanced energy including, biomass/waste-to-energy, energy storage, fuel cells, nuclear, smart grid, solar photovoltaic, transportation electrification and wind energy. The conference is 80 percent filled, with 75 companies signed up to exhibit. Half of the conference time will be dedicated to talks on a variety of energy-related topics, while the other half will focus on building relationships.

The bottom line is advanced energy can lead to jobs in a wide range of sectors. "The exciting part about advanced energy is certainly jobs for scientists, but also jobs in traditional manufacturing, sales, construction jobs -- just a broad range of jobs beyond white coats," says Krapinski.

The point of the conference is to pull together and learn from each other's successes. "Advanced energy is a hot topic everywhere," says Krapinski. "We can accomplish more if we work together. A lot of people don't realize what's going on. We want to generate a lot of excitement."


Source: Dave Krapinski
Writer: Karin Connelly

Community leaders want to harness the wind in Cleveland. The future of wind turbines is here, with the recent arrivals of turbines at Lincoln Electric and Olympic Steel. And more are on the way. This industry is why GLWN is hosting a two-day summit, Making it Here: Building Our Next Generation Supply Chain. GLWN is an international supply chain advisory group and network of manufacturers. Their mission is to increase the domestic content of North America's wind turbines.

The summit will cover the biggest issues in supply chain challenges when it comes to bringing turbine manufacturing to the region. "The conference deals with some of the biggest issues: technology, business development and political issues," says Ed Weston, director of GLWN in Cleveland. "With the heavy concentration of supply chains in the region and access to Lake Erie, Northeast Ohio is an ideal location for wind turbine factories."

Cleveland historically has been a leader in harnessing the wind. In fact, Charles Brush built the first automatically operated wind turbine for electric production in 1888. He used the turbine to power his house on 38th Street and St. Clair Avenue.

"Nearly 100 years later, the industry was commercialized in Cleveland with government-subsidized programs," says Weston. "In the late 1970s and early 1980s NASA was building turbines that were larger than anything we see today. Then wind turbines went out of vogue in America because the government lost interest."

While the industry was exported to Europe in the 1980s, Weston is optimistic he can bring it back to Cleveland. "The challenge is we're competing with companies that have been making parts for many years, so they have an advantage on us," he says. "But ur advantage is most of the parts are very big and don't travel well. With a turbine OEM and a busy supply chain, the number of jobs created would be in the thousands."

Source: Ed Weston

Writer: Karin Connelly

With the goal of creating a 20-megawatt wind energy pilot project seven miles offshore from downtown Cleveland, LEEDCo is well on its way to unveiling the first freshwater wind farm in North America. If all goes as planned, this project will lead to additional turbines generating 1,000 MWs of wind energy by 2020. Writer Patrick Mahoney had an opportunity to "shoot the breeze" with LEEDCo president Dr. Lorry Wagner, the driving force behind the project.