Making Memories

Even if they're gross, like this slaughtered pig at the West Side Market in Cleveland, my job as a Dad is to make memories.  I'm sure my boys won't soon forget this. Nor will my youngest daughter who fled before I took the photo.

The chicken's feet and hog's hoofs will add to this gross memory indeed.

This was just one of many memories made this past weekend.

I had been overscheduled of late.  Ask my wife.  Ask my staff.  Before I could get back to some normalcy, I owed my kids some time off. 

We took a school three-day weekend and turned into a Northeast Ohio adventure. I absolutely am certain we made some memories, long-time ones.

We climbed the 108 steps to the top of the McKinley Monument in Canton.  I was still feeling the pain of that one four days later.

Brooks got lost near the old Meyer's Lake "Laffing Lady" inside the McKinley Museum.  Boy, she sure does look and sound like my mother-in-law.  Spooky.

We ate my favorite pizza.  The Kraus' Pizza Facebook Page got to share in that delight too.

We celebrated my brother's birthday with a prime rib dinner in Canal Fulton.  Dave extinguished the re-lighting candle in his water glass rather than blow them out. 

We went to Mass at my old church and school.  For once, they didn't ask me to tell them a nun story.

We rode the rapid transit line in Cleveland, including an empty Waterfront Line through an empty Flats.

We visited the Great Lakes Science Center.  The NASA stuff will be most memorable to my son, Brooks, who says he wants to be an astronaut.  I sure do like the reciprocity my membership to The Works brings with three free museum stops in three days.

We got to sit at the Kitchen Table which is, literally, in the kitchen at Buca di Beppo in Westlake. 

Whoever decorates that place must have memories of nuns too, just like me.  There were nun photos everywhere.

We felt an earthquake and stared at real dinosaur bones at Cleveland's Museum of Natural History.  We snuck into the Planetarium with a school field trip group, making the place and the event memorable both.  I still wonder why Licking County's mastodon is housed in Cuyahoga County's museum though.

The poor pig was supposed to be our last memory--walking through the old-style market at Cleveland's famous West Side Market.  We had lunch there before heading back.

Fate gave us another memory.  We passed within two blocks of a raging fire in downtown Mount Vernon on the drive back home.  Sadly, one's tragedy is someone else's memories.

Memories made.  Indeed.

From the Mouths of Second Graders

They can read, but comprehension may be a bit lagging still.  It makes for some funny settings.

While trick or treating Thursday, my second grade daughter cautioned her brothers at one house, "Watch out boys.  It says there's an invisible fence."

D.C. Disconnect: Urban Policy Forced On a Suburban Nation

Uber-geographer Joel Kotkin has another must-read column out.  His piece titled "Suburban Nation, But Urban Policies" was picked up by Politico.

His piece accomplishes many things.  It has lessons for D.C. and for Columbus.

It explains, in a nutshell, what appears poised to happen on November 2nd.  The Democrats are likely going to lose majority control of the House of Representatives and many gubernatorial seats this mid-term election.  Kotkin blames it on urban policies that ignored the demographic and geographic reality that we are a suburban nation.  Most every Obama Administration initiative of a high-profile nature has been urban-focused.

Kotkin rightly notes that Obama didn't win election on urban votes alone.  Nor did Bill Clinton.  Indeed, the surprise suburban votes are what gave them presidential victories.

Kotkin didn't cite it, but Ohio Governor Strickland, should he lose Tuesday as many polls predict, can probably look at this election the same way.  He won in 2006 on suburban votes.  His policies, though, have been more urban-focused.

It explains the stimulus (aka ARRA) failure.  Kotkin cites that only 10% of suburbanites think the stimulus worked while 33% think it hurt the economy.  The rest, at best, think it did nothing.

It explains why SmartGrowth policies are likely to fade away in 2011 and beyond.  Policies that attempt to impose density when the will of the public is suburban living are an albatross for the policy makers.  No one can be that dense.  Lesson learned.

Keep writing Joel Kotkin.  Keep writing.

Fire Up The Mom Network

According to an Ohio Department of Development statistic, 14 people on average turn 65 in Ohio every day. In 2012, when the Class of '65 turns 65, that will balloon to 119 people every day!

Like much of the nation, Licking County will soon face a workforce crunch. It seems hard to believe, with a 8.8% unemployment rate, but it's coming. Jobs will go unfilled unless extraordinary measures are taken to match job seekers with job openings in Ohio.

It's time to turn something that has long been a negative for Ohio into a positive. We can reverse the so-called Brain Drain--people getting skills and education and leaving the state for careers elsewhere--by firing up the "Mom Network."

The "Mom Network" is when parents in Ohio and Licking County make it known to their kids who have been transplanted elsewhere of a job opening close to their hometown.

It doesn't mean that those engineers in Denver or technologists in Minneapolis were even job hunting. That's the beauty of it. The "Mom Network" gives Licking County, and Ohio, an added edge in a tight labor market that few other places enjoy.

Of course, the hard part is finding a dating service of sorts that matches mom's who care to help grease the skids for their kids (and grandkids with him) to return to their hometown with the job openings that exist.

It's time to start now.

OhioMeansJobs.com shows 51 openings for engineers in Licking County. I didn't check out all 51, but I, personally, know many of these openings are real jobs waiting to get filled. I just shared this with one Dad (the Mom Network doesn't have to be confined to just moms) who was inquiring about mechanical engineering job openings for his son in Wisconsin.

The Port Authority's http://onthebase.com/jobs page links to companies like Boeing, Goodrich, and Bionetics that are located at the Aerospace Center in Heath. There are at least 10 job openings here right now among these employers that are posted online and awaiting applicants. Yes, right now.

That's just two sources. There are others.

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Take Action: Know of a mechanical or electrical engineer with a background in inertial guidance or metrology work? Send them to http://onthebase.com/jobs today. These are speciality careers with openings at the Aerospace Center today.

"I Want To Be a Firefighter" Put to The Challenge

John at the wheel of a red vehicle of a different sort.

My son, John, told me he wants to be a firefighter.

I think every kid, especially boys, goes through that thought at a young age.  Yet, I struggle to think of any of my friends who actually fulfilled that desire.

I worried John's dream would get shattered early though.

Just a few days after telling me that, I saw John's eyes get real big when he saw some fire trucks at the end of our street.  That was last Wednesday.

On Saturday, we drove past a downtown building Strasburg, Ohio that had been burned.  It was a pile of rubble.  That must have been a horrific fire to do that.  John's eyes got real big again.

That same day, John and his siblings visited the McKinley Museum in Canton where, among other things, they had an old fashioned fire station layout that included a fireman's pole to slide down.  John burned his hands on the pole sliding down and hurt his knee when he hit the bottom too hard.  And his eyes got real big again.

After leaving the museum, we headed north on I-77 and saw a garbage truck spewing smoke from its container.  It was pulled over to the side and really affecting the breathability of the air as we drove past.  The fire trucks hadn't yet arrived.  John watched as the fire trucks sped past us on their way to the fire and his eyes got real big, again.

Monday, as we returned from our three-day trip, I decided to take the Garmin's advice and return home via Mt. Vernon.  I had read that a fire had been underway in the downtown but the 30 extra minutes to go around it didn't seem worth it so we went right through.  The fire was still blazing and smoke was visible for miles around.  John saw the smoke and was the first in our car to notice the flames.  Yep, his eyes got real big.

I finally had to ask, "John, are you sure you still want to be a firefighter?"

"Yes, I do," John replied.

Watching Employment, And Scratching My Head

The unemployment rates came out yesterday.  Faithful to my commitment to watch employment, not unemployment, I'm scratching my head.  According to the labor stats people, Licking County's employment dropped. 

Though the number of employed in Licking County is still, net, up 2,100 people for the year, its the fact that the number of employed is down 1,100 from August that has me scratching my head.

Oh yeah, add the fact that the unemployment rate, at 8.8%, is the lowest for the year only adds to the confusion.

I thought about getting some formal explanation.   I'm sure I'd hear that the workforce size shrunk due to an adjustment for the month.  Admittedly, the numbers are based on surveys and a month-to-month change is hardly a trend.

I can also see some political theorists guessing that someone is cooking the books insomuch that unemployment rates went down just days before election day even though the employment numbers went down.

I've heard so many positive, anecdotal stories of hiring going up that I could offer an explanation that shows employment is actually up.  That would sound like spin though.

In the end, no explanation is worth finding.

I'm going to keep watching employment and hoping October numbers reflect what I feel in my gut is the case and that is that we are, indeed, recovering from this Great Recession and that employment is recovering too.

Finding Local Relevance

In an increasingly globally-focused world, I believe it is all the more important to search for, and find, local relevance.  Local relevance inspires local pride.  Local pride inspires growth and development.

That's why it was all the more interesting when you can find it away from your local area.  My kids found local relevance 130 miles away from home.

While at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, we saw these mastodon bones.  These bones were discovered in our home county--Licking County.  It's a long story why they are in Cleveland, but the local relevance to someone from Licking County stands out nonetheless.

Then, we stumbled on a map of the Hopewell earthworks in Newark and this write-up.  This is, essentially, our neighborhood.  We live in short walking distance of these mounds.  Pretty darn locally relevant there.

The piece indicates that the Great Circle Mound is used as a county fairgrounds.   Of course, that hasn't been true at any point in my lifetime, but it was true at one time.

I don't blame the museum for not having a current statement.  After all, its only locally-relevant.

The Nun

This photo of a nun stared over the "Kitchen Table" at Buca daBeppo tonight.

Enough said.

Godfather Quotes as Analogies

I scare people when I do it, but every time I try to stop, it sucks me back in.  I'm referring to my habit of quoting from the Godfather movies as an analogy for real life.

When I explain the value of keeping people informed and engaged in what we do at the Port Authority, I recite the opening scene of the first Godfather movie.  "Some day, and that day may never come, I may call upon you for a service."

When I try to make the point of the absolute need for everyone in the community to be on the same page on important issues, I'm reminded of the scene where Sonny shows a hint of disagreement with his Godfather in a negotiation over whether to get in a new racket or not.  The lack of continuity gets the Godfather shot and, ultimately, gets Sonny killed.  "Never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking again" is good advice for any strategic negotiations. 

Thinking about a analogous reason for prioritizing?  I think of Clemenza saying, "Leave the gun.  Take the cannoli."

What person hasn't said, "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" as a terse reply to someone who doubts you can complete a sale?

Even my kids can inspire an occasional quote.  "You gotta go, you gotta go" is pretty useful for potty breaks.

Plus, I never have to justify why I spend so much time with my kids instead of golfing or hunting or some other such thing.  After all, as Vito says, "A man that doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man."

Of course, what person doesn't try to explain why some perceived slight wasn't really a slight?  "It's not personal.  It's strictly business."

Life Sucks. . .Without Parks and Paths

I'm the Pollyanna among bloggers.  I make no apology for that.  After all, there's enough negativity out there that I don't need to add to the pile.

It's hard, though, to be as optimistic for our future and positive about our present these days as I ponder the future of our parks and bike paths.  The November 2nd election is looming and the Licking Park District is on the ballot where the future of some our community's greatest assets hangs in the balance. 

Despite strong endorsements from the Licking County Chamber of Commerce and The Advocate, I am fearful that not enough people see the greatness of our county's parks and trails to pass this levy.

Without voter approval, the Park District will face monumental cuts.  Parks will most certainly close and the bike paths will suffer from less maintenance.  Something that is and has been a great asset for recreation and health reasons and, hidden to most, for economic development reasons too, will suffer.

It doesn't need to be that way.

With voter approval that equates to a mere $6 for an average household in Licking County per year (yes, 12 months), the funding will be there to make our parks great again and realize a vision of bike trails that are unrivaled for a county of 150,000 population.

That's one "value" meal or a movie ticket.  The value of well-maintained parks surely exceeds the price for a property owner to pay.

I voted early, and I voted for the levy.

After all.  Life sucks without parks and paths.

Anderson Layman's Blog: A measure of success..........circa 2010

Indeed.

From Anderson Layman's Blog: A measure of success..........circa 2010: "Thanks What Would Dad Say"

Great Lady

The Platt kids encountered Fran DeWine at local restaurant in Newark, Ohio tonight. Her husband and my old boss, Mike, is running for Ohio Attorney General.  She was campaigning for him to turn out the vote.

I've known Fran since 1987.  She's the person behind her husband's success as a prosecutor, state senator, Congressman, Lt. Governor, and U.S. Senator.  Her lifetime of accomplishments make her a great role model for not only my daughters but my sons as well.

What a great lady.

Social Media and Site Selection

I'm recalling a recent stat I heard at the IEDC conference with regards to site selectors and social media.

70% are on LinkedIn
50% are on Facebook
33% are on Twitter

Good to know.  Thanks for that stat from the IEDC conference.  I like it but I can't recall exactly to whom to attribute the stat.  I was alerted that the comment was during a "What Would Google Do?" presentation which means it was either Ben Wright, Anatalio Ubalde or Andy Levine.  Thanks, Ben, Anatalio, or Andy.

I Can Remain a Steelers Fan

I've written about Ben Roethlisberger and promised to write no more.  I won't.

My No. 7 jersey is in a landfill somewhere.  It's gone and won't be replaced.

This is a blog about being able to accomplish something I wasn't sure I could.  Can this lifetime Steelers fan and current Roethisberger despiser remain an active Steelers fan?  I, frankly, had my doubts.

I watched. This was my first chance to watch the Steelers on television so far this season so I did.

I didn't watch because Roethlisberger was back.   Not at all.  The fact that the hated-one was QB'ing was not compelling me to watch.  If I was at Heinz Field, I would have booed him vigorously.

I never found myself cheering for Roethlisberger. Not once. It's true.
 
So, yes, I can watch the team and root for my team while holding zero regard for the QB.
 
I can watch, and I can remain a Steelers fan.

On Using My Family's Membership to The Works

My kids love The Works, Licking County's science, history, and art museum.  I'm on the Board and help advocate for STEM education components to The Works effort so I have a bias toward the museum too.

My kids have "done science" with technicians from Bionetics, Boeing, and Bayer at The Works.  They've built and raced numerous cars in the Go Lab, made their own creations out of discarded parts in the Invent Lab, stared in the face of a mastodon, and rung the bell on a early 20th century rail car.  Their experiences are extensive and memorable.

Of all the things, I like my membership for its access to science, history, and art in other places too.  The membership includes reciprocity access to other science-related museums around the country.

This year alone, my family will have used the membership to walk through Mister Rogers Neighborhood in Pittsburgh, go spelunking in a cave in Cincinnati, spray King Neptune in Columbus, explore Ohio history in Canton, and learn about NASA in Cleveland.

Add seeing fossils in Iowa, exploring the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, and walking inside a bubble in Kentucky to the list from past years' use of the membership.

And to think--a family membership starts at a mere $60.  The Works works for me.

Just Coffee

Just coffee and my newspaper this morning.

Kotkin Roadmap Redux

I'm about to take part in a roundtable on future jobs in Licking County.  Joel Kotkin's book is on my mind.  I hope I'm not the only person at the table quoting Kotkin though.

Here's what I wrote back in August:

Joel Kotkin's book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 gives a vision for how the Heartland could see a revival in the next forty years fueled by 1/3 greater population.

He's given us a vision for a better future in Ohio and Licking County. But what's the roadmap? How do you turn a fact-based vision into an action-based roadmap?

Here it is.

These key things, among many, come to mind to me as things that below on a Licking County and Ohio roadmap:

Embrace Manufacturing. It's time to go back to Ohio's roots and totally re-focus on manufacturing as the focus of our future. The things that fueled two centuries of Ohio's growth remain intact to fuel the next one. Licking County needs to prepare for two yet-unborn generations who are going to work in manufacturing, and it starts with embracing manufacturing.

Invest in Skills Training. The growth in manufacturing that Kotkin predicts will continue to be in the area that has actually grown in the manufacturing sector in the past few decades--highly-skilled technicians working in advanced manufacturing environments. The places that win are the ones that can prove that they can provide highly-skilled technicians to answer industry needs. We need to re-invigorate skills training and pre-employment training to produce certifications and degrees for people to work in manufacturing industry of the future. Manufacturing is high-tech.

Put Out the Welcome Mat. Kotkin predicts global workforce shortages that are going to put a strain on the labor market and threaten production capacity. We need to keep in touch with those hords of "brain drain" people who left our state for supposedly greener pastures and be ready to welcome them back. They are a big part of the solution to a workforce shortage problem. Many of these "homesick Ohioans" are eager to come back too, if there's a job there for them.

Plan for Smart Sprawl. The Brookings Institution, Greater Ohio, and others are trying to steer Ohio to "Smart Growth" policies which beg for denser highways, denser schools, and denser living. Kotkin has the more favorable Ohio alternative, and he calls it "Smart Sprawl." Licking County and the greatest-growth-potential pockets of Ohio need to prepare to welcome the tens of millions of people from families, large ones, that prefer quality amenties, environmentally-friendly living, nearby workplaces, and, most-of-all, single-family homes. Keep building bike paths, Licking County!

Build New, Green Infrastructure.  Keep building. New highways and all sorts of new infrastructure will still be needed, not just constant rebuilding of the old ones. We need to focus on how to add more transportation capacity and yet still make those highways "green" by connecting to other modes of transportation. Licking County connects to the Ohio River, but can it connect better, faster, cheaper? It can.

There's more to do, but I'd much rather prepare for a future like the one Kotkin envisions. And we can.

Topping Off a Topping Out

The top i-beam has been set.  A Topping Out Ceremony took place Tuesday evening as part of the continuing construction of the Horton Building at the Aerospace Center.

The Port Authority team succeeded in making an otherwise memorable event even more memorable with a Segway experience for our Board members to boot.

Mix these ingredients.

Segways. Check.

Christmas tree. Check.

U.S. flag. Check.

I-beam signed by our contractors, our future tenant's personnel, and our Board. Oh yeah, the namesake for the building, Wally Horton, signed it too. Check. Check. Check.

These are the makings of a great Topping Out Ceremony.

Wally Horton signs the i-beam before its hoisted on the building that will bear his name.

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Take action:  See more.  See a 58 second video clip of the hoisting of the beam and photos from the "Topping Out" ceremony.  See them all at http://www.facebook.com/OhioPortAuthority.

I Voted

I voted yesterday. I was told that I was the 9,100th person to take advantage of early voting in Licking County.

Just under 60,000 votes were cast in the 2006 gubernatorial election.  So, i'ts likely more than 15% of the voters have already voted with three weeks left to go before election day. 

The Last I-Beam

It's poised.

The last I-beam is ready to be hoisted.  The traditional flag and Christmas tree are attached.

The topping out ceremony is set for this evening with the Port Authority Board arriving on Segways to sign the beam before it gets hoisted.  We're hoping the building's namesake, Wally Horton, can join in the festivities.

Memorable.

What a great sign that the Horton Building is not far off from having a roof and getting going big time.

My Grandma Dena, On the Driverless Car

Thinking of the automatic car unveiled by Google made me think of my Grandma Dena.

She never got her driver's license and, all her life, was driven everywhere she went by someone else.  Yet, she had some distinct thoughts about cars and drivers.

Would she have gone for a driverless car?  Maybe.

She had a habit of sitting in the back seat of the car behind the driver's seat and barking out orders.  "Dickie!  Dickie!  The light's yellow!" she would shout to my grandfather.  She was the original back seat driver.

No driver?  No one to shout at.

When we turned 16 and got our license, she bought us grandkids memberships in a club that gave you a Jesus-heart to put in the car to protect you.  I'm religious, but I really didn't think Jesus required $10 from my grandma for me to be protected in the car. 

No driver?  No one for the Jesus-heart club to protect.

Grandma Dena was a huge advocate for seat belts.  I'm told she was writing to Congress and making a campaign of requiring seat belts before such belts were required in cars.  She got her wish about those being in cars, but she didn't live long enough for laws that required people to actually wear them.  She would have gone for that too.

No driver? Still need belts.

My guess is I think she would have gone for driverless cars.  After all, she always trusted someone else to drive her.  This technology leap would be shorter for her than for the control freak drivers among us.

Driverless Cars in My Lifetime?

A few months back a Vistage speaker said I'd see driverless cars in my lifetime.  I wanted to believe that, but I remained a bit of a skeptic.

Then, I saw this TechCrunch article claiming that Google has automatic cars that, combined, have already logged 140,000+ miles.  The article reports the cars have crossed the Golden Gate bridge, among other landmarks.  I believed it when I read it directly on the Official Google Blog.

We've had planes with autopilot for decades.  UAV's have been deployed in the military for years now.  Even one local manufacturer here in Licking County, Screen Machine Industries, already sells heavy screening and rock crushing machines that are unmanned.  Look ma, no crew cab.

Driverless cars in my lifetime, though?  Maybe so.

I can also see a Licking County future in there. The Google car uses sensors and radar, the sorts that Boeing and Goodrich are familiar with in Heath. The kind of precision instrumentation a highway full of such cars would require can best be found at Bionetics and Boeing where they already measure tolerances to the arcsecond (one one millionth of an inch).

Maybe there's a future for such cars and, just as excitedly, a future for manufacturing such cars and their components in Licking County, Ohio.

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Take Action:  Mark your calendar early. In four months, on Sunday, February 13, 2011 from Noon to 4 p.m., STEMFest will be held at The Works. The event puts the best of the local use of science, technology, engineering, and math on display for parents and their kids to see.

By the way, one of those Screen Machine Industries unmanned, wirelessly-controlled machines is expected to be there too.

Ohio Traditions: Dotting the "i"

Today's Ohio State Buckeyes game has me thinking of the band and the Script Ohio formation.  The performance will be one day short of the 74th anniversary of the now-famous formation that has become an all-Ohio tradition.  That Ohio tradition is, proudly, part of my family's traditions.

I'm told the above is a photo of October 10, 1936 when the first "Script Ohio" was performed on the field by the Ohio State University Marching Band.  More than a band formation, the performance of Script Ohio has become one of Ohio's most memorable traditions.

I'm proud that my grandfather (Everett Naylor) and great uncle (Bernard Naylor) were in that photo.  The two brothers were marching band members playing a trumpet (though my grandfather had a different name for it).

My grandfather likely may have been the first person to "dot the i" as he did it with his trumpet during practices for the formation.  That was no big deal to him back then as it was just any formation back then.  

It was, according to the write-up on OSU's website, John Brungart who got to be the first person to "dot the i" on the field in front of a game audience.  Of course, the sousaphone players would replace the trumpets the next season and the rest is history.

During the intervening years, distinguished non-bandsmen from Jack Nicklaus to Woody Hayes and John Glenn to Gordon Gee, have had the same privilege of "dotting the i" in front of an Ohio Stadium audience.

The photo below shows 10 members of the 1936 band who returned for the 60th anniversary event and the chance to "dot the i" on the field.  My grandfather was among those ten.

2011 will see the 75th anniversary of the first Script Ohio.

Though my grandfather, who passed away in 2008, won't be among them this time, that October 2011 game will be a memorable one for the band to recognize those who went before them in performing a formation that not only spells "Ohio" but truly stands as one of Ohio's greatest traditions.

A Local Tap to the National Pulse

It's uncanny.  The Manufacturer's Council of the Licking County Chamber of Commerce seems to be a barometer for the national economy.  Tap the mood of the Council and its as if one has tapped the national pulse.

The Manufacturer's Council is a group made up of plant managers from a dozen or more local manufacturers in Licking County.  They meet monthly at fellow members' plants.

In May, the news was upbeat.  That month, the economy seemed to be on the up tick too.

June, though, saw tenativeness and uncertainty as the collective mood.  As if in sync, the national mood was the same then and for several months as talk of "double dip" and "W" recovery was on the lips of many nationally.

This week's meeting was a great sign.  This October meeting saw 10 out of 13 companies convey upbeat, positive news about the growth of business from their plants. The remaining three said their operations were stable or slowed. Notably, one of those three said slowed but that was only after doubling their workforce in the past year!
The early October meeting seems to reflect the idea that the economy is recovering.  The stock market has been up.

I'll let everyone know what they say next month. 

Can you feel that local tap to the national pulse?

Solar Panels Are Coming, Solar Panels Are Coming

There's much excitement in economic development and eco-friendly circles with the announcement that a new $250 million solar array will be built on reclaimed strip mined ground in Southeast Ohio.  It really is fantastic news. 

The construction project will generate jobs and the impact of $250 million in spending will have an impact on Ohio's economy.

The size of the project will help to better establish Ohio, despite our lack of sunny days compared to desert locations, as a place where there is a market for selling solar modules.

The best part will be Ohio's ability to capitalize on this investment to feed its robust supplier chain.

The excitement will be greater if the solar panels installed are ones made in Ohio.  Manufacturing careers are better than panel-installing man hours.  On that, everyone must agree.  Solar modules can be sole-sourced from Ohio manufacturers.

The excitement will be greater if they are PV panels made while consuming silicon crucibles manufactured in Hebron, Ohio by Momentive Performance.  In the value chain of the solar industry, these highly-engineered, precisely-manufactured, high-value items are at the top.  This is an Ohio plant that, in part aided by the international surge in solar modules' sales, is booming.

The excitement will be greater if the solar trackers, the systems that help align increase the sun's power by tilting the panels into the maximum output angles, were engineered and made in Ohio.  THK in the Newark Ohio Industrial Park has a role in the manufacturer of solar trackers.

The excitement will be greater if the services to these equipment yield continuing Ohio business.  Those solar trackers need to be calibrated using metrology services and an azimuth reference.  That's something that can be done by Bionetics in Heath, Ohio.

Get my point?    The real impact of this solar panel news is when, and if, Ohio's supplier chain gets to feed it.

Godspeed on the solar panels.  Godspeed on the supplier network being in Ohio too.

Rotary Auction Idea

I was allergic to the dog. 

My wife and I attended a charity auction this past weekend where the first item up to bid was "therapy time" with a dog.  My friend Jean brought the subject dog with her too.  Time with the dog went for more than $50 an hour.

I was so allergic that I could feel my throat closing up.  I had to quickly move away when Jean walked nearby or risk gagging.

But it gave me an idea.

The Rotary club has a fundraiser auction coming up.  I have the desire to be philanthropic.  However, with one kid in college, three kids in Catholics schools, and the prediction that college will cost $100,000 a year per kid by the time my youngest ones go, my charitable giving from the pocket is quite thwarted. 

What about Facebook coaching?

Some people are down-right allergic to Facebook, but I'm not. 

I've set up a business Facebook page for the Port Authority.  There aren't too many ports with 250+ fans.  I've set up a Facebook page for a pizza shop that, in 18 months, has over 6,400 fans.

I'm not exactly an expert on Facebook, but who is really?

The concept is that I could offer three hours of coaching on setting up a Facebook, setting up a business page, and locking in that business username forever. 

I can do that, but would people bid on that?

Could this idea exceed $50 an hour in value for the Rotary Club?

Better tried than do nothing at all.

At least no one in the room will be gasping for air after getting near my bid item.  Or at least I hope not.

Awarding B.S. Degrees

Though I have all the respect in the world for them, I really wonder why some professionals are awarded B.S. degrees.  The "S" is supposed to be for science, isnt' it?

Engineers.  Archaelogists.  Architects.

These are the science people that I often hire to work on various projects. 

I see engineers design roads and then the infamous "proof roll" is used to determine the road is done right.  That exercise is two guys walking behind a heavily laden truck and seeing if they think the road is done right.  This is science?

Archaelogists start digging in the dirt and looking at shades of dirt.  They always seem to reach the same conclusion.  We didn't find it today, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.  Yeah, right.  Science?

Architects give you plans for a building and then scratch their heads when the builder can't figure out how to get air flow through a duct that is designed to go through a steel beam.  Yep.  Science.

Sure, B.S. degrees.  Right.

Top 10 Odd Things I've Done

A Letterman-style list.  Like much of these things I write, it's possible only my kids will care about this some day but here's my list nonetheless.

These are some of the odd things that I've done in my past jobs over the years that come to mind.

10. Getting the K-Mart "Blue Light Special" explained for top Wal-Mart executives.  Steubenville didn't have a Wal-Mart in 2001 when a team of Wal-Mart executives came to town to explore the city as the location for a new food distribution center.  To get a taste for the workforce, they stopped at K-Mart.  Odd as that was, the oddest thing was getting someone from K-Mart to explain to the Wal-Mart execs how the "Blue Light Special" worked.  One of those Wal-Mart execs was Mike Duke, now President and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores.

9. Visiting with Art Modell at Browns' training camp.  Before he became the most hated man in Cleveland, Art Modell was the top champion for Bernadine Healy to be the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in 1994.  After the primary and after his candidate lost, I boldly suggested that Mike DeWine (the guy who won) should go visit Modell, impromptu, when we had an hour of down time in Berea.  DeWine, a died-hard Bengals fan, and I, a die-hard Steelers fan, waited on the field for Modell who later gave a tour of the Browns' training camp.

Of course, Modell's decision a couple years later to move the Browns to Baltimore resulted in one of the oddest things in our history.  Among the protesting Browns' fan to testify to Congress was a man in a dog mask.  I don't suppose a man in a dog mask has ever testified to Congress, and cried while doing it, before or since.

8.  Accidentally crossing a picket line during a steel strike.  This is the kind of thing that could get you shot.  I started a new job in Chamber of Commerce job in Steubenville in 1996 just after a steel strike began at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel.  I was hi-railing (riding a rail-equipped truck) with the railroad when, all of sudden, I realized we were on the rail lines behind the steel plant--inside the picket line.  Since the strike lasted 13 months, I didn't get to actually go into the steel plant for more than a year later.

7.  Playing the "name game" at a McDonald's birthday party for an Asian Indian child and his equally-hard-to-pronounce-named friends.  Let's face it, traditional Asian Indian kids' names are pretty hard to pronounce.  The "name game" required me, as the high school-aged McDonald's employee assigned to this birthday party, to pronounce every one of their names. 

6.  Wearing grease-soaked, bell-bottom polyester pants while donning a paper hat.  Let's face it.  Working for McDonald's in the 1980's required doing some odd things.  Dressing for work was chief among them.

5.  Addressing an angry crowd in a Southern Ohio courthouse of people who were mad that they were not getting a prison built in their county.  During a visit that, routinely, would have been with a half dozen people, I stood in the courtroom with 50+ angry people instead.  These folks were the opposite of the NIMBYs who didn't want prisons.  These were the IMBY's.  They did want a prison and they were mad they weren't getting one. 

4.  Braving the body odor of a constituent who rarely bathed and who was protesting the lack of an "e" in his name on junk mail sent to his house.  Suspecting that they guy probably had some mental issues didn't make it any easier to endure hearing this constituent of the 7th Congressional District office I worked for in 1989 talk about his postal service grievances.  I have a weak gag reflex and my office was a converted closet with no windows (and no air circulation).

3.  Driving a conversion van loaded with eight people and their belongings.  During a campaign run with the DeWine family in an ill-advised RV in 1990 and after the RV caught on fire, we had to load up all the belongings and go from campaign stop to campaign stop in a loaded-to-the-gills van until a new RV could be found.  Brian DeWine had to sit on a microwave in the back seat.  It's too bad there weren't camera phones back then, this would have been a doozy.

2.  Being towed down country roads in a broken down motor home.  This was the sign of bad things to come.  Three days  before the ill-advised RV caught on fire, I was being towed with a chain down back country roads to get to a repair garage that could fix this thing on a Saturday so we'd be ready for the campaign kick-off on Monday.

1.  Delivering medicine to a candidate for Governor of Ohio in his pup tent during his hunger strike on the statehouse grounds.  My one-time friend, Billy Inmon, had turned on his old boss, George Voinovich, and ran against him as an independent for Governor in 1994.  My 11th floor office window overlooked the statehouse where he had pitched a tent and tried to survive a hunger strike.  As I was about the only person in Columbus who both knew Billy and didn't, at the time, work for Voinovich, I was asked by his daughter to be the person who, one day, brought him his medicines.

A Future in Unmanned Vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) are increasingly looking like a future new industry for Ohio.  There's airspace to test them.  The Air Force already has programs in Ohio that deploy them.  A closed air guard base in Springfield is getting new life with UAV's.  Some see the NASA Glenn capabilities for the space program as additional, equivalent assets.

The posturing has some regions of Ohio acting like they have an edge over another.  They don't.

The truth is all of Ohio could make the case for manufacturing of these highly-engineered unmanned devices.  Proximity to testing grounds and open air space are not exclusive to one place.

And there's so much more to attracting manufacturing of these devices and their components.

For example, Licking County already makes unmanned vehicles.  It's true.

The crushing machine above is made by Screen Machine Industries in Etna Township.  SMI machines are massive crushing and screening machines that are built without crew cabs.  They are unmanned, wirelessly-controlled heavy machines.  They are engineered and manufactured in Licking County.

Related manufacturing and service capabilities found in the aerospace industry and automotive industry are found all over the state.  Ohio has a strong story.

So, truth be told, the history for Ohio in unmanned vehicles is broad and wide.  Time for all of Ohio to go after this industry with gusto.  ALL of Ohio.

Local Poet

"Asperger" is a commenter on blogs on the NewarkAdvocate.com website.  I don't know who he or she is, but I was taken by his/her recent creation.

His latest piece at the bottom of one of my local columns is his summary of Licking County:

its a happy home
with funny farms
and chirping birds
basketweavers
and people in clean white coats
 
I'm not sure I get all the references, especially "funny farms," but the basketweavers is an obvious reference to Longaberger which has its basket HQ in Newark.  It's likely the people in clean white coats is a reference to the manufacturers, such as Boeing, which operate in a clean room environment.
 
Thanks, Asperger.  I think.

Movie Review: The Social Network

I saw The Social Network movie today and became among the first 43,000 people to click recommend on the movie website.  I do recommend it.

I knew Facebook started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004.  I knew vaguely something about the fights among its starters.  I knew Facebook had 500 million users.  I knew the brand was now worth billions.

The story was none to flattering to him, but I gained an appreciation for Mark Zuckerberg nonetheless.

I appreciate some of the ironic scenes--attending a Bill Gates lecture and standing out.  Some scenes explain why Facebook has some of the features it has like relationship status and interests. 

There's a clear theme about the guy who created a network with 500 million "friends" being at or near friendless.

I appreciated the movie's well crafted stories and, for the most part, well-acted scenes.  I can overlook Justin Timberlake's acting too.

Last point.

Historical, reflective movies are more my thing than my wife's but she liked the movie too.

That's an endorsement in its own right.  Check it out.

On Being Provocative

Provocative.

I attended the International Economic Development Conference in Columbus Monday and heard Scotts CEO James Hagedorn warn the audience during his keynote address Tuesday morning that he was going be provocative.

The definition?  Merriam-Webster says it means "serving or tending to provoke, excite, or stimulate."

Excite.  I watched as my excited colleagues from around the globe furiously started writing down the words as Hagedorn cited dubious tax stats about Ohio and a myriad of other unfavorables. 

Provoke.  I was, personally, provoked after hearing those stats and his recitation that Scotts wouldn't have located in Ohio if their decision was made today. Scotts is here only because of a decision made a century plus decades ago.

Stimulate.  I sat next to a guy from Mississippi who beemed when he heard that incentives from Mississippi were the reason that stimulated Scotts decision to open a new multi-million dollar plant in that state.

You want the best man at your wedding to be provocative at the bachelor party, not the wedding reception. 

To use another analogy, air your dirty laundry in your back yard not your front.

Provocative has its place.  Hagedorn, with an audience that was 75% non-Ohio, found the wrong place.