January 2009

Fight for Your Right ...
I pretend that I’m a doctor at cocktail parties — especially around the holidays. That would have been unheard of years ago. Back then, medical professionals disguised their occupations so as not to be pestered by partygoers. “Can you take a look at this rash, Doc?” It’s not the kind of conversation you want to have around the spinach dip. But that’s much better than what techies endure once the assembled throng learns you are a computer geek. Everyone, and I mean eve...

Estate of Readiness
Tax PreparationAs his manufacturing business prospered, Roger Valentine realized he needed to protect his assets in case something happened to him. “I could potentially leave my family with enormous messes that they would not be able to straighten out,” says Valentine, president of Rochester Manufacturing Corp. in Wellington. “A lot of businesses fail when something happens to the owner, and the debt is such that a business may be put up for auction, and your family may end up with not...

Best of Business
W e’re a rugged business community raised on steel, manufacturing and the waters of our Great Lake. So it’s no wonder we love the historic recycled wood in Thunder::Tech’s new conference room, DigiKnow’s pinball arcade and Grandma Torchia’s Italian wedding soup. Here are 20 of our business favorites — all worthy of a little ink. Click here to Sign In  or  Register to view the entire article.

No Business like the Snow Business
Cleveland stop for snow? Yeah Right. Early last March, as a third snowstorm headed toward the city and Mayor Frank Jackson dismissed many municipal workers and asked private companies downtown to do the same, Cleveland just kept going. It wasn't until the second day of the storm that Cleveland Hopkins International Airport closed after officials there gave up clearing two runways under constant attack from snow and wind. (It reopened less than a day later.) For all the white that flies each winter, plen...

INVESTING - Angels in America
They find and finance companies such as Amazon.com, The Body Shop and Google before they become, well, Amazon.com, The Body Shop and Google. And they have a knack for turning a spare $100,000 into millions come IPO time.   Turns out we don’t know angel investors at all, says Scott Shane. The Case Western Reserve University entrepreneurship professor peeked beneath their wings for his recent book,Fools Gold?: The Truth Behind Angel Investing in America.   An angel himself through the Mayf...

Marketing - Business Baldies
Bad hair days are a thing of the past for baldies in business. Age is not always a factor in the decision to shave it all off, but avoiding disasterous comb-over ’dos, head rugs and Hollywood implants was reason enough for these Cleveland executives to go follicle-free. “More men should do it,” says Terrence Lowis, 32, president of C: DOX, a printing company that serves the downtown law community. Bald is a state of mind at C:DOX — it’s their marketing gimmick and No. 1 pun...

TECHNOLOGY - Can I bounce an idea off of you?
Joseph Kennedy had to be told that he had just been awarded his 100th U.S. patent because, frankly, he had lost track. “I don’t really count,” says the University of Akron professor of polymer science and chemistry. “Believe me, it’s not the number; that’s not important. ... To make sure that these patents produce jobs and produce revenue — that is what counts.” Well, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office thought it was a pretty big deal. Although the offic...

The Economy - Financial Hangover
Ringing in the New Year while facing the nation’s worst economic slump in 70 years doesn’t exactly make us feel like popping open a bottle of champagne. It appears the same goes for the Cleveland business leaders we talked to about the most pressing concerns facing us all in the next 12 months. “After you’ve said the economy five times, there isn’t much else,” says Dr. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, the city’s large...

Going to the dogs
Ten years before Lauri and Brent Gross ever had children, they had a cat named Bunny. Now Patchy and Chamois roam their Auburn Township home, the latest in a series of felines the couple has taken in from shelters or rescued from the wild. And the couple has gone on to found Snuzzlo Bun, an apparel company named for what they once called Bunny while she slept. So what in the heck are the Grosses doing making jackets for dogs? “We are promoting world peace, beginning with love between dogs and cats...

Estate of Readiness
Tax PreparationAs his manufacturing business prospered, Roger Valentine realized he needed to protect his assets in case something happened to him. “I could potentially leave my family with enormous messes that they would not be able to straighten out,” says Valentine, president of Rochester Manufacturing Corp. in Wellington. “A lot of businesses fail when something happens to the owner, and the debt is such that a business may be put up for auction, and your family may end up with not...