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October 2009
The Paradox of Progress
We will learn in November when Clevelanders go to the polls to vote on county government reform whether they care enough about change to vote for change. I mention this because research done two years ago showed that the last thing Clevelanders wanted was change. Since this may come as a surprise to some of you, I will tell the rest of the story. As you may remember, the impetus to change Cuyahoga County government this time around started with a talk given by Sam Miller, co-chairman of Forest City, to ... |
2009 Athena Awards - At Your Service
“My life has been a series of interesting zigs and zags,” says Lynnette Jackson. As the eldest daughter of two educators, Jackson was raised to value and invest in her education. She graduated in 1993 from Laurel School in Shaker Heights, where she played field hockey and basketball and was president of student government. An all-girls population provided an environment for Jackson where she could truly thrive. “I could be myself and not worry about what I looked like,” says the ... 2009 Athena Awards - Butterfly Effect
Katie Herbst has always been a social butterfly. At Avon High School, Herbst played the flute in the marching band. She sang soprano in the choir, cheered for the basketball team and edited the school’s newspaper. She went on to major in journalism at Ohio University, where she was also a member of Sigma Kappa sorority. Now at 29, she gets paid to tweet. As senior marketing communications specialist for Westfield Insurance, Herbst manages the company’s award-winning Web site and company blog... 2009 Athena Awards - Campaign Contributor
When Holly Harris Bane asks if you are a Democrat or a Republican, she doesn’t want to know whether you voted Obama or McCain. She wants to find out if you know who you are. “Identity is everything,” says Harris Bane. For eight years, she used this mantra to coach political science students, most of them young women, as assistant director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “Politics is never easy. It’s never simple,” she says... 2009 Athena Awards - Family Matters
Lisa Rose has a gift. As the fifth of eight children, she quickly learned to be a keen observer and listener. “Our house was very busy and chaotic when I was growing up,” she recalls. “Between our large family and constant visitors, we had a lot of people coming and going. As a result, I got to know a lot of different types of people from various walks of life and have been able to put myself in others’ shoes.” It’s a quality that serves her well as senior managing di... 2009 Athena Awards - Ice Breaker
Heather Roulston Ettinger earned the nickname “Scrappy” nearly 30 years ago. As the co-captain of the Dartmouth women’s hockey team, she was willing to go up against competitors twice her size. “If you make up your mind that you’re going to come out with the puck, most of the time you come out with the puck,” says Ettinger, executive vice president and senior adviser at Cleveland-based Fairport Asset Management. “The same principle can be applied to business.... 2009 Athena Awards - International Agent
Radhika Reddy came to the United States from India with an International Rotary scholarship and $20 in cash. Two decades later, she’s the founder and partner of Ariel Ventures, which provides finance and IT services for complex real estate, international business and economic development projects. After working in banking in India, Reddy came to Case Western Reserve University in 1989 to earn her MBA. She had a one-year scholarship, but when the first year was up, Reddy had to pay her own way sinc... 2009 Athena Awards - Learning Power
Linda F.R. Omobien believes that a little bit of encouragement can go a long way. As a longtime member of the Akron Board of Education and a mental health administrator, Omobien has witnessed how confidence can change a person. “What I see so much of is that people are easily discouraged,” says Omobien. “You have to plant within them that they are good people. It is amazing when you can see them pat themselves on the back and see that life is worth living.” The encouragement seed... 2009 Athena Awards - Ma Bell
Jacqueline F. Woods Former President, AT&T Ohio, & Trustee, Kent State University Retirement hasn’t slowed Jacqueline F. Woods. Even her family getaways — like a recent white-water rafting trip to Pennsylvania, where she experienced the rush of zip-lining through the forest for the first time — are exciting. “It’s really important to encourage discovery and adventure in your life,” says the former president and CEO of AT&T Ohio. That’s never been an issue for Wo... 2009 Athena Awards - Rise and Shine
Jacqueline Silas-Butler Executive Director of Project GRAD Akron Jacqueline Silas-Butler is not a coffee person. Never has been, she says. And yet she starts her day, every day, before 4 a.m. “The world is just quieter in the morning,” says Silas-Butler. While many of us spend our mornings whacking the snooze button and ambling toward our coffee makers, she spends hers working (researching and brainstorming) or relaxing (reading autobiographies, her favorite, or watching the morning news). S... Rise and Shine
“The world is just quieter in the morning,” says Silas-Butler. While many of us spend our mornings whacking the snooze button and ambling toward our coffee makers, she spends hers working (researching and brainstorming) or relaxing (reading autobiographies, her favorite, or watching the morning news). She cherishes those quiet predawn hours. As executive director of Project GRAD Akron, an educational reform program to increase high school and college graduation rates in some of Akron’s... |
2009 Athena Awards - At Your Service
“My life has been a series of interesting zigs and zags,” says Lynnette Jackson. As the eldest daughter of two educators, Jackson was raised to value and invest in her education. She graduated in 1993 from Laurel School in Shaker Heights, where she played field hockey and basketball and was president of student government. An all-girls population provided an environment for Jackson where she could truly thrive. “I could be myself and not worry about what I looked like,” says the ... 2009 Athena Awards - Butterfly Effect
Katie Herbst has always been a social butterfly. At Avon High School, Herbst played the flute in the marching band. She sang soprano in the choir, cheered for the basketball team and edited the school’s newspaper. She went on to major in journalism at Ohio University, where she was also a member of Sigma Kappa sorority. Now at 29, she gets paid to tweet. As senior marketing communications specialist for Westfield Insurance, Herbst manages the company’s award-winning Web site and company blog... 2009 Athena Awards - Campaign Contributor
When Holly Harris Bane asks if you are a Democrat or a Republican, she doesn’t want to know whether you voted Obama or McCain. She wants to find out if you know who you are. “Identity is everything,” says Harris Bane. For eight years, she used this mantra to coach political science students, most of them young women, as assistant director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “Politics is never easy. It’s never simple,” she says... 2009 Athena Awards - Family Matters
Lisa Rose has a gift. As the fifth of eight children, she quickly learned to be a keen observer and listener. “Our house was very busy and chaotic when I was growing up,” she recalls. “Between our large family and constant visitors, we had a lot of people coming and going. As a result, I got to know a lot of different types of people from various walks of life and have been able to put myself in others’ shoes.” It’s a quality that serves her well as senior managing di... 2009 Athena Awards - Ice Breaker
Heather Roulston Ettinger earned the nickname “Scrappy” nearly 30 years ago. As the co-captain of the Dartmouth women’s hockey team, she was willing to go up against competitors twice her size. “If you make up your mind that you’re going to come out with the puck, most of the time you come out with the puck,” says Ettinger, executive vice president and senior adviser at Cleveland-based Fairport Asset Management. “The same principle can be applied to business.... 2009 Athena Awards - International Agent
Radhika Reddy came to the United States from India with an International Rotary scholarship and $20 in cash. Two decades later, she’s the founder and partner of Ariel Ventures, which provides finance and IT services for complex real estate, international business and economic development projects. After working in banking in India, Reddy came to Case Western Reserve University in 1989 to earn her MBA. She had a one-year scholarship, but when the first year was up, Reddy had to pay her own way sinc... 2009 Athena Awards - Learning Power
Linda F.R. Omobien believes that a little bit of encouragement can go a long way. As a longtime member of the Akron Board of Education and a mental health administrator, Omobien has witnessed how confidence can change a person. “What I see so much of is that people are easily discouraged,” says Omobien. “You have to plant within them that they are good people. It is amazing when you can see them pat themselves on the back and see that life is worth living.” The encouragement seed... 2009 Athena Awards - Ma Bell
Jacqueline F. Woods Former President, AT&T Ohio, & Trustee, Kent State University Retirement hasn’t slowed Jacqueline F. Woods. Even her family getaways — like a recent white-water rafting trip to Pennsylvania, where she experienced the rush of zip-lining through the forest for the first time — are exciting. “It’s really important to encourage discovery and adventure in your life,” says the former president and CEO of AT&T Ohio. That’s never been an issue for Wo... 2009 Athena Awards - Rise and Shine
Jacqueline Silas-Butler Executive Director of Project GRAD Akron Jacqueline Silas-Butler is not a coffee person. Never has been, she says. And yet she starts her day, every day, before 4 a.m. “The world is just quieter in the morning,” says Silas-Butler. While many of us spend our mornings whacking the snooze button and ambling toward our coffee makers, she spends hers working (researching and brainstorming) or relaxing (reading autobiographies, her favorite, or watching the morning news). S... Rise and Shine
“The world is just quieter in the morning,” says Silas-Butler. While many of us spend our mornings whacking the snooze button and ambling toward our coffee makers, she spends hers working (researching and brainstorming) or relaxing (reading autobiographies, her favorite, or watching the morning news). She cherishes those quiet predawn hours. As executive director of Project GRAD Akron, an educational reform program to increase high school and college graduation rates in some of Akron’s... |
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Map Quest
Silicon Valley was born in a nondescript garage at 367 Addison Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their company there, on a quiet residential street, in 1939. It’s one of the many tech landmarks I’ve visited throughout the nation. While some really stood out, like Borland Software Corp.’s campus in Scotts Valley, many were ordinary buildings. It wasn’t the edifices or the geography that built the tech industry. It was people and ideas. Cleveland busin... |
Map Quest
Silicon Valley was born in a nondescript garage at 367 Addison Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their company there, on a quiet residential street, in 1939. It’s one of the many tech landmarks I’ve visited throughout the nation. While some really stood out, like Borland Software Corp.’s campus in Scotts Valley, many were ordinary buildings. It wasn’t the edifices or the geography that built the tech industry. It was people and ideas. Cleveland busin... |
Airing It Out
It’s the kind of waterboy-makes-good story that even famed Notre Dame walk-on “Rudy” Ruettiger would appreciate. Back in 1994, Tiny was nothing more than a stick figure drawn by John Kleban, Inflatable Images’ senior vice president of sales and marketing. Needless to say, Tiny was way too skinny for the NFL (or even a top-25 college). So a company artist transformed the sketch into a 3-D rendering of a football player with his arms raised in celebration. For almost four years, Ti... Arts Quarterback
Robb Hankins likes to think big — like the 12-foot orange giraffe sculpture made from recycled truck tires at Fourth Street and Court Avenue or the 10-by-50-foot mural made out of six 800-pound steel panels depicting the history of the world. As president and CEO of ArtsinStark, Hankins has played a crucial role in revitalizing downtown Canton by bringing artists and their projects into the city center. Now the relative newcomer (he’s been in town for four years) is ready to tackle a giant, ... Book Smarts
Clear some space on your office bookshelf for a little Shakespeare, Sophocles and Fitzgerald beside your Welch, Covey and Collins. Notre Dame College is putting a literary spin on professional development with a monthly seminar series, meeting October through May, that explores the timeless leadership lessons found in great works of literature. “There’s a real need for something more substantive than the sometimes pablumy, frequently checklisted approach to leadership development classes,... IB Indicator
Want one good reason why Northeast Ohio is no longer shackled by its Rust Belt image? Try 21,000 new jobs in the professional, scientific and technology sector since 1993. That’s one of every five jobs created here between 1993 and 2008. We’re talking scientific research and development, advertising, accounting and tax prep, scientific and technical consulting, architecture and engineering, computer systems and legal services. “We went from Fortune 500 to smaller companies,” says... River Vote Captains
A few years ago, a bunch of empty steel mills stood, rusting, on the banks of the Mahoning River. Today, most of them are razed, leaving large fields ready for new businesses. Sounds like a good idea, right? The Mahoning River Corridor Initiative, nicknamed “Rollin’ on the River,” corralled $24 million in federal and state grants to improve the infrastructure and environment along the Youngstown area’s waterway. The nonprofit initiative used the funds to tear down the old hulks, ... |
Just Press Play
Turn down an industrial drive in Solon, pull into the complex and park your car in front of the squat brick building. It’s all pretty unremarkable until you open the door, hear the rock music blaring, smell the coffee brewing at the Playaway Café and see the jeans-clad young people (the average age is 28) appearing to actually enjoy their jobs. It’s surely all very cool. But it’s more than that; it’s a culture of take-charge creativity nurtured by founders Mitch Kroll, Blake... |
The Downtown Advantage: Creative Spaces
Some people still imagine Cleveland to be a blend of dark buildings with tired cement floors and uninspiring fluorescent lights. But they’re thinking of Cleveland in a whole different era. Today’s downtown Cleveland businesses have not only spruced up existing space, they’ve turned it into knockout offices with edgy designs. The truth is, downtown Cleveland has the available space to revise, remodel and rehab to suit the needs and personality of any type of business. It’s a green... |
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