The Business Journal March 2010

The Valley’s Business MattersISSN 1047-8582 Vol. 26 No. 16 MARCH 2010 $2.50

www.BusinessJournalDaily.com

Every industry loves a patient investor. But 400 million years is a l-o-n-g time to wait for a return.

The rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale – a comparatively thin layer of sediment formed and compressed during the Devonian Period and buried deep beneath eastern Ohio, western and central Pennsylvania and southwestern New York – is today yielding riches for energy companies, suppliers, landowners and auxiliary businesses throughout the region.

It’s because the shale contains what specialists are calling one of the largest, most significant reposito-ries of natural gas in the United States – a mother lode with enough gas to supply the energy needs of

Wh e n a n e c o n o m i c development effort is so big that it all but eclipses

a $64 million project, that’s not a bad situation to have.

In any other year, Patriot Special Metals Inc.’s plans to build a 210,000-square-foot plant – a project that could be the first phase of the company’s long-term expansion plan – “would have been the shining star of what we’ve done,” muses Walter Good, vice president of economic development,

Manufacturers Strike Gold in Marcellus Shale

By Dan O’Brien

Key to tapping gas reserve is technology that enables cost-effective horizontal drilling.

Tom Bailey and Hogan Petrick work at Dearing Compressor, which is expanding to capitalize on the Marcellus Shale gas field.

See BIG PROJECTS, page 10

$64 Million, $650 Million;Big, Even Bigger ProjectsBy George Nelson business retention and expansion at

the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

That “significant investment,” though, has been “somewhat eclipsed,” he acknowledges, by speculation over the past several months on whether V&M Star Steel would move forward on its own project. On Feb. 15, the company confirmed plans to build a $650 million rolling mill near its plant in Brier Hill.

“These are two big projects the

Walt Good and Eric Planey share development leadership roles at the Regional Chamber.

See MARCELLUS SHALE, page 44

2 MARCH 2010 The Business Journal

21 Manufacturers Must DiversifyYSU’s Micheal Hripko and MAGNET’s Ken Walter participated in a seminar Feb. 25 that outlined how manufacturers can identify their core strengths, develop new products, modify existing ones, and iden-tify and enter new markets.

15 Lou Zona

18 Interest Rates

23 Media Scope

11 Made in the Valley at Chieffo’sAt Frattarolli’s Sparkle Market in Struthers, Jerry Caruso, produce manager, and Tony Frattarolli say Chieffo’s frozen pasta is a top seller. Reporter Maraline Kubik takes readers to Chieffo’s in this edition’s “Made in the Valley” feature.

24 WIre Service

47 BBB Report

51 For the Record

Inside

33 Commercial Lending RoundtableFour of the Mahoning Valley’s top commer-cial lenders participate in a discussion of the dilemna they face. Congress wants banks to loan more money to business but regulatory agencies are enforcing stricter capital requirements.

With voice mail, e-mail, texting and the Internet – not to mention the many “apps” – all accessible in one mobile

communications device, many professionals can’t imagine life without their cell phones. And while they all agree on the convenience, they have different ideas on what is considered professional use.

One would think the basics go without saying, but even the most rudimentary elements of cellular phone etiquette are often forgotten, says Chris Den-nison, an instructor of marketing at Youngstown State University. Dennison, who teaches a class on business professionalism, says texting and leaving a phone’s ringer active during classes and meetings are not only inappropriate but prohibited. Regard-less, some students (and faculty) haven’t gotten the message.

Students aren’t the only violators, says Dennison,

Hold the Phone! No, Turn Off Ringer!Cell phone etiquette is evolving.By Jeremy Lydic

who fi nds many professionals leave their phones on during lunches and presentations.

“With the way students are today, they are perma-nently attached, as many professionals are, to their devices,” Dennison says. “We fi nd that they cannot seem to shut those off.”

Aside from being rude, focusing on a cell phone when your attention should be elsewhere hinders development of communication skills because eye contact is inhibited, Dennison says. Missing verbal cues, such as a look or a nod of the head, could cause a listener to miss out on the message, she says.

Despite their convenience, relying on mobile devices can also encourage laziness in communicat-ing, Dennison says. She fi nds students will use their cell phones to e-mail her a question, only to fi nd minutes after she responds that the same student has left fi ve more in her inbox. Rather than compose a comprehensive e-mail, “some would prefer to do texting,” which results in misspelled words and an inbox full of messages, she says.

See HOLD THE PHONE! page 4

The Business Journal MARCH 2010 3

Hold the Phone! No, Turn Off the Ringer!From Page 3

“It doesn’t make them look like they’ve thought something out,” Dennison says. “Sometimes, I would rather they just call me. I’m not going to get into text messaging them.”

From her work with internship recruiters, Den-nison fi nds recruiters think texting is inappropriate, but at least one business professional disagrees.

Rob Palowitz, president of Palo Creative, says use of cell phones, including texting, is the way profes-sional communication is evolving. “Texting is big,” he says, and will get only bigger when the next crop of college graduates enters the work force.

“Sooner or later, they’re going to be people that are in the work force, and that’s going to be the way they communicate,” Palowitz says. “So get on board with it now and get used to using it. I’m defi nitely looking to text clients now to save time.”

A 2008 poll by the New York-based Harris Interactive Inc. shows that among teenagers texting is indeed replacing talk-ing on phones. Some 17 million teens carry a wire-less device, up 40% since 2004, and they credit multi-tasking, speed and the option of avoiding verbal communication as why they text as much as they talk, the report says.

Palowitz, who traded his Blackberry for an iPhone in January, says he hasn’t had any complaints from clients who receive his texts, and texting can get a message to a target audience.

“People are looking to it as another medium or vehicle to get the message out,” Palowitz says. “It’s not as taboo as it once was. Marketers are always looking to push the envelope to reach their target audience.”

Advertisements and Web banners for cell phones complement, and sometimes replace, print pieces in the mailbox, and some digital advertising has gotten even more aggressive, Palowitz says. A client with a storefront in a shopping mall wanted Palo to develop an advertising campaign with a constantly repeating wireless message that would instantly send a text to passers-by with Bluetooth capability. Experimenting with such advertising is common in bigger cities, Palowitz says, but some question its intrusiveness.

“At what point do you feel like you’re intruding on someone’s privacy?” Palowitz asks. “Still, in this area, it has really started to take hold.”

Other Harris polls show that text-based adver-tising is more acceptable to consumers than other methods. A 2008 study reports 69% of adults and 64% of teenagers say texting is the most preferred advertising method, with 54% of adults saying they are comfortable providing personal information to marketers via a mobile device, compared to 35% of teens.

With 89% of adults using wireless phones, up from 77% in 2006, advertisers have greatly increased digital advertising. According to a 2009 poll of 1,015 advertisers by Harris and the LinkedIn Research Network, of the 39% who said they incorporate advertising through cell phones, 69% of them do it more often than they did a year ago.

Despite such changes in the advertising industry, “certain principles still hold true,” says Jeff Hedrich, president of the Poland-based Prodigal. As technol-

ogy changes, what is or isn’t intrusive is constantly redefi ned, and Prodigal works to determine when digital advertising is a good option for its clients, Hedrich says.

“Just as you can win friends, you can be really intrusive and turn people off,” Hedrich says. “Most people want to have some sovereign right to deter-mine who invades their space and who doesn’t.”

As junk e-mail fi lters reduces the amount of spam that gets through, Hedrich anticipates some similar form of fi lter for mobile devices will eventually come into play to ensure that “common human courtesies are not eclipsed by digital technologies,” he says. Such courtesies should be extended by business professionals as well, he says, and Prodigal is in the process of developing and employing a company policy regarding mobile devices.

“Certain things transcend technology,” Hedrich says. “And everybody likes to know they have your undivided atten-tion.”

While Hedrich under-stands that in an emer-gency someone could be expecting an important

text message, being in a meeting with someone who is constantly checking his phone leaves one with the feeling that “I was, but I was not, with that person,” he says. Thus, Hedrich stresses the importance of his people giving clients their undivided attention, and letting the client know at the start of the meeting if an urgent message is expected.

Professionals should also be careful that complex or sensitive communications be done over the phone or in person, and never via text or e-mail, Hedrich says. He admits texting has gone from being a nov-elty to an accepted form of communication among professionals, but shouldn’t be used for news that requires nuance or explanation.

Melissa Ames, director of marketing and public relations for the Better Business Bureau of Mahoning Valley, refuses to text altogether. “I will not text as a professional rule, be it a contact or a fellow co-worker,” she says. “It’s a sign of disrespect. It’s also distracting for others around you.”

Ames, who switched to a Blackberry Storm from an iPhone, says she couldn’t see herself without the phone, but is careful not to fall into a trap of convenience, she says. With all that accessibility at one’s fi ngertips, some could fi nd themselves work-ing 24 hours a day. In some professions, contacting people after business hours “already has become the norm,” and while some might fi nd this to be an unprofessional practice, Ames says, its acceptability ultimately depends on the person.

“I think it’s a case-by-case basis,” Ames says. “You have to fi nd your own limits.”

In or out of the offi ce, “We’re in a world where there really isn’t a division,” which has become evi-dent through social media networks, Ames says. As such, she advises professionals to approach their cell phones as an extension of their professional selves. Ringtones should be appropriate instead of a Top 40 hit, and voice-mail messages should be simple and professional.

“What you put out there is for everyone to see,” Ames says. “You are who you are, and you are rep-resenting your company.”

‘Just as you can win friends, you can be really intrusive and turn people off,’ Jeff Hedrich says. ‘Most people want to have some sovereign right to determine who in-vades their space and who doesn’t.’


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It’s fi rst-come, fi rst-serve, and $8 million is up for grabs – available to employers who hire new workers before the money runs out.Project Hire, for Hometown Investment in Re-

gional Economies, is designed to help create jobs in Ohio by reimbursing employers up to 50% of a new hire’s wages – up to a maximum of $6,000 – while that employee completes on-the-job training, reports Neil Yutkin, a business service representative with the Ohio Department of Development. Reimburse-ments, Yutkin notes, are made in cash rather than issued as a tax credit.

Project Hire is funded by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act and is administered by ODOD in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Educa-tion and the Ohio OneStop centers.

Between fi ve and 10 workers in the Mahoning Valley have been hired under the program so far, Yutkin reports, and he’s hoping more employers in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties become involved before other regions of the state empty the pot.

There are no limits on how much funding indi-vidual employers or employers in a specifi c region can receive, so whoever acts fi rst will benefi t most, Yutkin explains. In some cases, employers seeking funding through Project Hire have been approved in less than a day.

While industries eligible to participate must cre-ate jobs that pay a minimum of $8 an hour, Yutkin says Project Hire is not limited to manufacturers. Employers can be in any one of 11 targeted indus-tries or be deemed by local OneStop offi ces as being in demand in their service areas.

The 11 target industries are: •advanced energy / environmental technologies•aerospace and aviation•agriculture and food processing•bioscience and bioproducts•corporate and professional services•distribution and logistics•instruments, controls and electronics•motor vehicle and parts manufacturing•polymers and advanced materials•health care•fi nance and insurance. “Individuals qualify through one of two ways,”

Yutin continues. “First thing is, they have to be a dislocated worker. The other thing is, they have to either have completed and been approved by the local work-force and investment groups – the One-Stops – and/or they have to have gone through an

unemployment compensation – UCRS is what we call the program – and been approved by them.”

Project Hire came about, Yutkin continues, “when it was decided to prioritize getting people who are currently out of work back to work. The idea was we would take a pot of money from the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act and put it into an on-the-job-training program.”

Thus far, $2 million of the funds alotted have been spent, Yutkin reports, with the rest being disbursed “on a first-come, first-serve basis to employers throughout the state.”

The number of jobs that could be created is uncertain, but Yutkin says reimbursement funds will be provided “for as many as we can until the money runs out.”

Unlike most regions throughout Ohio, Yutkin says, the Trumbull, Mahoning & Columbiana Coun-ties OneStop, through area career and technical centers, screen job applicants to deterimine if they are good candidates for adapting to the new jobs that will be created.

Once new hires complete on-the-job-training, employers must retain them for a minimum of six months to qualify for the reimbursements, Yutkin notes. The program cannot be used to call back fur-loughed employees or to replace laid-off workers.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for this Valley,” Yutkin says. “In most bad economic times, it is the best time to bring on new employees and train them because you have the time to work with them. Being able to use this money to offset the costs of their training means you can start training people now as the business in this Valley is picking up. With all the good stuff we’ve been hearing lately,” Yutkin says, “this is the best time to make use of this funding to be prepared for when the resurgence comes.”

With the recent announcement that V&M Star will move ahead with plans to build a $650 million rolling mill in Youngstown, Yutkin expects employ-ers in the construction industry to become eligible to participate in Project Hire. Construction, he says, could easily be deemed as an “in-demand” occupa-tion in the tri-county region.

Project HireReimburses EmployersProgram uses stimulus dollars to reimburse employers for on-the-job training of new hires.By Maraline Kubik

Neil Yutkin, ODOD business service representative.


The president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, Thomas M. Humphries, admits he had “a bit of a reputation”

when he was tapped to chair what was then the Warren Area Chamber of Commerce.

Having overseen the merger of the Junior Achievement programs in Mahoning and Trumbull counties as local chairman for that organization, Humphries had been involved in regionalizing area nonprofits. In fact, one area nonprofit decided against asking him to be its chairman when he said he would “definitely” explore a merger with a nearby affiliate.

“I understand that,” he says. At the same time, he recognizes that the number of residents in the Mahoning Valley has shrunk. “The fact is, we are a smaller community than we were back in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80,” he says. Looking back on chamber officials’ recent trade mission to China, he notes they were dealing with the Shandong Province, with a population of 90 million people. Israel, the destination of a subsequent chamber trip, has seven million people.

“So you have to look bigger,” he says. “Truthfully, I think we need to look at the Pittsburgh-Cleveland corridor. It might offend somebody, but I think we need to promote that corridor because what happens there helps us, too.”

Humphries has been chairman of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber since it was formed in 1993 with the merger of the Youngstown, War-ren and Niles chambers of commerce. A few years later, he was preparing to step down after 29 years with the phone company then known as Sprint as it reorganized, and asked his attorney at the time, John Pogue, to review the early retirement package he had been offered.

At the time, Pogue was the regional chamber’s chairman. Pogue, Humphries recalls, told him that the chamber was facing “significant challenges” and

Humphries Pursues Regional Agenda

By George Nelson

Regional Chamber CEO sees the larger development picture – the Pittsburgh to Cleveland corridor.’

After nearly 13 years as CEO and president of the Regional Chamber, Thomas M. Humphries says he still enjoys his job.

suggested he should consider taking on the job of going in and repairing it.

“There was very little process in place. It was financially challenged,” he says.

Humphries’ involvement with area nonprofits began as he advanced though the company then known as United Telephone of Ohio, after separating in 1969 from the Air Force after a four-year hitch during which he worked in telecommunications. Starting out in the United Telephone warehouse cleaning telephones, he moved up in the company in various positions such as lineman and installer.

While Humphries was still school, his wife,

Cathy, recalls, he decided to move into management and so he studied engineering, eventually rising to general manager of the company’s Trumbull County operations. He was honorably discharged from the union, and still carries his union card with him, she says.

At United Telephone, which later became Sprint, Humphries says he used to go into “challenging ar-eas” and address the issues involved. “What I found myself doing is I’d go into a job and, within two to three years, I’d have it cleaned up to where it needs to be,” he says.

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“I have a high energy level,” he continues, but once he had gotten an area where it should be, he found himself with a surplus of energy. He directed that energy to volunteering in community initiatives such as the American Red Cross, Junior Achieve-ment, United Way and the area chambers.

The chairman of the chamber board, Robert Shroder, president and CEO of Humility of Mary Health Partners, views Humphries’ private-sector background as a strength. “Tom has a really good understanding of how business works. He had a good reputation that he took from running a busi-ness to trying to bring business in,” he says.

Early in Humphries’ tenure as CEO of the chamber, the Mahoning Valley faced the prospect of losing one of its economic anchors, the General Motors Lordstown Complex. “You’ll recall back then that Lordstown was not perceived very favorably, and in fact was on a list of plants to close,” he says.

“We recognized that the only way we’re going to save that plant is from people within that plant,” he says. “If you’re produc-ing a quality product in a timely fashion with a modest net income, you have an argument and a rea-son to stay open. If you don’t, you’re on the list.”

The chamber launched the Bring It Home cam-paign in support of keeping the plant open, work-ing with both management and the United Auto Workers. The efforts led to the plant landing the Chevrolet Cobalt in 2002, and today GM is banking on repeating that success with the Chevy Cruze, to be launched later this year in the plant that appeared destined to close more than a decade earlier.

While the chamber had some infl uence, the only people [who saved that plant], never misunderstand that,” were the people within, he says. Also, while there has been a succession of general managers at the plant, “the consistency has been the labor force and the labor leadership,” he is quick to point out.

“My hat’s off to those guys. They understood what they had to do,” he remarks. “They turned the place around.”

The chamber CEO’s work experience came into play in a sector that has become a niche for the Valley, call centers, having managed a couple of large call centers when he was at Sprint. Initially, the chamber pursued call centers as a means of employing the thousands of people in the Valley, many deemed “not employable,” who were going to be affected by welfare reform enacted in the mid ’90s. While call centers need “a lot of skilled talent,” there is also “a large volume of entry-level positions in that business,” he says.

Over the past decade, call center employment in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys has expanded substantially, generating close to 5,000 jobs among West Corp., InfoCision Management Corp. and, more recently, VXI Global Solutions among oth-ers.

Several factors have contributed to their growth, including the region’s neutral accent and the fact that call centers here can call until midnight. When it’s midnight here, it’s 9 p.m. on the West Coast. Oth-

ers are the lower wages paid in secondary markets such as Youngstown compared to New York City or the coasts for the same work, as well as a turnover rate lower than elsewhere in the country, he reports. “And then they grew because we started doing inbound call centers for technical support,” which requires higher-skilled employees, he adds.

Humphries is pleased with the efforts during his tenure to promote education, pointing to the 85% of districts in Trumbull, Mahoning and Colum-biana counties rated either excellent or effective, and he continues to push for a single countywide administrative district the schools in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

Also, while charter-government campaigns have been put on the back burner, more attention has been focused on government collaboration initia-tives “and we have seen great results out of those

efforts,” he says. Trumbull County, for instance, is going to invest in three 911 centers rather than the nine that had been discussed earlier.

He also points to the landmark proper-ty agreement between Youngstown and Girard that led to V&M Star

Steel’s recent commitment to building a $650 mil-lion rolling mill.

Humphries was “very instrumental in getting the politicians working together,” Shroder says. Humphries is “not worried about stirring things up either and thinking outside of the box,” as with the chamber’s initiatives on school district consolida-tion. “It’s controversial but it’s causing people to think,” Shroder remarks.

After nearly 13 years as chamber CEO and presi-dent, Humphries says the job is still enjoyable. On the day he was interviewed for this profi le, he was in his offi ce at 6 a.m., and had worked all day the previous Saturday.

“He’s up with the birds. He wakes the birds,” says Cathy Humphries, who has become accustomed to the demands on her husband’s time after 44 years of marriage, noting that he often worked out of town when he was with United Telephone. At night, they’ll have dinner together, “then Tom goes into his study,” she says.

“We kind of give each other space. I like to do arty things,” she continues. They make it a point to spend Sundays together, often going for rides. A couple of times each week they also have dinner out at spots such as the MVR in Smoky Hollow.

“It’s like going home to a relative’s house,” she remarks – and Caffe Capri on Sundays. They live in Liberty Township but still attend mass in St. Anthony Church in Brier Hill, where she grew up.

“Probably my favorite thing is sitting down over a good meal with good people,” Tom Humphries says. He also enjoys working out, spending an hour a day on a treadmill.

“I relax by working, believe it or not,” he explains. “My relaxation comes when I’m doing strategic planning because I get into the zone, and start to think about ‘what if?’ and ‘why not?’ ” The day he no longer wants to do that “will probably be my message it’s time to give it up,” he says.

‘We recognized that the only way we’re going to save that plant [GM Lordstown] is from people within that plant,’ he says. ‘If you’re producing a quality product in a timely fash-ion with a modest net income, you have an argument and a reason to stay open. If you don’t, you’re on the list.’


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Big Projects: Chamber Execs Share Leadership Roles From Page 1community should be proud of,” Good says.

Helping companies such as Patriot and V&M with projects like these is part of the economic de-velopment role the chamber plays in the Mahoning Valley and one of the initiatives Good oversees.

Good heads efforts in Mahoning and Trumbull counties to keep businesses here and help them grow. He also works with site selectors to keep them abreast of what should make the Valley attractive to business, “working with these professionals as they evaluate locations for new business from across the country,” Good explains.

His role in putting together the V&M deal led U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17th Ohio, to describe the chamber offi cial as “a rock star” at a recent chamber luncheon.

Hired last year by the chamber as vice president, international business attraction, Eric Planey ad-dresses another aspect of economic development.

Planey describes his responsibilities as working to fulfi ll two distinct goals. One is helping Valley com-panies enter overseas markets, either by exporting their products or forming an overseas subsidiary. The other is bringing foreign investment to the region by reaching out to countries, organizations within those countries, and businesses “to talk about the Valley as a point of location.”

Sometimes, the two chamber offi cials’ efforts intersect. When Planey has a lead, “we can provide him with the support he needs to sell the area,” Good says. When Planey was on the chamber-led trip to Israel, for instance, and needed information on available properties, Good’s team e-mailed the data immediately. Good’s economic development team maintains an inventory of available buildings and sites as well as other data.

“That makes us look really good – the fact that we can respond in real time when we are overseas,” Planey says.

A big part of working with companies here and site selectors “is the timeliness of the response and the materials that you respond with,” Good con-tinues. “If you don’t have the information, whether it be on properties, whether it be on community information such as labor force or the quality of the work force, if you can’t respond to the site selector or the company’s informational needs quickly, you’re quickly judged by that group as far as your level of capabilities as an economic development organiza-tion,” he says.

That makes the support team “critically impor-tant” in making certain the information in printed materials and on the Web site is current, he adds. The print and Web materials also are geared toward the questions that companies and site selectors ask when they perform due diligence on the com-munity.

“Even if we don’t land a transaction on one particular day, people remember stuff like that,” Planey says.

In instances where a competing community might have initially seemed like a better fi t for a prospect’s needs, providing “a level of service that is above [what the other community provided] has given us a leg up,” Good says. “We were able to seal the deal” because of the timeliness of the response and the depth of the information provided.

On the retention and expansion front, Good says

his department will continue an aggressive program to visit area companies. Roughly 80% of job growth comes from expansion of existing businesses, so Good says his team’s focus is on meeting with busi-ness executives every day to assess their needs and help them better position themselves.

“We’re going to increase our focus this year on meeting with green, renewable energy companies because of the opportunities that present them-selves there,” he adds. The development offi ce will also work more with advanced materials fi rms in the area.

Good has two dozen or so projects in the pipeline – meaning they have a “good probability of occur-ring” within the next 12 to 18 months. “And we’re going to continue working hard focusing on site selectors.”

He says chamber offi cials will attend symposiums and familiarization tours in cities such as New York, Chicago and Dallas, where such fi rms are concen-trated. “We’ll spend two to three days in those com-munities setting up appointments, meeting with site selectors … and assessing what projects they might have in their pipelines,” he says.

In the short term, Planey wants to continue to work on the opportunities that came about as a result of the trips to China and Israel, he says. Beyond that, he wants to focus on developing an international strategy “where you create a matrix between cer-tain countries and certain industries within those countries,” he says.

At this point, Planey says he is looking at Ger-many, France, South Korea and Japan. The French government is “well aware” of the V&M deal, and the French consulate in Chicago has been very sup-portive. “We’re going to capitalize on [V&M] from the international aspect,” he says. “We’re really just laying the foundation for a long-term strategy for international business attraction for the Valley.”

Girard Mayor James Melfi was commended by offi cials at the press event where V&M announced its $650 million project. Settling the land dispute between Girard and Youngstown consumed much of Good’s time the last few months.

Old family recipes make for the best meals. Bringing them to the masses at a fair price – and a profi t – keeps Chieffo’s homemade

pasta feeding one of the hungriest markets in the country.

The business was born nearly 30 years ago when the Chieffo family, Dominic and his son, Nick,

began making pasta for a few local grocers, says Richard Yannucci, owner and president of

Chieffo’s, a Niles-based company that makes a complete line of frozen pasta – cavatelli, spaghetti, linguini, gnocchi, cheese ravioli, beef ravioli, tortellini and stuffed shells.

The Chieffos perfected the recipes and added their name to the business in 1981, Yannucci continues. Nick sold the business to his son, Mark, in 2000, a dozen or so years after Yannucci had joined the com-

pany as a sales representative. Five years lat-er, Mark sold the business to Yannucci.

Over the y e a r s , t h e p r o d u c t l ine and geograph-i c a r e a served has

grown, but the secret to the company’s success has always been “doing what we do best,” Yannucci refl ects. That means making high-quality pasta that pro-vides consumers a good value and grocers an opportunity to turn a profi t.

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Private-label pasta paves the way to new markets.By Maraline Kubik

Chieffo’s Popularity Feeds Growth “To please the consumer you have to give them

quality and value. To please retailers, you have to give them good service and profi tability,” Yannucci explains. “In the food industry, you don’t work on dollars, you work on pennies,” he says. Frozen pasta, he continues, competes directly with dry pasta, which is sold at lower prices, and is easier and less expensive to store and stock.

Chieffo’s frozen pasta also competes with large national and regional companies that are in better positions to promote their brands and build name recognition, Yannucci says. Entering new markets is also challenging because what sells best varies from community to community.

In the Mahoning Valley, where there is a large ethnic population, Yannucci says cavatelli is the top seller. In the Pittsburgh market, where many residents trace their ancestry to central Europe, gn-occhi – bite-sized dumplings – outsell the cavatelli in many of the supermarkets and grocery stores where Chieffo’s frozen pasta is available.

“All of the [major grocery store] chains” that serve Ohio, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Michigan and Connecticut carry Chieffo’s line, Yannucci reports, including Marc’s, Fishers Foods and Giant Eagle.

Yannucci says Chieffo’s frozen pasta is also packaged under several private labels,

expanding its availability to a much wider geographic area that encompasses the entire Midwest. Chieffo’s frozen pasta is also served in restaurants and sold by the single serving by a regional

vending company.While the majority of busi-

ness is local and regional – the region from Cleveland to

Pittsburgh is second only to the Boston-to-New York corridor when

it comes to per-capita consumption of pasta – Yannucci expects much of his

company’s growth will come from expanding its private label business.

Introducing new products could pave the way for some growth under the Chieffo’s banner but,

See CHIEFFO’S, page 12Richard Yannucci, owner and president of Chieffo’s, displays one of his company’s most popular products.


Chieffo’s: Popularity Feeds GrowthFrom Page 11

Chieffo’sProducts: Frozen pasta – ricotta cheese ca-vatelli, low-fat cavatelli, gnocchi, cheese ravioli, beef ravioli, tortellini, stuffed shells, spaghetti and linguini.

Headquarters/Manufacturing: Niles, Ohio

Number of Employees: 7

Retailers: Major grocery store chains that serve Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and North Dakota, including Marc’s, Giant Eagle and Fishers Foods. Many independent grocers, including Sparkle Market and Rulli Brothers.

Geographic Area Served: Midwestern United States

Source: Richard Yannucci

Yannucci says, that could be problematic. Research and development for new products is expensive, he explains, and any new frozen pasta product would compete with Chieffo’s exisiting line. So, rather than generate new revenue, a new product could take a bite out of Chieffo’s existing market.

New products could also strain resources, Yan-nucci says, recalling a time when the company introduced frozen lasagna. Its popularity speeded its demise because putting it together – layering the wide, fl at noodles with beef, cheese and spaghetti sauce – was much too labor-intensive, Yannucci explains. “We couldn’t make enough of it.”

Whether a product is successful isn’t necessar-ily based on how the consumer responds to it, he points out, but rather how it affects the company’s bottom line. “Can you make money with it?” Yan-nucci asks.

Chieffo’s experienced other growing pains too. A line of frozen pierogis failed miserably, he says. Introduced in the local market, they not only com-peted against the national brand giants, but all of the homemade varieties at area restaurants and churches. A line of low-salt spaghetti sauce was also a fl op. Not because it didn’t taste good, Yan-nucci says, but because it didn’t sell well enough to generate a profi t.

What he’s learned from these experiences, he says, is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fi x it.”

Expanding into other markets by selling frozen pasta labeled and marketed as a store brand does not require the research or expense developing a new product would require, would not cut into existing sales and would not pit an unknown brand against a national giant.

To meet ongoing demand from the customers Chieffo’s serves, the plant in downtown Niles com-pletes 22 batches of pasta a day, which collectively require 2,400 pounds of fl our and produce more than 400 12-pound cases.

Flour, water and eggs are blended together in an enormous mixer that resembles a much-oversized washing machine. Once the dough is thoroughtly blended – each batch weighs about 300 pounds – it is unloaded onto a stainless steel table and wheeled

to the next room where it is fed through a machine that rolls it into sheets, cuts the sheets into ribbons and then cuts and molds the ribbons to form hun-dreds of thousands of cavatelli.

The cavatelli are fed onto a vibrating conveyor belt that separates them – so they won’t stick to-gether – and then carries them to a spiral freezer where the temperature averages 10 degrees below zero. After 22 minutes in the deep freeze, the con-veyor carries the cavatelli to the scale where it is automatically weighed and packaged.

Sealed packages continue along the conveyor to the packing room, where it is boxed into 12-pound cases and moved into the freezer.

Meanwhile, workers at other stations throughout the plant weigh and package spaghetti or stuff shells by hand.

Not every product in Chieffo’s line is made every day, so the seven workers who operate one shift are cross-trained on equipment, Yannucci notes.

Deliveries to area grocers are made by Chieffo employees, and Yannucci says he’s been known to make emergency deliveries in his car on weekends when retailers have run out of his product.

At Frattaroli’s Sparkle Market in Struthers, the freezer case is restocked with Chieffo’s pasta almost every day, says Jack Augustine, a manager in the store. Cavatelli is the best seller, he says, but the full line of Chieffo’s products is popular with his customers.

“Most customers know it’s made here. They buy it because it’s local and they like the taste of it,” Augustine says.

Demand for Chieffo’s products, especially the homemade spaghetti and linguini, increases around the holidays, Augustine continues. “It is a specialty,” he explains. “Not everyone [makers of frozen pasta] has spaghetti and linguini – a lot of them have cavatelli.”

Chieffo’s frozen pasta is an especially good seller given the market Frattaroli’s serves, observes Jerry Caruso, another manager in the store. Struthers is a working-class community, he says, so there are a lot of families looking for affordable meals that are quick and easy to prepare when they get home after putting in a day on the job.

Giant Eagle sells Chieffo’s cavatelli – both the low-fat and the ricotta cheese varieties – gnocchi, meat ravioli and cheese ravioli at all of its 222 stores, reports spokesman Erik Yorke.

“People do really like it,” says Doug Leonard, frozen food manager at the Giant Eagle on Board-man-Canfi eld Road in Boardman. He restocks the freezer case there with Chieffo’s pasta “every couple of days,” emptying four to six cases every time he restocks.

At Macali’s Giant Eagle in Niles, Chieffo’s ricotta cavatelli is the top seller, with the store selling about three cases a week, more around the holidays, reports Chris Calderone, manager of the dairy and frozen food departments.

Chieffo’s cavatelli and gnocchi are both strong sellers at the Central Percentum Giant Eagle in To-ledo, says Teresa Zakareckis, a frozen food manager at the store. Chieffo’s frozen pasta “is very popular. A lot of people do buy it,” she says. “I’m guessing our customers know it is made in Ohio. That may be one of the reasons it sells,” she says. “They want to support the Ohio economy.”


Ever dream you were a rock star, famous athlete or TV actor?

With PTV you can be, sort of.PTV is a public-access community television sta-

tion operated by Perkins Communications that airs on Time Warner Cable channel 9 in Youngstown and channel 15 in Warren. It serves more than 175,000 cable television subscribers and also streams live on the station’s Web site, www.onlineptv.com.

Programming is primarily created by the viewing audience and features area residents such as Jammin’ Johnson, a local hip-hop artist whose music videos air on PTV and are available on demand on its Web site, former state senator Thomas P. Gilmartin Sr., who hosts an educational program for preschoolers, and Kristal Hart, an area native living in New York who provides coverage of sporting events – primarily boxing – and interviews with athletes. Services and sermons from area churches and local clergy also air on the station, reports Joe Perkins, president of Perkins Communications, as do performances by Ballet Western Reserve.

“PTV is a television station for the people where the things they care about are given time on TV,” Perkins explains.

Students from Warren G. Harding High School in Warren produce some of the original programs, including broadcasts of high-school basketball, Per-kins says. In addition, the station airs a news, sports and weather program “anchored by a robot, Maria,” he says. “She’s one of our software developments.”

Software development is Perkins Communica-tions’ primary line of business, its president says; PTV is a community service offered at the company’s expense. Although the TV station is a commercial venture, Perkins says he would be satisfied if “we break even and create a couple of jobs.” He’s hoping the venture will eventually provide enough revenue to hire two full-time employees and some part-timers to keep the station, which is on the air around the

PTV Offers Public Access to Television

By Maraline Kubik

Schools, churches, individuals submit programs that are aired uncensored on cable channels.

clock seven days a week, up and running.Revenues come from sponsorships, which are

based on a Public Broadcasting Service model, and fees charged for programs that must air at specific times, Perkins says. There is no advertising and no infomercials.

Everything submitted is aired – there is no cen-sorship, he says – but submissions are broadcast at random. “The only thing that we ask is that if there is adult content that they let us know and we’ll make sure it’s on later,” Perkins explains.

Time Warner Cable’s community access guide-lines specify that programming containing nudity or language of an adult nature will be broadcast between midnight and 5 a.m.

While there is a charge for programs that must be broadcast at a designated time, he says most sub-missions to be broadcast at random require only a nominal handling charge to cover the costs of load-ing the content onto the servers.

Programming can be submitted using hyperlinks to You Tube, Webcam feeds and Web pages, which are free, or DVDs and cell phone camera videos,

which require the handling fee. VHS tapes can also be submitted, Perkins says; they require a handling fee plus a charge for conversion to digital format.

Among the submissions PTV actively seeks are videos of community events, weddings of area residents, children’s sporting events and political commentaries. In fact, Perkins says, one of his goals is to use the onsite television studio, inside the Youngstown Business Incubator in downtown Youngstown, to introduce individuals running for public office to the general public in a manner that voters can “really get to know the candidate.” Other TV stations offer sound bites, he explains, PTV’s for-mat allows for longer presentations and discussions that can be presented in real time or rebroadcast at a variety of times on different days.

“We did that with the State of the Union address,” Perkins says. “This was the only place you could see it in its entirety [after it originally aired] without advertisements or commentary.”

Independent films and other full-length programs submitted by viewers are limited to 27 minutes, shorts to five minutes and fillers to 12 minutes.

Joe Perkins says he operates the public television station, which serves 175,000 viewers, as a service to the community.

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Journal Opinion

Locally owned by the Youngstown Publishing Co.

The Business Journal is published semi-monthly (twice a month) in Youngstown, Ohio. Copyright 2010 by Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use, with-out written permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited.

Average Issue Readership: 45,000 Mail Subscription Rates: $42 for 12 months; $77 for 24 months; $96 for 36 months. Back Issues: If available, $4.75 apiece prepaid (mailed); $3.25 apiece prepaid (picked up at our office).

Submission Policy: News articles and photographs may be submitted but cannot be returned. We reserve the right to select and edit all articles and letters. All submissions become the editorial property of The Business Journal. Submissions may be edited and may be published or re-used in any medium including Business Journal television and radio reports and the Daily Business Journal Online.

The Valley’s Business Matters

25 East Boardman Street, Suite 306P.O. Box 714, Youngstown, Ohio 44501-0714

Telephone 330 744 5023Fax 330 744 5838 • 330 744 0634

Email: [email protected] site: BusinessJournalDaily.com

Publisher Andrea Wood

Assistant Publisher Eileen Lovell

Copy Editor Dennis LaRue

Page Editor Maraline Kubik

Daily Buzz Anchor Stacia Erdos

Videographers Jeremy Lydic Tony Marr Mike Moliterno

Senior Reporters Dan O’Brien George Nelson Jeremy Lydic

Columnists Monnie Ryan Lou Zona

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Art Director/ Webmaster

Fred Sipe

BY LOUIS A. ZONA

Impressions

2,000 New Jobs in 2 WeeksWhen he came to the Lordstown complex Feb.

23, the North America president of General Motors Co., Mark Reuss, declared the plant “Ground Zero.” Here the heavily anticipated Chevrolet Cruze will be produced and bring the return of better times to the automaker, the region and the nation, he said.

The automaker’s announcement that it would add a third shift – 1,200 more workers – to turn out the Cruze came one week after V&M Star Steel an-nounced it would build a $650 million rolling mill near its Brier Hill operation. That mill is expected to employ 350 workers once it’s up and running, and provide another 400 to 500 construction jobs in the 18 months needed to build it.

The day after GM’s big announcement, TMK Ipsco said it would start a threaded pipe mill in Brookfield. The week before, Revere Data opened a financial research center in downtown Youngstown.And there was more good news: O.A.O. Severstal is gearing up to reopen its steel mill in Warren. The Chester Hoist Division of Columbus McKinnon Corp. will more than double its presence in Colum-biana County by spending $2 million to reopen the former Solartec plant in Salem and hire 90 employees over the next three years.

Sure enough: We may be recovery’s ground zero.“We’ve always been an industrial bellwether for

the country,” reflects Bill Lawson, director of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. Lawson often refers to the Valley as “the Silicon Valley of the early 20th century when it was on the leading edge of

industrial development and innovation.” This region was also at the heart of the organized

labor movement, and in the 1980s and ’90s was left in despair at the void left by the retreat of the steel industry. “The Mahoning Valley is one of the best and most-often- referred-to illustrations of industrial and economic development and evolution here in the United States,” Lawson says.

So these developments ought to presage better times. Certainly, they’re cause for optimism, espe-cially in an area inured to hearing setbacks.

Of course, these jobs only begin to fill the void left by the myriad closings, downsizings and layoffs we have suffered since 1977. Even as the announce-ments were being celebrated, workers at Denman Tire Corp. learned their plant will close if the com-pany can’t secure financing or a buyer.

Still, the economic developments of the last two weeks certainly provide a base to build on and restore our confidence. “We see projects that are announced around the country and this is as big as it gets,” reflected Walter Good, vice president of economic development at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, at the V&M announcement. That project “opens up so many doors to talk about what’s going on in the Valley and tell the story that this is a great place when you are looking to make a major investment,” he said.

Let the good news spread.

In-depth story, pictures of GM’s BIG NEWS: Pages 40-42


BY LOUIS A. ZONA

Impressions

See ZONA, page 16

The Angels in Our Lives

BY GAIL WHITE

Commentary

See WHITE, page 16

Remembering people who helped, guided us.

I was 10 years old on the infamous “Black Monday,” Sept. 19 1977, when Youngstown Sheet & Tube’s

Campbell Works closed, setting off the chain of events known as the death of steel in the Mahoning Valley. I can’t say that I remember very much about that day at all.

My father worked at General Mo-tors in Lordstown so I wasn’t directly affected. I do remember that many of my friends had parents who lost their jobs – but that kind of crisis doesn’t

register at age 10.Growing up in the post-steel era, I

thought boarded-up buildings, friends moving away and big industrial sites sitting empty were just normal life happenings.

When I graduated from high school, most of my friends went away to college – and most of them never came back. I went to Youngstown State University, and graduated in the midst of the “brain drain” study conducted by the university that documented the exodus of youth from the Valley.

I mention these things not as a whining adult, resentful of my up-

Onward and UpwardNot so long ago, V&M deal would not happen.

There are so many wonderful stories – few of them told and many all too quickly forgotten

– about the special people who enter our lives and touch us in a profound way. Sometimes their entry into our lives is brief. But their influence stays with us until we die.

These are peo-ple who believe in us when we don’t believe in ourselves, when few others give us a chance at succeeding. Such a person might be an elementary teach-er who takes a special interest in a talent you didn’t know you had, or an uncle who saw to it that you had a new suit for that all-important high school prom.

My sister Tina, born in the depths of the Great Depression, remembers that she didn’t have a pair of shoes to wear to school. Tina never forgot the kindness of a teacher named Miss Martin at North Street School. Miss Martin gave her a pair of boots to

get her through the school year. “I can remember everything about Miss Martin and her class and I’ll never forget her wonderful kindness to me,” Tina recalls.

Not so long ago I took a phone call from John Ellefson. This was no ordinary phone call and I still cannot

believe that it ac-tually happened.

I met John in the late ’50s when he was a young teacher with a summer job of

running the Rowan Avenue Play-ground on the east side of New Castle. I was a high school kid with friends who lived near the playground and they introduced me to this most won-derful and caring person.

John’s demeanor and personality, his love of kids and his knowledge of baseball made meeting him an expe-rience of a lifetime. Here I was, a kid from the poorest area of the city with next to no self-confidence, but John took care of that in a hurry.

Soon I was immersed in John’s Rowan Baseball League. With his

My mother, rest her soul, very much believed that angels enter our lives and guide us through crises and hard times.

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White: Onward and UpwardFrom Page 15

Zona: Angels in Our LivesFrom Page 15

bringing – not at all. I mention these things because this is my experience. This is all I know.

I remember my grandparents talk-ing about the Great Depression. “We didn’t know we were poor because ev-erybody was poor,” they liked to say.

I didn’t know how “depressed” my hometown was because I had no memory of a time when it was booming.

And, quite frankly, I still have no memory of a booming Mahoning Valley – but I am starting to feel the

steady, strong, wonderful winds of change.

It’s a strange breeze to me – I’m not quite sure if I should toss the raincoat in the closet for good in anticipation of sunny days ahead or make sure I carry my umbrella, just in case. (We Youngstowners are a breed that have grown very leery of “hope.”)

It’s difficult to pinpoint when the tide changed. Small, steady waves of improvement have been evident for some time now.

Of course, V&M Star is a huge wave of success but we had turned

the sinking Valley ship around long before. Indeed, V&M is the perfect example of opportunity meeting preparation.

Not so long ago, a deal like V&M would have never happened in the Valley. Backhand-ed dealing and the expectant “greased palm” would have catapulted V&M executives all the way back to Paris.

Instead, private organizations, public economic development agen-cies and government officials worked together on a regional level to make sure V&M Star did not overlook the Valley.

Truly, the cooperation among ev-eryone involved was unprecedented. The process, in fact, was so unusual that it is being studied so that it can be a model in other parts of the country.

Not bad for a community where a former mayor insisted that he start his daughter’s car every morning, for fear it might have been tampered with by an organization with “collaboration concerns.”

Still, even in the midst of all of our good news, a recent front page of the

local daily newspaper pictured three of the latest federal ethics-law viola-tors of the Valley.

My s tomach turned at the sight of them.

This is the fi-nal frontier for the Valley to over-come. It is time to expel ourselves from the remnants of a past riddled

with bribery, fraud and deceit. To em-brace even one offender (that includes Jimbo) is to sentence the Valley to repeating our past.

We’ve worked too hard to go back.

It’s time to experience what the breeze of community success feels like. It’s time to see what possibilities a truly thriving Valley can achieve so that, in time, we can share the story of how we took our rubble and turned it into gold.

And it’s time for our youth to be able to have the choice to live, work and raise their families in this grand place to call home – the Mahoning Valley.

strong encouragement, I achieved ath-letic success and, more important, a sense of self worth and the confidence that comes with it.

John cared about each and every one of us and the baseball league elicits warm memories even today. Most of us had never even seen a new baseball, but somehow John found a way to furnish us with a new ball for each game.

He kept our batting averages and showed us how it was done – he even created an all-star game that all of us played in. It was a fantastic experience made possible by someone who cared. Long after the playground days, Mr. Ellefson made it a point to write and mail us a card or note saying he was keeping up with our accomplishments – graduations, beginning new jobs, and the various honors and recogni-tions we received.

Eventually John left New Castle and found great success elsewhere both as a teacher and as a school ad-ministrator.

Many years passed, decades in fact, since I last spoke with him. He had been on my mind so much that I decided to try to search him out on

the Internet after a chance meeting at Giant Eagle with a mutual friend who thought that John had landed in Youngstown – not Ohio but the Youngstown near Rochester, N.Y.

So I wrote a note to the John Ellefson listed there and hit a home run. John, now 83 years old, called me and I can’t express my joy when I saw his name on the Caller ID. The greatest part of it was that I got to say thank you.

My mother, rest her soul, very much believed that angels enter our lives and guide us through crises and hard times. My mother’s angels often assume human form, like my sister’s teacher, Miss Martin, or Mr. Ellefson.

My mother spoke often of a woman named Mrs. DiThomas who helped her through the bleakest part of the Depression when our family had so little.

And she spoke as well about an insurance agent with the memorable name of Cosmo who, back in the 1950s, helped my parents through another most difficult time after the death of my infant sister.

Although I was a small boy, I remember Cosmo and recall the heart-felt advice he offered Mom and Dad

and how his extraordinary kindness made a difference in our lives.

You don’t hear much about guard-ian angels these days, but when I was a kid in Catholic grade school it was a popular topic that always held our interest. The nuns made guardian an-gels so real that I named my personal angel “Mickey” – for Mickey Mantle, not Mickey Mouse.

I remember Father Tom Smith tell-ing our third-grade class at St. Joseph School to make sure we paid attention to our guardian angels and to heed their advice. This probably did two things: it cautioned us to be careful while we played in the schoolyard, and it was a warning not to do bad things since our guardian angels were always present (heavenly spies, you might say).

Before we left school for home, we stood and said a prayer to our guard-ian angels. I remember each word of the prayer. And I just bet that every time that it’s said, an angel, like Clar-ence in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” gets his wings.

When I was in college and had a summer job with U.S. Steel Corp. in Ellwood City, I saw an incident which to this day causes me to wonder about

the topic of angels. I was working as a millwright’s helper accompanying a fellow who repaired the various pumps in the mill.

One day we went out to a sta-tion that pumped sulfuric acid into trucks that carted it from the plant. (The acid is used to pickle the metal in one of the various processes that treat steel.)

The millwright told me to wait for him above ground as he descended a ladder to the below-ground pump. Bored after a half an hour of waiting, I decided to explore the grounds around the pumping station. All of a sudden the pump turned on and an enormous rubber hose uncoiled and began spraying acid in all directions.

Had I remained in that spot, I likely would have been burned alive by an acid bath. I can still hear that frightened millwright shouting my name after he quickly shut off power to the pump. Inadvertently he had hit the wrong switch and was overjoyed when he saw that I was safe.

When I eventually shared the ex-perience with my mother, she knew, “It was your guardian angel.” After all these years, let me just say one thing, “Thanks, Mick!”

It’s time to see what possibili-ties a truly thriving Valley can achieve so that, in time, we can share the story of how we took our rubble and turned it into gold.

Catch the Business Journal Daily Buzz news-cast posted at BusinessJournalDaily.com


YOUNGSTOWN - WARREN

Regional Chamber Report

Exciting Time for Valley

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve all read story after story about business expansions and job creation in the

Mahoning Valley. With the announcements of V&M

Star ’s p lans to move ahead with the $650 million expansion of its Youngstown plant and the location of a Revere Data of-fice in downtown Youngstown coming just a day apart, the area was abuzz with talk of a new, brighter chapter in the Valley’s story. The announcements meant almost 500 new direct jobs as-sociated with the two projects.

That’s not too shabby in these tough economic times.

So when GM announced the very next week that it would add a third shift and 1,200 jobs at the Lordstown Complex to build the Chevy Cruze, it seemed like the Valley’s prayers were being answered. We were beginning to see the end of the recession and decades of tough times for the Valley.

Of course, we at the Regional Chamber are excited about all of this good news, but the area’s residents and leaders aren’t the only ones talk-ing about it. A flood of stories about the economic revival in the Valley is sweeping regional, national and in-ternational media. At press time, the chamber had tracked 35 regional, na-tional and international stories on the V&M announcement and even more stories related to GM’s announcement at the Lordstown Complex.

The Valley garnered headlines in CNN Money, Industry Week maga-zine, Manufacturing and Technol-ogy e-journal and Channels 45/49’s NEOtropolis. The world is beginning to see what we’ve always known: The Mahoning Valley has much going for it that businesses find attractive.

We’re still taking reservations for Good Morning, Youngstown on

Friday, March 12, at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Hall in Youngstown.

The future looks brighter than ever before – especially with the V&M Star expansion news – so we’ll have a lot to talk about at this breakfast event.

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, named one of eight Public Officials of the Year by Governing Magazine, will provide an overview and update

of what’s happen-ing in the city and what to expect in 2010 and beyond. And Presley Gil-lespie will give the audience a glance

at what the Youngstown Neighbor-hood Development Corp. has planned for 2010. Also providing an update will be Chris McKee, a community organizer with the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative.

For reservations, visit Regional-Chamber.com or call Jennifer at 330 744 2131, ext. 12.

With all of this exciting news of late, the Regional Chamber’s An-nual Meeting luncheon on Thursday, March 25, promises to be a can’t-miss event.

In addition to an update on the Chamber’s activities in 2009, the event will include a keynote address from YSU’s president, David C. Sweet, who is retiring from the university this year, and our annual awards presenta-tion. This year’s award recipients are:

•William G. Lyden Spirit of the Val-ley Award: Core 6 Joe Kaluza Project.

• Donald Cagigas Spirit of the Chamber Award: Florence Wang, president, W&K International Trad-ing Co. Inc., and a member of the Re-gional Chamber’s board of directors.

• Chairman’s Political Achievement Award: Jay Williams, mayor, city of Youngstown.

What do the Regioinal Chamber and all of these award recipients have in common? All of their work in 2009 was “Building a Foundation for the Future.”

For more information or reserva-tions, go to RegionalChamber.com or call 330 744 2131, ext. 12.

World is taking notice of our attractive business climate.

Make Your Reservations for Good Morning, Youngstown

A flood of stories about the economic revival in the Valley is sweeping regional, national and international media.

Share In the Celebration At Our Annual Meeting

®

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CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT

*Annual Percentage Yield Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.”

Minimum $500

Minimum $500

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

CF BANK (formerly Central Federal S&L) 1 Year 1.50 — .10/Wellsville 24 Mos. 1.75 — N.A.

CHARTER ONE BANK 12 Mos. .40 — N.A./ 5 Year 2.15 — .05

CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK 12 Mos. .55 .10/Salem 4 Year 2.50 — .18

CORTLAND BANKS 1 Year .75 — .50/Cortland 5 Year 2.50 — .25

E.S.B. BANK 1 Year .80 — .30/Ellwood City, Pa. 4 Year 2.15 — .30

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK 1 Year .85 — .10/Canfield 4 Year 1.90 — .25

FIRST MERIT BANK 1 Year .35 — N.A./New Castle, Pa. 2 Year 1.60 .05

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA. 1 Year .50 — N.A./Hermitage, Pa. 5 Year 2.25 — .10

1ST NATIONAL COMMUNITY BANK 1 Year 1.00 — .20/East Liverpool 37 Mos. 2.38 — .40

FIRST PLACE BANK 6 Mos. .45 — .25/Boardman 12 Mos. .80 .25

HOME FEDERAL 1 Year 1.00 — .50/Niles 3 Year 1.61 .60

HOME SAVINGS 12 Mos. 1.50 —

.35/Youngstown 5 Year 2.75 — .35

HUNTINGTON BANK 1 Year .94 N.A./Youngstown 4 Year 2.71 N.A.

KEYBANK 1 Year .20 N.A./Youngstown 3 Year 1.10 .45 5 Year 2.10

MIDDLEFIELD BANKING COMPANY 1 Year 1.00 — .35/Cortland 13 Mos. 1.26 — .65 2 Year 1.76 —

PNC BANK 1 Year .60 — N.A./Youngstown 48 Mos. 1.25 — N.A.

PNC BANK 1 Year .60 — N.A./Conneaut Lake, Pa. 5 Year 1.55 — .05

US BANK (formerly Firstar Bank) 1 Year .30 — N.A./Boardman 59 Mos. 3.35 .10

Interest Rates

Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of The Business Journal compilations. Rates are subject to change without notice and should be confirmed with the individual financial institution before entering into transactions. ©2010 Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

February 26,2010

ANNUALPERCENTAGE YIELD,

2-Week Trend

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BuildingWealth SPONSORED BYInterest RatesHow Grandparents Can Help Grandchildren with College Costs

As the cost of a college education continues to climb, many grandparents are stepping in to help. This trend is expected to accelerate as baby boom-ers, many of whom went to college, become grandpar-ents and start gifting what’s predicted to be trillions of dollars over the coming decades. Helping to pay for a grand-

child’s college education can bring great personal satisfaction and is a smart way for grandparents to pass on wealth without having to pay gift and estate taxes. One of the best ways to accomplish this goal is the use of 529 Plans.

A 529 plan can be an excellent way for grandpar-ents to contribute to a grandchild’s college education, while simultaneously paring down their own estate. Contributions to a 529 plan grow tax deferred, and withdrawals used for the benefi ciary’s qualifi ed edu-

cation expenses are completely tax free at the federal level (and at the state level too).

Grandparents can open a 529 account and name a grandchild as benefi ciary (only one person can be listed as account owner, though), or they can contribute to an existing 529 account. Grandparents can contribute a lump sum to a grandchild’s 529 account, or they can contribute smaller, regular amounts.

Regarding lump-sum gifts, a big advantage of 529 plans is that under special rules unique to 529 plans, individuals can make a lump-sum gift of up to $65,000 ($130,000 for joint gifts by married couples) and avoid federal gift tax. A special election must be made to treat the gift as if it were made in equal installments over a fi ve-year period, and no additional gifts can be made to the benefi ciary during this time. Signifi cantly, this money is considered removed from your estate, even though one grandparent can still retain control over the funds if he or she is the 529 account owner.

There is a caveat, however. If the donor were to die during the fi ve-year period, then a prorated portion of the contribution would be “recaptured” into the estate for estate tax purposes.

Andrew M. Moyer, CFP®

Another attractive feature of 529 plans is that under current law, grandparent-owned 529 accounts are excluded by the federal government’s fi nancial aid formula – only parent-owned 529 plans count. So a grandparent-owned 529 plan won’t impact a grand-child’s chances of qualifying for federal aid.

However, if you need the money in your 529 account for something other than the benefi ciary’s college ex-penses – for medical expenses or emergency purposes, for example – you’ll face a double consequence: the earnings portion of the withdrawal is subject to a 10% penalty and will be taxed at your ordinary income tax rate. Also, note that funds in a grandparent-owned 529 plan may still be factored in when determining Medicaid eligibility, unless these funds are specifi cally exempted by state law.

Note: Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses associated with 529 plans before investing. More information about specifi c 529 plans is avail-able in each issuer’s offi cial statement, which should be read carefully before investing. Also, before investing, consider whether your state off ers a 529 plan that provides residents with favorable state tax benefi ts.

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FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT

Term APY Minimum

AUTO LOANS

Term Rate Type Down Payment Term Rate, 2-Wk Trend Fees

MORTGAGE LOANS

Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.” Rates are subject to change without notice and should be confirmed before entering into transactions. ©2010 Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

ASSOCIATED SCHOOL 1 Year 1.00 — $1,000 Up to 48 Mos. 5.25 Fixed 20% 15 Year 5.00 — 2+200EMPLOYEES 2 Year 1.75 — $1,000 Up to 66 Mos. 5.50 Fixed 20% 20 Year 5.25 — 2+200

FIRST CHOICE COMMUNITY 1 Year 1.65 — $500 Up to 48 Mos. 5.65 Fixed 20% 15 Year 5.50 — 2+200(formerly RMI CO. EMPLOYEES) 2 Year 2.00 — $500 Up to 60 Mos. 5.65

OHIO EDISON/ 1 Year 1.00 — $1,000 Up to 48 Mos. 5.99 Fixed 5% 15 Year 5.125 0+costsPENN POWER 2 Year 1.76 — $1,000 Up to 60 Mos. 5.99 Fixed 5% 30 Year 5.625 0+costs

SEVEN SEVENTEEN 1 Year .80 $1,000 Up to 48 Mos. 5.99 Fixed 5% 15 Year 4.375 — 0+costs 2 Year 1.55 $1,000 Up to 60 Mos. 5.99 Fixed 5% 30 Year 5.125 0+costs

STRUTHERS FEDERAL 1 Year 1.00 — $1,000 Up to 48 Mos. 6.00 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. 2 Year 1.51 — $1,000 Up to 66 Mos. 6.00

YOUNGSTOWN CITY 1 Year 1.00 — $2,000 Up to 60 Mos. 5.99EMPLOYEES FEDERAL 2 Year 1.56 — $2,000 Up to 72 Mos. 6.99 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A.

Credit Union RatesFebruary 26,2010


By George Nelson

Automobile manufacturers want their suppliers to be healthy, but they warn that those suppliers must look beyond the auto industry

if they want to keep their health.Market diversification is “crucial” for any busi-

ness, but especially those in the automotive supply industry, says Ken Walker, senior business consul-tant with the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, or Magnet. At one point, the domestic auto industry produced 16 million vehicles annually but today “is nowhere near that,” he says.

“The paradigm has shifted. It’s just not going to be that business for these manufacturers,” says Walker, who spoke at a market diversification program Magnet presented in Youngstown. The carmakers say their suppliers need to enter other markets “to help balance out their businesses” so they can remain strong.

The announcement Feb. 23 that General Mo-tors Co. will restore the third shift at its Lordstown Complex and hire 1,200 more workers is “great and wonderful,” but suppliers shouldn’t let that news “mask the situation,” agrees Greg Krizman, senior marketing director with Magnet.

During his segment of the program, Walker outlined Magnet’s detailed approach to helping companies identify their core strengths, develop new products or modify those they offer, identify poten-tial markets, and prepare to enter those markets.

Companies must recognize that increased ex-pense will accompany diversification. “This is not a ‘get out of bankruptcy free’ card. They’re going to have to spend some money to get into new mar-kets,” Walker says. Companies also must engage in marketing, and have a “good value proposition” to demonstrate why customers should purchase from them rather than their competitors.

“You’re not moving into markets where there is no competition. You’re moving into markets where there’s already established competition,” he says. Setting yourself apart from your competition “is the only way that you’re going to succeed,” he says.

One growth sector that companies can look to for diversification is the medical-device industry, but there are important aspects to consider, says Michael Southworth, principal and senior consultant at Southworth & Associates, Beachwood. Medical devices cover a range of products from simple tongue depressors to artificial hearts, he notes, and the in-dustry is “dynamic, growing and generally stable” as well as resistant to economic downturns. The industry also enjoys high profit margins

However, it is also highly regulated and “not for everybody” because of liability issues, he adds. Manufacturers of medical devices are directly regu-lated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, their suppliers indirectly.

Because of quality standards in place, companies in automotive and aerospace fields “may be very well-positioned” to meet requirements of the medi-cal-device market, Southworth says.

Other potential downsides include lower product volumes and higher overhead.

Selling to the U.S. government is another poten-tial market for companies looking to diversify, says

Automakers Advise Suppliers to Diversify Bob Fenn, program director for the Ohio Procure-ment Technical Assistance Center in Painesville. The centers offer “quite a bit of business intelligence,” he says. The nine centers in Ohio also provide as-sistance in preparing bids and certifying companies to do business with the government.

The federal government, he notes, is “the larg-est customer in the world,” making $400 billion in purchases in 2008, a figure that excludes spending

on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the success stories Fenn cited is Nordic

Air Inc., an Ashtabula company that makes climate-control devices for steel mills. In November 2003, the company contacted the procurement center, which found a pre-solicitation notice a month later and helped the firm submit a bid in April 2004. Since then, the company has done more than $300 million in business with the government.

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BY STACIA ERDOS

Media Scope

As we near the end of the first quarter of 2010, the future looks a little brighter for businesses

that rely on advertising dollars to sustain their livelihoods.

The Nielsen Co. reports ad spend-ing fell 9% last year, down to $117 billion. It was actually on pace to fall 15% the first half of the year. A strong fourth quarter cushioned the fall.

Who spent and who didn’t was as you’d expect in a down economy. Advertising by automakers and their dealers dropped 23% last year. Fur-niture store advertising dropped 7%. And advertising by wireless telephone services dropped 8%. (Really? That’s hard to believe.) Department store advertising increased 3% and phar-maceuticals were up 2%.

Now the good news: Before these numbers came out, industry analysts at Barclays Capital revised upward its advertising forecast for all major media for 2010. In some cases the revision isn’t necessarily a positive number, just less worse.

Barclays estimates advertising will increase 3.5% this year, after forecast-ing it would remain flat. That’s much better than the nearly 10% drop for 2009. Analysts see businesses return-ing to advertising at the local and na-tional levels thanks in part to it being an Olympics and election year.

Barclays now predicts TV adver-tising will rise 10%, Internet 9% and outdoor advertising 6%. Radio, which Barclays initially predicted would drop 4%, is now expected to rise 2.2%.

Print publications have been hit hardest and while the new forecast is better, the outlook is still not good for magazines and daily newspapers, with ad revenue expected to drop 3% and 6%, respectively.

With traditional ad dollars down, media companies are trying to figure out ways to increase online revenues. Another Nielsen study confirms what you might expect: 85% of Internet users believe online content currently free should remain that way.

Now on to topic No. 2, the Federal Communications Commission’s inqui-ry into the future of media and its role in providing news and information. At a special page on its Web site, Reboot.FCC.gov/FutureOfMedia, the agency is soliciting ideas and votes on what

policies could im-prove information and news in the digital era.

T h e d a y I checked in, one of the top vote getters was ending mega-corporations own-

ership of media, the submitter of this idea contending that powerful media owners, such as Rupert Murdoch, have disproportionate control over the content and delivery of news.

Another big vote getter: Restrict, fine and suspend media outlets that promote hate speech, racism and violence. The person making this sug-gestion urges the FCC to seek penal-ties for corporations and broadcasters such as Bill O’Reilly, who was accused of fueling hatred and violence against George Tiller, the abortion doctor who was shot and killed.

Another called for the FCC to hold public hearings on deliberate disinfor-mation and propaganda. True, hate speech and deliberate disinformation harms the public discourse, but let’s not forget the First Amendment.

Steve Waldman, who’s spearhead-ing the Future of Media project, pledges to keep the First Amendment top of mind. Any time the government looks at the media, it must be “very, very careful,” he says.

The FCC’s chairman, Julius Gena-chowski, promises the process will be “consistent with the vital goals of free speech in a democracy.”

So let the inquiry begin. But be-ware: A lot of journalists, this one included, will be watching.

Advertising Outlook Up, FCC Seeks Public InputFuture of Media project asks how news outlets serve their communities.

The FCC’s chairman, Julius Genachowski, promises the process will be ‘consistent with the vital goals of free speech in a democracy.’

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BY MONNIE RYAN

Wire Service

If Saving Money Is Key, It’s Hard to Beat FreeDownload software programs at no cost.

Catch the Business Journal Daily Buzz news-cast posted at BusinessJournalDaily.com

Although some economists see light at the end of the economic tunnel, it’s clear most folks will

be in penny-pinching mode for some time to come.

A big expense for small- and me-dium-sized businesses, at least if they want to stick to the letter of the law, is software. Having to buy a copy of Microsoft Word or an accounting program used dai-ly by several com-pany computers can get expensive.

One answer to the problem is so-called “cloud computing,” in which the software programs are accessed, and the data stored, online. Instead of sinking money into software licenses and hardware, employees create, edit and save fi les online; passwords keep data secure and allow safe access by more than one user.

A number of big players offer cloud computing services to businesses – HP and IBM among them. Their services aren’t free, although if your company is large with lots of computers, us-ing such services can be more cost-effective than buying many copies of software. If you’re a small business, though, you may want to consider another option: Software you can download to as many computers as you want at no cost.

Admittedly, free programs aren’t as sophisticated or as rich in features as their pricey counterparts (although some work every bit as well). Still, they’re quite serviceable, and when money is an object, it’s hard to beat free.

If you need business software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics and databases, take a peek at OpenOffi ce.org. The software can be downloaded and used as often, and by any number of em-ployees, at no charge whatsoever.

Also on the plus side, OpenOffi ce is

compatible with the commonly used but relatively expensive Microsoft Offi ce, so you’ll be able to share the documents you create.

Admittedly, I’m not a Quicken user, but many folks think they can’t live without this personal, small-business and financial accounting program. There is, however, a free alternative available at GnuCash.org. The program allows you to track bank accounts,

stocks, income and expenses and works with Linux Source, Windows XP and 7 and Mac operating systems.

A new version, GnuCash 2.3.8,

works with more systems, but it’s still in the testing stage and best left for ex-perienced developers and testers until the stable version is released.

The most recent stable version, 2.2.9, offers double-entry accounting, small-business accounting, scheduled transactions, import of Quicken QIF fi les and more. If you’re not convinced right away, check out the screenshots and features before you download.

Sometimes, you need to move many fi les at once; for instance, at the end of every year, I copy all our photo folders to a special portable hard drive (then delete them on our PC) to clear out space for the new year’s accumula-tion. And I’m here to tell you it can be a time-consuming process.

This year, I’m going to try Tera-Copy instead, available at CodeSec-tor.com.

Downloading this will allow me to queue up fi les I want to move or copy – much like queuing up fi les to burn onto a CD or DVD – which offers the added benefi t of letting me choose fi les from more than one location. Click on the start button and go; if there’s a prob-lem transferring any fi le, it’s skipped rather than bringing the entire transfer to a screeching halt as can happen with drag-and-drop. I can fi gure out how to fi x it when the other fi les are copied.

A big expense for small- and medium-sized businesses, at least if they want to stick to the letter of the law, is software.

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While commercial growth in Canfield isn’t as robust as in recent years, business

owners and developers there say the community draws significant interest as it continues a transformation that began in earnest five years ago.

New single-family housing starts numbered in the double-digits in 2009 as other communities struggled. And, a handful of commercial development projects started last year are near completion, with more slated to begin this season.

All indicators point to year filled with hope for the township and city on the heels of what was a surprisingly solid year for businesses.

“Thank God, they’re all doing well,” Michal Naffah says of the busi-nesses in his Ironwood Commons. The project was developed five years ago as a mixed-use development on the corner of Raccoon and Boardman-Canfield roads. In the development are a Hampton Inn & Suites, three restaurants, a fitness center and tan-ning salon.

The Hampton Inn is drawing a size-able number of corporate travelers as guests, many of them executives from other countries in the Mahoning Val-ley on business, Naffah says. “We’ve had a lot of business people from all over the world stay here” in addition to traditional travelers who venture into town for special occasions.

Ironwood’s three restaurants – Ruby Tuesday, Inner Circle Pizza and Bob Evans – continue to fare well and have exceeded projections, Naffah relates. “It tells me that the Canfield community has really been looking for these types of restaurants,” he remarks.

The development hasn’t come without hitting some bumps in the road. The recession forced Naffah to place on hold his plans to develop a retail center there and begin work on a residential phase.

“When the economy takes a turn, the retail and housing sectors will also turn again,” Naffah says. “We have a lot of calls related to villas and condos, but that market’s at a standstill – it’s too risky.”

And, last summer, the restaurant Harry & Jean’s closed, leaving empty a nicely furnished building at Iron-

By Dan O’Brien

Township led the county in residential housing starts in 2009.

wood. Nevertheless, Naffah says inves-

tors’ interest in that site is very high, and reports he hopes to make an an-nouncement soon on a new business there. “There’s also another project in the works that we’re hoping to an-nounce in April,” he says.

Ironwood is just one example of the sweeping changes the Canfield community has seen over the last five years. Once regarded as a small, bucolic area short on amenities and service establishments, the Canfield of today is quickly becoming a desirable place for people to live and build their businesses.

Mary McDonnell, director of busi-ness development for Canfield Com-puters, says she and her husband, George, relocated in 1999 from the Washington, D.C., area.

Three years ago, the couple decided to launch a home-based business that initially focused on repairing and providing support service for personal computers, McDonnell relates. “As the company grew, we expanded our managed services and now provide a backup and disaster recovery plan that we’re marketing to small and medium-size businesses,” she adds. “We’ve seen steady growth and expect a 20% to 25% increase in business this year.”

Within two years, McDonnell re-ports, the company expects to secure office space somewhere in Canfield to accommodate its growing customer base.

“There are a lot of positive things going on,” reports Chuck Whitman, president of CTW Development Corp., which spearheaded the West-

ford Lifestyle Community, just off Boardman-Canfield Road. “Activity has picked up on both the residential and commercial end,” he says. “The phones are starting to ring again.”

Among the major projects under way at Westford is the completion of a 20,000-square-foot office build-ing already 50% leased, Whitman reports. “By the fall, we should have it filled.”

The sprawling, 300-acre mixed-use development is also home to Kenn-sington Golf Club, where bookings are up 20% from the same period a year ago, Whitman reports. “When we see bookings up on the golf course, it tells us that people are starting to spend again,” he says. “There’s been phenomenal interest.”

This year will be the first that Kennsington will operate under a new course manager, Billy Casper Golf, Whitman says. The company man-ages 110 courses across the country and has the systems in place to make playing golf more appealing than ever for the customer, he adds. Work is also slated to finish on the course’s new grillroom this year; it is expected to open for business in June.

As consumer confidence rebounds, it should also translate into more retail and residential interest, Whit-man relates. Late last year, one of the development’s first retail tenants, Smith Jewelers, went out of busi-ness. Despite this setback, Whitman believes the space could be leased in a matter of months. “We’re in nego-tiations with a jeweler for the Smith location,” he says.

And, even in the darkest days of the housing slump, Westford managed to muster a handful of housing starts last year, Whitman says. “There are a cou-ple under construction and two more that just started,” he reports. Demand for new houses might be slow across the country, but interest in Westford’s Wakehurst Village – a gated villa com-munity – is on the rise. “There are 17 villas constructed now,” he says, “and 32 of the 68 lots are sold.”

Other work planned for this year includes a new road that extends west to South Raccoon Road, opening up another phase of Westford, Charles Gate. “These are single-family homes with larger lots” that range from three-quarters of an acre to 1.5 acres, he reports.

“All indications are that it is going to be a good year,” Whitman notes. “As banks start to loosen up, it’s sure to help.”

Dave Morrison, Canfield Township zoning administrator, says his community led the county in the number of residential housing starts last year with 24 – 21 of them single-family houses.

See DEVELOPMENT, page 26


Development at a Standstill? Not in CanfieldCanfieldBusiness

In 2009, Canfield Township led Mahoning County in residential housing starts with 24 – 21 of them single-family houses and three villas, reports Dave Morrison, township zoning administrator. Growth at de-velopments such as Westford “have just been incredible,” he notes. “Five years ago, none of it was there.”

A year earlier, the township re-corded 35 housing starts, 25 of which were single-family dwellings, he says. “We’re holding our own, but starts were down in 2009.” During the high-growth mode six years earlier, the township was averaging about 75 housing starts annually.

Foreclosures as well have tailed off, Morrison says. “Last year there were just 12” compared to 2008, when the township saw 60 bank foreclosures.

Among the top prospects for resi-dential development in the township is Summer Wind Private Estates, at Turner and Gibson roads.

“We’re the only game in town,” says

Development: Not Standing Still From Page 25 Jim DiCioccio, president of DiCioccio

Construction Ltd. The development builds houses that range between $170,000 to $300,000, he says – a range that appeals to homebuyers in the area. “We sold two this past week-end,” he reports, “and we have four already sold in our next phase.”

What sets this development apart, DiCioccio says, is that it combines the best attributes of condominium living with single-family home develop-ments. “You own your own home and lot,” he says. However, those living in the development have the option of paying an association fee that could cover maintenance and other auxiliary work to the property.

Summer Wind will also include a new clubhouse with an indoor pool to be constructed by this summer, DiCioccio says. Plans call for tennis courts, basketball courts and an out-door swimming pool for residents. “We started this development a year and a half ago, and we have 20 houses occupied,” he boasts. “We’ve been fortunate from the get-go.”

Development continues in Westford Lifestyle Community just off Boardman-Canfield Road.

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Michael Humphries, principal at Yurchyk & Davis CPAs Inc., 3701 Boardman-Canfield Road, reports the accounting firm’s corporate clients say banks are still tight with lending, but other sectors, such as housing, seem to be picking up.

Matt Sutton, owner of Yolo Grille and Wine Bar, 231 S. Canfield-Niles Road, says his decision to move his business to Canfield from downtown Youngstown about a year ago has worked out for the best. “There’s a lot of opportunity here,” he says.

Business at Bernard-Daniels Lumber & Home Center, 250 Railroad St., is on the move, says its marketing manager, Mike Herrmann. “It’s booming,” he notes. The company draws a steady mix of contractors and do-it-yourselfers.

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MultiMedia Farms Inc., 17 Main St., has seen the market improve this year, says Clare Neff, who co-owns the company with her husband, Bruce. MultiMedia Farms has contracted events such as the Daytona 500 and Disney Marathon. From left are Neff and Megan Christensen.

Jim Rosenberg, president of Neo3, a software sales and support firm at 196 N. Broad St., says 2009 “was a solid year” for his company and begins 2010 marking Neo3’s 10th year in business. Neo3 sells and provides support services for Sage accounting software. It employs five.


CanfieldBusiness

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CommercialLending

Participating in the roundtable on commercial lending held Feb. 16 at the Holiday Inn- Boardman were Peter Asimakopoulos, executive vice president for small-business banking at First National Bank of Pennsylvania; Mark Graham, senior vice president and senior loan officer at Farmers National Bank; Robert Kempe, senior vice president and team

leader for the Mahoning Valley region of First Place Bank; and Dennis Linville, senior vice president, Middlefield Banking Co. Dennis LaRue, copy editor of The Business Journal, led the questions and edited the verbatim transcript prepared by Tracey L. Berarducci, certified court reporter at David R. Burton & Assoc. Tony Mancino took the photographs. Also asking questions was publisher Andrea Wood.

Who’s Who,Said What:

Roundtable Reveals Bankers’ DilemmaCongress wants banks to make more business loans while regu-lators demand tighter standards.

See ROUNDTABLE, page 34

Mark Graham

‘We continue to grow our loan portfolio – we experienced more than 10% loan growth in 2009.’

The Business Journal: Small-business owners complain that they can no longer get the credit they need. They say that lending criteria are too high; they’re upset because they can no longer borrow or that their lines of credit have been reduced, that you’ve made it too tough to borrow.

Mark Graham, senior vice president and senior loan officer, Farmers National Bank: We’ve contin-ued to follow the same basic lending practices and lending criteria. And we’ve always based our lending practices on character, capital, credit capacity and collateral.

In this environment regulators want to see more supporting documentation, such as tax returns, personal financial statements, rent rolls.

They’re paying a lot more attention to the global situation of the borrower. But we’re ever mindful of the adverse effects of tightening credit in a recession-ary period. And as Farmers has shown, we continue to grow our loan portfolio – we experienced more than 10% loan growth in 2009. And we hope that continues.

Dennis E. Linville, senior vice president, The Middlefield Banking Co.: We’ve continued to support our customers as we always have. Our bank is new to the Mahoning Valley. We opened up our office in Cortland about a year and a half ago. And we’ve been well-received. We’ve picked up new custom-ers from some contacts I’ve had, from people who have heard good things about Middlefield Bank and came in to see us.

But I don’t know that we’ve tightened our credit standards. We have insisted on more documenta-tion. We realized that our loan file needed to be better supported with financials and background and historicals. We pay a lot of attention to cash flow. And collateral is something you look at a bit more closely than we might have in the past. Our loan growth in the past year has been very good, too. So we’re looking forward to 2010.

Robert H. Kempe, senior vice president and team leader for the Mahoning Valley Region of First Place Bank: There’s no question greater scrutiny is placed on credit and loan applications than probably there ever was.

What’s missing is that banks aren’t in a very ag-gressive growth mode. So you don’t have a lot of bankers out there [pursuing new business].

[To] folks saying that lending criteria are too high, the lending criteria is the same as it’s always been. But when there’s a lot of competition, banks tend to back off on some things they normally wouldn’t because they want the business, because they’ve got these aggressive growth numbers [to meet].

You don’t have that any-more. And you don’t have that irrational lender out there trying to grow by 20%, making it tougher for the rest of us to make loans.

[Another aspect over-looked is that] business own-ers have to understand that they’ve got to take the same risk as the bank. They’ve got to put their capital at risk. And that’s foreign to a lot of business owners [be-cause] they haven’t had to do it in the past.

Peter J. Asimakopoulos, executive vice president

for small-business banking, First National Bank of Pennsylvania: … There was no change in our under-writing criteria We’re really doing business as usual. Our asset quality has remained strong throughout this downturn.

So we’ve continued to approach everything as we always have. And that’s put us in a very good position today. We saw 6% growth in ’09 in our commercial loan portfolio. We brought in 115 new relationships of significant size.

As Mr. Kempe mentioned, some banks did some irrational things that were competition-driven. But if you stayed the course, you’re in a good position today to capitalize on the opportunities out there. And we continue to lend money out to the com-munity.

Are there different products that you’re steering busi-ness customers toward? Are there new products you’ve introduced or modifications of existing products so those who used to qualify can continue to qualify? Are you involving the Mahoning Valley Economic Develop-ment Corp. and U.S. Small Business Administration to a greater degree?

Kempe, First Place Bank : We’re putting a greater emphasis on the Small Business Administration’s Seven-Day Guarantee Program.

The stimulus legislation [American Recovery and Revitalization Act] passed last year provided for up to a 90% guarantee to banks up to$2 million and eliminated the fees.

Fees were a huge obstacle in those programs, because the origination fee could be up to 3½% with the maxi-mum [being] $53,000 to a borrower in that program.

That was a big number; it’s been eliminated. At First Place, we’ve got a very strong initiative to increase our SBA lending because it’s a

win-win. The bank gets a 90% guarantee. Granted you

have to do your documentation correctly, and you have to follow [SBA] procedures, which can be very tedious.

But the borrower gets a loan on terms I would consider nonconventional: You can go up to 10 years on working capital; 10 to 15 years on equipment; up to 25 years on real estate. That’s a win.

The borrower gets a longer amortization, a bet-ter cash flow. They can refinance some loans or consolidate loans and recapitalize their business.

Hopefully, business is coming back. Maybe they’ve exhausted all their working capital,

just surviving. We can refinance, restructure their balance sheet, give them more favorable terms than conventionally. And we get the guarantee.

That’s a win-win.

Asimakopoulos, First National Bank: … On the deposit side, a little over a year ago, we looked at what we offered small businesses. We saw it was very similar to what we offered our larger commercial customers.

So we revamped our business checking for a smaller business. The number of criteria is a lot less and the activity [is nowhere the same].

We also attached treasury-management capa-bilities for the smaller businesses. Banks typically went after larger commercial customers for treasury


Roundtable: Commercial Lenders Discuss Their DilemmaFrom Page 35

CONTINUES NEXT PAGE

management or cash management. We saw a niche that needed to be filled on the

small-business side. So we’re very proud that have those products out.

On the loan side, our [entire bank] is trying to cater to the small businesses through business development officers in the field and training the branch manager so that the people they see regularly at their branch can assist them. That will make it a lot more convenient.

And we’ve steamlined our application – we have a Web-based app[lication]. The branches are doing a lot of the smaller loans. We doubled our applica-tions last year. …

We are a preferred lender for the SBA. So we don’t have to go through a [lengthy] process; our under-writers can approve an SBA loan without having to go directly to the SBA.

So there’s a big savings in time. You still have to meet the [SBA] criteria. But we can sign off on those.

Another area where we feel we have an advantage, a niche, is through the American Recovery and Rein-vestment Act, where the SBA provides a 100% loan guarantee. We’ve done quite a few of these.

These have been challenging to put through. We’re catering primarily to our customers [who can benefit most from] that particular program.

Graham, Farmers National Bank: We also have used some of these programs. We’ve had a long relationship with MVEDC. All of our lenders are educated in the process.

A program that we had a lot of success with is the Ohio Grow Now through the state of Ohio, which is a modification of the old Linked-Deposit program [begun by former Ohio Treasurer Mary Ellen With-erow]. We originated approximately $12 million in small-business loans under this program.

It’s relatively easy to apply for. It offers a subsi-dized rate.

Some of the smaller loan amounts are easy to qualify for if they lead to job creation or retention. The borrower can get as much as a 3% discount on the rate. We experienced a lot of growth in that area.

Linville, Middlefield Banking Co: We’ve taken the two-pronged approach, too, on the deposit side and the loan side.

We had to redesign our business when we started in Trumbull and Mahoning counties. We didn’t have a product like that beforehand. It’s been very suc-cessful in bringing in customers.

We also began offering the merchant capture to some of our larger volume customers. It’s been well received.

Merchant capture [is the process that] allows the business owner to scan the image of a check they receive at their computer, to image the check at their business, and transfer the images to our bank to get same-day credit on those deposits. They don’t have to make a trip to the bank.

We’ve also redesigned some of our loan products to better accommodate existing customers and take care of [new] customers that we’re seeing from other banks, that have not been treated as kindly as they were used to being treated. They’re good-quality

customers. As a smaller bank, we sometimes [enter loan]

participations. In other words, some of our custom-ers [present a larger exposure than we’re comfortable with]. Throughout the state we’re part of a network of banks that are willing to share in the risk on larger loans. We’ve done that with strong loans outside the area.

We assume you’ve been holding very close conversations with many of your customers who used to qualify but no longer do. What are they telling you their needs are?

How are you trying to work with them? Linville: The worst thing we are hearing from

our customers is their cash flow issues. They’re not able to service their debt.

Their [accounts] receivables have slowed down. They may need some help there. We have long-term relationships with these customers.

We know that when things improve, they’ll be improving, too.

There are a few stopgap measures we need to take in the meantime to walk them through and

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See ROUNDTABLE, page 36

Robert Kempe

‘Roughly $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans come due in the next five years.’

stay with them.We’re in closer contact with them now because

we share their concerns about their financials, their progress and other things they face.

So if one thing has come out [of this recession] it’s that you build deeper, closer relationships with your customers. Because by spending more time with them, you really get to know them and help them.

Graham: Dialogue with your customers is especially impor-tant in this environment. Most of our customers understand the economy that we’re in.

Not only are you talking more with the borrower, you’re engag-ing in more dialogue with their CPA, to work together.

If two years ago, most of your cus-tomers were being paid within 30 days, how long is it taking them to collect their receivables today?

Graham: Good question. It varies. But our cus-tomers’ customers tell us they have to extend terms, extend contracts. Payment is slower. It’s all part of the environment. And that impacts the borrower. It’s taking them longer to collect what they’re owed.

What is the health of the commercial real estate market? What has been your experience?

Asimakopoulos: This area never saw the booms that other areas did. So our lows weren’t quite as low.

There’s been, over the past couple of years, quite a bit of vacant commercial space. But it hasn’t grown substantially. And as we start going in the other direction, we’re not likely to see the [rebound] that some other parts of the country are going to experience.

So I’m still optimistic that commercial real estate will recover, but I don’t think it will be as impactful here. But the bank certainly still has cause for con-cern. It’s looking at the portfolios, seeing what the cash flows of the projects are, seeing the strengths of the guarantors.

Again, there’s a need for constant communication with the borrowers and seeing their tenants’ ability to pay rent or reduced rent.

Kempe: I agree with Pete that this area hasn’t seen what the rest of the country has seen, which is a good thing. Nationwide this is the next bubble. Without question, commercial real estate is the next bubble.

Roughly $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans come due in the next five years that are going to have a hard time finding [refinancing].

These loans are going to mature, and the lenders who holding them now, for the most part, are not going to want to want to keep them. So [lenders] are going to ask [borrowers] to refinance [what they owe]. There aren’t a lot of places [borrowers] can go right now.

That, coupled with the fact that values have fallen 15, 20% in some areas, and even more, in Florida, Arizona and Las Vegas.

These folks are going to try to refinance. And

they may find themselves at 100-plus percent loan to value. As you’ve seen with residential real estate, they’re going to owe more money on the property than it’s worth.

So this is a huge issue for our country but not so much locally. Because we didn’t see the [falling values] a lot of other areas experienced.

We still have issues here because values are driven by comparable sales data. And values are down.

Comparable sales are down.

A lot of times ap-praisers look at short sales. So it’s still very difficult to get a com-mercial real estate loan in some areas, particu-larly the investment real estate area.

Graham: I would agree. … From the per-spective of the regulator, [he expects] to see more stress in the banks’ com-

mercial real estate portfolios.We’ve [all] seen that. [Farmers National] is ever

mindful of that. But we all want keep lending.All those factors will impact how we move with

lending to owner-occupiers.

What are your customers using the funds they borrow for? To what extend do they need funds for day-to-day operations? Equipment? Commercial real estate?

Graham: Well, you can’t put everyone in the same category.

Some customers have re-mained healthy and prosperous throughout. Their needs are the same that they’ve always been: Operating lines of credit for ex-pansion purposes, equipment.

Others are looking to refinance because as their cash flows have been impacted, they have the same historical needs.

It seems so tempting to think that if you are having trouble collecting your receivables, you just go to the bank and borrow enough to tide yourself over, so you can continue to operate day-to-day. Did that happen? Or are we over that?

Asimakopoulos: That still exists in situations in some areas and in some industries where working capital and cash flow have been depleted. They’re looking towards their bank for getting a cash injec-tion.

[The recession has] also been an opportunity where companies that thrived in this environment are looking at opportunities to expand because real estate costs less. Equipment either costs less or can be financed at lower rates. Borrowing rates are low.

Companies doing well see opportunities to take the next step toward greater profitability.

Since we are now officially in recovery (even though it doesn’t feel like it), to what extent do you sense optimism

among your customers that at least the worst is over – even if they don’t think the good times have returned?

Asimakopoulos: As a community we should see a lot of positives: V&M Star Steel, [O.A.O.] Severstal Steel in Warren, with General Motors at Lordstown, with The Youngstown Business Incubator, with Youngstown State [University]. We can make a long list of things that are positive.

As to the extent that customers are feeling that, and bankers are feeling that, everybody feels that at least we’ve leveled off. We’re looking at greener pastures and bluer skies.

We can start accentuating all the positive things happening in this community. Borrowers and busi-nesses are starting to realize that.

Linville: There are strong industries and weak industries out there. We tend to gravitate towards the strong players, whether the industry is weak or strong. We’ve identified some of those.

Some trucking companies are looking to expand right now. They’re buying tractors; they’re buy-ing trailers. Things have turned slightly for them, although they’re still cautious. But they’re doing better.

We see the same thing in the long-term care industry. There’s expansion there. …

And in the hospitality industry. They faced the same downturn as everybody else. They see this as a good opportunity to improve their properties, even if occupancy was down. They can take rooms out of service; they can do the upgrades.

Kempe: [Our customers are] starting to see im-provement. But, we have a long way to go. Recovery

is going to take a lot longer this time.

Companies have learned their lessons, and it’s been a good thing.

They’ve gotten lean-er. They found that they can still operate with fewer employees and less overhead.

I anticipate that as recovery takes hold, they’ll return to their earlier revenue levels and that they’ll do it

with less employees and less overhead. They’ll be stronger and better prepared [for the

next downturn].

The economists we’ve talked to think that 2010 is going to continue to be a year of sustained recovery. For one thing, at least half of the stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Revitalization Act are still unspent, still in the pipeline. It’s 2011 they’re not so optimistic about. What is your sense as to the sustain-ability of the recovery and your customers’ continued comeback?

Linville: The key to recovery in our area is em-ployment. And tough to deal with. A lot of these companies have gotten pretty lean. And it’s at the expense of their employees. And once they realize that they can operate with fewer employees, I ques-

Pete Asimakopoulos

‘This area never saw the booms that other areas did. So our lows weren’t quite as low.’


Roundtable: Need to Meet Greater Capital Requirements?From Page 35

Dennis Linville

‘The worst thing we are hearing from our custom-ers is their cash flow issues.’

tion – when they expand – whether they’re going hire back all of these employees. That’s a tough issue. …

Employment is going to be the key. We’ve lost some major employers. Those still here have down-sized.

Some of your customers tell us that they could get loans, except that the banks now have these excessive capital require-ments. So if you could address, to what extent (if at all), your need to meet certain capital requirements has affected your ability to lend?

Kempe: It’s a big issue. Pete and I were talking earlier that you have the politicians telling the banks we need to lend more money.

But then you have our regu-lators telling us that we have to meet higher capital require-ments.

In our case, 10% capital was considered well- capitalized. And the Office of Thrift just said that bar needs to be raised to 12.

The only way you get there is to stop making loans to raise capital.

You have two factions in the same town, Wash-ington, D.C., saying two different things to you. And

quite frankly, you’re going to listen to your regula-tors. Because your regulators control your destiny.

What First Place has done [is accept $73 million]from [Treasury’s] Capital Purchase Program. We’re deploying that.

And then we’re looking at some of the areas where we traditionally lent but are not anymore. A good example is loan participations.

We’re limiting the number of participations we’re doing. We’re saving our capital for our exist-ing clients in situations where we can establish new relationships with companies here in Ma-honing Valley.

Please explain what a loan participation is.

Kempe: A bank ex-tends a large credit to a customer but doesn’t want to keep the en-tire exposure. So it ap-

proaches other banks and asks if they want to participate in the loan, to take a share of the loan. It’s very common.

The bank that originates the loan is called the lead bank.

Maybe it’s a $50 million loan. The lead bank will keep the majority of it and invite three or four

other banks to participate by taking $4 million or $5 million shares.

Graham: The major focus of the regulators has been capital. And we’re not exempt. The regulators have continued to refine their definition of “well- capitalized.”

A bank is a business. It should have a strong bal-ance sheet. A borrower’s ability to borrow, our ability to lend, is driven by our capital.

We’re well aware of the challenges. And we’re committed to continuing to lend.

Do you foresee the regulators increasing the definition of “well-capitalized”?

Graham: Yes.

Linville: Yeah, they’re in the business of keeping banks strong. That’s their focus. There have been so many, so many failures. [Editor’s note: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reports three banks failed in 2007, 25 in ’08, 140 in ’09 and 15 so far this year.]

It’s their responsibility to make sure that the banks remain strong and able to serve this economy. ...

It’s a difficult balancing act for all of us.

Kempe: Let’s face it: there’s no incentive for a regulator to not be conservative when it comes to rating a bank right now. They are going to err on the side of caution.

CONCLUDES NEXT PAGE

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Asimakopoulos: Another way to address is the issue of capital – and F.N.B. Corp. did it last year – was issuing a stock, common stock, sale. We raised $100 million.

We took the opportunity where we were all painted with the same brush.

F.N.B. had a very strong balance sheet. But our stock was down because of the industry. So we took a look at that and said, “What a great opportunity to raise capital! We have a great story to tell.”

The [banking industry] analysts know our core run rate [earnings strength] is very strong.”

So because the price of our stock was down, we issued $100 million worth of common shares. So we’re above the Tier One capital requirement of 12%. We’re closer to 13.

We do have money to lend. Obviously, we’re going to be prudent on how we do that.

But it certainly provides us a nice opportunity again to support our customers and prospects.

Linville: The double-edged sword here is that most of your capital is generated through earnings. And because of all the bank failures, the FDIC has seen fit to raise our premiums substantially and impose a special assessment.

It’s millions of dollars that should be going to our bottom line instead paid as insurance premi-ums. This money would be part of our capital if we were allowed to keep it. And we’re not. We’re paying for banks’ mistakes that weren’t as prudent as we’ve been.

If memory serves, your FDIC premiums cut your earnings anywhere from 10 to 20% last year, especially because of the special assessment. Does that figure strike you as right?

Linville: It’s pretty close.

Asimakopoulos: Our increased premium for ’09 was $7 million. That’s over 10% of our annual net income.

Fallout from the recession continued to nega-tively impact commercial real estate sectors in the fourth quarter but there is hope for some improvement next year, reports the National Association of Realtors.

“Vacancy rates will trend higher and many commercial property owners will need to make rent concessions,” says Lawrence Yun, asso-ciation chief economist. “With the job market expected to turn for the better later this year, we’ll see rising demand for office and warehouse space, but that isn’t likely before 2011.”

Commercial vacancy rates remain high in most markets and are depressing rents, he says.

The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, in its commercial real estate index, suggests a flattening level of business activity in upcom-ing quarters, with 55% of members expecting the market to improve in the second quarter. Although some indicators show that a decline in commercial property values is beginning to flatten, 86% of respondents report prices are below replacement costs.

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How a problem is defined determines its solution, the chief financial officer of Northern States Metals said Feb. 24 as

he announced his company’s partnership with Youngstown State University.

In the fluids laboratory of YSU’s mechanical and industrial engineering department, the CFO, Robert Voytilla, presented the university with a 16-square-foot cross-section wind tunnel that allowed his company to solve the problem of keeping solar panels from being blown away by gusts of wind.

The solution lay not with the panels but what is used to keep them on the roofs so winds don’t move them, Voytilla explained. In this case, winds of up to 130 mph will blow around the panels, deflected by the quarter-circle Solar FlexRacks that hold them.

With a $77,000 research grant to YSU, Northern States Metals studied the problem anew, Voytilla related, and the expertise of YSU engineering pro-fessors and students proved invaluable. Hence, Northern States Metals donated the custom-built wind tunnel to the university. It replaces the one-square-foot tunnel in the lab.

“We saw tens of thousands of solar panels,” Voyt-illa recalled. As they studied how to keep them on roofs – they couldn’t fasten them into roofs because that would break the weather seals – it stuck them that the panels needn’t be redesigned.

How they were held down held the answer. The flat panels needed the Solar FlexRack that YSU and

As the economy ground to a halt last year and manufacturers were forced to place tens of thousands of employees on layoff, Northern

States Metals Inc. saw the opportunity to grow its business into areas unthinkable a decade ago.

Northern States Metals’ latest venture is manu-facturing frames for solar panels that could be set up in a matter of minutes, says Robert Voytilla, chief financial officer. The company has added two new processing lines and hopes to bring two full-time shifts to the plant by this summer, which means another 25 employees.

“We had a record year in 2009,” Voytilla says. “Our capacity has increased by 100%. The real prob-lem we’re going to have in the future is parking” as the company grows and adds more employees.

The key was to develop a racking system that could be easily deployed in the field, saving time – and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dol-lars – for customers. “We recognized costs had to come out of this industry,” Voytilla says.

Northern States’ answered with the Solar FlexRack, a steel and aluminum skeleton system for solar panels produced and fabricated at the com-pany’s plant on Intertech Drive at the Salt Springs Road Business Park.

The system allows a user to set up an entire solar panel array within three minutes, as opposed to an average of 45 minutes for other systems, Voytilla explains. “We took all we learned from traditional manufacturing and applied it to this product,” he says.

Northern States Metals started in business 35 years ago and manufactures components used in everything from surgical instruments to Venetian blinds. The company employs 81 production work-ers and another 24 in its offices.

The idea to create the new racking system came about because the company was manufacturing small mounts for solar panels, Voytilla says. Building on the success of this business, the company opted to explore developing additional products for the solar industry and pumped about $1 million toward new research and development.

Then, last summer, the company launched its Solar FlexRack product and shipped 13,000 of these racks for a project in Ontario.

“The nice thing about this unit is that it’s not big, heavy or cumbersome,” says Tom Hughes of Sullivan & Sons, Ltd., Ottawa, who oversaw construction of the solar farm, the third-largest solar array in North America and the largest in Canada.

“I don’t see anything out there that has a product as easy to install as the Solar FlexRack,” he adds.

Voytilla says the company expects to churn out “tens of thousands” of these systems each year as demand for solar energy rises, and the costs to de-ploy these systems decrease.

Just this year, Northern States has received orders for 25,000 units, Voytilla reports.

Solar Market Energizes Northern States

By Dan O’Brien

Youngstown company invents racking system that speeds the installation of solar panels.

Youngstown State University’s Yogendra Panta, Martin Abraham and Ganesh Kudav join Robert Voytilla at a press event Feb. 24 where Voytilla presented YSU with a 16-square foot cross-section wind tunnel. Northren States Metals has tapped the brain power at YSU’s engineering department to help solve a manufacturing problem. Read the story below.

Northern States Metals’ is also involved with simi-lar solar installations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona and California, Voytilla says.

The racks are assembled and fabricated in the Youngstown plant, mostly using materials and equipment sourced from companies in Ohio. Once the product is assembled it’s then shipped to the site. The racking system is so efficient, Voytilla says that

in the time it would take to erect 10 traditional solar frames, 150 could be completed with the FlexRack product.

“There’s simply no comparison in the market to-day,” Voytilla says, adding the company is developing a smaller, roof-mounted version of the product.

Production and delivery speed is critical. “You’ve got to be extremely nimble,” he says.

Moment in Sun for Company, YSUBy Dennis LaRue

Northern Metals designed.“The brain power right here at YSU did it,”

Voytilla, thanking former Engineering College Dean Cynthia Hirtzel, the dean of the College of Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics, Martin Abraham, engineering professors Ganesh V. Kudav and Yogendra Panta, and Mark Harvey, a junior ma-joring in mechanical and industrial engineering.

Where competing designs take four people as long as 38 minutes per panel to install, a Solar FlexRack can be unfolded at the site and installed on posts by three people in less than 90 seconds.

Because the panels had to be tested in wind tunnels as recorded by computer simulations, the engineers and Northern States Metals staff had to be sure the simulations would hold up. The wind tun-nels created gusts of up to 34 mph. Northern Metals designed the Solar FlexRacks to keep the panels in place in wind of as high as 130 mph.

A common standard for tall buildings is the ability to withstand winds of up to 90 mph in three-second bursts. With the support of YSU, the company has designed a configuration that allows Solar FlexRack arrays to endure sustained winds of 110 mph.

The Solar FlexRack “drives down the cost of installation,” Voytilla said, saving the entity that in-stalls them thousands of dollars in time and labor.

Last year, Northern States shipped enough FlexRacks to hold 25,000 solar panels. So far this year it has shipped an order to Texas to hold 5,000 solar panels, and one to Canada to hold 20,000.

By Dan O’Brien

Last year at this time, Clark Babb was worried. Business had plummeted by two-thirds and

just a handful of workers remained at Jamestown Moraine, a Youngstown company that provides sequencing and light assembly services for General Motors Co.’s Lordstown complex.

“We were concerned as to whether we would be able to remain in busi-ness,” said Babb, the plant manager at the company’s Meridian Road site. “You could’ve flipped a coin” to de-termine his company’s fate, he noted, underscoring the precarious state of the domestic automobile industry and GM itself.

All that changed Feb. 23, when GM North America President Mark Reuss drove a Chevrolet Cruze from Detroit to the Lordstown plant and announced the company would add a third shift and 1,200 jobs here when

Third Shift at GM, Third Shift at Suppliersthe complex begins turning out the Cruze in August.

“We’ll also have to increase to a third shift,” Babb said. His company, which employs 25 hourly and six sala-ried workers, supplies the front and rear fascias for the Chevrolet Cobalt and is gearing up to do the same for the Cruze. When GM’s new product hits the streets, he expects business to increase by one-third, making it possible for the company to hire another 10 to 12 people.

Though these aren’t huge job numbers, James-town Moraine is just one example of the many automotive suppliers, auxiliary manufacturers, and small businesses that stand to gain as soon as the vehicle is launched. “It’s a good stroke for all of the suppliers in the area,” Babb said.

Small and large businesses, local and state governments, and the Ma-honing Valley economy stand to reap long-term benefits from the Cruze launch and the reinstatement of the

third shift at Lordstown, which is ex-pected to pump another $47 million in payroll into the economy, and generate $470,000 in local income taxes and $1.4 million in state income taxes.

The third shift will bring employ-ment at the plant to 4,500 workers, Reuss told employees, community leaders and elected officials gathered at the complex for the announcement. Included in the 1,200 workers are

also 70 salaried employees needed to man the third shift.

“Lordstown is Ground Zero for the company and

the country,” Reuss declared, his remarks often interrupted by enthu-siastic applause.

GM is banking on the Cruze to lead the way in transforming the au-tomaker. The company is so confident of its success that it opted to add a third shift to Lordstown even before the first automobile is sold in North America.

“Think about hybrid performance without a hybrid price tag,” Reuss said of the fuel-efficient Cruze, which is expected to reach 40 miles per gal-lon on the highway. “We’re confident they’re putting the third shift on be-cause we have confidence in this car. We have a game-changer here in terms of fuel economy.”

GM said that engineers have logged more than four million miles in qual-ity and durability testing for the Cruze worldwide.

Following his announcement, Reuss told reporter that in the over-seas markets where the Cruze has been launched, it is selling very well. Since January 2009, more than 100,000 units have been sold, and GM is betting that it will draw the same

attention in North America. Reuss said full production of the

Cruze could hit 300,000 units a year. Recent events such as the massive recall of Toyota’s small cars – often regarded as the chief competitors for the Cruze – had no effect on the company’s decision to add the third shift, he said. “We’re going for the best product and we’re going to build it here in the United States and be profitable at it.”

The Cruze launch this summer means additional investment in GM plants across Ohio so they can support the vehicle, Reuss said. GM’s Defiance Foundry is to produce engine blocks for the vehicle’s 1.4-liter Ecotec turbo engine, GM’s Parma Metal Center will stamp 49 different components for the Cruze, while the automaker’s Toledo Powertrain Center will produce trans-missions for the product.

Since July, GM has announced more than $1.4 billion worth of new investment in North America, repre-senting 5,515 new jobs, Reuss said.

GM has pumped more than $500 million – $351 million in Lordstown alone – to retool plants in Ohio and Michigan to help launch the Cruze. Among the renovations at the plant are the development of an entirely new body shop in what was the fabricating plant, which is being equipped with 800 robotic systems.

Add to GM’s $500 million invest-ment the 18 other Tier 1 suppliers in the Mahoning Valley and across Ohio, and the ripple effect becomes even more pronounced.

Jamestown Moraine’s Babb said his business involves light assembly and sequencing for parts manufactured by Norplast, a plastics company that pro-duces the front and rear fascias. “Our business is all just-in-time,” he said.

‘Lordstown is Ground Zero for the company and the country.’

See LORDSTOWN, page 42

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“We need to be located 20 minutes from the plant.”

Full production of the Cruze on three shifts could amount to 300,000 units per year, which means 600,000 parts annually for Jamestown. “It takes eight hours from the time we get a broadcast from the plant until it’s on a new vehicle,” he noted.

Other local suppliers include Com-prehensive Logistics in Austintown, and Magna, in Lordstown, which pro-vides seating systems for the Cobalt and the Cruze.

Key to making the launch a success is to bring the third shift on gradu-ally and train these new employees on building strategies for the Cruze. “This is a process we go through that’s very meticulous to bring our work force on line with high skills to build a high-quality car,” said Lordstown plant manager John Donahoe.

The complex has already built 300 Cruzes as it simultaneously winds up production of the Cobalt, he said. The first hires – team leaders – should be called back this month, and then gradually build up through July.

“After the July 4 holiday week, we’ll have third-shift members here,”

Donahoe said. Those workers would also be trained for first and second shifts; the plant would then kick into three full shifts in “a couple of weeks” after that.

The plant should produce about 300 vehicles in July and another 1,000 or so during August. By September, production should be hitting full stride, Donahoe said.

About 330 members of United Auto Workers Local 1112 still on layoff will be called back to work, he continued. Another 700 workers would probably come from other GM locations.

“It’s been a roller coaster ride,” Donahoe said, as he reflected on a dif-ficult 2009 that saw the plant virtually shut down during the summer as GM drove toward bankruptcy.

During the summer of 2008, Lords-town added a third shift to answer skyrocketing demand for the Cobalt, only to have that shift abandoned when the economic crisis hit. Then, the second shift was terminated when demand collapsed. The second shift was reinstated last October.

Donahoe praised the work and cooperation of UAW leaders Jim Gra-ham of Local 1112 and Dave Green of Local 1714 for their cooperation and

willingness to step up to the challenge. “It’s a team effort, and good things happen. It’s a great day.”

Green said all of his membership is now back to work, which he attributes to the launch preparation under way at the fabricating plant and the new body shop. “Every week we’ve had about 20 folks transfer over to the body shop, so our membership will continue to grow and the third shift is like icing on the cake for us.”

Workers at the plant hailed the an-nouncement as an important step for the plant and the Mahoning Valley.

“I think we’re able to compete, if not lead,” noted Willis Johnson of UAW Local 1714 and chairman of the union’s education committee. Johnson was placed on layoff for seven months and called back last August. “It’s very exciting,” he said.

Dave Snyder, a GM Lordstown employee of 41 years, said he’s excited about the Cruze coming on line and preserving the future of Lordstown. “I want to see the younger generation coming out here and getting jobs and raising their families.”

Still, others were hoping that Reuss would bring even bigger news, such as a second product for the plant.

Jack Norling, a member of the Cru-ze’s build team, said the atmosphere in the plant is “very upbeat” and rumors abounded that the Lordstown com-plex would win an upscale Buick to build or a crossover vehicle based on the same platform of the Cruze.

The plant has the flexibility to pro-duce seven different styles from the same platform, Donahoe said. “Cur-rently, all we’re going to is focus on the Cruze. We’re going to be building more than 300,000 units,” he said.

“There’s always room for another product,” laughed Local 1112’s Gra-ham, but he emphasized that all at-tention is on the Cruze. “We want to make sure when that car comes to the end of the line, that it’s 150% pure.”

The Cruze should curry broad favor among consumers, said Diana Tremblay, GM’s vice president of manufacturing and labor, and a native of Austintown. “We think the market is going to love this vehicle. It’s got the features of a mid-size, the amenities of a mid-size, but its got the efficiencies of a small car.”

And, just as important, she said, “We’re going to make money.”

Maraline Kubik contributed reporting.

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Lordstown: Third Shift at GM, Third Shift at SuppliersFrom Page 40


GM Lordstown Cruzes to Third ShiftThe General Motors Lordstown Complex is “ground zero” for recovery of

GM and the country, the president of GM North America, Mark Reuss said Feb. 23 as he announced the launch of a third shift at the plant.

Anticipated for several days, Reuss’ announcement was nonetheless greeted with thunderous applause from plant workers, business and political leaders

gathered at the plant for the press event. The third shift will mean another 1,200 jobs at the plant and bring total employment to 4,500, he said.

Reuss said response to the Cruze in Asia and Europe has been everything the company hoped for and more. Based on the Lordstown plant’s history, he said, “This is exactly the right place to build it.”

Greg Greenwood, left, welcomes Dave Green, president of Local 1714 of the United Auto Workers, Reuss, and Jim Graham, president of UAW Local 1112, during a tour of Greenwood Chevrolet in Austintown. The dealership was the GM executive’s first stop before heading to Lordstown.

Diana Tremblay, GM’s vice president of manufacturing and labor, speaks with Gov. Ted Strickland and Reuss. “We think the market is going to love this vehicle,” she says. “It’s got the features of a mid-size, the amenities of a mid-size, but it’s got the efficiencies of a small car.”

“The Cruze will become synonymous with Ohio. And that’s fitting because it reflects the innovation and resilience of the people of Ohio,” Gov. Strickland tells the crowd.

Vows Ben Strickland, UAW 1112 shop chairman, during his remarks, “This is the cornerstone of General Motors, and we are going to continue to drive it that way.”

“It’s only fitting that this community is ground zero for the greatest economic comeback in the history of the United States of America,” proclaims U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17 Ohio.


Marcellus Shale: Manufacturers Strike GoldFrom Page 1this country for decades to come.

“This could have a tremendous impact on our area and our economy,” says Becky Wall, executive vice president of Dearing Compressor & Pump Co., Boardman. The company assembles large, heavy-duty compressors energy companies use to explore for natural gas.

Business for the company, which has undergone steady growth since 2006, has skyrocketed since energy companies started drilling in earnest at the shale about a year and a half ago, Wall says. The natural-gas rush in the region convinced Dearing to pump about $1 million into a major expansion of its operations just to keep up with orders originating from Marcellus drilling.

“We’ve had an advantage because we’ve been growing at a rapid pace,” Wall relates. “It prepared us for the opportunities for drilling in the shale.” The company is building a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing and assembly area in addition to the 30,000-square-foot plant it occupies on Simon Road. As a result of Marcellus projects, the company expects to hire another 20 to 30 workers once the expansion is finished in June.

Dearing Compressor, which employs 93, should hit the 100 mark by March 31, Wall reports.

The machines Dearing designs and builds are huge – engines that range between 1,500 to 5,000 horsepower, vary in price from $50,000 to $3 million and that can drive drilling operations for major en-ergy companies, reports Rick Dearing, president.

“The equipment we’re selling has a 30-year lifespan to them,” Dearing says. “That means these companies are in it for the long haul.”

Development officials in Pennsylvania project that the commonwealth could realize $14.7 bil-lion in economic development and the creation of 100,000 jobs by Dec. 31 as a result of Marcellus drilling, Wall relates. “We want Ohio to latch onto this,” he says.

Some Valley companies have already heard the call loud and clear.

“We’ve been in Pennsylvania for five years and got in before Marcellus broke loose,” says Ben Lupo, president of D&L Energy, Youngstown. The com-pany partners with large drilling companies, such as Atlas Energy in Pittsburgh, to extract the gas. D&L then hauls byproducts – especially resultant contaminated water – for safe disposal.

The company also owns acreage in the shale and expects to begin drilling operations there this sum-mer, Lupo says. Just how much natural gas could be extracted and the money that could be made in the Marcellus is anyone’s guess, he says. “A $5 million well could generate $50 million” over its lifetime, he speculates.

And, landowners along the shale stand to profit greatly as drilling along the most productive areas – mostly in central to central-western Pennsylvania – steps up, Lupo notes. “There are landowners getting $1,500 to $5,000 an acre,” he reports. “If you have a 200-acre farm, you could make $1 million.”

Or, as landowners in the Marcellus Shale have discovered, it’s more lucrative to lease their land, Lupo relates. Standard leasing agreements call for the landowner to reap a 20% royalty on the natural gas produced from the well.

“We were lucky, we got the acreage ahead of

time,” he says. “The biggest problem facing these energy companies now is to get rid of the water.”

Companies have perfected the technique of hori-zontal drilling, which uses a large amount of pressur-ized water to blast open the highly compressed shale – in some areas 9,000 feet below the Appalachian surface. Because the shale is relatively thin – on average between 100 and 300 feet thick – the drill-ing then turns horizontally and punches through fractures within the rock, unleashing pockets of natural gas encased tens of millions of years.

The excess water, now contaminated, needs to be cleansed and properly disposed of.

That’s why D&L and another partner, Hart Re-source Technologies of Creekside, Pa., plan to con-struct a $1.7 million retainer well and wastewater treatment system at the Ohio Works Business Park in Youngstown to cleanse and dispose of the con-taminated water produced from drilling the Marcel-lus shale. In total, the project would create 24 jobs immediately and pave the way for D&L’s exploration activities this summer.

“This could blossom big time,” Lupo says of the project, noting the area could be home to a half-dozen wells. “He who can get rid of the water and get rid of it legally is king in this business. If we’re able to get rid of it first, we could hit big time.”

The project is awaiting approval from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Youngstown

City Council. Councilwoman Carol Rimedio-Righet-ti has said she is concerned about the environmental ramifications because of how close the proposed location is to neighborhoods in the 4th Ward.

Drilling in the Marcellus shale is nothing new. Prospecting companies began exploring the region in the 1830s and areas such as Oil City and Titusville, Pa., became the epicenter of the world’s oil industry during the late 19th century.

However, reaching and extracting natural gas from the Marcellus has always proved tricky and costly. First, it’s deep – the layer forms what amounts to a large pocket beneath the Appalachian Mountains that ranges in depth from 4,000 feet to 9,000 in shal-low areas such as eastern Ohio. And, the Marcellus layer is relatively thin, measuring on average about 300 feet thick.

The key to tapping into the Marcellus reserve is technology that has enabled horizontal drilling techniques to become more cost-effective, says Terry Engleder, professor of geosciences at Penn State University.

These advances, which energy companies started to employ in earnest just two years ago, has the po-tential to open an energy field so vast that, by itself, could supply the natural gas needs of the country at least 20 years.

“It’s mind-boggling how large this is,” Engleder

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams holds a rendering of V&M Star’s $650 million mill, a project fueled by demand for tubular pipe.

CONTINUES NEXT PAGE


says. “Many believe that this area could yield 489 trillion cubic feet of gas supplies.”

Engleder, who has studied the Marcellus Shale 25 years, says those numbers are based on just 10% of the natural gas that is packed within – an area that conservatively covers 15 million acres. Others have pegged the area of useable gas at close to 35 million acres.

“Something of this magnitude hasn’t happened in America for a long time,” Engleder notes. The reserve is so significant that he compares it to the oil rush that kicked off in 1859 with the Drake Well near Titusville, Pa., in Venango County. That single moment, also made possible by the perfection of new drilling techniques, is largely considered the birth of the world’s modern petroleum industry.

The Marcellus play could have the same effect on the world’s natural gas industry, providing an alter-native source to oil and thereby eliminating global dependence on energy sources in the Middle East. “Our dependence on foreign oil also jeopardizes our security,” he says.

The first gas wells in the Marcellus were drilled as early as the 1880s, Engleder notes. In 1940, explorers trying to drill vertically below the shale in Allegany County, N.Y., fractured the rock and unleashed a torrent of natural gas with no means to control the geyser. “We now have the technology to control and transport the gas,” he relates.

The Marcellus shale was formed 400 million years ago, when Ohio and Pennsylvania were covered with heavy organic sediment that decayed over millions of years. As the sediment degraded, methane and other gases compressed and forced fractures in the rock. As the sediment hardened and became packed under layers and layers of other formations in the earth’s crust, the gas became trapped in the fissures.

Horizontal drilling through the use of hydraulic fracturing has proved revolutionary for exploration because it unlocks these unconventional reservoirs, Engleder says. Through this method, operators drill vertically until they hit the shale. Then, the drill path turns horizontally and bores 5,000 feet through the fractures, creating a path for the released gas.

Strict vertical drilling is useless in the shale be-cause the formation is so thin, Engleder says.

The best drilling sites are those where the shale is thickest and deepest, which is generally in the center to western portion of Pennsylvania, Engleder says. He said it’s not likely that there would be any sub-stantive drilling in the Mahoning Valley or nearby Pennsylvania counties such as Lawrence and Mercer any time soon.

“Mercer and Lawrence don’t have good shale for drilling,” Engleder says. “It’s too shallow and thin.” In Centre County, Pa., for example, the shale could be buried 7,800 feet compared to just 4,000 to 3,500 in eastern Ohio and far western Pennsylvania.

As drilling technology improves, though, extract-ing gas from this portion of the shale is very possible, Engleder says. “In my opinion, it will happen, and that includes areas around Youngstown. It’s just a matter of when.”

But it’s clear the Mahoning Valley is already reap-ing major rewards for the drilling activity because of its proximity to the sites.

On Feb. 15, V&M Star announced it would spend $650 million on its tube-making operations in Youngstown and construct a new rolling mill. The company melts scrap steel to produce oil-country tubular pipe used for the exploration of natural gas

and oil. Demand is on the increase for the company’s products, largely because of Marcellus drilling. The project is expected to create 350 full-time jobs and another 400 to 500 temporary construction jobs.

And, another tube maker, Russian-based TMK Ipsco, announced Feb. 23 that its subsidiary, Ultra Premium Connections, has leased the former Sharon Tube operation in Brookfield to start a threading mill there that could eventually employ up to 120.

“These shales are a game-changing phenomenon” for natural gas exploration worldwide, says Pitor Galitzine, TMK Ipsco’s chairman. The company manufacturers seamless pipe in Ambridge, Pa., north of Pittsburgh, and will then send it to Brookfield for

threading and coupling processing. The pipe is then sent to drill rigs in the Marcellus shale.

The Brookfield plant “eliminates any logistical problems” that could arise as a result of its Marcellus customers, Galitzine says.

He says the Marcellus will quickly be inundated with business interests across the country – Pitts-burgh is already attracting its share of cars bearing Texas and Oklahoma license plates – and also a strong international presence.

“In the last three months, you’ve seen about $50 billion in takeover and investment deals related to shale exploration [around the world],” Galitzine says. “This is the energy of the future.”

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verify your account.• You have won $100,000. Here is a check (coun-

terfeit of course). Send $4,987 to cover all costs. • Deposit it in your account and send us a

check for $1,999 so we can direct deposit the balance of your winnings.

• Guaranteed 12% return on your invest-ment available only to members of our group (church, school, factory, etc.). So keep it among ourselves and send your $300 to the name on the top.

• Verified funds available, guaranteed financing.

• My name is …. And my deceased hus-band was the oil minister in (Nigeria, Iraq, Sierra Leone).

These and other wonderful opportunities are available to a select few billion people seeking money in tough times.

There are rarely arrests; if you give out money or personal information, you will lose big. Unfortu-nately, no one will get caught, no one will go to jail and your money, ID and credibility are gone.

Encourage your employees to visit BBB.org to check out EVERY offer EVERY time. We can’t warn people enough. Every week we hear from people who appear to be fairly intelligent but tried to outsmart the scammer or just couldn’t understand how the latest pitch couldn’t be legitimate. The best advice is to throw that junk mail away or delete that new fabulous offer in your inbox.

These kinds of thieves are becoming more clever every day. They have underground networks to trade ideas and sell “sucker” lists to each other.

Originally, scam letters came from Nigeria but now they come with postmarks all over the world. They are better written and more believable. These crooks even have business plans.

They know how much they can average by steal-ing an individual’s credit card numbers. They also know how much more valuable a company’s ID numbers and account information can be. With

the new generation of smart phones now used to transfer financial information, new schemes are being developed to hack into your phone information.

Here is a final tip to lessen the harm an ID thief can cause you and your company. Enter the phone number and credit card number of

each of your credit cards into your contact lists on your mobile phone.

As soon as you discover an ID theft or stolen purse or wallet, you can imme-diately contact every credit card you own

and alert the fraud department. It can immediately stop any further activity on that card. This is also extremely beneficial if you are traveling abroad or for an extended time with no immediate access to those numbers.

Remember to “Grab your wallet and/or check-book” if you see or hear any of the above phrases and when in doubt check it out EVERY TIME with the BBB.

BuildingBetterBusiness

Almost everyone can relate to the experience – when filling out a job application, you are asked

to sign a consent form, authorizing a prospective employer to conduct a background check on you.

Your life, including credit history, credit scores, driving record and a myriad of other information that you once deemed private becomes accessible to many. Any inaccuracies – of which you may not even be aware – could un-dermine your efforts to land new employment.

What do you need to know to en-sure your background check is an em-ployment tool and not a hindrance?

First, be aware that a prospective employer must obtain your written permission to conduct a background check. If he wants to communicate with your associates, neighbors or friends, they will need you to sign off on an investigative consumer report.

What’s included in an employee background check?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the standards for screening for em-ployment. At minimum, a background check will verify your Social Security number.

However, employers generally seek additional information about things such as employment history, educa-tional credentials, credit history and possible criminal background.

While there are obvious privacy concerns related to such requests, employers have some justification in their need-to-know efforts. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer rights organization, areas of inquiry and concern might include:

• False or misleading data offered by applicants, such as fictitious em-ployment or educational credentials.

• Negligent hiring lawsuits brought against an employer as the result of an employee causing harm to others.

• Federal and state legal require-ments for certain positions, such as those related to contact with children or the elderly.

There is some information that

Law Governs How Employers Conduct Background Checks

cannot be disclosed in a background check, such as school records, which cannot be released without the con-sent of the student.

Although you cannot be discrimi-nated against because you filed for bankruptcy, keep in mind that bank-ruptcies are a matter of public record

and will show up on background checks.

The laws vary by state. Some states don’t allow questions pertain-

ing to arrests or convictions beyond a certain point in the past while oth-ers allow consideration of criminal history only for certain employment positions. This information typically appears in a complete background check.

Also, employers cannot request medical records and are not allowed to make hiring decisions based on an applicant’s disability. They may in-quire only about the applicant’s ability to perform a certain job.

The best way to prepare for a back-ground check is to be actively aware of any potentially damaging information that an employer might find. Consider using a reputable third party to obtain a background check on yourself.

If you find inaccurate data in your background check, there is a written process for having such data removed. Contact the nearest Consumer Report-ing Agency for details.

Equally important, ensure that your resume and job applications are truthful and accurate. Even if you land the job with a falsified resume, it could be uncovered later, putting your employment history at risk.

If you are not hired as the result of information contained in a back-ground check, the employer must offer you a disclosure that includes a copy of your report and your rights. He must also serve notice that he has decided not to hire you and inform you of the name and location of the nearest Consumer Reporting Agency, as well as information on how to pro-ceed in disputing the report.

SOURCE: PrivacyRights.org

Prospective employer must gain your written permission to con-duct a background check.

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Getting AheadTIPS FOR CLIMBING THE CAREER LADDER, COMPILED BY MONNIE RYAN

Getting AheadWhy Your Job Hunt Fails

Employers are extraordinarily picky about the people they hire, says Robin Ryan, career

counselor and author of several books including 60 Seconds & You’re Hired!

Many common mistakes can be avoided, he maintains. To help job-seekers be successful, he offers the following reasons for failure:

• Failure to quickly sell your ac-complishments. Resumes get glanced at and rejected in 15 seconds or less. Generic job descriptions and unfo-cused resumes simply don’t work. The Internet’s ease of use has added to this problem, increasing by thousands the number of resumes received and mak-ing it very hard to get noticed.

• Your resume needs to scream that actions = results. Be specific. Show where you saved money, made money, saved time or increased pro-ductivity. Use action verbs such as streamlined, created and implemented to show you’re a take-charge, get-the-job-done kind of person. Limit your resume to no more than two pages. If you apply online, also mail a hard- copy resume.

• Not writing a cover letter. Hu-man resources managers say today’s job hunters think they can skip this step, especially when they apply elec-tronically. A well-written cover letter has great power with employers and always should precede any resume you send. Open your letter with a powerful first paragraph that sums up your related experience, key strengths, skills and accomplishments.

• Not knowing how to control the interview. Dressing inappropri-ately, discussing your life story, not appearing confident, not being well-informed about the company and nervousness get you off to a bad start. Employers often make snap decisions; many admit they mentally dismiss a candidate during the first five minutes after the initial greeting.

• Immediately address the top strengths you have to offer. Display enthusiasm for the job, show you have the potential to learn, grow and pro-duce on the job. When the interviewer asks the inevitable – “Tell me about

yourself” – select your top five sell-ing points based on your analysis of the job duties and link them together in a few sentences to create a “verbal business card.”

• Flustered or stumped by tough interview questions. Too many can-didates don’t think through answers to tough but typical questions such as, “Why should we hire you?” Or, “Tell us about the worst boss you ever had.” This style of interviewing is common; the interviewer probes to determine how you have performed in the past. Specific examples of past performance are required. Plan your answers to these kinds of questions before the interview, trying to put a positive spin on the experience. Never say anything degrading or negative about your former boss or company. Making good eye contact more effec-tively displays your confidence during the interview.

• Not asking intelligent questions. Hiring managers complain that all the candidates care about is how much they’ll get paid, what the medical ben-efits are and how many vacation days they’ll get. Instead, stay away from these topics and impress the employer with good questions about job duties and management styles. Good ques-tions to ask might include, “Could you describe to me your management style?” “What major concerns need to be immediately addressed by the person who has this job?”

More Workers Calling OffNearly one-third of employees

played hookey from work last year, finds CareerBuilder’s survey on absen-teeism. Most employers don’t question absences, but 29% say they’ve checked up on an employee’s excuse and 15% have fired someone for missing work without a legitimate reason.

As for workers, 12% called in sick because of something work-related, such as not wanting to attend a meet-ing, needing more time to work on a project or to avoid the wrath of a boss, colleague or client. Still others missed work simply because they didn’t feel like going that day (32%), had a doc-tor’s appointment (31%), needed to relax (28%), catch up on sleep (16%), run personal errands (13%) or catch up on housework (10%).

Common mistakes can be avoided.


Cynthia Anderson, YSU’s vice president of student affairs, will become its seventh president.

YSU President-Elect Meets the PressBy Dennis LaRue

The president-elect of Youngstown State Universi ty, Cynthia E. Anderson, apologized to

reporters that she “missed the big party” when trustees chose her as the seventh president of the institution.

She was in Nevada delivering two academic papers and unable to attend the trustees’ special meeting Feb. 17.

To reintroduce herself and signal her accessibility to reporters, Ander-son held a press conference Feb. 24 where she reiterated her optimism about the future of YSU and the Ma-honing Valley.

Word of hiring 1,200 for a third shift at the Lordstown plant of Gen-eral Motors Co., V&M Star Steel Co. building a $650 million rolling mill expansion in the Brier Hill district of Youngstown, Revere Data LLC opening in the downtown and other welcome economic news show the Mahoning Valley is well on its way to recovery, she said.

Of where she finds YSU today, “I believe we’re poised, positioned, to prevail,” she said. With Gov. Ted Strickland and education Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s role for YSU as an urban research institution, Anderson said, “I believe in the charge of the governor and the chancellor. I believe we can catapult YSU into national prominence. …

“YSU students are why we are here,” she iterated. Her focus will continue on attracting students, seeing that they stay the course and graduate.

“We have the best faculty, staff and students,” she declared and would put them up against those of any college or university in the country. That said, Anderson realizes she will have to oversee change because of reduced funding from Columbus, advances in technology and the birth of Eastern Gateway Community College.

Anderson declined to venture an opinion on the effect of the commu-

nity college on enrollment at YSU. She expects the university will sign an articulation agreement so its graduates receive full credit for their coursework if they enroll at YSU and work toward a four-year degree.

No longer can YSU be all things to all people, she elaborated. It will have to establish new priorities that recognize a strapped state budget, distance learning that incorporates

the Internet, and a reduction in the number of remedial classes offered.

“A build-it-and-they-will-come doesn’t cut it any more,” she said. “Our university will be an incubator of new ideas.”

Anderson related that she has re-ceived 832 e-mails of congratulations from alumni, many former students of hers. “I intend to answer all of them,” she said.

LUMBER AND HOME CENTER

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PEOPLE, COMPANIES, MAKING NEWS

For the RecordF. N. B. Corp., Hermitage, Pa., parent

company of First National Bank of Pa., is the winner of two excellence awards from Greenwich Associates, a Con-necticut company that provides market research to financial institutions.

Roger Lindgren, president of V&M Star, Youngstown, will deliver the key-note address during the American Metal Market’s steel tube and pipe conference in Houston March 22 and 23.

Valley Energy Solutions, Salem, will hold free informational seminars on green solutions for reducing heating/cooling costs and the incentives avail-able for businesses and homeowners. Seminars will be March 4 at the Holiday Inn–Boardman. Call 330 702 0147.

“Be Prepared: 100 Years of Boy Scouts in America” will be on exhibit at the Arms Family Museum, Youngstown, through May 30.

The Youngstown Area Jewish Fed-eration will kick off its 75th anniversary celebration at the opening reception of “Fabric of Survival: The Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz,” on March 7 at the Butler Institute of American Art. The exhibition consists of needlework and fabric collage pictures depicting the artist’s personal stories of survival dur-ing the Holocaust.

Dave and Jeff Mirkin, franchisees of Comfort Keepers in Youngstown, have been awarded the Quest for Excellence award from CK Franchising Inc.

Home Investment Services, a divi-sion of Home Savings, Youngstown, has appointed Jane E. Skusa, UVEST finan-cial consultant, community liaison.

The ribbon was cut Feb. 24 at Fab Limousines, Austintown, by owners Mark and Kim Bagnoli. The couple bought the business from Bagnoli’s family last June.

Austinwoods Nursing Center, Aus-tintown, has received exemplary state survey results with a deficiency-free score in the areas of quality of care and nursing services under the Medicare/Medicaid-sponsored Quality Indicator Survey 2010.

Karen Neopolitan has joined North-wood Realty Services in the company’s Boardman/Canfield office.

InfoCision, Akron, has named Steve Brubaker chief of staff, Michael Van Scyoc chief strategy officer, and Michael White chief technology officer.

Kutlick Realty, Boardman, reports that First Choice Communications, an authorized AT&T dealer, has leased retail space in Liber ty across from Wal-Mart.

Sharon Regional Health System, Sharon, Pa., has introduced a bariatric surgery program under the direction of Ravi Alapati, M.D.

Sharon Regional’s Breast Care Center has earned the Breast Imaging Center of Excellence Award from the American College of Radiology.

Scott Schulick, president of Youngstown State University’s board of trustees, welcomes Leonard D. Schiavone to the board. Schiavone is a partner and treasurer of the Friedman & Rummell law firm and co–owner and president of Metro Land Title Agency Inc. He is completing his third term on the board of directors for Humility of Mary Health Partners.

LUMBER AND HOME CENTER

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Legal ListingsCHAPTER 710-40467 FDM Corp., 4 Washington St., Leetonia 44431. Involuntary. Petitioning Creditors: Staff Right Professional Services LLC, Boardman; Nook Industries, Cuyahoga Heights; J&C Industries Inc., Cleveland. No Summary Schedules filed.

CHAPTER 1110-40143 M.E. Supply Co., 1340 state Route 14, Columbiana 44408. Total As-sets: $1,786,140.46. Total Liabilities: $3,509,141.51. Date Filed: Jan. 14, 2009.

Business Bankruptcies

New Ohio IncorporationsBrother’s Auto Group Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Michael W. Rosenberg. Filed by: Letson, Griffith, Woodall, Lavelle & Rosen-berg Co. LPA, 155 S. Park Ave., Suite 250, Warren 44482. Agent: Adnan M. Ali, 4439 Wyndham Way, Copley 44321.

Hyland Industrial Products Inc., Poland. Incorporator: Larry D. Wilkes. Filed by: Davis & Young, 972 Youngstown-Kingsville Road, Vienna 44473. Agent: Larry E. Wilkes, 648 Cathyann Drive, Boardman 44512.

Temperature Technologies Inc., Diamond. Incorporator: Ronald D. Griswold. Filed by: Lawrence H. Richards Co. LPA, 400 City Centre One, Youngstown 44503. Agent: Ronald D. Griswold, 14401 N. Palmyra Road, Diamond 44412.

R&R Security Services Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Jesse Rutland. Filed by: Man-chester, Bennett, Powers & Ullman, 201 E. Commerce St., Atrium Level Two, Youngstown 44503. Agent: Jesse Rutland, 437 Sherwood Ave., Youngstown 44511.

Hampton Woods Assisted Living Inc., Aus-tintown. Incorporator: 350 Corporate Circle Inc. Filed by: Rolf & Goffman Co. LPA, 30100 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 350, Pepper Pike 44124. Agent: 350 Corporate Circle Inc., 30100 Cha-grin Blvd., Suite 350, Pepper Pike 44124.

Roxbury Realty Inc., Canfield. Incorporator: Alvin A. Miller Jr. Filed by: Michael P. Ma-rando, Pfau, Pfau & Marando, P.O. Box 9070,

Youngstown 44513. Agent: Alvin A. Miller Jr., 30 White Oak Court, Canfield 44406.

X-Press Underground Inc., Canfield. Incor-porator: Daniel G. Perry. Filed by: Bodine Perry LLC, 3711 Starr Centre Drive, Suite 2, Canfield 44406. Agent: Daniel G. Perry, 3711 Starr Centre Drive, Canfield 44406.

Corner Stone Management Co. Inc., Aus-tintown. Incorporator: James P. Manchi. Filed by: Manchester, Bennett, Powers & Ullman, 201 E. Commerce St., Atrium Level Two, Youngstown 44503. Agent: James P. Manchi, 1050 Compass West, Youngstown 44515.

Jay’s Hot Dog Franchising Co., Youngstown. Incorporator: Frank Petrakos. Filed by: Law-rence H. Richards Co. LPA, 400 City Centre One, Youngstown 44503. Agent: Frank Petra-kos, 1515 Alissa Place, Boardman 44512.

Advanced Electr ica l Ser v ice Inc. , Youngstown. Incorporator: Michael Bolotenny. Filed by: Michael Bolotenny, 635 N. Schenley Ave., Youngstown 44509. Agent: Same.

Canfield Pools Inc., Canfield. Incorporator: Bradley Timko. Filed by: Lori L. Timko, 8217 Columbiana-Canfield Road, Canfield 44406. Agent: Bradley Timko, 8217 Columbiana-Canfield Road, Canfield 44406.

I.I.I. Claims Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Carl Massullo. Filed by: Helbley, 725 Board-man-Canfield Road #K2, Youngstown 44512. Agent: Carl Massullo, 735 Boardman-Canfield Road, #K2, Youngstown 44512.

Pa. Fictitious NamesA fictitious business name is the name under which a company conducts business but which is not the legal name of the owner or of the corporation as indicated in its articles of incorporation.

Ageless Image, 647 N. Broad St. Ext., Grove City 16127, medical and cosmetic products. Fictitious Name Owner: H. Martin Wrigley.

Christian Assistance Network, 823 Liberty St., Grove City 16127, aid with living, hous-ing and medical expenses. Fictitious Name Owner: Christians in Action in Crisis Inc.

Eddie’s Garage, 115 W. Hunt Drive, Grove City 16127, general automotive service. Ficti-tious Name Owner: Joshua E. Sateia.

D&D Cycle, 100 Pinchalong Road, Grove City 16127, sell motorcycle parts and make minor repairs. Fictitious Name Owner: Debo-rah E. Isenberg.

D’s Photographic Impressions, 103 Barr Ave., Grove City 16127, photography studio. Fictitious Name Owner: Darin Hazlett.

Hilltop Workwear LLC, 16 Hilltop Road,

Greenville 16125, apparel sales. Fictitious Name Owner: Harbor Light Marketing LLC.

Young’s Vending, 200 Snyder Road, Her-mitage 16148, vending service. Fictitious Name Owners: Charles T. Cricks, MayField Ventures LLC.

Pa. IncorporationsJJSD Inc., 2708 Wilmington Road, New Castle 16105.

Kalsoom Dildar Inc., 104 Glen Ave., Ellwood City 16117.

Pittsburgh Concessions Inc., 103 Worthing Ave., New Castle 16105.

Doctor’s Pharmacy Network Inc., 30 E. State St., Sharon 16146.

Nina Leigh Inc., 1390 Mercer-West Middle-sex Road, Mercer 16137.

Stitch & Dazzle Ltd., 213 W. Main St., Sharpsville 16150.

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BY JEFFREY GITOMER

Sales Savvy

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, conducts seminars, sales meetings and training programs. Reach him at 704 333 1112 or at [email protected].

What do salespeople do that’s best? What do you do?

Back in October, I created a giveaway on my Facebook fan page. I offered a prize of several

autographed books for the person who submitted the best sales tip.

I received more than 260 responses. Here are a few of the tips – I hope they inspire you to think and take some new (better) actions:

• If YOU don’t care, neither will your client.

• I find that being curious and genuinely interested in people has helped me grow my business and develop stronger relationships. It has also helped me to expand my profes-sional networks.

• Sales is not about selling. It is about relationships.

• Make the call!• Always tell the TRUTH.• Alter the way you interact with

each and every person, but never change who you are!

• My second favorite four-letter word is SOLD. My first is PAID.

• Make doing business with you easy. No nonsense. No rules.

• Just do what you say you are going to do.

• Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself.

• Do it now, not tomorrow, not lat-er, not after your coffee, not after you check e-mail. Do it now. Be known for your super-fast response.

• My best tip is “protect the base.” After I’ve met a prospective or current client, I’ve been writing a handwritten note expressing my gratitude indicat-ing that I realize they have a choice in buying supplies, but I thank them for choosing my company.

• My motto – NO PROBLEM! – no matter what! People do not want to know why something cannot be done, they just want it fixed, repaired, made like new without any excuses – period. The better, faster, and with understanding of their point of view, the stronger your relationships with

your customers will be.• SMILE and mean it.• When you work hard consis-

tently, the numbers will take care of themselves.

• Be prepared. Know your client and their competition.

• Never get complacent. Challenge yourself to be better. I asked my top salesperson after a really successful week if she was happy with the results. She said “no.” That is why she is my top salesperson.

• My best tip is to approach sales the way you desire to be approached.

• Loose lips sink ships. I’ve seen more salespeople talk themselves OUT of a sale than into one.

• I say to each client, “I am here to give you as much information as you need in order for you to make a completely informed decision.”

• Confidence speaks louder than words.

• Sales is a simple concept: help people like you would want to be helped.

• Do your homework to earn the right to have a conversation.

• It’s difficult to take back a first impression.

• Create a following by never fol-lowing.

• Print out your client list/call list, then turn your computer off and pick up the phone. No e-mail you send is going to be as good as the call I am going to make.

Pretty good? These are regular hit- the-phone-and-the-pavement sales-people who are out in their market or their community, making it happen. I applaud them.

The winner? Bill Atkins. He owns Red Bank Limo in New Jersey. His tip: Each day, pick two customers at random. Tell them you just called to see how they are doing. No sales pitches allowed. Focus on the long-term relationship you are building, not the sale.

The Best from the Best: Sales Tips from Readers

Radio you need to know.

Think globally.Listen locally.

WYSU 88.5 FM� ��

www.WYSU.org


CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK – SalemUp to 60 Mos. 5.75 - 16.50 Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

CORTLAND BANKS – CortlandUp to 60 Mos. 6.75Up to 72 Mos. 6.75

E.S.B. BANK – Ellwood CityUp to 60 Mos. 7.150Up to 72 Mos. 8.150

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK – CanfieldUp to 60 Mos. 5.40Up to 72 Mos. 5.94Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

FIRST MERIT BANK – New CastleUp to 48 Mos. 5.50-12.50

10% Down

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA. – HermitageUp to 60 Mos. 7.85Up to 66 Mos. 7.85

1ST NATIONAL COMMUNITY – East LiverpoolUp to 60 Mos. 6.00 - 11.75

Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of The Business Journal compilations. The rates are subject to change without notice. All rate information should be confirmed with the individual financial institution before entering into transactions. © 2010 Youngstown Publishing Co.

FIRST PLACE BANK – BoardmanUp to 60 Mos. 8.00

10% Down

HOME SAVINGS – YoungstownUp to 60 Mos. 7.74Up to 66 Mos. 8.24

10% Down

HUNTINGTON BANK – YoungstownUp to 60 Mos. 5.99

KEYBANK – YoungstownUp to 66 Mos. 6.69

Down: Varies

PNC BANK – SharonUp to 66 Mos. 7.24

PNC BANK – YoungstownUp to 66 Mos. 7.00 - 13.00Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

US BANK (formerly Firstar Bank) – BoardmanUp to 48 Mos. 4.00

Auto Loan RatesFebruary 26,2010

Valley Vehicle Sales Sag in January Dealers sold 3,776 new and used vehicles, down 16.2%.

Auto dealers in Mahoning, Trumbull and Colum-biana counties report sales of new vehicles fell by 12% in January compared to the previous year.

The Automobile Dealers Association of Eastern Ohio’s monthly sales report shows dealers in the Mahoning Valley sold a total of 1,281 new cars and trucks during the month, compared to 1,458 in January 2009.

Sweeney Chevrolet and The Honda Store of Boardman both recorded top sales for new ve-hicles with 68 units sold. Greenwood Chevrolet, Austintown, reported 67 new vehicles were sold; Stadium GM Superstore, Salem, sold 62 new ve-hicles; and Bob & Chuck Eddy Chrysler Dodge Jeep, Austintown, sold 55.

Total sales of new and used vehicles were also down, the trade group reported. Dealers said they sold a combined 3,776 units of new and used cars and trucks, compared to 4,511 during January 2009, a drop of 16.2%.

Greenwood Chevrolet turned in the most new and used sales with 150. Stadium GM Superstore in Salem was second-highest with 129 units. Fair-way Ford in Canfield was third with 118. Sweeney Chevrolet turned in the fourth-highest sales with 113 units. And Preston Toyota, Boardman, recorded 97 new and used sales.

The top-selling new model for the month was

the Chevrolet Malibu with 125 sold. Second was the Chevrolet Impala with 49, followed by the Chevy Equinox with 43. Rounding out the five top sell-ers among Mahoning Valley dealers were the Ford Focus with 40 sold and the Ford F-150 truck, with 37 units sold.

January Home Sales Flat YOUNGSTOWN, Feb. 23 – Sales of single-family homes and condominiums in January were flat in Mahoning County compared to the month before, and were down in both Trumbull and Columbiana counties compared to December.

Sales of single-family homes and condos in January totaled 121 units, matching the 121 sold in December, according to the Youngstown-Columbiana Association of Realtors. In Trumbull County, 93 single-family homes and condos were sold, compared with 139 in Decem-ber. In Columbiana County, 31 single-family homes and condos were sold, down from 50 in December.

Total sales for January were nearly $8.9 million in Mahoning County, just short of $6 million in Trumbull County and close to $2.7 million in Columbiana County. That compares to nearly $10.1 million in Trumbull in December, close to $9.8 million in Mahoning, and short of $4.3 million in Columbiana.

During the fourth quarter of 2009, 402 homes were sold in Mahoning County, down from 450 the preced-ing quarter. In Trumbull County, sales rose from 305 in the third quarter to 322 in the fourth quarter. In Columbiana County, sales declined from 168 in the third quarter to 134 in the fourth quarter.

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Mortgage RatesTYPE FEESRATE, 2-Wk TrendTERMFINANCIAL INSTITUTION

Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.”

AMERISTATE BANCORP INC. FHA/VA 3.5% Down 30 Yr. 4.75 0+costsBoardman Fixed 3% Down 30 Yr. 4.875 0+costs

CHARTER ONE BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 0+costs Boardman Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 — 0+costs

CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 0+costsSalem Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 — 0+costs

CORTLAND BANKS Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 — 0+costsCortland Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 4.875 0+costs

DOLLAR BANK MORTGAGE CENTER ARM 5% Down 5 Yr. 3.875 — 0+costsCleveland Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 4.94 — 0+costs

E.S.B. BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 — 0+costsEllwood City, Pa. Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.25 — 0+costs

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK Fixed 20% Down 15 Yr. 4.75 — 0+costs Canfield Fixed 20% Down 20 Yr. 5.125 — 0+costs

FIRST MERIT BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 — 0+costsNew Castle/Boardman Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 — 0+costs

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 0+costsYoungstown, Ohio Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.00 0+costs

February 26,2010

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Mortgage Rates1ST NATIONAL COMMUNITY FHA 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.00 — 0+costsEast Liverpool Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.25 — 0+costs FIRST PLACE BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 0+costsBoardman Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 0+costs

FLAGSTAR BANK Fixed 0% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 — 0+costsBeechwood Fixed 0% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 0+costs

HOME FEDERAL Fixed 20% Down 15 Yr. 5.75 0+costsNiles

HOME SAVINGS Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 0+costs Youngstown Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 4.99 0+costs

HOWARD HANNA FINANCIAL Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.375 — 0+costs Pittsburgh Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.25 0+costs

HUNTINGTON BANK Fixed 3% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 0+costsYoungstown Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 0+costs

KEYBANK Fixed 20% Down 15 Yr. 4.50 0+costsYoungstown Fixed 20% Down 30 Yr. 5.125 .125+costs

PNC BANK FHA 3% Down 30 Yr. 5.25 — 0+costsYoungstown Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.25 0+costs

WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE FHA 3% Down 30 Yr. 5.00 0+costsBoardman (Formerly Norwest Mortgage) Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.00 — 0+costs

US BANK Fixed 5% Down 15 Yr. 4.75 0+costsBoardman (Formerly Firstar Bank) Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. 5.10 1+costs

TYPE FEESRATE, 2-Wk TrendTERMFINANCIAL INSTITUTION

February 26,2010

© 2010 Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved. *Private Mortgage Insurance because less than 20% down.

YOUNGSTOWN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAPRESENTS

CALL FOR TICKETS:330-744-0264Online at youngstownsymphony.com

MASTERWORKSConcert underwritten in part by PNC Foundation

A NEW CHAPTER IN MUSICAL HISTORY

World Premiere

Brubeck Travels in Time For Three Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, F minor

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Local business news. Every business day. First on the Web.

Assisted Living Center Opens in Poland

Kathy Prasad, the owner and CEO of Woodlands LLC, celebrated the grand opening of her company’s new Assisted Living Center at

Hampton Woods on East Western Road in Poland with a ribbon cutting Feb. 18. The new assisted-living center has 52 residential units that can house as many as 84, she says. Her son, Frank Antalocy, is chief financial officer of the company. Another son, Jason Antalocy is purchasing agent.

Kathy Prasad, owner and CEO of Woodlands LLC, presided over the ribbon cutting at the new assisted-living center Feb. 18, helped by her sons, Jason and Frank Antalocy.

Revere Data Office Opens in Youngstown

Revere Data LLC, based in San Francisco, has renovated 1,800 square feet of space and has an option on another 1,800 feet in the Semple

Building in downtown Youngstown. The company provides research data on companies for clients such as financial institutions, the U.S. government, hedge funds and other customers, says CEO Kevin O’Brien. Community leaders and the media toured Revere Data’s offices Feb. 16.

CEO Kevin O’Brien says Revere Data LLC’s new office in downtown Youngstown could have as many as 100 employees. Ten new employees are already on the job.

Summer Garden Grows Model for Innovation

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner visited Summer Garden Food Manufacturing Co. Feb. 18 as part of her campaign for the

Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. Brunner’s visit, the ninth in her so-called “Innovation Tour for Ohio Jobs,” highlighted the 50,000-square-foot plant at 500 McClurg Road in Boardman. The building opened two years ago and adheres to the LEED “green building” rating system.

Chris Thomas, director of quality assurance at Summer Garden, shows Jennifer Brunner a jar of pizza sauce produced at the food-processing plant.


BUSINESS-JOURNAL.COM ONLINE VIDEO SERIES

3 Minutes...

U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-6th Ohio, hopes to introduce legislation that would allow

banks to provide companies with the capital they need while satisfying regulators the banks will maintain their higher credit standards. He met with bankers and small-business owners Feb. 16 to determine how these competing goals might be met.

Regulations:Bankers are being told by regulators

that they need to not take on new loans and that’s counterproductive to what we’re trying to do.

Banks’ Safety?We’re concerned about the safety of

the banks but we’re also concerned that we’re able to get finances to the small businesses. We think this is a very im-portant ingredient. And it’s a place where the government may be able to step in and ensure the banks their safety and also provide the lending we need to get business going.

Money Will Come From?The money’s going to come from

where it always has and that is the investments and savings in the banks. Right now we’re in a very down economy and we need to make some exceptions to make sure that the banks can be suc-cessful, but even more so that they spur business to continue to grow. We need to get jobs going and that’s going to be our focus.

The U.S. assistant secretar y of labor for employment and training, Jane Oates, says she is pleased

at how effectively stimulus funds have been spent to help the unemployed in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties train for new jobs. Oates was in the Warren office of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17th Ohio, Feb. 19.

Role of Community College:The community colleges have to be

working hand in hand with businesses. … I was so encouraged today by hear-ing the direct connection between local businesses and Eastern Gateway Com-munity College – I think that’s the recipe for success. And I think it’s going to mean that your folks here get back to work much faster than people in other parts of the country who don’t have those active and real partnerships.

Where Are the Jobs?On a national basis, the two growth

sectors throughout the recession have been education – both K-12 education and higher education, they’re still hir-ing – and allied health. Everything from RNs – the shortage that we hear so much about – to all the technical work that’s done in hospitals . … The most important thing is to go to your local OneStop and really look at the labor market information for your local area. Here in northern Ohio you’re going to see growth in wind turbine and solar- panel manufacturing that you won’t see in the southern part of the state.

Visit www.business-journal.com to view insightful video interviews with the Valley’s most influ-ential business and community leaders. Topics are always timely and pertinent.

Charlie WilsonU.S. Representative, D-6th Ohio

Jane OatesU.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training

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Alex & Jorgine Shaffo, Owners

330-743-0920Hours:

Monday-Friday 10:30 a.m.- 2:30 p.m.

Located in the YMCA Building17 N. Champion St. • Downtown Youngstown

NEW MENU EVERY DAY

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Eagle Mechanical Celebrating 20 years in the Mahoning Valley.��

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“Thank you” Mahoning Valley from Eagle Mechanical LLC

Documents

The Business Journal March 2010