What BR&E Does for Ohio: 897 New Jobs and Growing
In a time when job creation and business expansion are crucial to Ohio's economic future, an Ohio State University Extension program is garnering attention.
Launched in 1986, the Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) program has worked with community leaders in 77 of Ohio's 88 counties, helping them prioritize, plan, and implement community development initiatives.
In the past five years alone, the program is credited with creating 897 new jobs and retaining 1,365 existing jobs. That accounts for $86 million in personal income generated.
"A large reason that we chose Van Wert was due to the assistance from Ohio State University Extension's Business Retention and Expansion Program," said Kim Elick, president of Braun Industries. The company, a manufacturer of custom-built ambulances, has been in business for 40 years, the past 10 in Van Wert.
Braun has worked with BR&E for a decade. "It has been a real asset to us. It's helped us grow our business--our staffing has grown from 94 employees to 140 employees in 2011," Elick said.
Success in BR&E has a lot to do with the chemistry of the community team, said Greg Davis, assistant director for Community Development for OSU Extension.
"The secrets for success vary from engagement to engagement," Davis said. "We don't work magic--it's all about the local folks and the chemistry they bring to the table. It also has to do with timing, and the influence of state and national issues."
"What I've learned in this process is that marketing is everything," said Dan Crouse, a realtor in Warren, where more than half the city's 100 Main Street Warren businesses work with BR&E. Some 72 percent of businesses plan to remain in Main Street Warren, creating up to 308 new jobs.
"BR&E helped debunk a lot of downtown perceptions that had stifled economic growth," Crouse said.
Learn about other BR&E success stories--in Noble, Wyandot, Cuyahoga, and other counties--at http://extension.osu.edu/news-releases/archives/2011/march/osu-extension-growing-jobs-in-ohio-1 and http://localecon.osu.edu/BRnE/.
Since 1986, the Ohio Business Retention & Expansion Initiative has been assisting leaders in prioritizing, planning, and implementing community development initiatives. More than 140 programs in 77 Ohio counties have been launched. The results: increased employment, profitable businesses, and a robust economy.
--By Suzanne Steel and Candace Pollock
Invasive Trees Out, New Jobs In: 'Will Benefit Ohio's Forests for Years to Come'
Invasive trees cost Ohio money, but there's a shortage of qualified workers to fight them. So when the Ohio Division of Forestry (DOF) received a $4.4 million federal grant to change that--to train and hire Ohioans to control tree- of-heaven, common buckthorn, and others in Ohio's state forests--it teamed up with Ohio State University Extension.
Experts in teaching and outreach, OSU Extension specialists helped lead the project's training component. Partnering with OSU Extension let the forestry division focus on logistics: equipping, planning, and managing the efforts.
In the end, the Ohio Woodlands Job Corps, the grant's result, created 132 new short-term jobs, improved 2,800 acres of Ohio's state forests, and prepared the workers for long-term jobs in a growing, in-demand field.
The workers gained "credentials to make them marketable in the job market," said Jackson-based OSU Extension forestry specialist Dave Apsley, one of the leaders of the training. At the same time, he said, their work "will have long-term positive impacts on the future of our forests."
DOF Chief David Lytle agrees. "The training and work experiences provided these folks will benefit Ohio's forests for years to come," he said.
DOF and the Ohio Forestry Association both report recent declines in available skilled forestry workers.
Ohio landowners, meanwhile, have seen a jump in the incentive funds available for forest improvement.
The result, Apsley said, is that often there's no one to hire for the work.
But that may be starting to change. So far, of the Job Corps' first 66 members, about half have nailed down forestry employment. Seven more are studying forestry in college.
"Having more people trained and available to do this work will provide additional employment opportunities in rural areas of the state and encourage good forest management," said DOF staff forester Tom Berger.
Invasive tree species, mostly worthless, crowd out such valuable natives as oaks.
Ohio's forest industry currently generates $15 billion in annual economic activity and supports 100,000 jobs.
--By Kurt Knebusch
Savoring Success
Entrepreneur Credits OSU Extension's Food Industries Center for Company's Growth
In 1999, Dan Wampler took a risk, stepping off his career path at a major flavorings company to start his own business.
Today, Sensus LLC in Hamilton, Ohio, has 44 employees, a newly expanded 70,000-square-foot facility, $12 million in capital equipment investment, and, in the past year, has begun exporting product to China, Japan, and the European Union. It has become one of the largest natural product extraction companies in the United States.
Sensus produces natural concentrated flavor ingredients for the beverage, food, and flavor industries. The Ohio facility offers ingredients and concentrates from coffee beans, tea leaves, and botanical and vegetable products; another facility operated in conjunction with Morning Star Packing Company in Los Banos, California, provides similar products extracted from tomatoes and herbs.
Wampler credits the growth of his company to the assistance he received from Ohio State University's Wilbur Gould Food Industries Center.
Part of Ohio State University Extension, the center provides start-up facilities, research and development assistance, and technical support to food companies throughout the state. In 2010, the center assisted 50 Ohio companies, said Valente Alvarez, professor of food science and technology at Ohio State, OSU Extension specialist, and center director.
Both start-up companies and established businesses that need pilot-plant-size equipment to test new products find the facilities valuable, Alvarez said. Research assistance on new product development, food sensory studies, and a series of professional development courses also support Ohio's food industry.
"Without the resources at Ohio State, entrepreneurs like me could easily be precluded from ever getting off the ground," Wampler said. "Instead of an investment of up to a quarter-million dollars just to test the feasibility of an idea, in three days, you can be up and running."
See Wilbur Gould Food Industries Center, http://foodindustries.osu.edu.
--By Martha Filipic
Endeavor Center Builds Southern Ohio Economy
When Wastren Advantage, Inc., began start-up operations in 2005, The Ohio State University Endeavor Center had just opened its doors as a training center and business incubator in Piketon, Ohio. Wastren was one of its first tenants.
The company capitalized on the center's services, drawing upon the skills of its staff, its multiple conference rooms and training spaces, and its business resources, said Steve Moore, CEO.
"We've been able to grow into a waste remediation company with almost $100 million in annual revenue," Moore said. "Compared to the 40 employees we had in 2005, today we employ almost 350 personnel working on six major contracts across the United States, and we're still growing strong."
The Endeavor Center likewise has grown and is now recognized as a hub of economic activity and business training in southern Ohio. Twenty business partners occupy the facility, fueling the region's economic engine, said Jerry Driggs, manager of the center.
Located on the campus of The Ohio State University South Centers in Piketon, the center's mission is to help new and emerging businesses grow and create high-tech, high-skill, high-wage jobs, and to demonstrate to the business partners housed in the center how a successful, growing business operates.
Since opening in 2005, the Endeavor Center and its business partners have:
-- Created more than 500 high- skill, high-wage jobs, adding more than $50 million of direct economic activity to the community.
-- Helped more than 70 small businesses tackle obstacles to growth, supplying strategic and space resources required for expansion.
-- Seen more than two dozen partners graduate from the center to construct their own facilities or expand into larger facilities in the local commercial real estate market. One of them is WAI, which is building its own corporate office in the Piketon area. "We want to continue to give back economically to this area," Moore said.
For more: http://go.osu.edu/endeavor.
--By Martha Filipic
What I Learned at Summer Camp…
Project Examines How Counselor Training Prepares Teens for the Workforce
Adults who work with 4-H camp counselors have always suspected that the teens gain workforce skills that employers are looking for. Now they know it's true.
In any given year, about 2,500 Ohio teens act as 4-H camp counselors, said Theresa Ferrari, youth development specialist for Ohio State University Extension's 4-H program. About 40 percent are new to the program and undergo 24 hours of training before becoming camp counselors.
In a 2010 pilot project, 4-H professionals added specific topics and made minor changes in counselor training to directly address workforce preparation. They also adopted a performance appraisal process, including both a teen self-assessment and supervisor feedback--just like employees and employers experience on the job. A total of 247 teens from 16 counties participated.
The project, supported by the Erie and Orlys Sauder Fund of the Ohio 4-H Foundation, and a similar pilot in 2009, will help Ohio 4-H develop a modified camp counselor training curriculum for use statewide.
According to the 4-H professionals who worked with them, the teens improved significantly before and after their training in these five workforce-skill categories:
-- Thinking skills, from 3.4 to 4.3 on a 5-point scale.
-- Communication, from 3.0 to 3.8.
-- Teamwork and Leadership, from 3.4 to 4.3.
-- Initiative, from 3.3 to 4.3.
-- Professionalism, from 3.6 to 4.6.
The teens agreed, saying of their experience:
-- "It showed me that everything in the future is going to take more responsibility, and camp counseling was the first step in showing me how to be more responsible."
-- "I have learned work ethic and have been put into a work-type environment. This has helped me to communicate, lead, organize, manage time, and to be a responsible and hardworking person."
--By Martha Filipic
