Making the Resume More Potent

Aired February 24, 2005

If you don't get the job the first time around, many employers encourage you to improve your skills and try again. The same holds true for cities trying to attract more hi-tech economic development. ideastream focused its wide lens on The Region's Resume this week - if Northeast Ohio were looking for a job, how would it fare? While business leaders are eager to talk about the region's many strengths, they also point out out what the region can do to increase the potency of its resume. ideastream's Janet Babin reports.

While there's no sure fire recipe that results in improved economic development in emerging technologies, experts tend to agree on a few basic indicators that must be present to generate growth. These include federal and state funded small business incubators and accelerators, technology transfer programs, research and development and, perhaps most importantly, venture capital.

An August 2004 study from Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs compared 36 cities in order to benchmark Northeast Ohio's economy against other comparable metro areas. It found that the Cleveland area ranked 21st in its ability to attract venture capital. According to the study, from the Center for Economic Development, the top five cities had about 16 times the amount of venture capital spending in their start up companies than those in Northeast Ohio.

Baiju Shah is president of BioEnterprise, a local group that, according to its website, has attracted $110 million in new funding for bioscience companies in the past two years. Shaw says a recent BioEnterprise study documenting growth in bio-science-related venture capital in the region shows some growth in bioscience venture capital.

Baiju Shah: We've got 11 new funds that have formed with an interest in the space, since 2000, starting to pull us ahead of other Midwestern peer states, but nowhere near the level of venture capital required for a dynamic cluster, if you will.

Shah says the state can best grow its venture capital by investing public monies, like pension funds, into venture capital funds that would benefit hi-tech companies in the state.

Baiju Shah: There ought to be a set aside, and it's good to see some leadership from some of the funds for making investments in firms that will reinvest that money back for the benefit of citizens of Ohio.

BioMec's Trevor Jones says he understood that venture capital was lacking in the region when he found his company at the top of a venture capital list in a study from Global Insight. While Jones boasts that BioMec invested $5.5 million in a spinout company, and received $30 million for it, he says the company is primarily a medical device maker that develops products. In addition to a lack of venture capital, Jones says the region, and the state, lack adequate funding for education.

Trevor Jones: This has been going on for centuries. (Governor) Taft says we want high-paying jobs, but you must educate people. We don't prepare ourselves for the future with a buggy and horse whips. To be prepared, you can only do it through education and economic development.

Pat Valente with Ohio's Development Department says that while K-through-12 education is a concern, his office doesn't get involved in that. Valente says the development office does fund an internship program, so it's indirectly helping to prepare students for work in hi-tech companies.

Another looming fear for hi-tech business leaders, is that Governor Taft's Third Frontier program won't receive additional funding. Last year, voters turned down so-called Issue One. The state Development Office says Issue one would have helped to generate $6 billion of new investment in Ohio's economy. Joe Keithley with Keithley Instruments applauds the governor's efforts to fund the Third Frontier, and hopes the state tries again to find additional funding for the program.

Joe Keithley: We need more monies spent here either federally or a state initiative who are (for) private companies with their own R-and-D activity, on research and development. Because that activity is supposed to result in new products and new products typically result in higher sales for the companies that develop the products.

Opponents of Issue One urged residents to vote against the initiative, calling it a corporate subsidy that would have increased Ohio's debt service. Valente says the state will try again this year to get voters to approve more funding for the Third Frontier Program, but exact details, like the amount of the proposed bond issue, have yet to be released. Turns out state leaders believe the often repeated platitude, if at first you don't succeed, on the bond issue, the hi-tech job, or economic development... try, try again. In Cleveland, Janet Babin, 90.3.