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Race for the Cure to honor two local women

By
Brigitta Burks
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Last year's Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure raised about $1 million. Photo Courtesy Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

Ingrid Bias was closing a window the night she felt something wrong with her breast tissue.

“Of course, my heart sank because I knew something was seriously wrong,” said the associate minister at Abundant Life Baptist Church.

Ingrid Bias. Photo Courtesy Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

Bias had a mammogram and biopsy and learned she had three tumors in her breasts. Within 30 days of her discovery in the summer of 2011, she had a double mastectomy, a second surgery and chemotherapy.

Now in the summer of 2012, her annual MRI has come back clean, she’s on a vegetarian diet and she’s lost 25 pounds. She is also the “In Celebration” honoree for the 19th Annual Northwest Ohio Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The Sept. 30 race takes place Downtown and includes a Survivors Tent and Parade.

The 5K run/walk earned the local Komen affiliate about $1 million last year. Most of that money goes to support grants in the 24-county area the affiliate serves and the rest goes to support research. The affiliate is aiming to have 20,000 participants at its Race for the Cure event this year.

“The Race for the Cure is our primary way of raising revenue,” said Mary Westphal, executive director of the chapter. “It literally means saving lives in the fight against breast cancer right here locally in the community.”

Bias said she is grateful to be the honoree this year, but it “leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth.”

“I pretty much went through hell to be the honoree,” she said. Much of Bias’ treatment was funded by grants from Komen to CareNet.

“We have pretty much worked hand in hand since,” Bias said. “They are a rare group, I must say. Mary and those women talk to me like we’ve been friends for life.”

One of the reasons Bias is passionate about Komen is its support of African-American women. African-American women older than 40 in Northwest Ohio are diagnosed at a significantly lower rate than white women, but their mortality rate is nearly equal, according to Komen.

“Right now, I don’t see anybody else out there saying, ‘What can we do for African-American women? What can we do to keep them alive?’” Bias said.

Bias recently went through training to be a community health adviser to minority women. The training was courtesy of a $1 million grant from KeyBank Foundation and will eventually serve more than 110,000 women.

“Breast cancer is diagnosed every two minutes, and a woman dies of breast cancer every 13 minutes in the United States,” said Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp chairman in a news release. “Its impact is especially devastating for women of color, who are more likely to die from breast cancer, and for poor or uninsured women.”

Now Bias makes a point to educate other women on the eight signs of breast cancer and accompanies women to mammograms and treatment.

“If a stranger talks to me too long, it’s gonna come up,” she said. Bias encouraged women to get checked out, especially if they are scared.

“I encourage them to go in. You know why? Because if they’re scared, there’s a reason for it,” she said. Bias also emphasized taking vanity out of the equation.

“When I’m talking about the vanity, in the African-American community, we don’t want to be ostracized for a mastectomy,” she said. “Women have to realize a lot of women have had mastectomies.”

“There’s life after a mastectomy. You can’t make it about somebody else. You have to make it about you,” she said.

Westphal said of Bias, “She is a very strong woman. She’s very inspiring. She’s a woman who has battled breast cancer with grace and style.”

Margaret “Lambie” Guyton Stout. Photo Courtesy Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

Margaret “Lambie” Guyton Stout will also be honored at the race. Stout, a mother and businesswoman, died from breast cancer Sept. 11, 2011, at 42.

The race will include a three-quarter-mile “Fun Walk” with mascots and prompts like “hop like bunny,” starting at 10 a.m. There will also be a Kids for the Cure play area at Fifth Third Field. Parental supervision is required.

Online registration is available at komennwohio.org. Registration can also be mailed to 1255 Corporation Drive, P.O. Box 1147, Holland, 43528. On-site registration is available race day at 7:30-9 a.m. at Fifth Third Field. Brondes Ford Maumee will have registration 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 27 and 28 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 29.

The race begins at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 30. The survivor parade is at 8:45 a.m. and the awards ceremony is 10:45 a.m. Race-day registration is $45. Pre-registration is $30 for adults and $20 for those younger than 17. For a map and complete schedule, visit www.komennwohio.org/komen-race-for-the-cure.

Survival Race to bring mud, obstacles to Toledo Sept. 29, 2012

By
Yaneek Smith
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The Survival Race is a family-friendly 5K with obstacles. Photo by Nuvision Action Image.

A three-mile obstacle course filled with slip ’n slides, mud pits and a cargo-net climb? It’s all part of The Survival Race, coming to Toledo on Sept. 29.

Taglined “The Original Family-Style 5K, Obstacle Course & Mud Run,” The Survival Race is a family-friendly event featuring a 5K race filled with obstacles as part of a fun-filled day that usually ends with people covered in mud but having an enjoyable time, said Dean Del Prete.

Del Prete, 48, is president of Cousins Management Group, a paintball company based in Medford, N.Y., that operates The Survival Race. He opened a paintball park in Toledo five years ago and chose the city as a destination for this event.

The Survival Race has taken place in a number of other locations this season, among them Dallas, New Windsor, N.Y., Manchester, N.J., and Long Island, and finishes the season with the festivities in Toledo.

Del Prete said Survival Race is growing in popularity.

“The first thing is, the race is really fun,” he said. “People get out there and have a good time. It’s more about completing the event than competing. The people range from the athletic to adventurous to the couch potato that wants to have fun.

“[People] want to challenge themselves, they want to have fun, have a laugh. No one takes [the event] too serious. We don’t make the obstacles too challenging. Everything has a bail-out, so if you get sick doing the event, you can stop. It’s more about fun than anything else.”

Del Prete will have a group of five to six employees on site helping to coordinate the event, and will rely on an assorted group of volunteers and workers to help the race run smoothly.

The event, which takes place at 8721 Airport Hwy., in Holland, costs $60. Runners will leave in 30-minute waves between  9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration ends Sept. 26. Spectators are welcome.

Del Prete said more than 1,800 applicants hailing from Columbus to Grand Rapids, Mich., have signed up and he  expects that number to climb to roughly 2,200 by race day. He said the event helps local businesses for the weekend.

“The hotels and restaurants are gonna love it,” he said. “I hire local bands and a local brewer is going to be supplying beer. It’s gonna be great for business.”

Del Prete is not only confident the event will be a success, but that it will grow in the years to come. In Dallas, 800 people showed up for the event in 2011 and the number grew to 2,700 this year, he said.

Del Prete knows a thing or two about simple ideas growing from something minor into a successful industry and believes that, over time, the same will happen with events like Survival Race.

“I was one of the pioneers with paintball,” Del Prete said. “I played [years ago] and I knew it would take off. And that’s what is happening with this mud race. This is a game-changer. With the [wide-ranging] demographics, the potential here is so much greater.”

Although comparisons have been made between The Survival Race and Warrior Dash, and there are some similarities, Del Prete notes that his mud run is much more family friendly.

“I didn’t want this to be like the Warrior Dash,” he said. “I wanted it to be my own thing. I thought, ‘How do I differentiate myself? Why can’t I have the family race? Why can’t I be the 9-99 age group?’ It’s like the Warrior Dash, but their demographic is different. Theirs is more of the party animal and college crowd variety. Our course is easier and we’re more family oriented. That’s something that we pride ourselves in.

“We’re not gonna be the strongest, toughest event. … We’re fun; we’re not fierce. It’s not perfect for everybody, but for us, it works.”

For more information, details and pictures of previous races, visit thesurvivalrace.com or www.facebook.com/TheSurvivalRace.

UT receiver draws comparisons to Eric Page

By
Nate Pentecost
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University of Toledo wide receiver Bernard Reedy, shown here in 2011, is often compared to former teammate Eric Page. Photo by Vincent D. Scebbi, Courtesy The Independent Collegian

Bernard Reedy hears it every day on his way to class. He hears it all the time around Toledo. He has even heard it a few times while pumping gas.

As the University of Toledo junior wide receiver admits, there is simply no escaping the comparison between himself and former teammate Eric Page.

“We both do similar things, so I just kind of laugh and smile when I hear it,” Reedy said with a grin. “It makes me feel good though because Eric is a great player.”

From their reserved, soft-spoken demeanor, their shifty return moves and crisp route running, down to their stature — both are 5-foot-9 — the similarities are striking.

Bernard Reedy. Photo by Vincent D. Scebbi, courtesy The Independent Collegian.

In fact, Toledo head coach Matt Campbell, the pair’s offensive coordinator from 2009-11, struggled to find any dissimilarities between the two.

“Maybe the only difference is a little bit of speed,” Campbell said. “Bernard has that extra gear he can kick into.”

Though Reedy saw action his freshman year (five catches for 32 yards and eight rushes for 35 yards and two touchdowns) he emerged as the complementary receiver to Page in 2011.

The St. Petersburg, Fla., native finished second on the team behind UT’s all-time leading receiver with 40 catches, 758 yards and nine touchdowns, providing the one-two punch the Rockets lacked at receiver since Stephen Williams, now playing for the Arizona Cardinals, graduated in 2009.

Reedy capped off his sophomore year with the best performance of his collegiate career, hauling in four passes for 126 yards and three touchdowns to garner MVP honors in Toledo’s 42-41 Military Bowl victory over Air Force.

For a brief time after the bowl season, it appeared Reedy and Page would be the primary weapons for the prohibitive favorite to win the Mid-American Conference in 2012.

In January, however, Page chose to forgo his senior year of eligibility to enter the NFL Draft and Reedy was thrust into the No. 1 wideout spot on the depth chart.

Reedy said he is confident in his ability to fill the role and that has translated on the field by way of a team-high 19 receptions, 206 yards and a pair of touchdowns through three games this season.

He credits his preparedness, in part, to Page for showing him the way.

“He’s a hard worker. He does everything quietly, but he does everything right,” Reedy said. “Doing the small things right lets you do the big things right. That’s why he made so many big plays and had so much success here.”

Reedy, unsurprisingly, has adopted Page’s lead-by-example approach as well.

“I’ve never really been the vocal type,” Reedy said. “I just try to go out and do the right thing so the younger guys can follow me.”

So far, so good.

 

PechaKucha Night Sept. 28 to feature artists, advocates

By
Brigitta Burks
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More than 100 people attended Toledo's second PechaKucha Night in June 2012. Photo by Rineil Mandre

The third Toledo PechaKucha Night will feature slide shows galore — at least 10 different presentations, each with 20 slides allotted 20 seconds each.

Doors open 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) Glass Pavilion. The free event features a cash bar and light snacks.

“[PechaKucha is] used for artists, designers, people that are advocating for anything and everything,” said event organizer Kimberly Adams.

PechaKucha began in Tokyo in 2003 as a way for young designers to share their ideas.

“They started it for architects, because the architects tended to be a little long-winded when they were presenting their designs so they kind of shortened that format for them,” Adams said. Now the nights occur in more than 500 cities all over the world and Tokyo itself has had about 100 PechaKucha Nights.

Adams, founder of Tart Projects, an artists’ platform, also organized Toledo’s first PechaKucha Night, which took place March 31 at Manhattan’s and the second, which was June 12 at the Toledo-Lucas County Main Library. She recently moved back to Ohio after living in Tampa, Fla., where she first observed PechaKucha.

“I’d been to a couple in Tampa and they were really well put-together so I just thought it’d be great to happen here,” Adams said.

More than 100 people attended the last event. “It was really well-received. A lot of people were like, ‘Let us know when the next one is. We’ll be there,’” Adams said.

“This time, we focused on arts and nonprofits so what’s going on in the area, just to inform the public what’s going on,” she added.

A representative from TMA’s Circle 2445 group, which tries to engage young adults with the museum, reached out to help with the event and offer space, Adams said, adding she is excited about the “really cool venue.”

Organizing PechaKucha is getting easier, she said.

“The more [people] see it, they’re like, ‘I can totally do this. I’ll present at the next one,’” Adams said. “A lot of people have hesitation about public speaking. … You just don’t have time to worry about it. You just get up there and do your thing and before you know it, it’s over.”

Rachel Richardson, Art Corner Toledo founder, was one of the hesitant.

“I went to the first two and I realized what a positive event it was,” she said. “I got over myself.”

The rapid-fire format excites Richardson.

“I personally have a short attention span, so the fact that I know the person is going to touch on the most interesting stuff makes me sit still and listen,” she said.

Richardson said she plans to present on the birth and evolution of Art Corner Toledo, a group that nurtures artists and activists.

Ken Leslie, founder of 1Matters, an advocacy group for the homeless, will also present. The format doesn’t intimidate Leslie.

“I’m not afraid at all. I relish the opportunity to share the bigger picture of the work that we’re doing,” he said. He said he will focus on collaborative efforts of the community and misconceptions about the homeless.

He expects his presentation to be humorous but also touching.

Leslie also said he is looking forward to Richardson’s presentation.

“She is one of those unsung heroes that’s doing a lot to change the face, the physical face of our community,” he said.

Adams will present in addition to Dustin Hostetler of Circle 2445, Amber LeFever of LeSo Gallery, Bradley Scherzer of Toledo on the Map, Sadi Starmack and Jamie Baird of UGIVE.ORG, Nicole Tarver of The One Story Project, glass artist Brien Strancar and architect Paul Sullivan.

After September’s event, the next PechaKucha night is set for January. Another sponsor is needed for September. For more information, visit pecha-kucha.org/night/toledo.

Six area businesses honored for excellence

By
Erin Holden
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Six area businesses were recently announced as this year’s Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame (EBE HOF) honorees.

Honored for business excellence are Burkett Restaurant Equipment, based in Toledo; Clouse Construction Corp., based in New Riegel; NovaVision Inc., based in Bowling Green; and Riker Products, based in Toledo. Mel Lanzer Company, based in Napoleon, is honored for excellence in family business. Solar Spectrum LLC is honored for excellence in startup innovation.

The companies will be inducted during a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 8 at The Pinnacle, 1772 Indian Wood Circle, in Maumee. Tickets are $85. The Davenport-Longenecker Lifetime Achievement Award for Business Advocacy will be announced at the event.

The EBE HOF, presented by the University of Toledo, recognizes entrepreneurs who have built and sustained growing businesses and created jobs in the region as well as businesses that display technological innovation, said Adam Davenport, EBE HOF chairman and president of Gorillas & Gazelles, founding sponsor of the event.

“We’re really excited,” Davenport said. “We have a few construction companies, a restaurant supplier, solar once again through the University of Toledo, an automotive supplier, a security label manufacturer. There’s just a lot of diverse industries represented this year.”

Gary Frye, president and CEO of Riker Products, said, “We feel very, very honored to receive this award.”

Riker Products, which has been in business since the late 1940s and employs about 180 people, buys and bends tubing for use in heavy-duty exhaust systems and sells its products to trucking, mining and agricultural companies worldwide. Frye has been with the company for more than 40 years, starting as a laborer while still in high school and working his way to head of the company.

Mike Messmer, vice president and general manager of NovaVision, said the company is honored.

“One person could not do what we’re doing and the fact that we can grow is because we have such an excellent team,” Messmer said.

Founded in 1994, NovaVision has about 45 employees and specializes in technologies that provide anti-counterfeiting and anti-tampering features, including hologram labels, tamper-evident stickers, security tape, security seals and more. Its products are used worldwide, including by federal and state governments, military, airlines, ski resorts and collectibles dealers, Messmer said.

More than 700 people attended last year’s ceremony, Davenport said.

“It’s just a breath of fresh air to see that so many people will come out and support an event like this that showcases some of the inspiration stories and companies around this area,” Davenport said. “One thing we’re told is it’s an inspiration to many people out there that there are a lot of great things happening around here.”

Visit www.ebehof.com for more.

Burkett Restaurant Equipment
Jameel Burkett is the youngest of the six Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame award winners by decades, but he believes his youth in no way indicates a lack of experience.

After graduating from the University of Toledo in 2002, Burkett went to work for Owens Corning but left a year later when his father, Mike Burkett, founder of Burkett Restaurant Equipment, asked his son to join him and help expand the family business.

“We were just a local retail facility that sold about 80 percent used, 20 percent new equipment when I first started,” Burkett, president and CEO, said. “Since then, we have branched out and we have three separate sales divisions now: a retail center, an Internet division and a contract and project division. The retail division includes a remodeled show-room that promotes new equipment.

“I knew that in growing the business, we weren’t going to be able to grow it to the level we wanted to get to by promoting used first,” Burkett said. “If you promote new first, you’re attracting customers that want new, and then you offer used as a choice where you can save people money if they want to.”

The Internet division began with an eBay store in 2004 while Burkett built the company’s internal website, which launched in 2005.The contract and project division, which handles government contracts, new construction and chain accounts, was launched in early 2008.

And then, in October 2008, “When the market crashed, the phones just stopped ringing,” Burkett said. “Everything stopped. But then in March 2009,we landed a sizable seven-figure government contract through a joint venture partnership with another dealer that really got us back on track. That really accelerated the contract and project division.

“And then, in 2010, when the government was giving money to the school districts to spend on upgrading their kitchens as part of the stimulus package, we doubled our business between March and April of 2010.”

Burkett said he is humbled to be a recipient of the Business Excellence Award.

“The recognition is allowing people to see what we’ve actually done. And if people really want to support local and stay local, I think that they have to feel confident in their local companies. And an award like this builds the confidence of the peoplewe do business with and allows people not doing business with us to learn about us.”

Clouse Construction Corp.

After studying at Tiffin University in the early 1970s, Lenny Clouse, a New Riegel native, left college to go to work for a custom home builder.

“I always loved to do construction-type work growing up,” Clouse said. “I had some natural talent, I believe, from my mother’s family [the Kauffmans]. Many of them were in the trades —masons, carpenters, that type of construction work. I felt it was a good way to provide for a family.”

Three-and–a-half years later, in 1975, Clouse went to work for himself.

Now, 37 years and 65 employees later, Clouse and his wife Lynn operate Clouse Construction Corp., a Northwest Ohio company honored Nov. 8 with the Business Excellence Award from the EBE HOF.

Clouse, 59, said he was honored when Mike Reser, a friend from Tiffin, nominated his construction company for the award.

“I am a common-type person, a very hard worker who runs a company that keeps our word,” Clouse said. “We follow through.

“We care about the people who work for us, the customers we’re working for, and how the project ends up. We want it to be a good value for long-term service of the project. And we’re always concerned about taking care of our employees. We try to take care of them and make sure they can have the best lives available.”

Clouse said he takes pride in operating “a very diversified” company that works for religious, educational, agricultural and financial banking groups. The company also does factory maintenance work.

Clouse attributed surviving the recent downturn in the economy to that diversification.

“I could kind of feel the economy coming to a head, so we got rolling a couple of years before it did,” he said. “We’ve always tried to be ahead of the curve, and we developed all different kinds of business customers over the years.”

In 2006, Clouse started another branch of his company he called STOP — Service Team of Professionals. That branch of the company does fire restoration, mold remediation, and chemical and flooding cleanup at private homes and businesses.

“The No. 1 thing that always set us apart is that we always cared,” Clouse said. “We always cared for our customers and our employees, and we want to give back. I want to make our business, our country, our state better than what it has been in the past; a better place to live, work and worship.”

Mel Lanzer Company

Charlotte Zgela and her husband enjoyed working at her father’s business in Napoleon during their 1981 summer vacations from their teaching jobs in Mansfield so much that they gave up their careers as educators to join his team.

Thirty-one years later, on behalf of her father, mother, and brother, Zgela accepted the Excellence in Family Business Award Nov. 8 for the MelL anzer Company from the Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame.

“It says a lot in how my fa-ther (Mel Lanzer) started the company,” Zgela, 57, said. “He is proud of the work he did, and he encouraged my brother (Matt Lanzer) and me just by taking us out on Sunday drives.

“That was our thing we did on Sundays growing up. We used to go to the job sites all the time. Not that we really wanted to go, but my mom (Marge Lanzer) would say, ‘Come on, I’ll get an ice cream cone afterward.’

“And that inspired us. It was that love. It was that drive my father had that inspired my brother and me to get into the business and make it what it is today. When I took over, our sales were maybe $3 million, $4 million a year. Now, we’re a $20 million a year company.

“And it all goes back to the family and the values my father instilled in us, and the compassion we have for our job. We worry about those people under us. We worry about our customers. That’s what makes us a little different — we care how our customers feel about the finished product.”

Mel Lanzer started the business building single-family homes in the early 1950s, but was forced to refocus from housing to commercial construction in 1955 when the postwar housing boom began to decline.

Zgela and Matt faced that same obstacle in October 2008 after the market crash. They have geared the construction company toward theretail industry, remodeling as a Wal-Mart certified contractor, doing school construction with Ohio Schools Facility Commission projects as well as higher education new construction like the $4.5 million NCAA-regulation track and field house for Defiance College, and construction management.

“Since we’ve been in business for such a long time, and done so many different types of construction, there’s not too many things people can throw at us that we haven’t seen before,” Matt Lanzer, 45,said. “We’re able to get a pretty good grip on almost all types of construction. It’s nice to have that much experience behind us.”

NovaVision, Inc.

After a 24-year career with Owens Corning, Mike Messmer joined forces with Al Caperna in 1998 to help commercialize Caperna’s patented hologram technology and transform NovaVision, Inc. from a small-town printing business in Bowling Green into an international company with $7.6 million in sales revenue in 2011, up 40 percent from 2010.

As partners, Messmer and Caperna have built a large and diverse group of customers, shipping product to 25 countries outside the U.S.

“What re-ally changed the business is when we began to market our products on the Internet [in 2003],” Messmer said. “Within about six months, it went from calling customers to the customers starting to call us.”

Messmer said 2011 was unique because, after acquiring a competitor from New York, the company hired 15 of its 45 employees, increasing its workforce 50 percent in just 12 months.

“And we’ll do real well this year too, more in sales because we hired the people in anticipation of growing again this year,” Messmer said. “We made the commitment last year to hire and train people knowing that the growth was coming.”

In recognition of that success, Caperna, a former Business Excellence Award winner from the Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame who is no longer active in the day-to-day operation of NovaVision, nominated his partner for the 2012 honor.

“I’m honored that we were recognized,” Messmer, 62, said. “But I am just one person, and I think it’s not only a reflection on me, but it’s really an honor for the entire team.”

Messmer said product innovation, Internet savvy and enticing the customer to buy the product is the essence of what NovaVision has done exceptionally well.

Messmer also believes “we’re very good at helping ordinary people do extraordinary things. Our culture here is different. We try to make it that it’s OK to make mistakes, and it’s OK to try new things and it’s OK to treat a customer fantastic.”

Riker Products

When Walter Riker opened Riker Products “way back in the late 1940s, no one had any money,” said Gary Frye, 62, current president and chief executive officer.

“There was a main truck line going from Detroit to Toledo, and they would stop in here. They couldn’t afford to buy a muffler or an exhaust pipe, so old Walter Riker would weld up theirs, repair it. In the wintertime, he would actually load his welder up in the back of a pickup truck, reverse current, and thaw people’s pipes that froze in the wintertime.”

Frye started working for Riker in 1968 as a 17-year-old student at Libbey High School.

“I didn’t plan on staying 44 years,” Frye said. “It just worked out that way.”

Frye now operates a successful business in North Toledo with 168 employees that services Class 8 trucks, including Macks, Volvos, and Internationals.

Frye said Riker Products is still struggling to recover from the market crash about five years ago when his business fell 60 percent.

“You get lean. You get real lean,” Frye said. “You cut costs. You get as lean as you can and you just try to survive. We did it. We did very well.”

In recognition of the tenacity and business savvy that led to that survival, Jeremy Zeisloft, vice president, commercial relationship manager at Huntington Bank, nominated Frye for the Business Excellence Award from the Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame, an honor Frye will receive Nov. 8.

Although he would like to grow the business, Frye said that “We’re still stagnant. We’re certainly a long way from coming out of the slump. We just need to get down and dirty, get competitive and win market share, and the best way to do that is to fine tune processes. That means don’t work harder, work smarter.”

Despite the recognition that comes with the Business Excellence Award, Frye said the public “will never know our company because it’s not a glamorous business. But it is a successful business, a well-run business that employees 168 good, good people.”

Solar Spectrum LLC

At a time when most men are enjoying their retirement years, Charles Tomita has embarked on a new adventure. Tomita, who spent his career working as an electromagnetism scientist for Northrop Grumman Corp. in El Segundo, Calif., began his second career Nov. 1 when he went to work full-time at Solar Spectrum.

The startup business manufactures the coating that will be applied to transparent solar windows at the University of Toledo Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization (UT-PVIC).

Tomita and his partner, Richard McClary, a particle physicist, started Solar Spectrum in 2005.

“Dr. McClary came running into my office,” Tomita said. “[He said] ‘I want to share this idea with you. Do you think it will work?’

“It was an idea called ‘photon trapping’ on how to drastically improve the efficiency of solar cells. We spent a year digging into it. After that year,we decided this could be real.”

Tomita, Solar Spectrum’s chief executive officer, will receive the Startup Innovation Idea Award at the Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence Hall of Fame awards ceremony.

Tomita, in his early 70s, is optimistic that Solar Spectrum will be a success because its product “is something every building needs.

“Our product coats the windows,and we should revolutionize the whole building industry of the future. We don’t have to tie into the major power grids or feed back into the grid. We generate electricity, and this is a new paradigm on the future buildings of the world, not just the U.S., but of the world.

“And I made one informal promise to the university. We are going to concentrate on U.S.-built, U.S.-made panels, U.S.-made glass in the State of Ohio. That is our pledge.”

Business profiles by John P. McCartney, Toledo Free Press staff writer.

Johnson: UT has a global strategy

By
Dan Johnson
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Everyone who knows the University of Toledo knows it has a long and distinguished history of attracting international students. There were even times when UT was seen as a leader among universities seeking to attract such students. The university continues to be popular for students looking for an American university experience.

Today, however, being recognized as a globally engaged university entails much more than attracting large numbers of international students. Global engagement means student study-abroad programs, student and faculty exchange programs with international universities, international collaborative research projects and programs, meaningful, productive partnerships with like-minded international universities and purposeful cooperation on other fronts, including business and economic development, promotion of foreign direct investment and, most importantly, advancing our understanding of other nations and cultures.

Today, all major universities must be strategically engaged internationally if they are to be competitive for the best students, research funds and opportunities for faculty and students. It is also recognized that globally connected universities are essential to regional economic development and for promoting international business. One higher education association has argued that “campus globalization may well be the most important strategic issue in American higher education.”

Career paths for today’s university graduates are increasingly international. A growing number of student internships and co-ops are based in foreign countries to better prepare them for the global marketplace and workforce. (A personal example is my grandson, who begins his engineering internship in Japan this week.)

Faculty research, now more than ever, spans national boundaries. Sources of research funding are increasingly multinational.

For the past decade or longer, UT has had an array of international activities led largely by individual faculty members with ties to various nations and international universities, but there was no particular university strategy for international affairs — only individual faculty members pursuing their professional interests in foreign countries and the university welcoming international students.

UT has now added “global engagement” to its strategic plan.

Titled “Global Directions 2012,” the plan outlines the importance of the university becoming proactive in developing these strategic linkages, partnerships and programs worldwide. The initial focus will be on universities in China, India and the Middle East. As these partnerships mature, additional partnerships may be added in places such as South Africa, Brazil and possibly others. For the moment, however, UT’s focus will be “narrower and deeper” partnerships that produce measurable outcomes and regional benefits.

To help ensure the successful implementation of this strategic plan, the university is establishing the President’s Commission on Global Initiatives. This commission, comprised of representatives from across the university together with community representatives, will study global opportunities, assess costs and benefits and recommend programs and projects to help make UT a globally recognized university and attract increased international attention to Toledo and Northwest Ohio.

Globalization of a university is a long-term venture; years of intense work by faculty, deans and senior administrators will be required to reap the enhanced benefits of global engagement for our students, faculty and community.

For UT, these efforts will focus on building productive, sustainable partnerships with strategically selected international universities. It is our expectation that these partnerships will provide mutual benefits to both partners and elevate the visibility and reputation of UT as well as our City of Toledo.

For these high expectations to become reality, UT’s global strategy must be aligned with the strategies of others in our city and region engaged in international relationship-building. This includes such offices as the mayor’s and organizations such as the Regional Growth Partnership. We have made an excellent start, but we will also need to continue to broaden and strengthen our efforts to ensure we are working in concert and collaboratively.

Working together, pursuing common international objectives and maintaining aligned strategies will produce positive educational outcomes for our students and economic benefits for our city, region and state.

Dan Johnson is director of global initiatives, president emeritus and distinguished university professor of public policy and economic development at the University of Toledo. 

Miller: Man vs. food

By
Michael Miller
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I looked at the number on the digital scale with several emotions.

Surprise was not one of them.

Shock, anger, fear, disbelief, yes — but not surprise.

For several years, a brewing stew of sedentary lifestyle, reckless eating habits, stress, poor sleep and genetics has steadily added weight to my frame, taking my middle-age body on a journey from big but fit to bigger and dangerously out of shape.

The journey culminated with that unblinking red number: 380 pounds.

My relationship with food has always been healthy in terms of appetite and unhealthy in terms of choices. Pasta, breads, fried foods and junk food led the parade, in inexhaustible quantities. A lifelong fervor for Coca-Cola added to the stream of deadly pleasures. One of the side effects of having an absentee father and a disabled mother was a household that often held little or no food, a bad situation for a growing teenager. When there was food available in those long-ago days, I would hoard and devour what I could, a habit that endured long after food once again became plentiful.

A long commute, long office hours and a high-stress job gave me a platform of excuses for eating poorly. I would often kickstart my day with a drive-thru breakfast from McDonald’s, ordering two full meals and then asking for two beverages, so the person taking the order would not think all that food was for me. Eating at restaurants for lunch, choosing the tastiest and worst foods. Sitting at my desk on deadline while quaffing Coke and keeping one hand in a bag of something salty, crunchy or chocolatey throughout the workday also piled on the calories. I would, four days out of five, start my commute home with a drive-through stop at Wendy’s or KFC or Sonic or Taco Bell or Burger King or the old reliable McDonald’s and eat two or more sandwiches with large fries and one of the depth-charge size soft drinks such fast food places specialize in. Knowing this was unhealthy and expensive, I would shuffle cash to hide the cost; not wanting my wife to know I had gorged on the way home, I would always sit and help myself to whatever she had made.

You know that “Thanksgiving meal full belly” feeling you get when you push away from that Thursday afternoon table? I seek that feeling, then push past it, and do not feel ready to put down the fork until I reach it. As I entered middle age, I would pay for these binges with body-shaking reflux that would strike at 2 or 3 a.m. and leave me gasping for air. The discovery of over-the-counter ranitidine allowed me to self-medicate the acid into oblivion, though it would often take several times the recommended dose of the little orange pills.

Like many young men who lived their formative years without a father in the home, I determinedly live my life in opposition to my absent role model’s example.

Or so I thought. Watching my two young boys run and play in the yard nearly one year ago, I had an epiphany. My father chose alcohol in its several seductive forms over his wife and children. I never understood that choice. Alcoholism is a disease, but that does not excuse personal choice and responsibility. How does a man choose barmates and beer over his own young sons? I of course vowed to live his life to the opposite extreme, devoting my life and time to my family and two sons with unwavering intensity. But as I watched my two boys run and race — I watched because I could not physically move at any pace to play with them — one of those uncommon and ephemeral moments of clarity bolted through my brain. Yes, my father had used alcohol as a vehicle to abandon his family, but wasn’t I doing the same with food? That my father drove away and did not look back while I was headed for a carbs-and-carbonated-inspired heart attack at an early age might make all the difference in the world in terms of intent, but it would make zero difference to my sons, who would be as fatherless as I was.

Gone is gone.

That 380 on the scale told me what I had known for more than a year. The growing number of Xs in my shirt size; the rapid destruction of shoes; the need for soft belts which would not cut into and blister the underside of my belly; an inability to slide into some restaurant booths and a need for seat belt extenders on airplanes; the necessity of carefully choosing chairs at public events lest one with rickety metal or soft plastic give way and tumble me to the ground.

The list of discomforts and inconveniences grew as steadily as my waistband.

Larger threats loomed. Diabetes. Sleep apnea. Joint pain. Heart diseases.

I tried diets, yo-yoing my weight, and tried simple exercises such as walking, but found my condition prohibited even basic essential movement. After a long talk with my wife and primary care physician, I signed into a regional hospital’s bariatric clinic, to prepare myself for bariatric surgery on Sept. 18.

I appreciate your empathy but I do not court your sympathy. To paraphrase Eva Peron, “Don’t cry for me, Col. Sanders.” I got myself into this situation and I will work my way out.

I start at 380.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. 

Pounds: Round of applause

By
Tom Pounds
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There are a number of annual events Toledo Free Press is proud to support, but one stands out for me each year — The Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence (EBE) Hall of Fame ceremony.

Formed in 2006, the EBE recognizes, according its website, “outstanding entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built and sustained growing businesses and created jobs in the region. EBE also applauds established and fledgling businesses that display technological innovation in their respective industry. The program was formed as a result of a recognized need to foster and honor entrepreneurial success and business excellence in our region and is anticipating more than 700 attendees this year.”

This year, six local companies will be inducted during the annual ceremony on Nov. 8 at The Pinnacle in Maumee:

  • Business Excellence Awards go to Burkett Restaurant Equipment, Clouse Construction Corp., NovaVision, Inc. and Riker Products.
  • The Excellence in Family Business Award goes to Mel Lanzer Company.
  • The Excellence in Startup Innovation Idea Award goes to Solar Spectrum, LLC.

Adam Davenport, EBE chairman, said, “In what some say is a struggling economy in our region, we continue to honor companies that are going against all odds and are achieving high levels of success in both sales and also the creation and retention of many employees.

“The support of so many businesses, organizations and past Hall of Fame honorees is what truly makes this program successful year after year, and I don’t expect that to ever stop.  It proves that if events are put on to show the positive aspects of our area, great successes can be identified and celebrated.”

The 2012 Entrepreneurial and Business Excellence Hall of Fame is presented by The University of Toledo and is founded by Gorillas & Gazelles LLC in partnership with Bowling Green State University, Davenport, Hanf & Company, LLC and Medical Mutual of Ohio/BDS Agency Management. Additional primary sponsors include UT Innovation Enterprises, UT College of Business Administration and The Center for Family and Privately Held Business. Toledo Free Press is proud to be the event’s media sponsor and, as a  2008 honoree, can attest to the honor the EBE bestows.

Visit the EBE website for further information about event tickets and sponsorship opportunities.

Join us in applauding this year’s recipients and celebrating their contributions to our community.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star.

Treece Blog: Fed issuing into bondage

By
Dock David Treece
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U.S. investors are coming to the end of a disturbing period in financial history: the lost decade. Certainly not the first — or last — of its kind, these periods are nevertheless extremely unsettling for retail investors who lack the knowledge or perspective to make informed decisions on how best to move forward.

For instance, over the past several years — the later part of this “lost decade” — we’ve seen more and more retail investors moving into the bond market in some fashion. Granted, not all are going out and buying bonds directly; many are purchasing bond-focused mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, etc.

Unfortunately, this includes large numbers of “unsophisticated” investors (this isn’t a slight; the SEC has a working definition of “unsophisticated” or “unqualified” investors based on income and net worth. They aren’t allowed to purchase unregistered investment products like hedge funds because they typically don’t understand the risks). After decades of decreasing financial literacy in the United States — few high school graduates even understand the potential impact of compound interest anymore — most of these retail investors are in way over their heads.

In conversations with a number of these investors, I’ve asked how bonds respond to an environment of rising interest rates. Few understand that the market values of outstanding bonds fall. Why? In order for investors to buy bonds with below-market rates, they need a discount as incentive. This relationship can be reduced to a mathematical formula. To keep our discussion relevant I won’t publish it here.

Aside from this simple fundamental aspect of bonds, few investors even comprehend the sheer size of the debt market. Globally, the value of the bond market totals roughly twice that of stock markets (more than $80 trillion as opposed to $40-50 trillion), with tens of thousands of issuers, including companies, municipalities, agencies and sovereign nations.

Similarly, few retail investors today have the historical perspective to understand what happens when credit markets grow too large or grow too quickly or how quickly things can turn very bad when a debtor’s repayment ability is called into question.

Consider Russia in 1998. Throughout the year, the country’s national debt had been expanding and production fell in some key sectors (coal has been an oft-cited example, and in that industry, wages were actually frozen for a time).As difficulties mounted and production lagged (causing sagging exports), the ruble began to weaken in international markets.

Midway through the year, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank arranged an international loan to shore up both the ruble and Russian debt. Somehow, roughly a quarter of the funds disappeared immediately upon arrival. In this case, the claim is that they were stolen, though the cause for their disappearance is essentially irrelevant (in this country, the funds would more likely be distributed among key unions), the funds simply weren’t there to help stabilize the country monetarily.

Everything came to a head Aug. 13, 1998, when the floor gave way and Russia’s bond market collapsed. Investors had suddenly begun to doubt Russia’s ability to repay its bonds, and once prices began tumbling, they quickly started an avalanche, which ultimately led to the noted failure of early hedge-fund Long-Term Capital Management, which counted among its directors several people with doctorates and even Nobel laureates.

At one point during the collapse, interest rates on Russian debt reached 200 percent. This means that previously issued bonds with stated interest rates of, say, 5 percent, were worth only .025 percent of their face value. In other words, a $1,000 bond paying 5 percent interest was suddenly worth about $0.25.

As a result of the crisis on Aug. 13, 1998, four days later Russia had to intentionally devalue the ruble. It also suspended interest payments on debts held by foreign investors, an all-too-common occurrence throughout history during various debt crises. It has the terrible potential impact of a future crisis for the United States, given the dollar’s standing as the world’s reserve currency.

The lessons to be learned from this are numerous. Hopefully, more retail investors will avoid dabbling in markets they know little about, but if they’re going to continue playing the game, at least they will know more of the nuances. Namely, investors should know that when interest rates begin to rise on government debt, quite often they don’t creep — they jump.

When these interest rates jump, the value of outstanding bonds doesn’t slide — it plummets. When there are doubts concerning the repayment of debt by a sovereign nation (which we’re already beginning to hear from both sides of the political aisle), rarely is the case that investors simply demand marginally higher interest rates in order to absorb newly issued debt. Instead, there simply is no money available. Investors refuse to buy bonds at almost any rate of interest. O

Dock David Treece is a partner with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www.TreeceInvestments.com) and is licensed with FINRA through Treece Financial Services Corp. He provides expert content to numerous media outlets. The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification.

Two Councilmen refuse pay for absences

By
Brigitta Burks
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Toledo City Council members have two options when they miss a meeting: either have their pay docked or get an “excusal” from the other members. Being excused is common practice. Only two of the 12 members have taken pay deductions in 2012.

Council members can deduct 2 percent from their annual salaries for missing a regular meeting and 1 percent for missing a committee meeting. But most opt for the other route — if two-thirds of Council votes for an excusal, the absent member still gets paid.

So far in 2012, Council has not voted down any excusals.

“In my 14 years, no one has not been excused,” said Council clerk Jerry Dendinger.

Members do not have to give a reason to get excused.

Councilmen Phil Copeland and Tom Waniewski are the only two members who have taken pay deferments this year. As of Sept. 7, Copeland has had 18 absences, including one regular meeting. He took deferments for 13 committee meetings and one special Council meeting, amounting to $4,125. Waniewski has had four absences in 2012, all from committee meetings, with one being excused and three others being deferred, amounting to an $825 deduction in his pay.

Waniewski and Copeland were also the only two to defer last year. In 2011, Copeland deferred $7,700 and missed 29 meetings, including four regular meetings and one special meeting. Of those, he had two regular meetings and two committee meetings excused. Waniewski deferred $4,125, accounting for 15 committee meetings. He had one excused absence for a committee meeting.

So far in 2012, President Joe McNamara has had perfect attendance. Lindsay Webb had the most excusals with 16, including two regular meetings and one special meeting, followed by Mike Craig with 13 missed committee meetings and Adam Martinez with 11, including one special meeting and two regular meetings. For committee meeting excusals, Rob Ludeman had one, George Sarantou had two, Steve Steel had three, Tyrone Riley had three and D. Michael Collins had four. Paula Hicks-Hudson had five excusals for committee meetings and one for a regular meeting. The absences, had they not been excused, would amount to about $20,000 in deferments.

Nonpresidential Council members make $27,501.76 per year. The president makes $32,000.80 per year.

In 2011, Webb and Martinez had the most absences at 19 each, including three regular meetings and two special meetings for Webb and two regular meetings and one special meeting for Martinez.

Attendance is personally important to McNamara. In 2011, he missed three committee meetings.

“I’m elected to go to meetings. That’s the point of Council and I take it seriously and that’s why I try to plan my life around meetings,” he said.

However, McNamara said it is routine to excuse people.

“City Council is a part-time job and people do have other things going on in their lives. I do think that allowing for people to miss some meetings is reasonable, but the important thing is that we have enough members so we’re able to have a quorum,” McNamara said.

Having enough members for quorum hasn’t been an issue in his tenure, he added.

In 2012, Waniewski has taken just one excusal for an agenda review Aug. 21 as a “vacation.” He said it’s his usual policy to take a deduction for any missed meetings.

“I feel so strongly about doing your job, particularly when there’s legislation that affects people. There’s zoning issues that affect businesses and you’ve gotta show up for the job in order to get paid for it,” he said.He said many members like himself have other jobs and family emergencies or illnesses do arise. However, Waniewski said, “Maybe what we need to do before we excuse [members] is ask what their excuse is.”

Still, Waniewski said he doesn’t see himself voting down someone’s excusal.

“It’s on an individual’s conscience to decide whether they should excuse themselves, so I don’t see myself objecting,” he said.

Waniewski praised McNamara for his scheduling abilities and also said this Council has been better about attendance than those in past years.

Craig said he generally doesn’t skip regular meetings, but sometimes misses committee meetings if he has other Council business or a prior arrangement.

“You may only have a day or two or maybe three notice and if I already have something scheduled, I go and do what I have scheduled,” he said. Craig also said committee meetings are sometimes called for Council members who have questions he may not need answered.

“Why would I go to a meeting that’s unnecessary for me and why would I take that away from my pay if I’ve done my homework?” he said.

Committee meetings are also recorded and can be listened to later, he added.

Copeland, who is running for Lucas County recorder against Sarantou, had the most absences and the most deferments. He said he wasn’t sure of the total number of meetings he missed, but that his job at Laborers’ Local 500 often takes him away from home. Copeland is out of town for work on the third Thursday of every month.

“A lot of times I’m out for work and I didn’t feel I should be paid for meetings [if] I wasn’t there,” he said.

The times he took excusals were for reasons like sickness, he added.

Webb said some of her absences in recent years could be attributed to maternity leave and raising a family. She gave birth in both 2010 and 2011.

“The people I represent appreciate the fact that I’m a hardworking mom and I have a full-time job. City Council is considered part time and I have a large family and I keep all the balls in the air,” she said. Webb also said her voice as a working mom is “essential” to Council.

“I earn my paycheck in a number of different ways,” Webb said, adding that she listens to recordings of missed committee meetings and gets notes from other members. She is also a coordinator for the National Employment Law Project in Ann Arbor.

Martinez said he missed a number of meetings because of his position as an adjunct teacher at Owens Community College and because of a master’s program in Cleveland that he commuted to.

“Most of us do have our other jobs that may not be as flexible,” Martinez said. He added that he has taken pay deferments in the past if he took a vacation or didn’t have a reasonable excuse for being absent.

“There’s always an opportunity to go online and listen to the conversations that have been held,” he added. Martinez said he also checks with committee chairs to make sure there aren’t any impending issues in the case of an absence.

McNamara emphasized that attendance of regular City Council meetings is more important than committee meetings.

“Members can better plan their schedules around Council meetings,” he said, adding that committee meetings can be at the “whim” of the chair.

Copeland said of Sarantou, his opponent and chair of the finance committee, “He schedules [finance committee meetings] when it fits him. That’s the thing.”

Sarantou said he has scheduled three finance committee meetings on the third Thursday of the month to accommodate other people who needed to be there. The rest have been on other days, he said.

“I will match my attendance records with [Copeland’s] attendance records any day,” Sarantou said. “The fact of the matter is he’s missed a huge amount of meetings.”

“If you’re gonna miss that many meetings, why should you get paid?” Sarantou said. He asked how voters should trust Copeland would show up at the recorder’s office if elected.

If elected, Copeland said he plans to be a “full-time recorder.” Sarantou also pledged to be there every day.

In 2011, Sarantou missed 12 meetings, including one special meeting.

Copeland said he doesn’t keep track of Sarantou’s attendance.

“When I’m there, I’m there to try to get the work done for the City of Toledo,” he said.

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