Turning Technologies puts Valley on the high tech map

A whole lot of people around the world are becoming familiar with a company called Turning Technologies, and through that familiarity they're hearing the name Youngstown, Ohio. Yes, the largest community in the Mahoning Valley, which once had a worldwide reputation for its steel making, is now the home of a hot technology business.
How hot? Sales of Turning Technologies' product have grown more than 300 percent in each of the past three years. In real numbers, the company will soon reach a milestone: The sale of 1 million units of its classroom/audience response software and hardware system.
When you hear Mike Broderick, president and chief executive officer of Turning, talk about his company's meteoric rise since it was started in the Youngstown Business Incubator in 2001 with a dream shared by him and his two partners, Mike Crosby and Don Arthurs, you get inspired. You also become enthusiastic.
And finally, if you are familiar with the dog-eat-dog high tech world, you wonder: Will Turning Technologies be lured away from downtown Youngstown by some metropolitan region that is willing to put all sorts of incentives on the table?
Broderick insists that the Valley is his home and that he's happy to have his headquarters in downtown Youngstown. But he also talks about needing more space for his ever expanding company. And, he gets excited at the prospect of moving into a new office building that is on the verge of becoming a reality -- if the state and federal governments come through with money that would put the finishing touches to the financing.
The market-ready, fully wired building conceived by the Youngstown Business Incubator board is designed to give companies, such as Turning Technologies, now being incubated in the YBI a permanent home in the downtown Youngstown once they have graduated. That's why it would be built next to the incubator.
Crucial support
As we noted in a December 2004 editorial in which we praised Gov. Bob Taft for saying he would not consider taking a job with the Bush administration if one were offered because he was committed to serving out his term which ends in 2008, Taft's support for the office building has been crucial and encouraging.
Through the governor's efforts, $2.5 million has been secured in state funding for the project, while Congressman Tim Ryan, D-Niles, was instrumental in getting the federal government to allocate $250,000. But a comparatively small gap remains, which we believe can easily be filled by Columbus and Washington.
The market-ready, fully wired building is exactly the kind of project the governor was referring to when he launched his Third Frontier high-technology initiative. His goal is to make Ohio a major competitor in the global technology sweepstakes. Turning Technologies and other software companies now located in the Youngstown Business Incubator would easily qualify for the research and development money that will be doled out under Third Frontier.
That's why funding from the state and the feds for the office building is so important.
From Washington's perspective, the project represents the economic diversification that President Bush talked about when he campaigned in this region in 2004.
Turning Technologies is about the Mahoning Valley's future, which is why the office building should be viewed as more than just another bricks-and-mortar project.