Turning Technologies ties Youngstown to Australia with its new-age product

With one deal, Youngstown-based Turning Technologies, one of the hottest high-tech companies in Ohio, has gained access to markets in 80 countries. That's no small feat for a firm that has been in existence only since 2001.
But no one who has followed the meteoric growth of the downtown Youngstown maker of the classroom/audience response software and hardware system would have been surprised at the recent announcement of the partnership with LUL Technology of Australia.
Last year, Turning Technologies' President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Broderick revealed that sales of the product, TurningPoint, had grown more than 300 percent in three years and that the company expected to hit a milestone: the sale of 1 million units.
The announcement took on even greater significance when Broderick explained that the units were being sold in 30 countries.
No place like home
From a local perspective, the success of Turning Technologies was made sweeter when the president and CEO insisted that the Mahoning Valley is his home and that he's happy to have the company headquartered in the Youngstown Business Incubator on West Federal Street.
Thus, when Broderick and Joe Nigem, chief executive of LUL Technology, discussed the partnership a week ago Friday in the incubator, the fenced-in vacant lot next door was very much a part of the story.
That's because it is the site of the soon-to-be-built Taft Technology Center, a market-ready, fully wired office building that will house Turning Technologies. The major financing for the project is from the state and federal governments.
The timing could not have been better for Turning, because it recently hired its 100th employee, and expects revenue to increase by 500 percent over the next five years.
Thinking big
As for its global reach, Broderick said he expects exports to grow from 15 percent of sales to at least 40 percent.
Nigem told reporters that he thinks the product, TurningPoint, will be in such demand that his company can achieve higher market penetration rates in Japan and Europe than Turning Technologies has in the U.S.
LUL Technology, a finance company that also resells technology products, will handle sales, marketing and support for TurningPoint in other countries.
There will be two offices established in Japan, and one each in Germany, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong.
From Hong Kong, LUL will be setting its sights on the huge market for technology products in China.
Last year, then Gov. Bob Taft, who was responsible for the 2.5 million in state funding for the new office building, said his goal was to make Ohio a major competitor in the global technology sweepstakes.
During his tenure in office, Taft launched the Third Frontier high-technology program, which is designed to funnel state dollars into various public and private high-tech initiatives.
Turning Technologies, with its global reach, deserves the attention of Taft's successor, Gov. Ted Strickland, who became familiar with the company when he served as the 6th District congressman.
Ohio cannot abandon its past. But it must realize that its future involves the world in which technology is the coin of the realm.