YSU seeking to add business partners

A new dean at YSU asks
businesses to call him with ideas.

By DON SHILLING

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR

YOUNGSTOWN — Businesses and Youngstown State University are strengthening their partnership in research and work force development.

Martin Abraham, a YSU dean, encouraged members of a business group Tuesday to think of the university when looking for ways to solve problems.

“We’re wide open. If you can dream it up, we can probably find a way to make it work,” Abraham told members of the Mahoning and Shenango Valley Advanced Manufacturing Initiative.

The group came to YSU to learn about the school’s new effort to combine its science, technology, engineering and math programs into one college.

Abraham was hired last year as the dean of the STEM College. He said he thinks the college should serve the community at large as well as undergraduate students.

“We’re definitely headed in the right direction,” said Mike Garvey, president of M-7 Technologies in Youngstown and a member of the manufacturing group.

Abraham said any business that wants to explore a partnership with the university should call him if they don’t already have a relationship with a faculty member.

He explained many of the college’s technical equipment that can be used by businesses. These include machines that analyze cells, study chemical structures and test material strength.

He said YSU faculty also can help businesses improve their manufacturing processes or product designs. The college also has aluminum casting and plastic injection molding labs.

Chuck Coleman, an official at Linde Hydraulics Corp. in Canfield and a member of the manufacturing group, asked what type of red tape would be involved in working with the university.

Abraham said working out ownership of intellectual property is typically the most difficult issue.

He said he is working to create standard agreements that could be signed quickly for smaller projects. Larger ones will require negotiation, he said.

After the meeting, Coleman said companies need to do a better job of joining together on research efforts with YSU.

Companies, at times, are afraid of working together because they don’t want to share proprietary ideas, he said. If companies in the same industry joined together for research, however, they could all be stronger, he added.

Coleman said he’s in discussions with YSU officials about creating a hydraulic engineering program. The company now needs two or three years to train a mechanical engineering graduate about hydraulics, he said. He said he hopes YSU can create a hydraulic engineering specialty within a current major.

Abraham said he also hopes to do more to encourage young people to enter science and engineering. He said he would like YSU to develop a “traveling road show” that would go to middle schools and high schools to show interesting science activities.

Too many young people are getting the message that science and math are too hard for them, he said. Meanwhile, the future of our country depends on innovations that use these disciplines, he said.

“We can’t afford that,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose our best talent.”

shilling@vindy.com