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The new ‘Grow Home’ campaign seeks Valley loyalty, recognition
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Regional Chamber President Thomas Humphries
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YSU President David C. Sweet
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Congressman Tim Ryan
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning Valley native Gary Wakeford was offered the presidency of a start-up medical equipment company and he agreed to take the job — but only if the company headquarters moved to Youngstown.
It took only a month to sell Norwich Ventures of Massachusetts on the idea, Wakeford said.
The Youngstown State University alumnus said he refused to leave the Valley, and bringing the company, Syncro Medical Innovations, here “made good business sense.”
Elected officials and others involved in economic development are very helpful and supportive, and there are incentives to locating a business here, he said.
That type of regional loyalty and recognition of what the Mahoning Valley has to offer is what U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, hopes to capitalize on in a newly launched “Grow Home” campaign.
The goal is to reach YSU alumni entrepreneurs outside the Mahoning Valley who may be contemplating a business start-up or expansion, Ryan said as the program was unveiled at YSU on Thursday.
The effort is being conducted in conjunction with YSU’s Centennial Celebration and in partnership with the Regional Chamber. The plan is to give YSU alumni an inside track to benefits the Valley can offer new and expanding businesses.
It’s an effort to encourage successful YSU alumni to invest in their home community, Ryan said, noting he frequently runs into people living in Miami, Chicago or Cleveland who tell him Youngstown will always be their home.
“This is an opportunity for those people to play an active role in our future economic success and to reverse our community’s brain drain,” Ryan said.
Dr. David C. Sweet, YSU president, said Wakeford’s story is an illustration of the concept of what a “tech belt” might do, a reference to Ryan’s description of the Mahoning Valley’s being at the center of a tech belt developing between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
There are 85,000 YSU alumni living around the world and in all 50 states, and this effort will reach out to them, Sweet said. That move has already begun with the “Grow Home” story told in a recent issue of YSU Magazine mailed to alumni.
Wakeford is “a real live alum who is doing exactly what we want to accomplish,” Sweet said.
“I never left,” said Wakeford, who holds both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in business administration from YSU.
Syncro’s world headquarters moved to 20 West Federal from Georgia last October, and, although its products are now being manufactured in Germany, Wakeford said his plans are to bring that operation to Ohio as quickly as possible.
Government leaders have been exceptionally helpful, he said, noting Ryan helped secure a $500,000 federal defense fund grant to help Syncro expand military use of a magnet-guided feeding tube it is developing for treatment of burned troops and other seriously ill patients.
Ohio also recently granted the company a $350,000 Third Frontier grant to fund clinical trials at three hospitals, including St. Elizabeth Health Center.
“The timing is right. All levels of government are really pulling together to encourage companies to move here and helping them to succeed when they get here,” Wake-
ford said.
Tom Humphries, Regional Chamber president, said the chamber spends a lot of time and money trying to bring businesses to the Mahoning Valley. There are local and state incentives available to help new or expanding businesses, he said, citing tax incentives, grants and other support measures.
There are certain other built-in incentives as well, such as a low cost of living, human resources and short driving time to work, Ryan said,
Alumni entrepreneurs can learn more about the Grow Home campaign by logging on to the Web site at www.ysugrowhome.com.
gwin@vindy.com