Tech group will help hatch Warren’s business incubator

By Ed Runyan

The city will not miss out on the green-energy revolution, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan said.

WARREN — A Warren business- incubator project that has been in the works for several years has a greater chance to succeed with the Cleveland-based nonprofit organization NorTech helping get things started, said Tony Iannucci Jr., director of the Warren Redevelopment and Planning Corp.

Iannucci, a member of the 26-member steering committee that will work with NorTech over the next 10 months, said NorTech will give the project the technical know-how in green energy to attract start-up companies in that field.

Focusing the incubator on one industry — in this case green energy — creates an opportunity for a cluster of companies with similar goals to come together and feed off one another, Iannucci said at a Monday press conference at the downtown office of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th.

Picking a specific industry also was important for receiving federal funding, Iannucci said.

Ryan introduced Rebecca O. Bagley, NorTech president and CEO, and said the area is “really blessed to have her and NorTech” helping to start the incubator.

The incubator’s location is among the decisions the steering committee will make in coming months, including whether a current building or a new one will be used, Bagley said.

The important thing for an advanced-energy incubator is that it is able to provide the space and infrastructure needed by a high-tech company, she said. Such a company typically manufactures products in an incubator in the beginning and secures additional facilities later, she added.

The city bought two buildings in the past couple of years as possible incubator sites when the plan was to build a business incubator with no specific industry in mind, Iannucci said.

One of those two buildings has since been resold, and the other may not be usable, Iannucci said, now that the incubator has a new focus.

Ryan, who secured a $2.2 million appropriation to equip the building with “green technology,” said green energy seems to him like the best opportunity available for the Warren area to catch the next wave of technology.

“We missed the tech boom of the ’90s. We missed a lot of the economic growth of the last decade. We missed the telecommunications revolution, and we’re not going to miss the green revolution,” Ryan said, adding that the ultimate goal is to enable the area’s middle class to secure good jobs.

At the Youngstown Business Incubator, the average salary for the 250 jobs created there is $58,000, Ryan said.

“There are windmill opportunities, solar panels, smart grids. There are so many opportunities in the green revolution to come, many of which we can’t even fathom yet that will be invented by people from this community,” Ryan added.

Bagley said NorTech’s Advanced Energy Steering Committee, consisting of leaders in energy-related companies and nonprofit organizations mostly in northeast Ohio, met two weeks ago and decided to participate in the Warren energy incubator project.

NorTech receives its funding mostly from philanthropic organizations, said Theodore Theofrastous of NorTech, which won’t be getting paid for its assistance to Warren. NorTech promotes the creation and growth of high-tech companies in 22 northeast Ohio counties.

NorTech, a 10-year-old organization, helped get incubators started in Lorain and Mansfield, said Bagley, who became NorTech president and CEO this summer after its founder resigned. Bagley previously worked in technology-based economic development for the state of Pennsylvania.

State Sen. Capri Cafaro of Hubbard, D-32nd, also secured $500,000 that can be used to secure a site for the incubator.

The long name for the incubator is the Technology and Business Center for Energy Sustainability, but Ryan preferred calling it the Warren Energy Incubator.

Statistics show that 87 percent of companies that started out in an incubator are still in operation four years later, Ryan said, compared to 44 percent that start outside of an incubator.

The local steering committee includes representatives from Youngstown State University, Kent State University, government and community organizations. It met once so far and will have a second meeting today, Iannucci said.

runyan@vindy.com