Business Incubator is a miracle on Federal Plaza

Opinion: January 7, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

EDITOR:

Early in 2008 I had the privilege and pleasure of a personal tour through the Youngstown Business Incubator and the new Taft Technology Center on West Federal Street. James Cossler, the Incubator’s executive director, who calls himself the YBI’s Chief Evangelist, guided me from one emerging business to another in the YBI’s five floors and then through the spectacularly modern Taft Technology Center. The tour left me amazed at this entrepreneurial hub and proud to be a native of a community that could spawn such a positive generator of jobs, profits, practical know-how and yes, 21st century technology. Our Business Incubator is a gem the Mahoning Valley should treasure and promote.

But the YBI as it is today would not be here were it not for Jim Cossler. YBI opened its doors in 1995 as a traditional mixed use 501 (c) (3) non-profit incubator like many others across the country. Its first five years showed modest success. In 2000 Cossler refocused the YBI’s mission from mixed use start-ups to helping only start-up companies that serve other businesses. This business-to-business mission is supplemented by even more specific goals: to cultivate, accelerate and promote the formation, growth, commercialization and innovation of technology-based businesses.

This switch was based on Cossler’s hands-on knowledge of the Mahoning Valley’s business scene and its history learned in his years working for the Greater Chamber of Commerce. (The Valley’s nearly 200-year tradition has been business-to-business. Steel sold only to other businesses, local suppliers sold to the steel companies.) What was new is that the firms now being helped by the Incubator had to be business-to-business and technology-based.

Since 2000 YBI’s portfolio companies have been awarded 17 intellectual property patents, developed 24 new commercial software applications and created more than 230 high-tech jobs paying salaries on average of $57,000. Many of those jobs are filled by recent college graduates with an average age of 28 years.

There’s another dimension to Jim Cossler’s self-dubbed title of YBI’s Chief Evangelist. He is a prime example of a “servant leader,” a low-key, low-profile, self-effacing visionist with unusual skills at creating and maintaining a dynamic, collegial culture. Thanks to Cossler, YBI’s supportive atmosphere offers an array of services and counseling for technology evaluation, market verification, business, marketing and strategic plan development, financing resources and intellectual property ownership issues. In addition, all the YBI start-up companies enjoy the “managed cluster,” an environment of entrepreneurs who share expertise, technical skills and resources with their peers. And in all of this the Chief Evangelist remains for the public mainly invisible. That’s a true servant leader.

At this wonderful time of the year, I call your attention to the three glorious human virtues we celebrate: Gratitude, Generosity and Self-Improvement — Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Our highly successful Youngstown Business Incubator embodies all of those virtues. The entrepreneurs and their employees in the start-up firms are truly grateful for what the YBI offers, their investors are risking their very generosity and above all, these embryonic firms are self-improving themselves as well as our Valley. I urge all readers of this letter to visit the Incubator and experience first-hand our miracle on West Federal Street.

WILLIAM FARRAGHER

Canfield