YBI leader speaks about America Makes impact
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
The presence of America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, has changed the course for the Youngstown Business Incubator.
“Without them, we wouldn’t be thinking about additive manufacturing in any way, shape or form,” said Barb Ewing, chief operations officer for YBI.
Ewing spoke Wednesday at the White House Manufacturing USA Stakeholder Event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building about the positive impact America Makes has had on the community.
“By working with America Makes and our other partners, we are putting Northeast Ohio companies on the leading edge and not the bleeding edge of the next industrial revolution,” Ewing said at the event.
America Makes is the first additive manufacturing hub created by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2012.
When America Makes first arrived, YBI was focused on helping software startup companies get off the ground.
With America Makes here, YBI and Humtown Products of Columbiana were connected to other partners and received federal funding to work on a sand-core project that involved printing sand cores for metal casting.
“We actually did print cores for manufacturers,” Ewing said. “America Makes helped put that together for us. They brought the big guns to us. They turned our fledgling idea to something much larger.”
After that project, with the technical expertise and connections provided by America Makes, YBI was able to receive state funding for a hybrid manufacturing project and last year received another state grant for a low-volume tooling project.
The goal is to help area and national manufacturers look at ways that they can use additive manufacturing.
“It helps make local manufacturers more competitive,” Ewing said.
America Makes has done the same in connecting Youngstown State University to research partners. Also, many of the interns at America Makes are YSU students.
“With universities across the country, we have developed stronger relationships,” said Mike Hripko, associate vice president for research at YSU. “We have expanded our work and done significant work with the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Texas El Paso. We have really established ourselves.”