Three Thoughts: Simple, Welcoming Gestures

It’s simple.  Clap while a group of kids walk into a building. 

Four years ago, a friend invited me to join a clap-in ceremony at a youth gathering. I did.  Now, I’m hooked. 

My friend was opening my eyes to a broader way to reach a future workforce and an audience receptive to learning the value of STEM skills.  

For 20 years, our Port Authority has made it our job to reach STEM learning audiences and boost industry engagement.  

Tewahedo Social Services brings over 500 young people from its summer camps together each year for a youth summit.  This August saw the 16^th consecutive year of the ETSS Youth Summit in Central Ohio. 

First Thought: Simple welcoming gesture

The clap-in is a great way to open the Youth Summit.  As kids get off their buses and walk to the auditorium, the clappers do what they do—clap their hands. 

We clappers quickly learn that some of the kids are lifted by our clapping right away while some need a little more effort and attention.  As a four-year veteran clapper, I know I can focus my claps on a kid to see if I can turn a snarl into a smirk. 

A simple clap is a signal of welcoming. 

The clapping welcomes the children to a place to learn about each other’s cultures, gain community appreciation, and hone their leadership skills.  It’s a metaphor for something bigger: welcoming young people into new possibilities. 

Another Thought: A spark with STEM learning

Sharing the value of science, technology, engineering, and math skills with the youth can be just as simple.  It’s another simple, welcoming gesture. 

This year, our Port Authority brought industry partners along with us.  Young people explore everything from the physics of gyroscopes with a spinning bike wheel to engineering by mixing colored polycarbonate plastic pieces. 

Just as clapping can change a young person’s mood, seeing STEM skills at work can change how they imagine a future career. 

STEM learning is happening alongside burning off energy in soccer and volleyball.   Among the kids dreaming of becoming the next Lionel Messi may be some who discover they want to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

Third Thought: Seeing a future

Not every spark to a future career comes from inside the four walls of a classroom.  I know from experience that industry engagement can be, and is, inspiring.   I’ve watched the learners of 2006 become the engineers and scientists of 2026. 

Sometimes, simple industry engagement is all it takes to inspire.   It’s worth it if you inspire just one kid. 

STEM learning can give a young person hope for a future career.  The local relevance from meeting companies in their own community plants seeds for those future careers right here in Central Ohio. 

Five hundred young people gathered at one place.  Welcomed with a clap. Introduced to real-world STEM. Encouraged to imagine their future. 

Call me an optimist.  I believe these simple, welcoming gestures translate well. 

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This column is a regular column in The Columbus Dispatch.

Three Thoughts: Ohio Ranks, Again

 

Site selectors used to get asked, “Why is Ohio on our list?”  Now, if they leave Ohio locations off from the list of potential sites for their business clients, they’re asked “Why isn’t Ohio on our list?” 

Site selectors are the consultants behind corporate decision making.  These are the folks involved in every “mega” project finding their location.  By many estimates, 60% of large job-creating deals flow through site selectors. 

In July, CNBC named Ohio the number one state in its “America’s Top States for Business” annual list for 2026.  The news that Ohio tops the list is still reverberating weeks later. 

The site selector listing change tends to parallel the CNBC ranking changes. 

Ohio ranks top because of the state’s leadership, manufacturing edge, and natural location advantages. 

First Thought: Manufacturing edge matters

“Manufacturing is not simply part of Ohio’s success story. It is the reason Ohio leads.”  The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association leadership’s assertion on the CNBC ranking is true. 

Ohio’s economic success is owed to the manufacturing sector.  Among the top three manufacturing employment states, Ohio is number one in per capita manufacturing.  The edge in manufacturing is evident in Ohio too. 

Few were predicting that Ohio would reach $1 trillion GDP as fast as it did just as fewer were predicting Ohio would leapfrog to the CNBC top rank this year.  Manufacturing is indeed the reason behind the economic side of the gains. 

Another Thought: Location advantages matter

CNBC cited Ohio’s infrastructure as a top reason for the top spot ranking. 

Ohio has long had natural advantages in infrastructure.  Historically, Ohio has been an industrial development leader because of cost of doing business, abundant energy, transportation access, natural resources, and human capital.  

Market access matters.  Logistically, Columbus is tops for reaching 60% of U.S. and 50% of Canadian markets. 

The CNBC ranking confirms that Ohio is leading the way in putting these Ohio-specific attributes to work again in growing our state’s economy. 

Third Thought: Leadership matters at all levels

Who’s at the helm matters. The get-things-done leadership of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has made a difference.  We’ve all been witness to his hands-on approach to winning capital investment especially when it plants the seeds for future jobs. 

The business climate focus of the Ohio General Assembly is leadership that matters.  Taming taxes and focusing on regulations that aid electricity customers have been critical. 

The JobsOhio model is the envy of other states for its business-minded approach.  JobsOhio tilts the scale for Ohio’s success with marketing prowess that communicates our state’s advantages coupled with smart incentives.  That’s leadership that CNBC noticed. 

Local leadership matters too.  Local industrial development shines where it has been ready to receive the manufacturing surge, taking advantage of expansions of existing industry and new locations. 

No top ranking occurs without competitive local real estate--ready-to-go buildings and sites.  No improved ranking occurs without local infrastructure readiness or local workforce development capabilities. 

Now, every business looking for a place to invest and bring jobs has to take notice—Ohio ranks, again.

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This column is a regular column in The Columbus Dispatch.

Three Thoughts: Innovation Knows No Population Density

“Rick’s been rescued from cornfields and cow pastures” is how an email exchange presented the idea that hard-to-find cleanroom space was available for lease from our Port Authority in central Licking County. 

The author meant well.  The email recipient wouldn’t have believed it, perhaps, without the rural reference.  The author, frankly, didn’t believe it either. 

Thirty five miles from Ohio’s largest city sits the largest concentration of cleanroom space in the state.  It may defy some folk’s conventional wisdom, but it’s been true for going on 65 years. 

That email recipient converted use of the cleanroom space into a technology startup. 

Today, in that same cleanroom space, a life sciences company is aiming to commercialize taking brain tissue generated from an individual’s skin cells into a predictor of future ailments.  Even more, the predictions can be coupled with early cures. It’s personalized, predictive medicine. 

Yes, that’s happening in a lab in Heath, population 10,000.

Innovation knows no population density. 

First Thought: Urban vs. Rural Isn’t New.

This urban versus rural thing is not a new notion.  David McCullough’s book The Wright Brothers evidences the idea that innovation and technological capabilities can come from unlikely places.  New York media ignored Orville and Wilbur’s achievements out of disbelief that bicycle mechanics from a small town in Ohio could achieve the world’s first powered flight. 

Yet, the $1 trillion annual aerospace and aviation industry in the U.S. was born in Dayton, Ohio. 

The brain tissue researcher in our Port Authority’s cleanroom in Heath often tells the Wright brothers’ story when he speaks to fellow innovators in Boston or Dubai.  After all, he does have to explain the surprising place from where his research originates. 

Another Thought: Don’t Discount Rural Areas.

It’s an easy trap to discount the potential for innovation based on how few people live in a place. 

I’ve been to Bi-Con in Derwent, Ohio and contend the highest concentration of innovation per capita is there.  At night, Derwent is home to a population of less than 100.  During the day, Derwent swells in working population thanks to the company which makes control panels and automation for the natural gas industry. Major, life-safety problem solving is owed to this place. 

The Derwent tale is a lesson for suburban dwellers too.  

Third Thought: Celebrate Innovation Wherever It Began.

Ohio is so frequently discounted as “fly over country” or “Rust Belt.”  Those pejoratives are owed to the population density myth too.  Yet, Ohio has many reasons to celebrate innovation. 

Fiberglass, invented in Newark, Ohio, is in everything today from car bodies to data lines.  Kent, Ohio is the origin of liquid crystal displays, the guts to screens for our phones and computers. 

The U.S. Capitol holds a statue of Thomas Edison.  He’s the face of innovation and Ohio, rightly, celebrates his many achievements.  He was born in Milan, Ohio. 

It’s a fallacy to conceive that one location can possess superiority, economically, based solely on population density.  The best measure of innovation comes from what a place produces, not how many people it packs in.

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This column is a regular column in The Columbus Dispatch.