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The Valley’s Business Matters ISSN 1047-8582

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Vol. 26 No. 11

DECEMBER 2009

$2.50

Recession Creates Opportunities for Entrepreneurs New business owners cite availability of space, experienced workers as beneﬁts By Maraline Kubik

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Steve Badurik is serious when he says Warren Buffet told him to open his shop – and so he did.

Don’t Blame The Keyboard By Dennis LaRue

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an O’Brien, a part-time instructor of history at Youngstown State University in addition to being a full-time reporter here, is often challenged when he reads the answers to the essay tests he gives. A scrawl that O’Brien deciphered from a test on U.S. history he gave two years ago, which we can’t reproduce because of the university’s concerns about See PENMANSHIP, page 40 Second-grade teacher Christina Roussos teaches handwriting to Darcy McTigue at Dobbins School in Poland.

he driving force for new business development is necessity – either to meet the needs of a community or to meet the needs of a highly motivated entrepreneur. With so many unemployed workers scrambling to secure the few jobs that are available, some unable to ﬁnd work are looking to create employment for themselves. Others who’ve dreamed about going into business for years are also taking advantage of opportunies the recession has provided to enter the throes of entrepreneurship. How they will fare over the long term remains to be seen, but those surveyed by The Business Journal are determined to stay the course and cash in when the economy rebounds. Steve Badurik had always dreamed about opening a butcher shop. With 18 years’ experience working in the business, he says, he knew he had the skills and was starting to scout possible locations when the recession hit. He had just looked at a building that could meet his needs and was driving to work when an interview with Warren Buffet was broadcast on the radio. “This is a true story,” Badurik insists, fully aware of how incredible it sounds. See ENTREPRENEURS, page 10

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13 Made the Old-Fashioned Way At J.L. Treharn & Co., Jon Badescu makes dovetail drawers for ﬁne antique reproduction furniture just as craftmen did 200 years ago. Maraline Kubik takes us to the Youngstown furniture company in her “Made in the Valley” series.

Members of the Beatitude House Green Clean co-op say building their business will allow them to provide ﬁnancial security for themselves and their children. From left are Cindy Schwab, Jody Rizer and Alma Clark, co-op founders; Mary Kohut, career counselor; Maryvel Vera, co-op founder; Kelly Elko, general manager; Bouchra Semlani, co-op founder, and Brenda Cochran, trainer.

Clean-Sweeping Their Way To Financial Independence Underprivileged women build business to support their families. By Maraline Kubik

6, 16 Port Authority Names Director Rose Ann DeLeon is the new executive director of the Western Reserve Port Authority. On Page 6, read how her position was created to boost development. On Page 16, read our editorial that salutes public ofﬁcials for collaborative efforts.

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ot long ago, Tawanda Patterson and Alma Clark were working to earn their GEDs at The Potter’s Wheel, an education and career preparation program that the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown operate for underprivileged women through Beatitude House. Beatitude House provides transitional housing and education programs for homeless and underprivileged women in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Patterson and Clark were both unemployed and determined to build better lives for themselves and their children. Today, they, along with a handful

of women in similar situations, are business owners working to provide ﬁnancial security for their families and a legacy for their children. Beatitude House Green Clean is an employeeowned cleaning service that incorporates environmentally friendly cleaning products and processes. It is one of six social entrepreneurship projects in the region to receive startup funds through the Mahoning Valley Community Wealth Workshop Series, which is funded by the Wean Foundtion and the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley. Sister Patricia McNicholas, executive director of Beatitude House, came up with the idea for establishing a cleaning company that operates as a business cooperative after learning about a similar venture launched by Ursuline Sisters in southern Ohio, explains Mary Kohut, a career counselor at Potter’s Wheel. The eco-friendly aspect of the business is See CLEAN-SWEEPING, page 4

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Clean-Sweeping: On Their Way to Financial Independence From Page 3 based on a green cleaning company in California. Six women, all clients of The Potter’s Wheel, formed the Green Clean business cooperative early this year. They began developing a business plan in January, Kohut says, and started training in July. Their plans are to expand their customer base, thereby creating employment for themselves. Eventually, they’d like to employ other women and invite some of them to become co-owners too. New employees will be interviewed, hired and trained by the co-op owners, who oversee all aspects of the business, Kohut says. Those invited to join the co-op will buy into the company. Funds collected, she says, will most likely be used to ﬁnance expansion. Once Green Clean begins generating a proﬁt, co-op owners will share the proceeds. The women involved in the venture completed their training at the Hampton Inn in Canﬁeld, working one-on-one with hotel cleaning staff. Hampton Inn provided the training free of charge as a service to the community, Kohut explains. All cleaning processes Green Clean team members use are standardized, she notes, so all customers receive the same quality of service and results. The Hearn Paper Co. taught the women how to use the eco-friendly cleaning products Green Clean employs. Members of the cleaning co-op have also completed training in customer service and business ﬁnance and each sits on the company’s board of directors because, Kohut says, eventually they will be solely responsible for business operations. In addition to using eco-friendly products and processes, Green Clean distinguishes itself by providing services at clients’ requests that other cleaning companies don’t, Kohut says – things such as stripping linens from beds and taking down curtains. They’ve also accommodated special requests, such as emptying a closet so an elderly client could sort through what was stored and discard the items she no longer needed. “We want to provide that personal touch. We clean with our hands and our hearts,” Kohut says. “These women have been given an opportunity and they want to give back.” Although they charge for these services, Kohut says clients are grateful. “I’m very optimistic for the future,” says Tawanda Patterson, one of the co-op founders. “I never thought about owning a business but I wanted to work. When I heard about this, I thought it sounded like something for me. I plan to make this my career. I want to manage the business.” Alma Clark, another founding partner, says the ﬁrst thing she thought about when the idea of starting a cleaning co-op was introduced was “money, money, money.” The mother of three teenagers obtained her GED and is pursuing a degree in social work at Youngstown State University, a discipline in which she eventually hopes to work. But, Clark says, she believes that being a business owner will pay off for her in the long run and will allow her to leave her children something of value. “It’s a good opportunity for the ladies in the [Beatitude House] program,” she says. Among Beatitude House Green Clean’s first regular customers is the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Youngstown. “I heard about it on WYSU-FM,” says Jan Grigsby.

Grigsby sits on the board of directors at First Unitarian and says that as soon as she heard the radio report about the co-op she thought it would interest church members. Green Clean’s organization as a business co-op that beneﬁts all of its members and the fact that it uses eco-friendly cleaning practices complements the beliefs and attitudes of church members, Grigsby says. So, shortly after hearing the report and discussing it with fellow board members, she called the cleaning co-operative and asked for an estimate. The bid Green Clean submitted “was very close

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to the lowest bid” received, she says. The church awarded the contract to the cleaning co-op because board members believe the beneﬁts Green Clean provides co-op owners, community and environment greatly outweigh the sum they would have saved had they awarded the contract to the lowest bidder. Green Clean is bonded and insured and was incorporated in Ohio in October. It specializes in general cleaning, move-in and move-out cleaning but will also “deep clean” on request, Kohut says. Prices start and $75 and free estimates are provided for both homes and businesses.

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DECEMBER 2009

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Port Authority Names DeLeon To New Post

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he newest member of the Mahoning Valley’s economic development team expects opportunities to emerge as the economy recovers from the recession, and she says the region needs to be prepared to capitalize on them. Rose Ann DeLeon, newly hired executive director of the Western Reserve Port Authority, says opportunities are “ﬂoating around” and she looks forward to meeting with the area’s economic development specialists “and moving forward with them in a collaborative effort.” DeLeon was named by the port authority’s board of directors to the new post, which is being funded by county and local governments and the Western Reserve Building & Construction Trades Council. She was introduced at a press event Nov. 23. “Today marks the ﬁrst day of our initiative as an economic development entity within the two-county area,” said John Masternick, chairman of the port authority, which operates the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport. DeLeon, who resigned as director of government relations and federal affairs for the ClevelandCuyahoga County Port Authority to accept the post, is responsible for using powers delegated by state law to port authorities for economic development, such as bonding authority and the ability to own property. She will also oversee the foreign trade zone the port authority administers. Many of a port authority’s economic development tools are similar to those of a municipality, DeLeon said. “The difference with a port authority is that’s all they do, the economic development.” DeLeon started her career at the ClevelandCuyahoga authority in 1993, where she was involved with ﬁnancing construction of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and helped develop the authority’s ﬁnancial tools. Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel praised the collaborative effort among Valley communities. Participants in funding the position included Mahoning and Trumbull counties and the cities of Youngstown, Warren and Niles. “What happened here is something that hasn’t happened in the past,” he said. Acknowledging there were times it looked like the effort might not come together, he recalled how Ryan prodded community leaders. “Now we’re going to see the fruits of that,” he said. Walt Good, vice president of economic development, business retention and expansion with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, said the appointment adds “a signiﬁcant tool” to the Mahoning Valley’s tool chest. “Now there’s someone full-time, on staff at the port authority so that when we’ve got a prospect that makes sense for a port authority ﬁnancing structure or ownership structure, there is a professional who can act on behalf of the port to put that piece of the puzzle together.”

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Holiday Sales Sparkle at Gene’s Jewelers Estate jewelry offers less expensive options for buyers staying within a budget. By Jeremy Lydic

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ou don’t expect a jewelry store to offer cameras and electric shavers, so Gene’s Jewelers no longer does, but holiday shoppers will ﬁnd similar items in stock along with ﬁne jewelry at Gene’s in Warren. Gene’s customers can still choose from a selection of wall clocks, hand-painted stemware – even custom designed purses from the Pittsburgh-based Littlearth. Making such items available keeps with the family business of offering something different, says co-owner Patricia Crowley, whose father, Gene Battista, opened the shop 55 years ago on the ﬁrst ﬂoor of the former Park Hotel. The shop moved to its address on North Park Avenue in 1970. Crowley still keeps an enlarged picture of her mother, Alda Lee Battista, on the wall to remind her of the shop she walked to after attending school at St. Mary’s. Quality and affordability are important to Crowley, she says, and while the recession has hurt sales, layaways are double last year’s. Offering price point jewelry items such as Orbis, Kameleon and Viva Beads also gives customers an option they feel they can afford when holiday shopping. “I don’t care what anybody says, people like to give a gift,” Crowley says. “But you don’t want to be choking at the end of the day on what you spent.” Only three stores in Ohio carry the exclusive Texas-based Orbis line that features large and petite interchangeable orbs made of natural materials such as diamonds, onyxes, opals and cat’s-eye. Rings start at $150 and, depending on size and the metal in which they’re set, go up to $6,300. The price of orbs depends on size and material, but they can be used with the rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets the brand offers. A big drawing factor to the Orbis product is its versatility, Crowley says. “People don’t get dressed up anymore,” Crowley observes. “With this, you can spend a little or a lot, and you can wear it every day.”

Thomas K. Crowley, president of Gene’s Jewelers, and gemologist Patricia Crowley, gemologist, pose in front of a picture of Patricia’s mother, Alda Lee Battista, taken when the jewelry store opened in downtown Warren 55 years ago.

In the last 10 years, more customers have shown an interest in a variety of items, Crowley says. That interest has helped generate strong sales for the Orbis line, and the similar but less expensive Kameleon line, she says. Crowley has also noticed a growing interest in estate jewelry. Gene’s started buying gold this year. “I probably buy gold three or four days a week,” she says. When the store buys a piece, it will be cleaned and put on the shelf for resale. For $200 to $500, a customer can buy a piece of estate jewelry that would have cost $750 to $1,600 new, she says. “They know it’s previously owned, but they don’t care,” Crowley says. “They have $700 to spend, not

$1,500.” Repairs have also helped to increase foot trafﬁc, says co-owner Thomas Crowley. Four years ago the shop bought a laser welder that allows Crowley to make repairs faster and more precisely than with a traditional welder, he says. Gene’s used to send out most of its repair work, but now can perform 90% of all jewelry repairs, including eyeglasses. Since buying the welder, the volume of repair work has increased 8%, he says. “Everything about it is more efﬁcient,” Thomas Crowley says. “We generally schedule repairs for seven days, but I’ve been getting them done within a day or two.”

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Greek Immigrant Keeps Isaly’s Name Alive Isaly’s restaurant was the ﬁrst place he ate after arriving in Youngstown in 1976. By Dan O’Brien

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he name Isaly’s – a name ingrained in the memory of the Mahoning Valley’s 45-andolder crowd – verged on extinction here 10 years ago and it seemed likely the area would lose forever an iconic link to its commercial past. Today, not only does the Isaly’s name survive – it’s expanding. “Isaly’s was the ﬁrst place I used to eat when I arrived here,” says Nick Grillis, who left his family’s commercial ﬁshing business in Greece in 1976 for the United States. After establishing a painting company from which he’s retired, he and his wife, Sahara, purchased the former Isaly’s restaurant at 3309 South Ave., since renamed Isaly’s Busy Bee. Recently, the couple opened a second Isaly’s breakfast and lunch restaurant – Isaly’s Busy Bee II – at 6922 McCartney Road in Coitsville Township. “I’ve always loved the food,” he says, “and we wanted to keep the Isaly’s name alive.” Grillis says his two restaurants are among the last of a dying breed – the Isaly’s restaurant and lunch counter. The corporate name lives on as Isaly’s Inc. as it continues to package and distribute its celebrated chipped-chop ham to grocery stores throughout the country. But the nostalgia the Isaly name left in the Mahoning Valley was slowly fading as the economy continued to deteriorate in the inner city and more residents moved to the suburbs. Isaly’s was founded in Mansﬁeld, Ohio, during the early 20th century. Founder William Isaly went on to expand to Marion and Youngstown, creating a family-operated franchise that dominated eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. One of the early restaurants in Youngstown was the storefront on South Avenue. The original Isaly’s signage is still visible inside the restaurant along with vintage photographs of the old shop. “We still have some of the older customers coming in who remember the original restaurant,” says Sahara Grillis. “We still use the original recipe for home fries

Christeen Partika, ﬁscal ofﬁcer for Coitsville Township, Phyllis Johnson, Coitsville Township trustee, and Nick Grillis, owner of Isaly’s Busy Bee II Restaurant, cut the ribbon marking the establishment’s grand opening.

and soup; everything is made from scratch.” During the 1930s, Isaly’s constructed what was then an eye-popping dairy processing complex on Mahoning Avenue, considered a landmark example of Art Deco architecture. Today, a U-Haul franchise occupies that structure. “A lot of people thought we’d gone out of business, too,” Sahara Grillis says. “But we’re still here and folks love us around the neighborhood.” About eight years ago, Nick Grillis recalls, a member of the Isaly family entered the small restaurant on South Avenue just to thank the owners for keeping the Isaly name. “She was extremely grateful,” he recalls.

The new site in Coitsville opened Sept. 3, and Grillis describes the reception over the last three months as exceptional. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he says. Aside from serving the traditional Isaly’s fare for breakfast and lunch, he’s also thrown in a touch of the old country by serving gyros. He stresses the South Avenue store is still going strong, despite the recession. “Everyone knows us there, and we’d never want to close it,” he says. The Coitsville store employs ﬁve while the South Avenue restaurant employs seven. Just a handful of restaurants with the Isaly name still exist, none of them owned by Isaly family members, Grillis says. “It’s a part of history here,” Grillis remarks.

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Entrepreneurs: Finding Opportunity

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the onset of the recession or, more speciﬁcally, the loss of a major account – the result of downsizing at the client’s organzation – forced the Web site design, Web hosting, computer sales and repair business to open a retail location, says Gordon Gibson, one of the founding partners. Gibson and his partners – Terry Bolds, Frank Singletary and Ron Thompson – all members of Rising Start Baptist Church, started Ambassador Technologies as a “virtual business” with no designated work space in 1999. They’d been setting up and repairing computers for friends for years and decided to start a formal business as demand for their services grew. “People kept coming back to us and we thought ‘Maybe there’s a market here,’ ” Gibson recalls. The partners worked out of their homes, securing ofﬁce space inside a preschool after landing a contract to maintain all of the computers in a local charter school. That contract required Ambassador to maintain some 500 computers and seven servers and provided the bulk of the company’s work. When the school downsized and canceled Ambassador’s services, the partners had no choice but to go after what Gibson calls “walk-in business.” Until then, customers were all referred to Ambassador Technologies through word-of-mouth. The entrepreneurs opened a walkin retail location in a plaza along Belmont Avenue in Liberty in June 2008. CONTINUES NEXT PAGE

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From Page 1 The interviewer asked Buffett the best thing to invest in during a recession, Badurik recalls. “He said, ‘Invest in yourself. If you’re a good meat cutter, open a butcher shop.’ ” That bit of wisdom delivered by a billionaire investor via the radio nudged Badurik to take the plunge. “It had always been my dream, and Warren Buffett told me to do it,” he chuckles. And so, he opened Badurik’s Butcher Block in Mineral Ridge Feb. 2, hiring three workers who’d been laid off, one from a deli and two from the butcher shop where Badurik had worked. When it came to finding experienced workers, the recession helped his new business, he says. Since opening his store, Badurik has served a lot of repeat customers and every week the butcher sees new faces, “but in business you take steps forward and you take steps back,” he says. During the summer his butcher shop had a steady stream of customers, but it slowed significantly in September and October. That slowdown wasn’t unexpected, Badurik says. The summer months are always busier because people are grilling outdoors. With the holidays, Badurik says he expects demand for home-smoked ham and keilbasa, fresh turkeys, prime rib and capons to boost sales at his shop. Once the economy rebounds, Badurik says he expects business to grow substantially. At Ambassador Technologies Inc.,

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Gordon Gibson says his company, Ambassador Technologies Inc., decided to open a retail location when its largest customer down-sized and canceled its contract.

The Business Journal

“It’s been tough. We’ve just been going week to week,” Gibson says. Business has picked up a bit since Walmart opened, he notes. Gibson, the only one of the partners involved in day-to-day operations of the company – two of his partners are ministers and the other lives in Akron – says the downturn in business neccessitates that he work differently. “I’m more of a salesman now,” he says, calling on potential customers a couple days each week. Before opening the storefront, he says, he focused more on Web site and graphic design projects. In addition to selling and servicing computers and designing and hosting Web sites, Ambassador also provides graphic design and printing services, supplying local businesses such as Charlie Staples Bar-B-Q and Galaxy Seafood with menus and other printed products. Jeff Kolesar, a full-time jeweler and part-time barber who’d worked for a prominent jewelry store in Columbiana nearly 14 years, says he knows a good opportunity when he sees it. He started preparing to open his own jewelry store “seven or eight years ago” and when the store next to his barbershop, Rossetti Hair Co., in Canﬁeld closed, the opportunity couldn’t have been better. Kolesar leased the space and spent nine months renovating it before opening this autumn. Although he admits “this is one of the more difﬁcult times to go into the jewelry business,” it may be the only opportunity he’d have to own and operate two businesses side by side. Being in the hair business, he adds, “is a good bridge” to the jewelry business because he can easily refer customers in the barbershop to the jewelry store when they’re looking for special gifts. Christine Mitchell recently launched her business, Pawsh Pets Grooming Salon, when a similar opportunity presented itself. She’d been out of work for almost a year – the pet grooming company where she had worked didn’t have enough business to merit her driving from Struthers to Canﬁeld every day – when an Ebay store near her home closed and the space was put up for rent. “I always wanted to own my own business,” Mitchell says, so she signed the lease and opened in May. Since then, business has been better than what she’d expected. “I don’t think the pet industry was hurt as bad by the recession as other businesses,” Mitchell explains, “because people see their animals as children. If they were taking care

DECEMBER 2009

of them before, they still take care of them even if they don’t have the money they used to.” The only difference, she says, is that they may not have their pets groomed as often. Mike Baluck, a steel-mill worker turned painter, is still working to ofﬁcially launch Mike’s Decorative Effects, a painting and wallpapering business. Baluck decided to go into business for himself after losing his job in 2002. “I’ve been pretty much unemployed since then,” he laments. He’d always done painting and wallpapering “on the side,” Baluck says, and he decided to pursue that full-time “because that was my best option. No one is hiring. So, I’m kind of reinventing myself.” He’s taken several workshops to learn techniques for creating decorative ﬁnishes on walls and woodwork and is working on a brochure to promote his services. “I’d like to connect with architects and designers because the kind of work I’m doing is a little bit more high-end and that’s where my bread and butter would be,” Baluck explains. Although he’s provided estimates for a handful of prospective customers, Baluck says, “People are holding on to their money. I’ve heard people are putting their money into their homes but I don’t buy it. Most people are holding on to it and the ones with money to spend are getting caught up in a frenzy of bargain hunting.” Starting a business to create employment opportunities for oneself is not the best reason to go into business, counsels Bill Oliver, a business consultant at the Ohio Small Business Development Center at Youngstown State University. “They aren’t motivated for the right reason and we try to discourage them,” he says. While the number of people attending business startup workshops sponsored by the business development center has remained constant – 15 or 20 each month – Oliver says he has noticed a larger percentage of those are considering entrepreneurship because they can’t find work elsewhere. However, he notes, “Very few people are starting businesses now if they need money because the banks aren’t lending.” The few that have started have been self-ﬁnanced, Oliver says, and most have been “very small oneor two-person operations run out of their homes.” As examples he cites an insurance agent and a manufacturer’s representative. A couple of convenience stores opened by clients of the center were also self-financed, but they would have opened recession or not, Oliver says.

11

Jeff Kolesar held the grand opening for his jewelery store, JK Jewelers, in Canﬁeld, in November.

Mike Baluck is learning the trade, hoping to launch a painting and wallpapering business.

Christine Mitchell opened her Pawsh Pets Grooming Salon six months ago in Struthers.

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

First Place Bank introduces SBA Lender as part of $10 million stimulus program for local small businesses The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Recovery Act has made improvements to its 7(A) program, including eliminating fees and providing a 90 percent bank guarantee.

John Yurchison SBA Lender Vice President First Place Bank

Call today at 330-726-3623 or 1-800-997-9856 or e-mail John at [email protected]

Since SBA program details are often complicated for business owners to navigate, First Place Bank has appointed John Yurchison as our SBA banker. With over 25 years’ banking experience and 7 years specializing in SBA lending, John has the expertise to help local small businesses take advantage of new national SBA initiatives on 7(A) loans. First Place is dedicating $10 million to assist local thriving small businesses through the SBA Recovery Act. We’re proud to introduce John as the small business community’s advocate in boosting the local economy.

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www.ﬁrstplacebank.com Member FDIC

Business Journal publisher Andrea Wood, second row, far right, is among 11 women entrepreneurs to receive 2009 Ohio Keys to Success awards. Wood won the Social Entrepreneur Award. Other winners are, from left ﬁrst row: Averile Lehman, Ann Kersten, Mariann Davids, Michelle Greenﬁeld, Kristen Harris and Tari Rivera. From left, second row: Cindy Wilson, Carla Eng, Catherine LangCline, Nicole A. Eaton and Wood. Collectively, these women founded and operate eight Ohio-based businesses. Awards were presented during a ceremony in Columbus Nov. 19.

Andrea Wood Receives ‘Keys to Success’ Award

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eath of steel. Death of steel. And more death of steel. ... This was Youngstown’s story – or so we were told over and over again,” recalled Business Journal Publisher Andrea Wood, revisiting the doom-and-gloom stories that captured headlines in the mid 1980s and inspired her to found a publication that focuses on positive business news and celebrates small business, entrepreneurship and ingenuity. “We said, ‘Enough. Let’s change the subject.’ And so we did,” she said. Wood described the events that fueled her passion to report and celebrate positive business news in the Mahoning Valley and found The Youngstown Business Journal during the Ohio Keys to Success Awards ceremony in Columbus Nov. 19. She was among 11 women entrepreneurs who collectively founded eight businesses in Ohio that were honored. The Business Journal publisher and president of The Youngstown Publishing Co. was honored in the Social Entrepreneur category. “We made it our mission to focus on positive business news, to look at industry sectors, to celebrate small business, ingenuity, the unsung companies creating jobs one at a time,” Wood told those gathered in the theater of the Vern Riffe Center. “Along the way, we made every mistake nearly every undercapital-

ized startup makes, and we gave birth to The Business Journal family, the people who are the real reason I’m standing here today,” Wood said. The annual Ohio Keys to Success awards recognize the accomplishments of Ohio’s most successful women business owners and their contributions to local, state and national economies. The program is sponsored by the Ohio Department of Development’s Division of Entrepreneurship and Small Business and the Ohio Small Business Development Centers. The other 2009 Keys to Success Award winners are: • Averile Lehman and Cindy Wilson, founders of Ofﬁce Partners, Wholesale/Retail Award; • Tari Rivera, founder of Regency Construction Services, Real Estate/ Construction Award; • Michelle Greenﬁeld, co-owner of Third Sun Solar & Wind Power, Manufacturing/Technlogy Award; • Carla Eng, founder of Abstract Displays, Marketing/Advertising/PR Award; • Kristen Harris and Catherine Lang-Cline, co-owners of Portfolio Creative, Rising Star Award; • Ann Kersten and Mariann Davids, founders of The Giving Tree, Healthcare/Medical Award; • Nicole A. Eaton, owner of Animal Hospital of Polaris, Service Award.

The Business Journal

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DECEMBER 2009

Not Resting on Their Father’s Laurels J.L. Treharn & Co. uses 200-year-old manufacturing processes to make furniture. By Maraline Kubik

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carpenter by trade, Jerry Treharn decided to abandon the construction business and pursue his passion for ﬁne woodworking in the mid-1980s. At the suggestion of Austintown antiques dealer Jack Rees, Treharn focused on making reproduction antique furniture by using many of the same tools and processes craftsmen employed 200 years ago. Today Treharn is retired and his children oversee the furniture-making operations in his workshop, housed on the lower level of the old Ward Bakery building in downtown Youngstown, and his furniture is sold in more than 100 specialty stores throughout the United States. “My dad recognized the quality and talent in Jerry’s work immediately,” says Evan Rees, owner of Meander Hill Antiques & Gifts in Austintown. About ﬁve years ago, Rees assumed ownership of Meander Hill, the business his father founded in 1965. “According to the story I’ve heard,” Rees continues, “Jerry came in trying to sell some of the items he made – I think it was a coat rack and a mirror. Him and my dad hit it off and became friends, and my dad took him to [antiques] shows and loaned him magazines so he could learn about antique furniture.” At the time, it was becoming increasingly difﬁcult to ﬁnd quality antique furniture and prices were skyrocketing, Rees says. So, his dad began phasing out antiques and started carrying reproductions of the Early American furniture prevalent throughout New England in the 1700s. Meander Hill became one of the ﬁrst retailers to sell J.L. Treharn & Co.’s furniture, Rees reports, and remains the only local dealer. J.L. Treharn is the No. 1 selling furniture line in the store, Rees says, and has made his store a destination for shoppers from as far as Georgia. “People love it,” he says. “Early American furniture has a following and you can’t ﬁnd it everywhere.” So,

almost twice the price of a similar piece – a true antique – sold at the same auction. Because J.L. Treharn furniture is of such good quality – craftsmen use only solid tiger maple or cherry as the primary wood, employing dovetail construction and using the same processes and handtools used in the 18th century – it appreciates in value, Sherry Treharn explains. Tiger maple is a very rare wood, the tiger striping pattern appearing in only one of every 10,000 maple trees, she reports. It is highly prized for furniture making and very difﬁcult to ﬁnd. Luckily, she continues, J.L. Treharn & Co. has developed relationships with enough suppliers over the years that they weed out tiger maple from their stocks of lumber and save it for the furniture maker. Adhering to her father’s commitment to make authentic reproduction furniture as true to the orginals as possible, J.L. Treharn uses poplar as its secondary wood. Secondary wood is used for furniture �� components that aren’t visible, such as the backs of drawers, Sherry Treharn explains. Because poplar is proliﬁc and readily available in northeastern Ohio, Treharn & Co. uses it as a secondary wood just like early furniture makers in this region would have. “If we were in New England we would use pine as the secondary wood,” Sherry Treharn notes. Treharn & Co.’s craftsmen contribute to the authenticity of the pieces too, using hand planes to ﬁnish the fronts of cabinets to recreate “the feel” of true antiques, she explains. “It’s very, very labor intensive, but it gives you that hand-done look.” Each of the furnituremaker’s employees has a specialty. “We have a drawer man and a door man,” Sherry Treharn continues, and everything is made to order. Finishes used “are uniquely our own,” she says, and are designed “to bring out the grain in the See NOT RESTING, page 14

�

Jerry Treharn, seated, left his job as a carpenter to pursue his love of ﬁne woodworking in the mid-1980s. His son, Mike, and daughter, Sherry, standing, oversee day-to-day operations.

many collectors will travel great distances to ﬁnd what they’re looking for and, because J.L. Treharn & Co.’s furniture is what Rees refers to as “heirloom quality,” he says they know it will be something they can pass on to their children. Holding up a newspaper clipping reporting the highest-priced items sold last fall at an auction in New England, Sherry Treharn, Jerry Treharn’s daughter and company president, says she was surprised to learn that one of the early pieces her father had made – a Queen Anne highboy – sold for $8,225, more than four times the price it sold for new and

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Not Resting: On Their Father’s Laurels From Page 13

Jamie Reese uses handtools to ﬁnish a cabinet door much like furniture makers would have in the 1700s.

wood.” Chairs and decorative embellishments are carved and sanded by hand. Windsor chairs, Sherry Treharn elaborates, always include three different woods – bent oak or ash, maple or poplar for the seats and a hardwood such as maple for the turnings. They, too, are assembled just as they were hundreds of years ago, with craftsmen carefully bending wood to form the backs and armrests, and threading turnings through openings in the seat. Retail prices for J.L. Treharn furniture range from about $200 for small tables and candle stands to $25,000 for a bonnet top secretary patterned after those made in the 1760s, complete with secret compartments hidden behind tiny drawers. An impressive tiger maple dining table waiting to be shipped to a customer retails for between $5,000 and $7,000, Sherry Treharn reports. The chairs that go with it – matching Chippendale-style armchairs – cost about $2,000 each. The side chairs cost $1,000 each.

Made in the Valley at J.L. Treharn & Co. Products: Reproduction furniture Founder: Jerry Treharn Year Founded: 1986 Headquar ters/Manufacturing: Youngstown, Ohio Number of Employees: 16 Available: Meander Hill Antiques & Gifts in Austintown, Pine Tree Barn in Wooster and other select retailers throughout the country. Source: J.L. Treeharn & Co.

In its ﬁrst full year of operations, J.L. Treharn did about $80,000 in business, Sherry Treharn reports. Demand grew exponentially after that, peaking about ﬁve years ago with more than $2 million in annual sales. Since then, she says, sales have trailed off, largely the result of a sluggish economy and consumers’ hesitation to make discretionary purchases. “This summer,” she says, “was the ﬁrst time ever we’ve had to lay people off due to a work shortage.” Nevertheless, she says there is still demand for quality reproduction furniture, especially in New

England, where 80% of Treharn’s furniture is sold. Most retailers who carry the brand are “high-end boutiques and gallery stores,” she adds. J.L. Treharn & Co. uses all American-made products to make its furniture, Ohio-made products if possible, Sherry Treharn says. The company is also planning to launch a new line, Treharn Today, designed to appeal to younger consumers who want well-made home furnishings “that don’t look like Grandma’s furniture,” Sherry Treharn says. J.L. Treharn & Co. furniture is available through select retailers. Special orders are accepted.

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*Rate accurate as of November 2, 2009 and is guaranteed for at least 90 days from the date of account opening then may change at any time as the Huntington Business Premier Money Market Account (HBPMMA) is a variable rate account. 1.65% rate applies to balances between $20,000.00 and $2,000,000.99; different rates apply to different balance tiers. Rates in the tiers that do not earn 1.65% are also variable and subject to change without notice even prior to the ﬁrst 90 days. Initial minimum opening deposit required is $20,000.00 and must be new money to Huntington. Rates apply to accounts opened October 12, 2009 or later. When your balance falls into a particular rate tier, your entire balance will earn the applicable rate in effect for that tier, i.e., if your balance reaches $2,000,001.00 or more, your entire balance will earn that lower rate. Offer available one per customer. Public Fund/Government Banking dollars and brokers are not eligible. CHECKING ACCOUNT REQUIREMENT & CONDITIONS: Customer must also have, or open, a business checking account with a $3,000.00 balance which must be titled in the same name(s) as the HBPMMA. Depending on your type of checking account, it may or may not be interest-bearing which will impact the overall return of your total funds on deposit. If checking account is not maintained, your HBPMMA will not be eligible for the 1.65% rate for any rate tiers and you will earn lower rates in all respective rate tiers. APPLICABLE TO BOTH HBPMMA AND CHECKING ACCOUNTS: Fees may reduce earnings on the account. An Early Account Closing fee will apply to accounts closed within 180 days of opening. We reserve the right to limit acceptance of deposits greater than $25,000,000.00. Not valid with any other offer. FDIC insured up to applicable limits.Member FDIC. �®, Huntington® and A bank invested in people.® are federally registered service marks of Huntington Bancshares Incorporated. ©2009 Huntington Bancshares incorporated.

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DECEMBER 2009

The Valley’s Business

The Business Journal

Matters

25 East Boardman Street, Suite 306 P.O. Box 714, Youngstown, Ohio 44501-0714 Telephone 330 744 5023 Fax 330 744 5838 • 330 744 0634 Email: [email protected] Web site: BusinessJournalDaily.com Publisher Andrea Wood Assistant Publisher Eileen Lovell Copy Editor Dennis LaRue Page Editor Maraline Kubik Daily Buzz Anchor Stacia Erdos Videographers Jeremy Lydic Tony Marr Mike Moliterno Senior Reporters Dan O’Brien George Nelson Jeremy Lydic Columnists

Monnie Ryan Lou Zona

Photographer Tony Mancino Rate Comparisons Cara J. McClure Sales Manager Janet O’Malley Account Executives Gail S. White Dan Gonder Art Director/ Fred Sipe Webmaster

T he Business Journal is published semimonthly (twice a month) in Youngstown, Ohio. Copyright 2009 by Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use, without written permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited. Average Issue Readership: 45,000 Mail Subscription Rates: $42 for 12 months; $77 for 24 months; $96 for 36 months. Back Issues: If available, $4.75 apiece prepaid (mailed); $3.25 apiece prepaid (picked up at our ofﬁce). Submission Policy: News articles and photographs may be submitted but cannot be returned. We reserve the right to select and edit all articles and letters. All submissions become the editorial property of The Business Journal. Submissions may be edited and may be published or re-used in any medium including Business Journal television and radio reports and the Daily Business Journal Online.

Locally owned by the Youngstown Publishing Co.

Journal Opinion

Credit Where Credit Is Due Over the years, many, many Mahoning Valley ofﬁceholders have come under ﬁre in this space for their reluctance to embrace a regional approach in addressing issues this region faces. So we are more than happy to salute the step taken by Mahoning and Trumbull county governments, the cities of Youngstown, Warren and Niles, and the Western Reserve Building & Construction Trades Council. At a news conference Nov. 23 in Niles, the Western Reserve Port Authority formally announced the hiring of Rose Ann DeLeon as its new executive director. In the newly created position, DeLeon will use the unique tools afforded port authorities under Ohio law – such as the ability to issue tax-free bonds and the foreign trade zone at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport – to help put together packages that attract new businesses to the area and the companies already here fund their expansions. For the past 16 years, DeLeon has worked at the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority where she played a key role in shaping its development programs. She was chosen following a search by a nationally recognized executive placement company to ﬁnd qualiﬁed candidates instead of simply looking for an available candidate within the community. Such an approach – one where the candidates’ political connections likely would have weight equal to (or greater than) any qualiﬁcations they might have – would have reduced the post to a patronage job. That’s an example of the tired thinking that has held this Valley back so long.

This position came about only because Mahoning Valley leaders – and they deserve to be described as such – made the ﬁnancial sacriﬁces necessary to fund the position for the next three years. As U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan put it, the communities have chosen not to ﬁght over crumbs but to instead “try to grow the pie so that everybody can have a bigger piece.” DeLeon herself remarked that the regional cooperation she has seen taking place here is one factor that sparked her interest in the position. Not too long ago, the kind of cooperation that led to the creation of this position would have been all but inconceivable for parochially minded politicians more interested in protecting their turf – unmindful of the diminishing value of their ﬁefs. Just getting them to work together is one thing; convincing them to spend money to fund this position – a choice not easy to make given the crunch governments face – is nothing short of extraordinary. Ryan, who began spearheading this effort more than two years ago, deserves considerable credit for making this is a reality. It’s hard to imagine any other elected ofﬁcial in the recent past who could have marshaled – not threatened or coerced – the necessary support and commitment from Valley governments. Ideally, this type of cooperation – and the success we hope will result – will become the norm in the Mahoning Valley, and the weeks-long imbroglio that threatened to doom its bid for V&M Star Steel’s proposed expansion – an increasingly rare exception.

The Business Journal

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DECEMBER 2009

BY LOUIS A. ZONA

Impressions

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Ads that Live in Memory ‘Where’s the beef?’ over stupid jingles.

that year in a debate asking the same question about his platform. The question caught on among candidates of both parties as they used the line arlier this year, advertising to accuse their opponents of having executives determined the most no substance. effective advertising slogan of Sales of Wendy’s old-fashioned all time. The winner is, drum roll hamburgers shot up 31% but Mondale please, “Diamonds Are Forever.” lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide Who am I to argue with the people that November. who should know When I was t h e i r b u s i n e s s ‘Splash, splash, ﬁzz, ﬁzz, oh, in grade school, best? My choice, Rege Cordic hostwhat a relief it is.’ however, would be ed a very popuentirely different. lar morning radio I have a small number of slogans I show on KDKA in Pittsburgh. Cordic think more deserving. (I’m sure you loved to write slogans for products do, too.) both real and those he created in For example, the Wendy’s comhis imagination. My favorite was, mercial that first aired in January “Make life great – with monosodium 1984, in which an elderly customer, glutamate.” Then he’d pitch a beer played by 81-year-old Claire Peller, called “Old Frothingslosh.” Its tagline saw a friend open her burger at Home was, “It’s the pale stale ale with the of the Big Bun and asked three times, foam on the bottom.” “Where’s the beef?” That one just Speaking of often-quoted taglines, might be my favorite. sales of Alka-Seltzer spiked when it It was so popular that former Vice put a man in a TV ad moaning, “I can’t President Walter Mondale, seekbelieve I ate the whole thing!” That’s ing the Democratic nomination for always a favorite at Thanksgiving president, zinged Sen. Gary Hart later See ZONA, page 18

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BY ANDREA WOOD

Commentary Catch Our Daily Buzz

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hen we set out on our journey a quarter century ago, we had no idea the itinerary would, with a twist, lead back to television. At the time, 1984, our mission was to resist the incessant coverage elsewhere of the death of steel. Years after we reported how mini-mills took the steel industry’s most proﬁtable products – but not its antiquated, high-cost manufacturing and labor structures – we ﬁnd ourselves becoming a journalistic mini-mill. The analogy relates to the debut Nov. 16 of the BusinessJournalDaily Buzz, our newscast we post at BusinessJournalDaily.com about the time you return from lunch. In the last few months we built a

mini-television studio, bought video cameras and editing stations, and hired and trained staff managed by veteran TV anchor and producer Stacia Erdos. Now we’re “webcasting” a news program – all without having to invest tens of millions of dollars to build and equip our own TV station and pay staff to transmit broadcast signals over the air. It’s our version of the mini-mill and it comes as the newspaper and broadcasting industries suffer big drops in ad revenues, circulation and local news audiences – and we employ cost-efﬁcient technology to better serve our business-to-business target market. And so, as we near the end of our 25th anniversary year, we, too, ﬁnd See WOOD, page 18

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Zona: Advertisements that Live in Memory From Page 17 as is Speedy Alka-Seltzer singing, “Splash, splash, ﬁzz, ﬁzz, oh, what a relief it is.” The cola wars have produced memorable slogans including, “Coke. It’s the real thing” and “The Pepsi Generation.” In the 1950s, Coke ruled the roost. So Pepsi fought back with lower prices and a bigger bottle. I loved Pepsi’s jingle, “Pepsi Cola hits the spot. Twelve full ounces, that’s a lot!” Hard to believe in this age of Big Gulps that the Cokes served our soldiers during World War II came in 6-ounce bottles. Over the years, television ads have made memorable the faces, if not names, of character actors. Mr. Whipple, played by Dick Wilson, reminded customers, “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” Rosie the waitress, played by Nancy Walker, demonstrated in a diner that Bounty paper towels are the “quicker picker-upper.” Before that, each week Dinah Shore sang, “See the USA in your Chevrolet. America’s the greatest land of all.” Miller Lite got a lot of mileage out of retired professional football players and coaches shouting that beer as “Less ﬁlling,” while retired Major League Baseball players shouted back, “Tastes great.” My all-time, least-favorite slogan was produced for Wrigley’s Doublemint gum and sung by twin girls, “Double your pleasure, double your fun, with Doublemint, Doublemint, Doublemint gum.” Ugh! Those Mad men on Madison Avenue back in the ’50s must have laughed as they slapped each other on the back and told themselves, “This one is so stupid that it will be remembered forever.” Unfortunately, I still remember it. When I was a boy, my mother liked to buy me Buster Brown shoes. I wonder how many people are old enough

to remember its song, “I’m Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. That’s my dog, Tige, look for him in there, too.” A friend who grew up in Chicago remembers the Red Goose Shoes slogan, “Half the fun of having feet is Red Goose Shoes.” Also from my boyhood came the famous Ivory soap taglines that “It’s 99 and 44/100% pure” – whatever that meant – and “It ﬂoats.” Back then more people took baths in tubs than showered, so I guess the ﬂoating thing must have been a clinching reason to buy Ivory. And everybody who watched early television remembers the men’s hair grease, “Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do you.” Back then, we didn’t think of it as “that greasy kid stuff” as Vitalis sneeringly described it by having a veteran athlete ask a rookie, “You still using that greasy kid stuff?” When former First Lady Laura Bush riffed on the Las Vegas slogan, “What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas,” that showed what a great line it was. And I liked it when former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo sang, “I love New York.” State tourism departments have spent a lot of money to develop slogans on why visitors should visit their states. The classiest has to be “Illinois, Land of Lincoln.” Ohio’s isn’t bad: “Ohio, the Heart of It All.” Then there’s “West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful,” which has a certain energy. “Virginia Is for Lovers” has a certain appeal – it’s been much copied – but “You have a friend in Pennsylvania” was wasted money. As a Pennsylvanian, I think “Pennsylvania, land of taxes” would be more appropriate. While I’ve always liked Morton Salt’s “When it rains, it pours” and Sherwin-Williams Paints’ “Cover the Earth,” the former Eastern Airlines, “The Wings of Man” was a stroke of advertising genius, much better than

United Airlines’ “Fly the Friendly Skies of United.” But of all the advertising slogans ever created, my sentimental favorite is Burma Shave. For those old enough to remember this country before President Eisenhower began linking this country with the interstate superhighways, Burma Shave promoted its shaving soap in verse on ﬁve red-andwhite signs spaced along rural roads every eighth of a mile or so and all ended with “Burma Shave.” Families on a leisurely Sunday afternoon drives loved to guess what the next sign would say. The one that I still chuckle about went: To kiss a mug That’s like a cactus Takes more nerve

Than it does practice. Burma Shave. Ray Johnson at the Butler Institute of American Art remembers, Doesn’t kiss you Like she useter Perhaps she’s seen A smoother rooster. Burma Shave. Between cell phone calls, texting, Game Boys, DVDs and iPods, neither the driver nor his passengers pay attention to what’s going on outside the car anymore. So here goes: Diamonds are forever The ad men say But “Where’s the beef?” is stellar And here to stay. Burma Shave.

Wood: Catch Our Daily Buzz From Page 17 ourselves in the midst of a restructuring – not through Chapter 11, downsizing or moving jobs offshore, but by adding new products for readers, viewers and advertisers. Did I mention we’re having fun? For me, it’s a return to my roots in broadcasting as a cub reporter at WYTV, then anchor and executive producer. One more personal aside: Stacia anchored the news longer than any woman at WYTV (nine years). Our quandary is how to distinguish four separate news products and convey to readers and viewers that they need to read and watch all four to be fully informed about business news in our region. BusinessJournalDaily.com is different from our print edition, which publishes in-depth “enterprise” stories we initiate based on information gleaned from our sources, angles determined by particular industry themes and perspective pieces that go well beyond sound bites.

Our daily edition is online coverage of breaking business news, three headlines from which are sent to e-mail subscribers shortly before 8 a.m. every business day (our third product). The BusinessJournalDaily Buzz is our newscast, the fourth product and the one we launched Nov. 16. It’s an updated video summary of local, regional and national business news posted online and sent to e-mail subscribers to watch when they return from lunch. We hope you’ll read both our print and daily online editions and watch our newscasts. Our goal is to present comprehensive coverage of business news in convenient formats without redundant content. Thank you for helping us grow, diversify, innovate and continue to tell your business community’s many positive stories. The author, Andrea Wood, is president of the Youngstown Publishing Co. and publisher of The Business Journal and BusinessJournalDaily.com.

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19

DECEMBER 2009

YOUNGSTOWN - WARREN

Regional Chamber Report

Events Are More than Wienies and Martinis By Kim Gonda Regional Chamber Vice President of Marketing & Business Services Many years ago, the Regional Chamber was accused of being all about “wienies and martinis” by some people who, perhaps, didn’t have a clear understanding of what this organization does. I wasn’t an employee of the chamber at that time, but I suppose that phrase was in reference to our business-after-hours events, which were social in nature. I chuckle when I hear those words, because if you read these columns or watch or read the news regularly, you know the Regional Chamber for years has been – and continues to be – at the forefront of economic development in our Valley. But getting back to this “wienies and martinis” thing from a program standpoint, if I may. Hosting more than 100 programs each year, the chamber offers a variety of events, all of which are opportunities for our members to learn about everything from safety, human resources and marketing matters to what’s going on in our communities, our economy, schools and much more. The after-hours events that we held just this year alone offered more than just appetizers and cocktails. They showcased some of the Valley’s gems and hundreds of thousands of dollars of upgrades and renovations made by companies that are dedicated to the Youngstown-Warren area – investments in our community and overall contributions to improving our economy. Our after-hours events are designed for guests to network, of course. But the locations for these events also show off our members’ facilities and services, increasing their exposure to the business community (hundreds typically attend these events): • We were all curious about the Re-

alty Tower in downtown Youngstown when we heard the Frangos Group was renovating the entire building for apartments. This summer, we held an event for the public to wander through and marvel at these beautiful new residences (truly a ﬁrst for the city). • Ed Muransky renovated the former Fonderlac Country Club in Poland, and when we started talking about hosting an event at his new Lake Club, we were simply wowed by all aspects of the facility, from the great food and spacious locker rooms, to the gorgeous furniture and breathtaking view from the ﬂoor-to-ceiling windows and balcony of the second-story banquet room. In August, our members were able to share the awe of the Lake Club at our after-hours event. • Just last week, we held an afterhours event at the Holiday Inn-Boardman, which has repeatedly received the chain’s most prestigious award for being one of the best hotels under the brand. The hotel recently renovated guest rooms, lighting, signage and its conference center that many people use for business and social meetings. Renovations like these let people know that even businesses that have been around for decades continue to invest, reinvent and grow. On Dec. 9, we will have our most festive after-hours of the year at the 90-year-old, world-renowned Butler Institute of American Art. There’s always a new exhibit to see at the Butler, and if you haven’t been there since your third-grade field trip, there’s no better time to return. Celebrate the merriment of the holidays, enjoy an elegant spread (no “wienies and martinis” here) by Antone’s and after taking a look around at this jewel of a facility, remember why we’re all fortunate to call our Valley home. **Special note to Regional Chamber members: If you wish to showcase your facilities or services and can host a few hundred people at your location, give us a call; we’d love to consider hosting an after-hours event with you at a future date.

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DECEMBER 2009

November 25, 2009

The Business Journal

Interest Rates CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT PASSBOOK

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

real estate auction Nominal Opening Bid: $25,000 HERMITAGE, PA • 1680 N Hermitage Rd A 81,980+/- sf (1.88+/- ac) parcel located in a growing commercial corridor. The land is situated at a signalized intersection, with frontage and access to two well traveled thoroughfares. Inspections: Please view at your convenience during daylight hours. Sells: 5pm, Tue, Dec 8th

williamsauction.com/riteaid

TERM

ANNUAL PERCENTAGE YIELD, 2-Week Trend

STATEMENT SAVINGS APY*

CF BANK (formerly Central Federal S&L) Wellsville

1 Year 24 Mos.

1.50  1.75 

.10/ N.A.

CHARTER ONE BANK

12 Mos. 5 Year

.40 — 2.50 

N.A./ .05

CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK Salem

12 Mos. 4 Year

.60 — 2.50 —

.10/ .18

CORTLAND BANKS Cortland

1 Year 5 Year

.75 — 2.50 —

.50/ .25

E.S.B. BANK Ellwood City, Pa.

1 Year 4 Year

.90 — 2.25 —

.30/ .30

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK Canﬁeld

1 Year 4 Year

.85 — 1.90 —

.10/ .25

FIRST MERIT BANK New Castle, Pa.

1 Year 2 Year

.45 — 1.00 —

N.A./ .05

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA. Hermitage, Pa.

1 Year 5 Year

.50 — 2.25 —

N.A./ .10

1ST NATIONAL COMMUNITY BANK East Liverpool

1 Year 37 Mos.

1.00 — 2.38 

.20/ .40

FIRST PLACE BANK Boardman

6 Mos. 12 Mos.

.45 — 1.00 —

.25/ .25

HOME FEDERAL Niles

1 Year 3 Year

1.00  2.02 —

.50/ .60

HOME SAVINGS Youngstown

12 Mos. 5 Year

1.00 

Minimum $500

2.75 

.35/ .35

Minimum $500

Dan Falls 918.362.6558

williamsauction.com/riteaid

PA AUC LIC AU005417 MONTE W LOWDERMAN AUCTIONEER, W&W AUC LIC AY001966

HUNTINGTON BANK Youngstown

1 Year 4 Year

1.10 — 2.75 —

N.A./ N.A.

KEYBANK Youngstown

1 Year 3 Year 5 Year

.15 — .85  1.85 

N.A./ .45

MIDDLEFIELD BANKING COMPANY Cortland

1 Year 13 Mos. 2 Year

1.15 — 1.91 — 1.91 —

.50/ .75

PNC BANK Youngstown

1 Year 48 Mos.

.75  1.25 —

N.A./ N.A.

PNC BANK Conneaut Lake, Pa.

1 Year 5 Year

.75 — 1.55 —

N.A./ .05

US BANK (formerly Firstar Bank) Boardman

1 Year 59 Mos.

.40  2.75 

N.A./ .10

Youngstown Business Journal Daily 4.5 x 2.625

Since 1965

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*Annual Percentage Yield

Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.”

Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of The Business Journal compilations. Rates are subject to change without notice and should be conﬁrmed with the individual ﬁnancial institution before entering into transactions. ©2009 Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

The Business Journal

21

DECEMBER 2009

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course, but they’re worth reviewing at least once a year. Your checkup also can help you decide whether it’s better to do any rebalancing before or after December 31.

Consider harvesting losses

Examine the tax consequences of any capital gains or losses you’ve experienced this year. If you have realized capital gains beyond any tax losses carried forward from previous years, you can sell losing positions – known as harvesting losses – to oﬀset some or all of those gains. Any losses over and above the amount of your gains generally can be used to oﬀset up to $3,000 of ordinary income ($1,500 for a married person ﬁling separately) or carried forward to oﬀset future gains. Before selling an investment, consider how long you’ve owned it. Assets held a year or less generate short-term capital gains and are taxed as ordinary income. That tax rate could be as high as 35%, not including state taxes. Long-term capital gains on the sale of assets held for more than a year generally are taxed at lower rates: 15% for most investors, 0% for individuals in the 10% and 15% tax brackets (for 2009 and 2010).

Time trades carefully

If you’re selling to harvest losses and intend to repurchase the same security, wait at least 31 days. Otherwise,

the trade is a “wash sale,” and the tax loss will be disallowed. The wash sale rule also applies if you buy an option, sell a stock short, or buy it through your spouse within 30 days before or after a sale of the same security. If you’re considering purchasing a mutual fund outside of a tax-advantaged account, ﬁnd out when the fund will distribute dividends or capital gains. Consider postponing action until after that date, which is often near year-end. If you buy just before the distribution, you’ll face potential taxes on that money, even if your own shares haven’t appreciated. If you plan to sell a fund, you may be able to minimize taxes by doing so before the distribution date.

Think about your cost basis

If you own a stock or fund and decide to unload some shares, your cost basis can aﬀect your tax liability. You can use the average cost per share for a mutual fund. Or you could request that speciﬁc shares be sold– for example, those bought at a certain price. Which shares you choose depends on whether you want to book capital losses to oﬀset gains, or keep gains to a minimum to reduce your tax bite. (This applies only to shares in a taxable account.)

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22

DECEMBER 2009

November 25, 2009

The Business Journal

Credit Union Rates

CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

Term

ASSOCIATED SCHOOL EMPLOYEES

1 Year 2 Year

1.30 — 1.95 —

FIRST CHOICE COMMUNITY (formerly RMI CO. EMPLOYEES)

1 Year 2 Year

OHIO EDISON/ PENN POWER

MORTGAGE LOANS

AUTO LOANS

Down Payment

Fees

Term

Rate

Type

$1,000 $1,000

Up to 48 Mos. Up to 60 Mos.

5.70 6.20

Fixed Fixed

20% 20%

15 Year 20 Year

5.00 — 5.25 —

2+200 2+200

1.65  2.10 

$500 $500

Up to 48 Mos. Up to 60 Mos.

5.65 5.65

Fixed

20%

15 Year

5.50 —

0+costs

1 Year 2 Year

1.55 — 1.90 —

$1,000 $1,000

Up to 48 Mos. Up to 60 Mos.

5.70 5.99

Fixed Fixed

5% 5%

15 Year 30 Year

4.625 — 5.125 —

0+costs 0+costs

SEVEN SEVENTEEN

1 Year 2 Year

.90  1.55 

$1,000 $1,000

Up to 48 Mos. Up to 60 Mos.

5.99 5.99

Fixed Fixed

5% 5%

15 Year 30 Year

4.25  4.875 

0+costs 0+costs

STRUTHERS FEDERAL

1 Year 2 Year

1.00 — 1.51 —

$1,000 $1,000

Up to 48 Mos. Up to 66 Mos.

6.00 6.00

N.A.

N.A.

N.A.

N.A.

YOUNGSTOWN CITY EMPLOYEES FEDERAL

1 Year 2 Year

1.25 — 1.65 —

$2,000 $2,000

Up to 60 Mos. Up to 72 Mos.

5.75 6.99

N.A.

N.A.

N.A.

N.A.

APY

Minimum

Term

Rate, 2-Wk Trend

Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.” Rates are subject to change without notice and should be conﬁrmed before entering into transactions. ©2009 Youngstown Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

Celebrating

50 Years 1959 - 2009

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The Business Journal

Think globally. Listen locally.

BY STACIA ERDOS

Media Scope New Technology Puts Squeeze on Santa

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23

DECEMBER 2009

ou’d think the older I get, the be a 9.7-inch OLED touch-screen shorter my list would be for handheld all-in-one device that is half Santa Claus. But it’s actually iPhone, half Mac computer (what?). the opposite. The more technology It’s supposedly an e-reader, gaming changes, the more I’m in a race against device, music player on which you can time, determined not be left behind as also watch TV and movies and surf the gadget after gadget changes how we Web. Analysts are saying the device live our lives. could revolutionize the handheld For instance, I don’t have a laptop, world the way the iPhone changed the or a GPS, or satellite radio, or even a smart-phone market. How much will digital home video it set you back? camera. (I still use Sales of Sony’s e-reader touch Sources estimate those mini VHS edition are exceeding expecta- f r o m $ 1 , 2 0 0 tapes.) And now $1,700. Stay tions as Sony tries to narrow the to it seems there are tuned. a couple more hot gap with the Kindle. Now to some items to add to my other news notes “eventually” list for the Jolly Ole from the media world: Readership Soul. is up for business publications. MeFirst, the e-reader. For those who diamark Research and Intelligence aren’t familiar with them, they’re bareports The Wall Street Journal saw sically a handheld device that allows its audience grow 11.6% over the last you to download and read books, year. Forbes is up 11.5% and Fortune’s magazines and newspapers digitally. rose 9%. Mediaweek points out that Demand has heated up for the holiwhile national business publications days and they’re already becoming have been decimated in terms of ad scarce. Barnes & Noble says Sony’s spending, advertisers who pulled out Nook, the $260 e-reader released last may have missed a big opportunity to month, is out of stock until January. reach their target audience. And Bloomberg.com is reporting Twitter plans to start an ad busithat sales of Sony’s e-reader touch ness early next year. The site already edition are exceeding expectations as generates more than $4 million in anSony tries to narrow the gap with the nual sales. And celebrities are signing Kindle. Research ﬁrm Gartner Inc. up for a new viral marketing strategy predicts e-book readers will become involving Twitter set up by a Los popular among mainstream consumAngeles ad agency. It amounts to ers next year. Some say by 2012 more endorsement deals for their Twitter than 18 million electronic book deaccounts. Offers are based on the vices will be sold. number of followers the star has for There are no e-readers involved, his twitter stream. but students at Penn State are among And finally, one of the big difthe ﬁrst to take part in a USA Today ferences I notice watching the news initiative to test how students respond here in Ohio is seeing video of court to electronic versions of printed proceedings. In Pennsylvania cameras newspapers. The e-edition is free to aren’t allowed in the courtroom. And students, faculty and staff who go to now in Georgia, neither are tweets. the e-edition site each day or sign up A federal judge has ruled the Cofor a daily e-mail. lumbus Ledger-Enquirer can’t post Now for gadget No. 2, which I Twitter updates in a drug trafﬁcking won’t have to add to my list until next trial. U.S. District Court Judge Clay year because the release of Apple’s new Land found that tweeting is a form top-secret tablet PC has been delayed. of broadcasting. So I guess it’s back Some are already calling it the coolest to the good ole pencil and reporter’s device ever and Apple hasn’t unveiled notebook – which, by the way, Santa it or even conﬁrmed it. – also make excellent and inexpensive The new mini PC is rumored to stocking stuffers.

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DECEMBER 2009

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BY MONNIE RYAN

Wire Service Gift-Giving Starts Online Compare prices before heading to ‘real’ store.

MasterCard or Visa. Does the recipient live far away? Have your gift card delivered electronically. y most accounts, the Grinch But why not give yourself a gift in is alive and well during this the process? Head to GiantEagle.com, holiday season as cash-strapped register, and sign up for a Giant Eagle consumers cut back (or at best keep Advantage Card. Then, go to the Gift spending at 2008 levels). Card section online – or to a Giant My husband and I are looking at Eagle supermarket – and buy the cards paring down the names on our gift list you want. For every $50 you spend, as well as creative – and less expensive you’ll save 10 cents per gallon at any – ways to please the recipients who of the company’s GetGo stations. are still on it. Exchanging gag gifts can be a In so doing, I’m less expensive alputting the Inter- The big yuk-yuks for me happen ternative to the net to work. Even at Stupid.com. If you’re into gag usual sweaters and if I plan to buy neckties that evin a “real” store, I gifts, go see for yourself. erybody has too don’t leave home many of anyway. without knowing what price range One of my favorite sites is AsSeenOn constitutes a good deal. For that, I’ll TV.com. Here, you’ll ﬁnd all those do some online price checks. amazing gadgets, but without the Our son-in-law, for instance, screeching announcer and the “But would like a GPS navigation system wait, there’s more…” – portable enough to use in the car and Actually, many of these products stash in his Harley saddlebags when are quite useful; I’m quite pleased he hits the road in the summer. with my Debbie Meyer GreenBags, Since I have a couple of models for instance. But gosh, who wouldn’t in mind, I’ll hit the Internet road. love a nostalgic Retro Series Hot Dogs My ﬁrst stop will be at Amazon.com, cooker that “Rocks N Rolls While It which has great prices as well as Cooks?” Or what about a Drop Stop complete product descriptions, tech– gizmos that ﬁll in the spaces between nical speciﬁcations and reviews from your car seat and console that help buyers. Next up, I’ll head to Bizrate. keep dropped coins, cell phones, pens com, Pricegrabber.com, Nextag.com, and other good stuff from getting lost Dealtime.com or Pricewatch.com. In down the car seat crack. addition to showing who’s got the best The big yuk-yuks for me happen price (and whether shipping and sales at Stupid.com. If you’re into gag gifts, tax apply), most of these sites offer go see for yourself. Trust me, there’s customer reviews of both the products something for everyone here – includand the online sellers. ing “cheap stuff under $7.” Of course, I can buy online if I Never underestimate gifts you’ve want; but if I’d rather buy in a store, created yourself. For a friend’s birthI’ll know a good deal when I see it. day, I found a recent photo I’d taken of Checking online ﬁrst also can save her, then headed to Stamps.com and time. Running from store to store uploaded it to a sheet of 20 real, usable to ﬁnd the new ValvaMax Megazord postage stamps ($18.99 for ﬁrst-class my grandson can’t live without could letter postage stamps plus shipping). have cost serious gas money had I not Once my order arrived, I framed the searched for it online and learned that sheet, wrapped it up and watched her nobody has it yet. eyes light up as she opened it. Although gift cards are hardly what Other photo options are calendars I’d call creative, they’re almost always and personalized photo books. For appreciated – after all, the recipient these, I’m a big fan of Mpix.com; the is the one doing the choosing. These, prices tend to be a bit higher here, too, can be purchased online with ease but the quality is outstanding. Other at Giftcards.com and Giftcardmall. sites I’ve used include Snapﬁsh.com, com, where you can pick your preShutterﬂy.com, Picaboo.com, Kodak ferred retailer or a “one size ﬁts all” Gallery.com and Walgreens.com.

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The Business Journal

DECEMBER 2009

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26

DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Today, quality is luxury. Always personal, unique and special. It�s something you can define for yourself and give to those that matter most. At Philadelphia Candies, our 90 years has been founded on quality and excellence you can taste. We ex use only the freshest ingredients, and make all of our chocolate centers from scratch. Our Corporate Collection has something for every budget and style. And with a devoted team of experts to customize solutions to your needs, and quanity discounts available, our Corporate Gifts can�t be beat. Quality chocolates, exceptional taste, since 1919. Hermitage Factory & Store . 1546 E. State St . 724.981.6341; Boardman Location . Creekside Plaza Route 224 & Tippecanoe . 330.965.0785

The Business Journal

27

DECEMBER 2009

Pages 27-30

BankingIndustry

Cortland Bancorp Targets Proﬁtability The bank expects to exceed $4 million in proﬁts in 2010 by extending credit to small business. By Dennis LaRue

D

espite losing nearly $7 million the ﬁrst nine months of this year, including nearly $1 million the third quarter, Cortland Bancorp expects to return to proﬁtability in 2010, its new CEO, Jim Gasior, says. Gasior, who succeeds Larry Fantauzzi as head of this community bank with nearly a half-billion dollars in assets, doesn’t blink at the challenges his bank faces. These include operating under a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland that prohibits the bank from paying cash dividends. “We’re focusing on getting back to the mid-fours [$4 million in proﬁts] in 2010 by doing what this bank was built on,” the CEO says, meaning extending credit to small businesses, including commercial real estate. Indeed, Cortland is unusual in that its woes resulted not from bad loans but investments that seemed to carry minimal risk but turned sour. In its most recent 10-Q ﬁling, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cortland’s ratio of annualized net charge-offs to average loans outstanding should be the envy of most other banks, 0.49% for the quarter ended Sept. 30 and 0.23% for the ﬁrst nine months of 2009. While the 0.49% is higher than the third quarter of 2008’s 0.11%, the year-to-date statistic is lower than the ﬁgure, 0.31%, for the same period a year ago. Net charge-offs for the third quarter were $288,000 vis-à-vis $64,000 the same period a year

Jim Gasior, CEO of Cortland Bancorp, says his company’s losses resulted from investments that turned sour.

ago and $337,000 for the ﬁrst nine months vis-à-vis $495,000 the ﬁrst three quarters of 2008. Most ﬁnancial observers would consider these numbers praiseworthy for a bank with $498.38 million in assets. Where most banks “have a loan-to-deposit ratio of 70 to 90%, we have 50 to 55%,” Gasior notes, and its lenders have taken pains to ensure loan quality. “We’ll continue to focus on consumer loans, commercial loans, commercial real estate,” Gasior says. “We’ll sell [residential] mortgages in the secondary market. I don’t see anything substantial changing.” He sees potential in lending to the Amish since Cortland entered the Middleﬁeld market last year. However, with the restraints on Cortland Banks’ capital, “We’re looking at going into 2010 with mar-

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ginal expectation to grow loan areas,” he says. Cortland will “really focus on our core operations,” Gasior continues. “We’re going to ﬁnd ways to become more efﬁcient.” To that end, Cortland laid off 12 employees Nov. 1 because they were “duplicative. We’ve eliminated duplication,” Gasior says. “We’re geared at looking at efﬁciencies of technology,” which includes remote deposit capture that has reduced the need for some employees. Moving its ofﬁce in southern Boardman to North Lima has beneﬁted Cortland. “We’ve increased both loans and deposits,” Gasior reports. Cortland has kept most of its customers in Boardman, drawn new customers from North Lima and even attracted a small number of new customers from Canﬁeld, he says. What tripped Cortland Bancorp up were the CDOs – collateralized debt obligations – in which it invested between 2004 and 2007. As with other ﬁnancial institutions, new accounting rules compelled Cortland to mark them to market, marking down 31 of the 32 it acquired. On the investment securities it held or is holding to maturity, the estimated fair value was $34.84 million at Sept. 30 where that ﬁgure stood at $71.21 million at Dec. 31, the 10-Q says. Such securities, Cortland notes, “are evaluated periodically to determine whether a decline in their value is other than temporary [meaning] the prospect for recovery is not necessarily favorable.” In some instances, Gasior explains, the issuer has a delayed payment of dividends or interest, which in turn causes the value of the security to fall. “An issuer can defer [payment of] dividends up to 60 months,” Gasior says, if it lacks the means to pay as scheduled. Some securities were debt issued by other banks and insurance companies during the housing See CORTLAND BANCORP, page 28

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28

DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Direct Deposit (ACH) Payroll Services “A 50% cost savings as a result of choosing Seven Seventeen Credit Union...”

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Cortland Bancorp: From Page 27 bubble. Some was preferred stock issued by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), the latter seized by the federal government in September 2008 and since overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Others were “high-grade municipals,” said Roger Platt, interim CEO after Fantauzzi resigned. Two of the 32 issues were General Motors Corporate Securities, today worthless since GM declared bankruptcy. “Who ever thought GM notes would go bad?” Platt said in late September after the board asked him to return as interim CEO. In its 10-Q, Cortland said, “At Sept. 30, the company recognized $815,000 of other-than-temporary-impairment losses attributable to its General Motors Corporate Securities with a cost base of $2.35 million.” In total, for the ﬁrst nine months, Cortland recognized other-than-temporary impairment of $13.38 million of which $10.93 million was recognized in the ﬁrst two quarters as other than temporary attributable to 16 CDOs with a cost basis of $19.12 million, its 10-Q ﬁling says. Some of the CDOs will regain some of the value they lost, both Platt and Gasior say, and will pay off in full but behind schedule. Said Platt of the CDOs, “We never bought any before [Fantauzzi] and haven’t since.” Despite its setbacks, Cortland Bancorp qualiﬁed as “well-capitalized,” Gasior states. “We’re not going to close,” Platt stressed last September, and he offered that he expects Cortland to post a proﬁt this quarter. “Jim Gasior and Tim Carney are running the bank on a day-to-day basis,” he continued. “They’re doing the heavy work.” Carney was named executive vice president of the bank and Cortland Bancorp when Gasior was tapped as CEO. Gasior did not say whether he expects Cortland to show a proﬁt for the fourth quarter, saying only he expects a return to proﬁtability next year. As to whether Cortland will create and sell more stock to improve its capital position, Gasior won’t rule it out but gives the impression it’s unlikely to happen. “Even with the impairments, we’re considered well-capitalized at better than 13%,” he says. And getting back on track and returning to its traditional levels of proﬁtability seems the best course of action. He also expects to increase deposits. “We’ll grow through deposit gathering and replace some borrowing with deposits,” the CEO says. “We may shrink our balance sheet before we grow it again.” Helping Cortland regain its footing, Gasior says, are loyal employees. “We have little turnover in our stafﬁng,” he notes. “And they know our customers and give personalized service.” Also important was Cortland’s hiring Nicole Whitsel as its risk manager effective Oct. 1. Whitsel, a certiﬁed ﬁnancial services auditor, was employed by the Cleveland ofﬁce of Crowe Horwath, a public accounting ﬁrm based in Indianapolis that focuses on serving the ﬁnancial services industry. Besides being a certiﬁed public accountant, Whitsel earned her baccalaureate and master’s degree in business administration from Youngstown State University.

The Business Journal

29

DECEMBER 2009

Lessons Learned Not Lost on Bankers By Dennis LaRue

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he aftermath of last year’s financial near meltdown continues to haunt the economy. Small-business owners complain that commercial banks are afraid to lend because they’re more concerned about preserving and increasing their capital than extending credit. In the expectation that Congress will create a Consumers Financial Protection Agency, consumers with credit cards ﬁnd that banks have accelerated repayment terms, reduced lines of credit, raised interest rates and increased the penalties for late payments. “The whole landscape has changed,” says Jim Malz, president of Chase Bank’s northeastern Ohio division. “We experienced the perfect storm.” The Business Journal approached four commercial bankers and an economist to ask what lessons the ﬁnancial services industry and federal government have learned since the U.S. Treasury Department allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to fail rather than offer a rescue package. The repercussions of Lehman’s closing persuaded Treasury that Bear Stearns could not be allowed to follow; JP Morgan Chase acquired that investment bank for $10 a share in March 2008 although Chase could have bought it for $2. Before the ﬁre sale, Bear Stearns’ 52-week high had reached $133.20. The following September, Chase also acquired the assets, secured debt obligations and deposits of

Washington Mutual Bank on the West Coast from the FDIC after the Ofﬁce of Thrift Supervision put it in receivership. Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and even Goldman Sachs teetered before righting itself and converting to a bank holding company so it could enjoy the protections the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. afford commercial banks. What lessons had bankers learned, we asked. What lessons were brieﬂy learned but have receded into the background as the ﬁnancial system returns to ﬁrmer ground? What lessons should have been learned that weren’t? Did the bankers interviewed have any second thoughts about accepting or not accepting Troubled Asset Relief Program funds? And what reforms should be enacted so the likelihood of another meltdown is minimized? We put these questions to John Gulas, chief operating ofﬁcer of Farmers National Bank, Canﬁeld; Steve Lewis, CEO of First Place Bank, Warren; Malz; Ken Mayland, former chief economist of KeyBank and today president of ClearView LLC, an economics consulting ﬁrm in Pepper Pike; and Doug McKay, CEO of United Community Financial Corp. Everyone watched the housing bubble grow, all agreed, never realizing the implications. “The ﬁre was lit many years ago,” Malz says. “There was cheap

money and a lot of it. And the bubbles [high-tech and housing] were out there.” “When these bubbles come along, nearly everybody drinks the Kool-Aid,” Mayland says. “When you prick a balloon with a pin, it pops. The air doesn’t come gently out. ...What I didn’t understand were the implications of that [housing] bubble bursting. I didn’t think [lenders] would make mortgages without checking [the applicant’s] income.” Neither did Home Savings and Loan Co., First Place Bank nor Farmers National, McKay, Lewis and Gulas are quick to point out. “Fortunately for our area, we didn’t over extend here or elsewhere,” Gulas says. Regardless, banks here didn’t escape the consequences of others’ faulty lending practices on the West Coast, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. Lenders went so far as to extend mortgages of 125% of the assessed value of a house, Mayland recalls, “until the Fed put a stop to that.” The independent mortgage lenders, for the most part unregulated, have since exited the market, Gulas, Lewis and McKay note, leaving a depressed market to prudent lenders such as their institutions. “Ninety-four percent of problem [mortgages] did not come from banks,” says Gulas, who recently wrote a paper on the subject. See LESSONS, page 30

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Lessons: Not Lost on Bankers From Page 29 “I don’t think mortgage brokers are going to get away with [shoddy practices] again,” McKay says of efforts at regulatory reform. “They didn’t explain [to unqualiﬁed borrowers] variable-rate mortgages and how rates are reset.” Lewis observes, “The term ‘bank’ was used generally when headline writers applied it to the mortgage brokers. The mortgage brokers were not watched closely enough and [excessive] subprime lending resulted.” Home Savings, First Place and Farmers have all tightened their credit criteria, their leaders say, but only to restore their standards to where they were before the bubble burst. “We have been prudent,” says Farmers’ Gulas, “same as we’ve been the past 100 years. We’ve tightened a little bit and make it a point to look for [potential] problems earlier on.” As the bubble grew, Chase’s Malz says, “Bankers should have made the tough decisions not to make [commercial and residential real estate] loans, even though they knew the deal would be done in the market.” That’s how Chase emerged almost unscathed, having repaid its TARP – Troubled Asset Relief Program – funds to the Treasury Department early, accepting them reluctantly. It wasn’t that Chase wasn’t involved in subprime lending indirectly. “We pulled out prior to the larger collapse,” Malz says. “We restructured around that a couple of years ahead of the others.” What lit the ﬁre, the bankers agree, was Congress’ goal of home ownership for nearly anyone who wanted title to his own residence. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House banking committee, “is at the heart of this,” Lewis says. “Now I believe in home ownership,” the CEO of First Place continues, “but the view that everyone should own their own home is absurd. You had Fannie Mae [Federal National Mortgage Association] and Freddie Mac [Federal Housing Finance Agency] open the door to derivatives ... and the CDO [collateralized debt obligations] market developed off that. You had different risks and different parameters that no one understood.” Congress didn’t understand the economic implications of encouraging greater home ownership, Mayland says, when it allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue mortgage-backed securities. These securities provided greater liquidity, their earnings grew and the stock of both greatly appreciated. The private mortgage sections of the investment banks on Wall Street enjoyed tremendous proﬁts. The warnings some community banks sounded were drowned out as gross domestic product rose, Lewis says. “The economy steamed along and the auto industry fueled that attitude [of buying more car than a consumer could afford],” he says, “by dragging out [payment] terms.” Mayland ﬁnds bankers’ efforts to escape blame disingenuous. “Everyone saw what was going on,” he points out. “We all drank the Kool-Aid,” he repeats, “and didn’t connect the dots.” All agree that reforms are needed but differ on what those reforms should be. Lewis thinks the unregulated mortgage brokers should be regulated before they’re allowed to reenter the market. “The regulatory structure for the regulated worked,” he says. He’s against the proposed consumer ﬁnancial

protection agency Congress is considering, saying it would be “a monster agency” he fears would “separate safety and soundness” from Congress’ misguided efforts to protect consumers. In addition, concentrating so much power “all in one agency is dangerous.” As proposed, the Federal Reserve, Ofﬁce of the Controller of the Currency, Ofﬁce of Thrift Supervision and FDIC would all cede some of their authority to the proposed agency. Creating a super agency, UCFC’s McKay says, “could help level the playing ﬁeld, something that needs to be done and can be done. One agency has to be created.” It could employ all those who work

for the existing agencies and promote a needed cohesion. Streamlining isn’t necessarily a virtue, Mayland says. Regulatory agencies often fall down on the job – see the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bernie Madoff – and having a small number of agencies with some overlap is a better guarantee of detecting nonfeasance or malfeasance. “Balance is what we need to learn from this,” Farmers’ Gulas says. He would have the regulatory agencies treat smaller banks differently than the megabanks. “We must treat the larger institutions differently because of the risks [of failure] they impose,” he asserts. McKay and Lewis agree.

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DECEMBER 2009

Recession Breaks Job Creation Promises Tax Incentive Review Council extends abatements. By Dan O’Brien

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he board that oversees the city of Youngstown’s enterprise zone program has agreed to continue tax incentives granted more than 30 companies, even though some of these enterprises are no longer in business or have failed to meet their hiring or investment requirements. The Tax Incentive Review Council recommended continuing incentives to the 37 companies participating in the program because removing those incentives could cause more harm to their operations in a down economy, regardless of whether they’ve lived up to their side of the agreement, members of the council said. “It’s a very powerful program,” said Mahoning County Auditor Michael Sciortino, who serves as chairman of the board, at its meeting Nov. 10. “I can’t see the board declining anybody. We have to do what we can to help these companies succeed.” The city’s enterprise zone program makes available incentives to companies embarking on new construction projects. In return, the company agrees to create a certain number of jobs and pledge a speciﬁed amount of investment toward the project. Since the program began in the 1990s, businesses entering enterprise zone agreements have typically received a 75% tax break over 10 years on the amount invested in construction or personal property. The state of Ohio has since phased out taxes on personal property. Youngstown Finance Director Dave Bozanich said that each year companies are evaluated based on whether they’ve complied with various criteria, such as investment, job creation and the number of city residents, minorities and women hired. The latest report is based on data provided by the companies covering 2008, Bozanich said. While some of these businesses have fallen short on job creation or investment because of the economy, it would be even more devastating to enforce the letter of the contracts in a tough economy, he argued. The council also continued abatements on businesses that closed. Superior Chemical Products Co., which constructed a $900,000 building at the Ohio Works Business Park in 2007, closed last year. However, the company is trying to sell the building and is leasing space there, noted T. Sharon Woodberry, city economic development director. Once the building is sold, any new company that moves there has the option of entering into an enterprise zone agreement with the city and could then assume the remainder of the Superior agreement. “It makes the building more marketable,” she said. Another company, Enviva Materials LLC, at 1130 Performance Place, consolidated its operations at another site. According to the 2008 report, its enterprise zone agreement expired in February. Meantime, other businesses awarded tax incentives report that they’ve fallen well short of creating the number of jobs promised in their initial agreements.

Domestic Linen Co. Inc., for example, agreed in December 2002 to create 100 jobs at the former Tartan Uniforms building, 243 Belmont Ave. But just 32 were working there as of Dec. 31. The company spent $3.3 million to renovate the building. Companies participating in the enterprise zone agreements collectively have invested $352,790,193 in real and personal property and have created more than 900 jobs, Sciortino said.

He cited success stories such as Fireline Inc. on Andrews Avenue, M-7 Technologies at the Ohio Works Park and Exal Corp., in Performance Place industrial park, as examples of why these programs should continue. Exal, he continued, has expanded six times and has invested more than $66 million into its plant here and created 365 jobs. “To me,” Sciortino said, “this is great stuff.”

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The Business Journal

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The Business Journal

35

DECEMBER 2009

RestorationIndustry

After Disaster Strikes, They Go to Work Companies ﬁnd niche in repairing structures after ﬁres, ﬂoods. By George Nelson

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o Paul Clouser, president and owner of National Fire Repair in Youngstown, restoring a home following some sort of disaster is more than repairing a wall or getting furniture back in shape to be used once again. “Really what you’re doing is putting somebody’s life back together,” he says. National Fire Repair, one of several damage restoration companies doing business in the Mahoning Valley, has been operating since 1913. The company specializes in repairing damage caused by ﬁre and water. A typical job “really centers around the customer,” Clouser says, and helping them to maintain their existence in an entirely different manner than they’re used to. “Think about leaving your home one morning and not being able to come back,” he continues. “Your life is turned upside down in a heartbeat. Something as mundane as paying a bill is a huge problem.” Further, a house isn’t just a house, he explains; the rooms are places where signiﬁcant events in their lives have taken place. “You’re dealing with the very fabric of these people’s beings,” and repairing their lives as much as the property, he says. “A window is a window and a door is a door, but it is their view of these items you have to deal with,” he says. Concern with quality, Clouser says, keeps as much of the work in-house as possible and limits his company’s use of subcontractors chieﬂy to mechanicals and plumbing. “When you start subbing everything out you lose control of quality.” The average repair job from a ﬁre costs $15,000, Clouser says, although some are as little as a few hundred dollars. “But we had one this year over $300,000,” he adds. The average water damage bill is about $7,500, but again he had a commercial job that resulted from a water line break that cost “well over $400,000.” Because the ﬁrm does insurance restoration work, National Fire uses a national platform computerized system for pricing, the kind most contractors in this area use, he says. “Insurance work is far different than standard construction work,” he says, and requires special training to handle water and smoke damage. “Insurance people don’t want to deal with [contractors] unless they’re on those particular programs.” In business since 1986, Disaster Recovery Services, on McMyler Street in Warren, deals with “a lot more water damage” than ﬁre damage, mostly damage from broken pipes or overﬂowing sump pumps to ﬁre sprinklers going off, reports owner Reggie Rooks. “We have a warehouse full of drying equipment,” he says.

Paul Clouser’s National Fire Repair started in business in 1913. The typical job, he says, “really centers around the customer.”

How that drying is handled depends on the kind of water – from clean, or ordinary water, to gray up through black, or sewage, which requires the items being dried to be sanitized. “If it’s clean water, you just set up the drying equipment,” Rooks says. “If you don’t dry it,” he warns, “other things can colonize down the road, whether it’s clean water loss or black water loss.” Rooks does reconstruction work, and employs carpenters, painters and carpet installers. Some work is subbed out, depending on the size of the job. “If the customer wants us to, we can put everything back together for them,” he says. One of the most interesting jobs this year, Rooks reports, was when a patient at a Glenbeigh treatment center went “berserk” with one of the ﬁre extinguishers. The company also just completed a $300,000-plus job following “a pretty large residential ﬁre,” he says. “Every job is totally different,” says Rick Pesa, estimator and operations manager at All-Action Restoration. “There is no typical job.” His ﬁrm handles mostly water damage. “There’s so many different things that cause water damage,” he says, including frozen pipes. A job can cost anywhere from $500 – to simply repair siding that’s blown off in a storm – to $150,000 or $200,000 to rebuild a house that has burned down. “As far as pricing, we use a computer

program,” he says, that factors in labor, materials and overhead. Debbie Milani, production manager with Servpro of Southern Trumbull County in Warren, says the restoration business is “feast or famine.” Most of Servpro’s work is water restoration, Milani says, and the busiest times are during the spring when there’s a lot of rain, or the dead of winter when pipes freeze. “No job is too big where we would say we absolutely have to walk away,” Milani says. The company gives customers a timeline of when they can get to the job, and will start a waiting list when work starts to back up. They try not to keep customers waiting more than 24 hours because mold begins to grow within 72 hours, she says. “When we’re busy, everybody’s working and everybody’s working overtime,” Milani says. The actual clean-up can take up to four hours, followed by four days of keeping drying equipment in the house and monitoring it daily to ensure it’s drying properly, Milani says. Prices vary depending on the job, and although homeowners insurance can have deductibles as high as $1,000, 90% of the jobs have some kind of insurance. Still, the industry isn’t recession-proof, she says. “There’s still some people that have to pay a portion of the bills themselves,” Milani says. “And some people just don’t have it.”

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DECEMBER 2009

Restoration Companies Look to Remodeling ��

Many add specialties to stay ahead of new competitors.

years, he says. Most jobs take a week or longer to complete, and Eagle handles up to six jobs monthly. After a ﬁre or ﬂood, homeowners By Jeremy Lydic will have to pick out new carpeting, ﬂooring, paint, cabinetry and other t took Steve Peshek two days features, and some may want an addriving around Ashtabula County dition built, says Patricia Harman, to ﬁnd the right wood he needed director of communications for the to ﬁnish a ﬁre restoration project that, Restoration Industry Association in he says, reminded him of an episode Columbia, Md., and editor-in-chief of of “This Old House.” Cleaning & Restoration Magazine. In 1998, Peshek, president of While such services are separate Eagle Restoration Inc. in North Jackfrom the restoration side of the busison, took a job restoring a century ness, more compahouse damaged in a fire. The frame While the volume of work isn’t nies are adding reof the house fea- necessarily decreasing, more modeling services to their repertoire tured handmade beams and logs for companies are entering the because it’s work that can be done ﬂoor joists. After market. at the same time, researching books she says. on log houses, Peshek learned the ma“Prudent business owners are alterial he needed was “not something ways looking for something that will you’re going to see in a newspaper set them apart from their competior go to a lumber yard and buy,” he tion,” Harman says. “In some markets, says. if there aren’t a lot of ﬁres, remodeling While searching for abandoned is a great way to supplement what barns, Peshek found one that was they’re doing and branch out.” little more than a foundation and had Some restoration companies also a 60-foot long beam that was a perfect are starting to specialize in certain match, he says. He bought some 40 areas of the industry. These include logs, each 24 feet in length, in Coelectrical work, drying out structures, lumbiana County and took them to doing the actual restoration or rebuilda sawmill to be made into ﬂooring. It ing, and boarding up the building after took his company six weeks to ﬁnish a ﬁre, Harman says. Probably the bigthe job. After 28 years in the business, gest trend is commercial cleaning for Peshek says there aren’t too many resschools and health-care entities, such torations at that level of difﬁculty. as hospitals and nursing homes, she “It was much more complicated says. Restoration crews are trained in because of the style of framing, but maintaining indoor air quality and much more interesting as well,” being cognizant of people’s sensitivity Peshek says. “Typically everything to certain cleaning products. you do nowadays is standard framing. After the 2001 terrorist attacks on Not too challenging.” the World Trade Center, hospitals Instead, the challenge today, needed places to put people in need Peshek says, is finding restoration of specialized care, Harman says. Reswork. While the volume of work isn’t toration crews helped prepare nursing necessarily decreasing, more compahomes and school dormitories for nies are entering the market. these patients. More recently, crews “There’s just so many companies have cleaned schools after an H1N1 now doing restoration work that a lot outbreak. Swine ﬂu has helped bring of insurance companies are requiring cleaning for health to the forefront, three to four estimates,” he says. “as has information on hospital acAnd so, Peshek has spent the last quired infections,” Harman says. few years branching out into remodel“If you need some specialized ing. “It’s going well,” he says. Many cleaning, the restoration industry is homeowners are adding space rather probably the best place to ﬁnd those than building new, so residential work people,” she says. “It’s incumbent makes up most of Peshek’s business, upon them to ensure the operating he says. room and patient areas, that sort of Commercial work comes in spurts, thing, are cleaned adequately.” but has gone up during the last two

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Austintown Holds Its Own in Tough Economy Urology center under construction, McHenry Industries expanding. By Dan O’Brien

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ustintown is suffering its share of foreclosures, business shutdowns and high unemployment but the recession isn’t preventing companies from expanding or relocating here, township ofﬁcials say. Led by an $8.5 million urology center scheduled to open in April on Mahoning Avenue, commercial development is still evident throughout Austintown, reports township trustee Lisa Oles. “Austintown is still moving forward and holding its own,” she said Nov. 13 after addressing a breakfast at the Regency sponsored by the Youngstown/ Warren Regional Chamber and First National Bank of Pennsylvania. Humility of Mary Health Partners, Advanced Urology Inc. and N.E.O. Urology Associates Inc. have combined efforts to construct Partners in Urology Health, a technologically advanced center that provides patients a central location where they can be treated for prostate cancer and other urological disorders. The new center is being built next to HMHP’s St. Elizabeth Emergency and Diagnostic Center on Mahoning Avenue. “It’s a 13,000-square-foot facility devoted to the treatment of prostate cancer and will have the latest radiation therapy,” said Chuck Folkwein, HMHP’s chief information ofﬁcer. The building will be among the ﬁrst structures in the Mahoning Valley certiﬁed as LEED, an acronym for Leadership in Environmental Engineering and Design, Folkwein said. Initially, the operation will create 12 jobs. Oles reported that construction plans have been submitted for a cluster of ﬁve medical ofﬁce buildings along state Route 46 just north of New Road, signaling new development could begin next year in this section of the township. “We’re also going to bring in a small restaurant [on the corner of 46 and Norquest],” she noted. “We don’t know the name yet.” Work is scheduled for completion soon on the $2.5 million production plant for McHenry Industries, a signage company relocating from Youngstown to Victoria Road. Company President Ron Musilli said the work is nearly ﬁnished, and McHenry Industries expects to be moved in by the end of this year. “We’re about 75% done. It’s coming along fantastic.” Since the expansion was announced earlier this year, the company has hired four new employees who will operate the new equipment when McHenry Industries relocates, Musilli said. “We’re busy,” he added. Musilli said overall business is down 10% to 15% compared to 2008, but last year was the best in the company’s history. “We’re still going strong. The last time we saw a downturn was 1991 and we were hurt then.” McHenry Industries engineers and fabricates plastic signs for retail signage companies that sell

them to end-users across the country, Musilli said. Among other development projects finished this year in Austintown were a $168,000 Dunkin’ Donuts on route 46 and an $80,000 expansion of Ryan Carpet on Victoria Road. Oles said that the township is aggressively pursuing grants for community-development projects and landed a signiﬁcant amount last year. Those grants enabled the installation of new sidewalks along South Raccoon Road, replacement

of storm sewers, the creation of retention ponds, the renovation of ﬁre station No. 3, the acquisition of six acres to develop two new football ﬁelds for youth football, and the renovation of two basketball courts on Kirk Road. However, the township has also taken its lumps as a result of the economic downturn. Home foreclosures continue to be a problem across Austintown, Oles stated, while a medical company recently vacated the township’s Westchester Building.

The Business Journal

DECEMBER 2009

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The Business Journal

Penmanship From Page 1 student privacy, proved especially challenging, he says. While worse than most, it illustrates how bad so many Americans’ handwriting has become. “I can read 98% of the essay tests without too much trouble,” O’Brien says, “and the rest with time and effort.” This student required considerable time and effort. Those who blame the personal computer and cell phones/Blackberries on which people text – who writes when you can keyboard? – for causing handwriting skills to atrophy don’t realize history is repeating itself. In the 1920s, use of the typewriter was becoming widespread, says Kathleen Wright, national product manager for handwriting at ZanerBloser, Columbus, and the typewriter was blamed for the deterioration of penmanship. Zaner-Bloser remains the “No. 1 purveyor of handwriting materials in the United States,” Wright says. It designed the systems of printing and cursive script many elementary students in the Mahoning Valley learn. Alarmed 90 years ago by the seeming deterioration of legible writing, The Columbus Dispatch, in conjunction with Zaner-Bloser, sponsored handwriting contests, contests that continue today. Whether handwriting is any worse, or that much worse, today is a matter of speculation although most who discussed this topic think illegibility is on the rise and concede their writing is not as good as it used to be. The chairwoman of the department of teacher education at YSU, Dora Bailey, laments, “Penmanship is no longer taught” [in public schools.] Now penmanship is called handwriting.” Moreover, the time primary teachers spend on instruction in handwriting is considerably less than it was a decade ago, she says. One reason is the pressure on teachers to prepare their pupils so they’ll pass the standards tests mandated by the state, Bailey observes. Time spent on instruction in handwriting is reﬂected only indirectly in the answers students write for short essay questions. There is no direct reward for a school system to help its students become more than legible writers. Mere legibility, not reproducing forms close to the model letters posted in elementary classrooms above blackboards and whiteboards, is all the state Department of Education asks today, Bailey says. Time spent in instructing aspiring

Remember this lesson posted on the wall of your second-grade classroom? Zaner-Bloser Co. of Columbus distributes similar posters nationwide.

teachers to impart to ﬁrst-, secondarm, holding the marker in his hand and third-graders how to print and between the thumb and all four ﬁngers. write cursively has also diminished, The difﬁculty is increased because the chairwoman of teacher education most adults have developed their own says. modiﬁcations of the Zaner-Bloser or Of greater concern is teaching eduPeterman scripts. cation majors how to teach children Esther Stewart, a retired elementary “writing convention skill sets,” which teacher in the Poland public schools, includes how to form letters, but ensays she had no training in college compasses much more – deﬁning and to prepare her to teach penmanship relaying the message, helping other when she began her career. She atstudents by editing their messages tributes her graceful handwriting and making them publishable, that is to the fact, “My good enough to be was an posted in school Mere legibility, not reproducing mother excellent penman halls and bulletin forms close to the model letters and my father was boards. T h o s e w h o posted in elementary classrooms a school teacher.” would teach pri- above blackboards and white- That, combined with “an excellent mary school pupils must learn how to boards, is all the state Depart- cooperating teacher” when she did form letters free- ment of Education asks today. her student teachhand, Bailey says, ing, allowed her to coach her pupils no easy task. The teacher stands in so they excelled in both printing and front of a blackboard or whiteboard cursive script. – more often than not the latter – and When Stewart was growing up, uses a marker to draw outsized lethandwritten letters were the usual ters. means of communication outside While encouraged, no longer are one’s immediate community, the elementary teachers-in-training reretired teacher recalls. Her mother quired to reproduce as closely as poswrote her brothers serving in World sible the model letters in Zaner-Bloser War II, who wrote back, at frequent or Peterson. intervals. One retired teacher who earned Even in peacetime, long-distance her baccalaureate in education in phone calls were expensive and 1965 remembers having a printing required an operator to complete. exercise returned with the notation, Typewriters, perceived as less per“Nice ruler!” Because she “cheated” sonal, were found mostly in ofﬁces in forming the vertical straight lines and schools. of lower-case a’s, b’s, d’s, k’s, l’s, p’s and The samples Stewart’s students q’s, she had to resubmit the exercise submitted to the education exhibits and was penalized a letter grade. at the Canﬁeld Fair won prize after With a sheet of paper, the writer prize and usually blue ribbons from moves his hand, arm stationary, holdthe judges, Stewart recalls. ing the pen ﬁrmly between the index ﬁnger and his thumb, supported by To the best of her recollection, the the middle ﬁnger. handwriting exhibits at the fair ended Writing on a whiteboard, howabout eight years ago, says Laurie Fox, ever, requires a person to move his retired secretary to the superintendent

of the Mahoning County Educational Services Center. Her boss, retired superintendent Bill Hyde, couldn’t recall why the exhibits ended, she says, after she checked with him. First- and second-grade pupils in Mahoning County schools wrote three sentences in pencil, Stewart recalls, the ﬁrst being, “My name is -----.” Her students excelled, Stewart believes, “because I tried to make it fun, exciting. … I didn’t allow erasing or misspelling [in the entries for the fair]. … I just took such great pride [in good printing] and instilled it in them.” As did most elementary teachers, Stewart had her pupils draw repeated ovals and slants before having them drill in forming their letters. “I wouldn’t tell them what letter they were going to learn,” she says, as they were forming ovals and slants before being introduced to a new letter. Stewart remembers the wooden desks with inkwells that ﬁfth-graders in the Poland Union School used to write their entries, the ﬁrst half of the Gettysburg Address, for the fair. They wrote with black wooden pens with steel nibs that had to be dipped in ink every ﬁfth or sixth word. Stewart was coming to the end of her teaching career 37 years ago when Christina Roussos, who teaches second grade at Poland Dobbins School, was beginning hers. Roussos found a mentor in Stewart. When Roussos was in elementary school, she recalls, she was blessed “to have had such good teachers” who insisted her letters be formed correctly and properly spaced apart. When she did her student teaching, the supervising teachers from YSU visited her classroom. “They came in and watched you,” Roussos says. “So you had to practice penmanship.” CONTINUES NEXT PAGE

The Business Journal It wasn’t until she enrolled in the master’s program, however, that she had the time to really get into teaching printing and cursive writing. Instruction in the latter begins the second semester of second grade. Roussos is as insistent as Stewart was about “the proper formation of letters. You go bottom to top [in cursive writing] instead of top to bottom,” she relates. “I use the same verbiage she did.” Part of her challenge is “breaking bad habits,” Roussos says. In second grade, few if any have had much experience using a keyboard. They have, however, used crayons and paintbrushes and many try to transfer the grips to their pencils. Roussos has soft plastic devices for pupils with bad grips to put on their ﬁngers so that they hold their pencils

correctly. The position of the paper before them is equally important. Roussos agrees with Bailey that teachers today lack the time to devote to pupils practicing the formation of their letters. When she was in primary school, Roussos recalls, “We practiced more. It became such an automatic response. … I had to trace over models. … We could go through 45 minutes of solid instruction.” Roussos and Stewart agree that pupils “love cursive. It’s a rite of passage to becoming a grownup,” Stewart says. Roussos discourages parents from teaching their children cursive before she introduces such writing in January. That way she has a better chance of teaching them to form their letters as recommended by Zaner-Bloser and becoming better writers.

Do Doctors Deserve Bad Rap? Pupils who form their letters best, students whose writing is closest to the Zaner-Bloser models, don’t necessarily get better grades. And those with the least legible handwriting don’t necessarily get worse grades. Four of those interviewed for this topic, Christina Roussos, Esther Stewart, Dora Bailey and Dan O’Brien, agree there is at best a weak correlation between good handwriting or penmanship and how well students perform in their other subjects. With the reputation physicians have for illegible handwriting – in popular culture, they’re the butt of anecdotes about hard-to-read scrawls – a case could be made that students with mediocre or poor handwriting shine among their peers. Bailey and Roussos agree that girls tend to have an easier time mastering handwriting than boys. “Handwriting is a ﬁne motor skill,” Bailey states, and females tend to have an easier time in primary school. “But some of my best writers are boys,” Roussos points out. Zaner-Bloser’s Kathleen Wright reports Catholic schools “have always held strong in handwriting” and the teachers in those parochial schools seem to place more emphasis on good penmanship. Even engineers, who enjoy reputations for neat printing, have seen a decline in legibility, Wright reports, and the deans of some engineering colleges have denied admission to candidates with poor handwriting until they improve their legibility. On the essay tests in the graduate courses she teaches at Youngstown State University, Bailey finds that “60% print rather than write.” On the

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comprehensive exams masters’ candidates undergo before graduating, most choose to answer the essay question on a computer, Bailey says, “but you can ask to write by hand.” Few do. “Nearly 100% of the math majors [who intend to teach in high schools] are printers,” Bailey has found. “Many people revert to printing because it’s faster.” No one could say whether physicians’ handwriting is worse than accountants, say, or lawyers or members of other professions. Wright suggests that a physician’s undecipherable scrawl on a prescription can be a matter of life and death where an accountant or lawyer’s scrawl can be corrected with minimal damage. Pharmacists are the people most concerned about doctors’ illegible writing, she says. At the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, its director of longitudinal curriculum in health professional education, John Sutton M.D., said in an e-mail, “It is not a topic of instruction now that most of our documentation is electronic.” His counterpart in the pharmacy department, Susan Bruce, responds that one of her professors, “Lou Barone, discusses this in medication use systems.” Barone writes, “Legibility is a medication safety issue. Students are made aware of the problems and guided to anticipate them,” then cites a required reading in his course, “Medication Issues,” that “addresses legibility issues.” “The concept is embedded in the curriculum and readdressed throughout,” Bruce writes.

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The Business Journal

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DECEMBER 2009

BuildingBetterBusiness Philanthropy Spreads Holiday Cheer Encourage workplace giving by rallying around one cause.

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he holidays are a time for giving, but many charities are feeling the squeeze of the recession and donations are down. The downturn in the economy is taking its toll on everyone, families, small businesses and charities. According to the Giving USA Foundation, charitable giving in the United States exceeded $307 billion in 2008. Still, as a result of the tight economy, two-thirds of public charities receiving donations saw decreases in 2008. Charitable giving from individuals dropped 2.7% and corporate giving dropped 4.5%. The outlook for charitable giving in 2009 is equally bleak. With rough economic times for everyone, many families who depend on charity this time of year are facing a lean holiday season. Employees and employers who pool their efforts to support a cause, either with their time, money or in-kind donations, can have a positive effect on struggling families over the holidays. Promoting philanthropy with employees also is a great way to spread the holiday spirit and promote camaraderie around the ofﬁce. The Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance

Tips for Online Shopping Forty-four percent of holiday shoppers make purchases online and every year scammers devise online schemes to trick them into divulging personal information such as credit-card numbers. The Better Business Bureau offers these recommendations for online shoppers: • Conﬁrm the legitimacy of all “trust marks.” You can conﬁrm that certiﬁcation from organizations such as BBB, Versign or TRUSTe is legitimate by clicking on the seal. A legitimate seal will direct you to the certifying organization’s Web site. • Make online purchases with a credit card. If the credit-card number lands in the hands of ID thieves, the Fair Credit Billing Act allows you to dispute the charges with your credit-card company. • Pay only on a secured site. Always look in the address box for the “s” in https:// and in the lower-right corner for the “lock” symbol before paying. If there are any doubts about a site when using Internet Explorer, BBB recommends right-clicking anywhere on the page to select “Properties.” This will let you see the real URL (Web site address) and the dialog box will reveal if the site is not encrypted. If using Firefox, click on Tools in the menu bar, then Page Info.

offers the following tips for encouraging charitable giving in the workplace. • Institute a volunteer day. Giving to a charity doesn’t have to mean pulling out the checkbook. Many charities rely heavily on the gift of time from volunteers. An ofﬁcewide volunteer day is a great way to get employees out of the ofﬁce and working together on something they can be proud of. • Rally around one cause with an office fundraiser. Ofﬁce bake sales, silent auctions and tag sales are just a few ways to raise money for a charity. If everyone gets involved, then the nickels and dimes can add up to a healthy donation to an organization that helps the needy. • Collect food or toys. Around the holidays, many charities are looking for nonperishable food donations or toys. If everyone in the ofﬁce donates

a can of food or a toy, those items can collectively make a huge difference for a less fortunate family’s holiday season. • Offer a matching program. Small-business owners can encourage employees to make donations to charities by matching their contributions. Matching programs allows individual employees to choose a cause that might be near and dear to their own hearts. By matching their donations, small-business owners can show they support their employees with the added beneﬁt of a tax deduction. • Educate employees to be wise givers. Encourage employees to research their charities ﬁrst with the BBB Wise Giving Alliance at BBB.org/charity before they give. BBB Wise Giving Alliance evaluates more than 1,200 national-soliciting charities against 20 rigorous accountability standards.

Take That ‘Flying Leap’

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hile at the Youngstown Phantoms hockey game the other night, I happened to speak to the owner of a BBB Accredited Business. He mentioned my president’s column from the previous week’s Business Journal and told me how effective his ad was in a recent edition By Pat Rose of this newspaper. BBB President I asked if he took advantage of the BBB advertising discount. He said he didn’t even know there is one. Shame on me! Ask yourself, “Why should I be advertising and why should I be advertising in The Business Journal?” Answer: to increase the number of users, to promote your particular industry, to gain professional approval or endorsements, to promote your product or service to high-income buyers, to better home in on your target audience. If you sell business equipment and services, you probably shouldn’t advertise in a publication directed to stay-at-home mothers. Instead, refocus your sales from the general public to business decision-makers who appreciate quality and extraordinary service. If you agree that one or more of these reasons to advertise apply to you and your company, then

membership in the BBB can help your bottom line. We have partnered with The Business Journal to provide signiﬁcant discounts on ads that will catch the reader’s eye and give you the opportunity to reach a target audience that meets your speciﬁc criteria. Perhaps you own a trucking ﬁrm and wonder why you should advertise here. This past year, The Business Journal featured your industry in its mid-June edition. Next year could be the perfect opportunity to get your feet wet by running an ad when your industry is featured and do several follow up ads to analyze your results. With your BBB discount you will save a lot of money. In addition, the BBB provides members with educational pieces to help them make advertising decisions. Some of these titles are Thirty-Three Reasons to Advertise, The Thirteen-Point Marketing Communications Needs Assessor, The Advertising Effective Idea Provoker and the Nine-Point Integrated Marketing Communications Checkup. If you follow the advice contained in these helpful guides, you will be better equipped to create an effective and memorable ad, and to analyze its effectiveness. Now is the time to “take that ﬂying leap” into advertising. Your customers have become tougher and more promotion-driven. Just like you and me, your customer has doubts and fears about the economy and the future. Your customer is looking for someone to trust. Your customer won’t know about your trustworthiness and skills unless you tell them. Now is not the time to hunker down and wait until things turn around. This economy is turning around. Compose that ad and let high-income decision-makers know how good you are.

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BWC Library Offers Access to Safety Issues N

ot only is the library of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation a repository of data on safety, it also plays a role from time to time in resolving union-management disagreements. A librarian for the BWC’s Division of Safety & Hygiene, Karen S. Jensen, tells of how a labor union challenged the change of a long-standing safety practice the management of a manufacturer wanted to adopt. The old practice, which the union thought should remain, had been negotiated through collective bargaining. “Where in OSHA [U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations] does it say this?” she related the union asked of the unidentiﬁed manufacturer. Management approached the BWC’s safety division to ﬁnd the applicable language – no small task, Jensen said – which it did. Satisﬁed, the union acceded to the new safety practice. Jensen came to Boardman Nov. 12 to brief the Mahoning Valley Safety Council on how its members can make the best use of BWC library resources, especially through its revamped Web site www. ohiobwc.com. New information touches topics that range from controlling ﬂu to drug-free workplaces to ergonomics to lifting guidelines to trucking safety. New to the Web site, she said, is how companies can secure grants to develop best safety practices. Those that work out to be most effective will be posted on the BWC site where they’ll be available

Karen S. Jensen, a librarian for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, briefed members of the Mahoning Valley Safety Council on available resources at a luncheon Nov. 12.

for all companies to share. “No password is needed to log in,” she noted. “Click to safety services and go to publications.” Many of the publications run fewer than 10 pages

and can be downloaded. In addition, the BWC library has a greater array of videotapes and DVDs to lend with most of the newer material available in Spanish as well as English and in a few cases, Portuguese. Many are also close-captioned. “We’re not like the public library,” Jensen said. “You don’t have to [physically] come to us. We’ll ship the materials to you.” The library is “constantly buying new DVDs,” she said. “Your only cost is shipping.” While safety ofﬁcers can easily conduct Internet searches through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask, Find and Bing, it’s easy to be sidetracked if they don’t know enough to narrow their search. “If you haven’t found what you’re looking for in 20 minutes, call us,” she advises (800 644 6292, 614 466 7388 or send an e-mail to [email protected]). “Remember,” Jensen noted, “anyone can put up a Web page. You want to visit those that are reliable, reputable and up-to-date. … Many high-quality resources are not freely available online.” Much of that “high-quality” material is copyrighted and can’t be reproduced without paying a fee. The BWC library “can’t provide copies of copyrighted materials,” she says, “but we can provide the relevant gist.” A wealth of statistics pertaining to safety is available through the BWC Web site for safety ofﬁcers to present their managers as to why practices or policies should be modiﬁed or revamped, she added.

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The Business Journal

DECEMBER 2009

TIPS FOR CLIMBING THE CAREER LADDER, COMPILED BY MONNIE RYAN

Getting Ahead

How to Succeed at Your Job Show your dedication to professional growth.

experience. • Communicate. The more you communicate with your supervisor, the more he will keep you posted on he road to success begins when current events in your ofﬁce. Send you get the job; succeeding at regular e-mails with updates on your your job takes initiative and work progress and questions you may hard work. Showing investment have and dedication • Find soluto improve your Document everything, includtions. The more professional growth and job ing project feedback from your problems you can p e r f o r m a n c e boss and colleagues, so you can solve indepenc a n h e l p l e a d use speciﬁcs to measure your dently, the more responsible and to a promotion, progress. valuable you will says Kim Goff, look. If you need author of Female to take a problem to your supervisor, Empowerment-A Personal Journey. take your suggestions for ways to And these days, it can help you keep resolve it as well. your job. Goff offers some tips for improving Social Networking Pays Off your chances of achieving workplace success in spite of any economic ups Social networking is growing and downs: pervasive, so it should come as no • Education pays. Most employers surprise that more employers are prefer hiring and promoting employusing these sites to screen potential ees who have college degrees, so it can employees. be well worth your time and ﬁnancial If you’re on a social networking site investment to obtain one. If your and are looking for a job, it pays to be company offers free software, comcareful what you post. munication or management training, Rosemary Haefner, vice president take advantage of these opportunities of human resources at CareerBuilder, as well. offers some tips for maintaining a • Take on more work. In addition positive image online: to performing the tasks required of • Clean up your digital dirt beyou, research trends and happenings fore you begin your job search. Rein your industry and share relevant move any photos, content and links ﬁndings with your colleagues. Taking that could work against you in an on new challenges and being an expert employer’s eyes. in your ﬁeld will show your boss that • Consider creating your own you are invested in producing superior professional group. Use sites such quality work. as Facebook or BrightFuse.com to • Take the initiative. Anticipate establish relationships with thought what will be asked of you and offer leaders, recruiters and potential reyour services. Be perceived as a “canferrals. do” person. • Keep gripes ofﬂine. Keep the • Manage expectations. Make sure content focused on the positive, you and your boss are on the same whether that relates to professional page with what you are expected to or personal information. Make sure deliver. If no regular evaluations are to highlight speciﬁc accomplishments in place, check in with your boss every inside and outside of work. few months to conﬁrm you are on tar• Don’t forget that others can see get. Document everything, including your friends, so be selective about project feedback from your boss and who you accept as friends. Monitor colleagues, so you can use speciﬁcs to comments made by others. Consider measure your progress. using the “block comments” feature Learn from your mistakes. The or setting your proﬁle to “private” so worst thing to do is try to blame only designated friends can view it. someone else or deny that a mistake If you’re still employed, for goodwas made; the best thing is to accept ness’ sake, don’t mention your job responsibility and learn from the search.

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DECEMBER 2009

PEOPLE, COMPANIES, MAKING NEWS

For the Record The Children’s Center for Science & Technology is relocating to the former McCrory’s Department Store building on Federal Plaza in downtown Youngstown. Through a subsidized long-term lease agreement with First National Bank of Pennsylvania, owner of the building, the center will occupy the ﬁrst ﬂoor and lower level. Its current location is on East Boardman Street. The center will close Dec. 5 and remain on hiatus until the museum opens next fall, says Suzanne Barbati, executive director. To help ﬁnance the project, a capital campaign has been launched with the goal of raising $1.5 million. The Wean Foundation has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership to launch a new program, the Mahoning Valley Healthy Neighborhoods Alliance. The program will focus on making nutritional foods more accessible to underserved neighborhoods in Youngstown and Warren. Stephanie L. Sferra, executive director of the Trumbull County Tourism Bureau, has completed coursework offered by the Ohio Tourism Leadership Academy. Time Warner Cable has launched a ﬁve-year $100 million cash and in-kind program that will encourage youth to focus on learning science, technology, engineering and math skills. Of that amount, $11 million in resources has been earmarked for Ohio.

Michael Robinson, regional director of access to care and outreach operations for Humility of Mary Health Partners, was presented the Young Healthcare Executive of the Year Award by the National Association of Health Services. Nick Odille has been promoted to supervisor at Hill, Barth & King LLC, Certiﬁed Public Accountants and Business Consultants, Youngstown.

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Kevin P. Murphy, a member at Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell Ltd., has been named to the board of governors of the Ohio State Bar Association.

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Owner Stan Thomas cut the ceremonial ribbon Nov. 10 at My My My’s Diner across from Harding High School on Elm Road in Warren.

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Donald “Jay” Bice, president of the American Cancer Society’s Trumbull County unit, has been elected chairman of the board of directors of the American Cancer Society, Ohio Division. Ellen Staf for d, a graduate of Youngstown State University, has joined the Youngstown ofﬁce of Cohen & Co. as a staff accountant and auditor.

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Eastern Gateway Community College will hold program information nights at the college’s Valley Center at Northside Medical Center from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30, Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 and from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 at Trumbull County Career and Technical Center. The sessions are free and open to the public. Call 800 995 5222 or 800 682 6553.

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New concession centers and pavilions recently were dedicated at Austintown Fitch Falcon Stadium, one in honor of the Joseph Lane Family and Lane Companies, and the other for David Ritchie, longtime school board member, and Eugene Chepke, former Fitch athletics director. The centers were made possible through donations to the Falcon Forward Committee by the Lane Family, Farmers National Bank, and Tony and Mary Lariccia. From left are Austintown Police Sgt. Ray Holmes, Falcon Forward treasurer; Joe Lane, CEO of the Lane Companies; Vince Colaluca, Austintown superintendent; Chepke and Tony Lariccia.

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40 Under 40 Names MVPs

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ive shining stars from among 40 of the Mahoning Valley’s most accomplished young professionals were recognized Nov. 19 when they were named MVPs during the 40 Under 40 Awards ceremony at the DeYor Performing Arts Center. The awards are sponsored by the MVP 20/30 Club and the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley. This is the ﬁfth year for the event. The 2009 40 Under 40 MVPs are Adam C. Earnheardt, M. Brigid Kennedy, Shawna L. L’Italien, Heather Marie McMahon and Allen L. Ryan. Earnheardt, 39, is an assistant professor in Youngstown State University’s communications department. He said encouraging his students “to give back to the community through the various service-learning projects available in my courses” is among the most important work he does. Kennedy, 39, is associate director of the Ursuline Sisters HIV/AIDS Ministry. She said that after returning to the area from Ireland, she was surprised to learn that HIV was a problem here

Julie Scarscella, left, of the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, stands with the 2009 MVPs. They are, from left, Shawna L.

and “more surprised that the nuns were the ones doing something about it.” She volunteered to help, and that led to a part-time job and to her current position. L’Italien, 39, a partner at Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell Ltd., said

L’Italien, Heather McMahon, Adam Earnheardt, Allen L. Ryan and M. Brigid Kennedy.

she knew that she wanted to be an attorney from a very young age because she “wanted to help people.” McMahon, 33, is development director of the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative. She discovered her passion for city planning as a

child, she recalled, when she declared to her parents that she would never live in a suburb. Ryan, 38, is director of corporate affairs at Covelli Enterprises. He credited his law degree with opening several doors of opportunity.

The Business Journal

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BY JEFFREY GITOMER

Sales Savvy

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Are They Out of Touch? Or Out of Their Minds?

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recent survey conducted by Use of the Internet to blog, e-zine and a management and human use social media. Achieve Google’s top resources consulting ranking, so your customers and prosfirm asked 365 CEOs and sales pects will perceive you as a provider of management executives, “What are value and a leader in your ﬁeld. the three key factors that separate high • Exciting, compelling presentaperforming sales tion skills. Not professionals from just solid commumoderate to low Use creativity to present ideas in nication skills, but performing sales favor of the customer, and cre- superior questionprofessionals?” ativity to differentiate yourself ing skills, listenBoth CEOs and from the competition. ing skills and a C-level sales exsense of humor ecutives (all peoare vital. It’s the ple who don’t sell, but rely on their innate ability to engage and capture salespeople to produce sales so that the imagination (and the wallet) of they can get paid), ranked self discustomers and prospects. cipline/motivation as the most im• Ability to prove your value and portant. claims through the testimony of Next in line were customer knowlothers. Testimonials sell where salesedge, innate talent/personality, and people can’t. The best salespeople use product knowledge; further down the video testimonials to support, afﬁrm list were experience and teamwork and prove their claims. But you don’t skills. just get testimonials, you earn them. Totally bogus. Same with referrals. These are qualities of corporate • Ability to create an atmosphere greed, not value, service or help – the where people want to buy (because three things that customers require to they hate being sold). This is done by give business and maintain loyalty. engaging and asking; not presenting I’m a writer, but I’m also a salesand telling. man. I make sales and sales calls every • Ability to build a relationship, day. If you’re interested in the most not hunt or farm. Great salespeople important factors of a high performing are relationship builders who provide salesperson, let me give you a realistic value and help their customers win. list of success characteristics: • Unyielding personal values and • Perpetual, consistent, positive ethics. Great people have great values attitude and enthusiasm. This is the and great ethics. It’s interesting that ﬁrst rule of facing the customer, fac365 CEOs and executives don’t deem ing the obstacles, facing the competithem in the top 10. tion, facing the economy and facing • The personal desire to excel and yourself. be one’s best. There is no prize in sales • Quadruple self-belief. Unfor second place. It’s win or nothing. wavering belief in your company, The masters know this and strive for, unwavering belief in your product ﬁght for, that slight edge. and unwavering belief in yourself are As for the next poll taken, here’s a the first three rules. But fourth is great idea for CEOs and sales executhe most critical of the self-beliefs. tives. There’s an easy way to ﬁnd out You must believe that the customer the most important factors and qualiis better off for having purchased ties of great salespeople: make some from you. sales calls yourself. • Ability to give and prove value. If you really want to have some fun, Prove the value of your product or bring your marketing people along. service, and your ability to give value Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, beyond the sale to the prospect so you conducts seminars, sales meetings and can earn the order, the reorder and training programs. Reach him at 704 333 the loyalty. 1112 or at [email protected]. • Ability to promote and position.

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Legal Listings Business Bankruptcies CHAPTER 11 09-43448 Concord Steel Inc. (SIG Acquisition Corp.), 197 W. Market St., Suite 202, Warren 44481. Total Assets: $11,540,361. Total Liabilities: $14,088,466.

09-44421 ACHG Inc., 6715 Tippecanoe Road, Building A, Suite 202, Canﬁeld 44406. (1100 N. Market St., Rodney Square N., Suite 200, Wilmington, Del. 19801.) No Summary Schedules ﬁled.

New Ohio Incorporations The Joshua Project, Salineville. Incorporator: Toni Deliscia. Filed by: Toni Deliscia, 39574 Alderlick Road, Salineville 43945. Agent: Same. Leetonia Bears to Bee Preschool Inc., Leetonia. Incorporators: Nancy Callahan, Jill Ogle, Shelly Wurster. Filed by: Shelly Wurster, 1493 Beeson Mill Road, Leetonia 44431. Agent: Same. Access Health Mahoning Valley Inc., Youngstown. Incorporators: Matthew Stefanak, Rober t Pinti, Neil Altman. Filed by: Leonard D. Schiavone, 100 Federal Plaza E. #300, Youngstown 44503. Agent: Same. Team Taylor Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Joseph C. Randazzo. Filed by: Financial Network of America Ltd., 2214 E. Enterprise Parkway, Twinsburg 44087. Agent: Joseph C. Randazzo, 2214 E. Enterprise Parkway, Twinsburg 44087.

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Employer’s Advantage Inc., Boardman. Incorporator: Jerry M. Bryan. Filed by: Henderson Covington Messenger Newman & Thomas Co. LPA, 6 Federal Plaza Central, Suite 1300, Youngstown 44503. Agent: Jerry M. Bryan, 6 Federal Plaza Central, Suite 1300, Youngstown 44503. Steel Valley LaCrosse Club Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Thomas N. Trefethern. Filed by: Thomas N. Trefethern, 4615 W. Streetsboro Road, Suite 211, Richﬁeld 44286. Agent: Same. Beatitude House Gr een Clean Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Michael J. Podolsky. Filed by: Shumaker Loop & Kendrick, 41 S. High St., Suite 2210, Columbus 43215. Agent: Michael J. Podolsky, 1000 Jackson St., Toledo 43604. Cardinal Mooney Platinum Cardinals Inc., Youngstown. Incorporators: Thomas N. Trefethern. Filed by: Thomas N. Trefethern, 4615

W. Streetsboro Road, Suite 211, Richﬁeld 44286. Agent: Same. A Season for Change, Austintown. Incorporator: Michael R. Mathews. Filed by: The Alpern Law Firm, 103 W. Market St., Suite 202, Warren 44482. Agent: Michael R. Mathews, 25 N. Canﬁeld-Niles Road, Suite 140, Austintown 44515. Abundant Love Outreach Ministry Inc., Youngstown. Incorporators: Mar y Cook, Faye Morris, Julie Buggs. Filed by: Abundant Love Outreach Ministries, 93 E. Myrtle Ave., Youngstown 44507. Agent: Mary Cook, 103 Willis Ave., Youngstown 44507. Swift Ryders M.C. (Sexy Women in Full Throttle) Inc., Youngstown. Incorporators: Lisa B. Maiden, Ashia M. Maiden. Filed by: Lisa B. Maiden, 344 Sexton St., Struthers 44471. Peoples Voice Inc., Girard. Incorporators: James E. Haynie, Greg Leberﬁnger, Elsa Forsythe. Filed by: Peoples Voice Association, 1 Louise Lane, Girard 44420. Agent: James E. Haynie, 1 Louise Lane, Girard 44420. Milk ’nd Eggs Inc., Warren. Incorporator: Jennifer Chishko. Filed by: L.A. Chishko et al, 5446 Oak Hill Drive, Warren 44481. Agent: Jennifer Chishko, 5446 Oak Hill Drive, Warren 44481. Refuge Ministries Inc., Youngstown. Incorporator: Robert A. Denen. Filed by: CT Corp. System, 4400 Easton Commons Way, Suite 125, Columbus 43219. Agent: Robert A. Denen, 1155 Churchill-Hubbard Road, Youngstown 44505. Johnston Senior Center Inc., Cor tland. Incorporators: Elizabeth Muir, Esterina Wagner, Susan Rohm. Filed by: Johnston Senior Center Inc., 143 W. Main, Cortland 44410. Agent: Elizabeth Muir, 5834 state Route 5, Cortland 44410.

Pa. Incorporations/Fictitious Names A ﬁctitious business name is the name under which a company conducts business but which is not the legal name of the owner or of the corporation as indicated in its articles of incorporation.

Talon Engineering, P.O. Box 665, 4 Fourth Ave., Greenville 16125, consulting engineering. Fictitious Name Owner: Julie A. Manns.

Twilight Events, 24 Lower Idlewild Drive, New Castle 16101, wedding/event planning. Fictitious Name Owner: Heather Wagner.

The Girls Next Door, 128½ College Ave., Greenville 16125, beauty salon. Fictitious Name Owners: Ashley Emph, Heather Williams.

Paoletta Financial Independence, 848 Brandywine Drive, Hermitage 16148, multi-level marketing. Fictitous Name Owner: Paoletta Enterprises LLC.

Mister Chip, 272 Kaldy Drive, New Castle 16101, distributor of Boyer’s chips. Fictitious Name Owner: Jennifer Fry.

SCP Group, 309 Penn Ave., Sharon 16146, graphic design, reproduction using lithography. Fictitious Name Owner: J&R Beck Inc.

Ellwood City Revitalization, 314 Fifth St., Ellwood City 16117, downtown revitalization board. Fictitious Name Owner: Ellwood City Main Street Project Revitalization Inc.

The Business Journal

51

DECEMBER 2009

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE ��

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Ryan Sees Abortion Compromise YOUNGSTOWN Nov. 17 – U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan is conﬁdent that a compromise on abortion coverage will be worked out in the health care reform proposal under consideration in the U.S Senate. Ryan, who opposes abortion, had attempted to broker a compromise to assuage the concerns of pro-choice and anti-abortion House Democrats. His efforts were given “the green light” by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reports Time, and the language Ryan wrote “ended up known as the Capps amendment, because Lois Capps of California introduced it during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s markup of health reform legislation.”

DECEMBER 2009

www.BusinessJournalDaily.com

OnlineDatelines

The Business Journal

State Grant to Pay for Razing Of Sheet & Tube Building YOUNGSTOWN, Nov. 21 – A $630,000 state grant will allow the city to remove an eyesore near V&M Star Steel’s proposed $970 million expansion. The grant, from the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund, will pay for demolition and remediation at the site of the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube ofﬁce building in Brier Hill. Although not a part of the property to be used for V&M’s proposed expansion, removal and cleanup of the dilapidated building is a priority for V&M, local ofﬁcials say.

Small Business Centers Turn 25

Harry& Jeans Restaurant Closes

Ohio, U.S. Jobless Rates Up

CANFIELD, Nov. 25 – The message posted on the restaurant’s front door spells it out – Harry & Jean’s is closed less than three years after its celebrated opening. Patrons who used to call for take-out orders are now greeted by a message saying the phone line is disconnected. The empty parking lot at 6580 Ironwood Blvd. and darkened dining area are a stark contrast to April 18, 2007, when brothers Ralph and David Meranto celebrated the grand opening. An homage to their childhood memories growing up Poland, the Merantos named the restaurant after their grandparents, Harry and Jean Russell. Ralph Meranto heads the parent company, Carolina Restaurant Concepts in Rock Hill, S.C., which operates a Harry & Jean’s restaurant there and closed its Charlotte, N.C., location last year. Company representatives couldn’t be reached.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Ohio’s unemployment rate for October was 10.5%, up from 10.1% in September. Nationally, the jobless rate rose to 10.2% in October from 9.8% in September, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Across the country, 29 states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month rate increases for October and 13 states posted rate decreases, with eight states’ rates remaining unchanged. Jobless rates in all 50 states were up from October 2008, and Ohio’s was up 3.6 percentage points from its rate a year ago, 6.9%. The number of unemployed workers in Ohio for October was 618,000, up from 594,000 in September, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported. The number of unemployed in the state has increased over the last year by 209,000, from 409,000 in October 2008, the bureau reported.

COLUMBUS, Nov. 19 – The Small Business Development Center of Ohio Network is celebrating 25 years of service to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Established in 1985, the network of 39 centers across Ohio foster business growth with local partners including colleges, development agencies, chambers of commerce and community groups.

TMH Tops in Women’s Health WARREN, Nov. 20 – Trumbull Memorial Hospital is ranked among the top 5% of hospitals in the nation for women’s health outcomes, according to HealthGrades, which presented the hospital with its 2009/2010 Women‘s Health Excellence Award. The independent health-care ratings organization also awarded Trumbull Memorial with a ﬁve-star rating for women’s health. HealthGrades’ hospital ratings and awards reﬂect the track record of patient outcomes at hospitals in the form of mortality and complication rates.

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The Business Journal

53

DECEMBER 2009

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54

DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Attention Veterans Funds and Grants available for Senior Veterans

Did you know that war-time veterans and their surviving spouses could qualify for ﬁnancial assistance for assisted living and skilled nursing care at Park Vista? Retired veterans who have faithfully served our country may also be eligible to apply for a Veterans Honorable Service Grant for use at Park Vista’s independent living areas. This grant is offered by Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services (OPRS) to thank veterans for their dedicated and loyal military service.

“Because

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The Business Journal

55

DECEMBER 2009

Nursing Homes See Trend Toward Shorter Stays The number of admissions is growing as younger people seek rehabilitation services. By Dan O’Brien

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o longer are skilled-nursing homes considered a place where the elderly live out their days. Instead, they’ve evolved into rehabilitation centers where a growing percentage of residents stay for a short time preparing to return home. “In the past, nursing homes were considered the last place for a loved one,” says Dan Rowland, director of marketing at Windsor House Inc., Girard. “Not anymore.” Rowland, Donald Kacmar of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Retirement Services, Sally Demidovich of Woodlands, Ed Fabian of Grace Woods Senior Living, Joan West of Park Vista Retirement Community, and JoAnn Blunt, director of Danridge’s Burgundi Manor, acknowledge that senior care in the Mahoning Valley mirrors a rising trend across the country. “We’ve expanded our short-term rehab services,” says Rowland. Windsor House’s newest center, Masternick Memorial Health Care Center in New Middletown, includes new rehabilitation services that “meet the demands of the baby-boomers,” he relates. “The length of stay is generally shorter, and

Chuck Koch, a carpenter, cuts moldings for installation at Hampton Woods’ new assisted living center.

admissions are up.” Hospitals are also discharging patients earlier, and many refer these patients to skilled nursing centers for recovery after a stroke,

surgery or an injury. While short-term rehabilitation allows those patients healthy enough to return home, it also places more pressure on nursing homes to admit new patients as beds become available, Rowland notes. “In some cases, you need to get double the admissions,” he says. Moreover, nursing homes are still asked to do more with less, says JoAnn Blunt, administrator at Danridge’s Burgundi Manor, Youngstown. “There have been some Medicaid cuts,” she says. The nursing home, for example, must now pay its transportation expenses out-of-pocket where before, Medicaid covered the costs. “Residents still have to go to dialysis” or off-site for other services, she says. “We’re using our own drivers now.” And, regulations change every year, Blunt says, so administrators, to remain in compliance, must keep abreast of any changes in the law. Almost all of the nursing homes in the area are witnessing a rise in patients in need of short-term care. “Between 2008 and 2009, we’ve seen an 8% increase in short-term rehab,” reports Joan West, director of public relations for Park Vista Retirement Community in Youngstown. “We added 12 beds last year” to accommodate the increase. Among the new services planned for Park Vista is a 1,400-square-foot pool that will allow progressive therapy for long-term and short-term residents, West says. “This is a fantastic therapy pool and is quite See SHORTER STAYS, page 56

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DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

Shorter Stays: Nursing Homes Seeing More Short-Term Residents From Page 55 an undertaking.” Depth of the pool can be manipulated from almost none to up to six feet. It also comes equipped with a variable-speed treadmill, resistance jets with massage hoses and a computer to document and track patients’ progress and recovery. “This is the same type of therapy used by The Ohio State Buckeyes football team and the Cleveland Cavaliers,” she relates. Also, West says, Park Vista is incorporating into its therapy program electronic game systems such as the Nintendo Wii and the Dakim Brain Fitness System, both intended to stimulate cognitive activity and reduce the risk of dementia. “Older people are moving into the digital age as well. They really enjoy it,” she says. Sally Demidovich, corporate administrator at Woodlands, which operates the skilled-nursing centers Austinwoods in Austintown and Hampton Woods in Poland, reports a signiﬁcant increase in short-term patients over the past two decades. “I would say between 30% and 40% of our residents are short-term,” she says, compared to between 5% and 10% about 20 years ago. It’s not unusual, she relates, to accept 50 new admissions in a month and process the same number of discharges. Demidovich likens today’s nursing home to “a hospital for the elderly,” where its primary function is to rehabilitate patients and either send them home or to an assisted living center. This trend convinced Woodlands to construct a new assisted living center at its Hampton Woods campus. “It’s establishing a continuum of care,” she says. Demand for assisted living hasn’t necessarily increased because most patients opt for home-health care, Demidovich says. Still, there is a need for those looking for a more independent lifestyle that assisted-living complexes offer, coupled with closeknit care services. And, there is a trend toward younger residents moving into skilled nursing centers, relates Donald Kacmar, director of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Retirement Services. “We’re transitioning to a lot of short-term services and we’re seeing a lot more younger folks coming in” who require therapy. Fifteen years ago, the average age of residents was the early 80s, Kacmar reports. Since then, he’s seen a rise in the number of patients and short-term therapy residents in their late 60s. “We’ve really seen an increase over the last two years [for short-term rehab]. There’s been an increase of hospital referrals,” he relates, because hospitals discharge their patients earlier. To improve patients’ morale after rehab, Kacmar says Shepherd of the Valley has “become more creative” in preparing residents for their returns home. “We’ve just piloted a program called Almost Home at our Poland site,” he says. Almost Home houses residents in one of the villas on campus, villas equipped with all the amenities of home – dishes, utensils and a kitchen – so residents can begin cooking their own meals again should they want to. The package also includes emergency alarm services and modiﬁcations to help the resident return home. The idea is to prepare the resident for their return home by re-acquainting them with the everyday functions they used to perform.

Because a patient’s mobility might be reduced, his residence may need to be modiﬁed, Kacmar says. Thus, “There’s also a handyman component” in which carpenters modify the house to make it more accessible when the homeowner returns. “We can install grab bars, or handlebars, in various places at the home while they’re staying with us,” he says. When patients can’t return home, assisted living could provide an answer, says Edward Fabian, owner and operator of Grace Woods Senior Living, owner of complexes in Niles and Salem. The greatest challenge this segment of senior

care faces is that many people “are outliving their resources.” Therefore, the expense of placing a loved one in an assisted living apartment is always a factor. “We try to keep our costs as low as possible,” Fabian says. “People in this area are struggling,” especially those retired from Delphi Packard whose pensions and health-care beneﬁts are in doubt. Medicaid reimbursements to those in need are helpful, and he reports occupancy at Grace Woods is “solid. The demand is still there. But where it’s going to go from here is anyone’s guess.”

The Business Journal

57

DECEMBER 2009

Nursing Homes Fight Medicaid Cutbacks Nursing homes elsewhere reimbursed more than here. By Dan O’Brien

A

group composed of nursing homes and their advocates say the method the state of Ohio uses to determine reimbursements is unconstitutional and they’re prepared to go to court and argue their case. “Area nursing homes could lose a total of $20 million a year” once the state puts into effect its new reimbursement schedule, says J.P. Daliman, corporate counsel for Windsor House Inc. and a member of the Senior Rights Advocacy Group of Northeastern Ohio. “We’re taking these numbers and meeting with our counsel. The next step is to meet with the attorney general’s ofﬁce.” The Senior Rights Advocacy Group, a coalition of 24 skilled-nursing centers in the Mahoning Valley, sued the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in February, contending a state law passed in 2005 “unfairly and irrationally treats Mahoning and Trumbull County nursing homes differently from similarly situated homes” elsewhere in the state. The complaint was ﬁled in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court but since was reassigned to Franklin County. “We want to expedite this,” Daliman says. A tentative trial date is set for June 22. The coalition wants the court to grant a perma-

nent injunction to prevent the state from effecting a new Medicaid pricing structure passed in 2005. Reimbursements are calculated on “peer groups,” that is, groups clustered based on geography. Whether the case will make it to trial or the parties achieve some settlement remains to be seen, Daliman adds, noting that the attorney general’s ofﬁce has “been communicative and somewhat open to discussion.” Mahoning and Trumbull counties were once considered part of a smaller “urban” peer group, which allowed for a greater speciﬁed amount of Medicaid dollars per bed, Daliman explains. Under the new plan, the state reduced the number of peer groups to three from four and reclassiﬁed the Mahoning Valley as “rural,” which calls for smaller reimbursements. The peer group receiving the highest reimbursements is Hamilton County and the surrounding greater Cincinnati area, while the second peer group consists of larger municipalities such as Cleveland, Dayton, Akron and Columbus and their surroundings. The third peer group is made up of Mahoning, Trumbull and Stark counties as well as other “rural” areas of the state. “We think it was improperly applied and statistically invalid,” Daliman says. “We feel like we’ve been grouped in areas that are unlike us.” For example, Daliman points out, nursing homes in the Cincinnati peer group are reimbursed $40

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more per bed per day than those in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. The new classiﬁcation plan would be phased in, Daliman says, although he relates he doesn’t know how long the period would be and how much the reimbursements would decrease per year. “Last year, there was no drop,” he relates. “But this year, it’s about 1%,” he says, or $2.5 million for both Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Meanwhile, nursing homes are expected to absorb additional costs because Medicaid no longer covers transportation, over-the-counter medications such as cold medicines or aspirin, and oxygen, Daliman says. To offset these costs, Job and Family Services boosted its payments by $10 per bed this year. However, Daliman relates, that sum isn’t enough to cover all the new expenses. “Our franchise fees have also doubled,” he says. Donald Kacmar, director of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Retirement Services, says the reduction in Medicaid reimbursements “hurts us. We’re looking at $15 a day per bed loss, and it could be more. The peer groups are not fair.” Daliman estimates some 10,000 are employed directly or indirectly by nursing homes in the Valley, including therapists, vendors of medical supplies and transportation companies. Collectively, these nursing centers treat more than 10,000 residents a year.

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DECEMBER 2009

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November 25, 2009

The Business Journal

Auto Loan Rates

CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK – Salem Up to 60 Mos. 5.75 - 16.50 Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

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8.00

7.74 8.24

CORTLAND BANKS – Cortland Up to 60 Mos. Up to 72 Mos.

6.75 6.75

HOME SAVINGS – Youngstown Up to 60 Mos. Up to 66 Mos. 10% Down

E.S.B. BANK – Ellwood City Up to 60 Mos. Up to 72 Mos.

7.40 8.40

HUNTINGTON BANK – Youngstown Up to 60 Mos.

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK – Canﬁeld Up to 60 Mos. Up to 72 Mos.

6.40 6.94

KEYBANK – Youngstown Up to 66 Mos. Down: Varies

Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

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FIRST PLACE BANK – Boardman Up to 60 Mos. 10% Down

FIRST MERIT BANK – New Castle Up to 48 Mos. 5.50-12.50 10% Down FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA. – Hermitage Up to 60 Mos. 7.85 Up to 66 Mos. 7.85 1ST NATIONAL COMMUNITY – East Liverpool Up to 60 Mos. 6.00 - 11.75

6.99

PNC BANK – Sharon Up to 66 Mos. PNC BANK – Youngstown Up to 66 Mos.

7.24

7.00 - 13.00

Rate varies based on applicant’s credit rating

US BANK (formerly Firstar Bank) – Boardman Up to 48 Mos. 5.10

Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of The Business Journal compilations. The rates are subject to change without notice. All rate information should be conﬁrmed with the individual ﬁnancial institution before entering into transactions. © 2009 Youngstown Publishing Co.

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The Business Journal

59

DECEMBER 2009

Mortgage Rates

November 25, 2009

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION AMERISTATE BANCORP INC. Boardman

TYPE

TERM

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RATE, 2-Wk Trend

FEES

4.75  4.875 

0+costs 0+costs

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FHA/VA Fixed

0% Down 3% Down

30 Yr. 30 Yr.

CHARTER ONE BANK Boardman

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

CONSUMERS NATIONAL BANK Salem

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

CORTLAND BANKS Cortland

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

DOLLAR BANK MORTGAGE CENTER Cleveland

ARM Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

5 Yr. 30 Yr.

E.S.B. BANK Ellwood City, Pa.

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

4.625  5.375 

0+costs 0+costs

FARMERS NATIONAL BANK Canﬁeld

Fixed Fixed

20% Down 20% Down

15 Yr. 20 Yr.

4.75 — 5.125 —

0+costs 0+costs

FIRST MERIT BANK New Castle/Boardman

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

4.375  4.875 

0+costs 0+costs

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FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PA Youngstown, Ohio

Fixed Fixed

5% Down 5% Down

15 Yr. 30 Yr.

4.375 — 4.875 

0+costs 0+costs

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4.375  5.00  4.375  4.875  4.25  4.875 

4.00  4.875 

Arrows tell whether rates rose or fell since last issue. Dashes indicate “unchanged.”

0+costs 0+costs 0+costs 0+costs 0+costs 0+costs 0+costs 0+costs

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60

DECEMBER 2009

IT FEELS GOOD TO BELONG! From Swimming Lessons to Youth Sports Leagues, From Day Camps to Racquetball, The YMCA of Youngstown has programs for every member of the family. Why Not Join Today? It Feels Good To Belong!

November 25, 2009

The Business Journal

Mortgage Rates

IT FEELS GOOD TO BELONG!

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

FIRST PLACE BANK Boardman FLAGSTAR BANK Beechwood HOME FEDERAL Niles

www.youngstownymca.org

BUSINESS JOURNAL INSTITUTIONAL AD 1/6V PAGE AD

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RATE, 2-Wk Trend

Champion St., Downtown Fixed Fixed

330-744-8411 Fixed

0+costs 0+costs

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5% Down 15 Yr. 4.25  THE YMCAFixed Of YOUNGSTOWN, Fixed 5% Down 30 Yr. OHIO 4.75  Fixed Fixed

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ccording to most reports, costconscious consumers have cut way back on dining out. In fact, we don’t have to look much beyond our own need to conserve hard-earned dollars to know it’s true. As recently as a couple of years ago, you could ﬁnd our search team at area restaurants several days a week for lunch or dinner or both. Fast food? Only if we had the grandmunchkins in tow and nothing short of a McSomething would do. Now, we’ve resurrected regular groceryshopping trips and dusted off the cookbooks. That said, dining out remains one of our favorite guilty pleasures, and we aren’t about to give it up without a ﬁght. We’re always looking for ways to enjoy the pleasures of restaurant dining for less than it would cost to eat at home. Figuring we’re not alone, we’ll share a few of our success strategies.

W

e’ve saved money at Restaurant.com ever since it started on auction site eBay. com. Today, it’s a stand-alone site that sells discounted certiﬁcates at a ﬂat fee, typically $10 for a $25 certiﬁcate. But if you sign up at the site, you’ll be notiﬁed of sales that bring the percertiﬁcate cost down to as little as $2. For instance, a couple of friends introduced us to Margherita’s Grille a while back, and we loved it. So when we found that the restaurant in Girard is listed at Restaurant.com, we were delighted – and the minute the price dropped, we snapped up two or three. Everything is done online; just pop the chosen certiﬁcates in your virtual shopping cart, enter the coupon code to get the special discount and your credit card number and print the certiﬁcates on the spot. They’re good for one year after the date issued, but only one per month can be used at the same restaurant. Before you buy, though, read the ﬁne print. Most certiﬁcates require a minimum purchase, typically $35, excluding alcohol. Some have restrictions on days or times, and it’s rare that they can be used to buy daily specials or other promotions. On a recent visit, we enjoyed Salmon alla Pomadoro, sautéed salmon with roma tomatoes, lemon and garlic with a hint of basil perched on top of angel hair pasta ($12.99) and linguine with clams in white wine sauce ($10.99). One of us added a cup of wedding soup ($1.99), and we shared a plate of delicious fried, lightly breaded calamari with lemon and a side of marinara sauce ($6.99). Add in one soft drink and the total bill was just a few cents over $35, with $25 of that amount covered by the certiﬁcate we bought for just $2 and plenty of food to take home for another day. In most cases, you can view the menu of participating restaurants online before you buy – spotting the wood-ﬁred ribs prompted us to snag a $25 certiﬁcate for $2 and pay our ﬁrst visit – but deﬁnitely not our last – to Brudder’s in Austintown. This time, we took a couple of friends to share the wealth; to keep it simple, we just split the amount we spent beyond the $25 discount.

DECEMBER 2009 The list of participating restaurants from the local region isn’t long, by the way, but you’ll ﬁnd some well-known names such as Vernon’s Café, Caffe Capri, O’Charley’s, TJ’s, Buena Vista and Sunrise Inn. Frugal Factoid: Think outside the doggie box. If you’re planning a vacation, check Restaurant.com offerings in the location you’ll be visiting. Knowing we’d be in Marietta for a couple of days this summer, for instance, we spent $2 for a $25 certiﬁcate for the Marietta Brewing Co., one of our favorite restaurants, to take with us – and a wonderful (and inexpensive) meal was enjoyed by all.

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e don’t remember the ﬁrst time we purchased an Entertainment Book, but we do know we haven’t missed one in quite a few years. The Youngstown edition sells for $35 at Entertainment.com, but some nonproﬁt organizations sell them locally for less. The contents can be previewed at the Web site if you’d like to see before you buy. The book includes coupons for much more than food – for instance, dry cleaning, rounds of golf and movie tickets – but restaurants are the big attraction for our search team. Each edition’s new year starts on Nov. 1, and we’ve never failed to recoup the cost of a book from the savings provided by fewer than a handful of restaurant coupons. When our new book arrives, we stash it in our car so it’s at the ready when we are. Such was the case when we were on the way home from a recent photography foray in Beaver Creek State Park somewhere around lunch time. Flipping through the pages, we spotted Ricky’s English Pub in Salem and said,

In Search of:

Cheap Dining By Monnie Ryan

Why not? Most often, coupons are for a buy one, get one free entrée or sandwich, so the $5 off on a $25 purchase here wasn’t quite as good a deal. But since we’d never been here before, we decided to try it. And yes, we’ll happily return the next time we’re in the area. The interior resembles (what else?) an English pub, and the prices are quite reasonable – the most expensive entrées we saw were $10.99. Our biggest challenge at lunchtime, then, was ﬁnding enough to meet the $25 spending requirement. In the end, we sampled a cup of lobster bisque ($3.50 and yummy) and an appetizer platter loaded with onion rings, fried mushrooms, cheese-stuffed jalapeno peppers and mozzarella sticks for $7.95. For our sandwiches, we ordered a shaved-beef Philly steak with grilled onions, peppers and cheese ($6.95) and the named-for-its-size “Prince of Whales” ﬁsh sandwich, batter-dipped cod, at $8.50. Both sandwiches were accompanied by wonderful

61 tender steak fries. Needless to say, we left with a couple of takehome boxes that were so stuffed they barely closed. The total bill was $28.98, or $23.98 minus the $5 coupon. Divide that by getting at least four meals out of our purchases (two of them at home), and it turned out to be a pretty good deal after all. Similarly, we took a coupon from the 2010 Entertainment Book for a buy one, get one free entrée to O’Donold’s Irish Pub & Grille in Austintown. There, we enjoyed Chicken Diablo at $12.99; the huge bowl of tender, delicious corned beef and cabbage ($10.99) didn’t cost a cent. Leftovers? But of course! There’s a lengthy list of local participants with coupons in the Entertainment Book, by the way; for 2010, a few we’re sure to visit include Big Family Restaurant, Sunrise Inn, Rotelli and Barry Dingles. Frugal Factoid: Wash it down with water. Soft drinks and alcoholic beverages can total as much or more than the meal itself; at Ricky’s, for example, we spent $7.75 for three beers. It’s much smarter to buy your drinks at supermarket or liquor store prices and treat yourself when you get back home. Finally, don’t overlook other sources of savings, like coupons in newspaper ads and advertising circulars and signing up at individual restaurants’ Web sites to receive special offers. It’s impossible to list all the possibilities, but we’ll let you in on a couple of our favorite ﬁnds, starting with the buy one, get one free coupons at IHOP that appear just about every week in our newspaper. We both love breakfast any time of day, so at our most recent visit we enjoyed two orders of the “Big Basic” – three eggs, three pancakes, hash browns and a choice of bacon, sausage links or ham at $7.39 – both for the price of one. We’ve also signed up at Ruby Tuesday (RubyTuesday.com) and Chili’s (Chilis.com) to get special e-mail offers. At Chili’s, we received a coupon for free chips and queso almost immediately. Ruby Tuesday, though, sent a coupon for a buy one, get one free entrée. Granted, the coupon expired a week after we printed it, but that gave us sufﬁcient time to enjoy a couple of handcrafted steak dinners that come with Ruby Tuesday’s salad bar – which alone is worth the price of admission. Still other great deals we’ve clipped from the newspaper in recent days are a dinner for two for $15.99 at Yankee Lake Inn near Brookﬁeld, $5 off two entrees at Welshﬁeld Inn in Burton and a one-pound sirloin steak dinner for $12.99 at the RoadHouse in Niles. Frugal Factoid: Remember that servers have to eat, too. No matter what percentage you choose to pay, always calculate your tip based on the amount you would have paid had you paid full price.

62

DECEMBER 2009

The Business Journal

BUSINESSJOURNALDAILY.COM VIDEO SERIES

3 Minutes...

Alex & Jorgine Shaffo, Owners

330-743-0920 Hours:

Monday-Friday 10:30 a.m.- 2:30 p.m.

Located in the YMCA Building 17 N. Champion St. • Downtown Youngstown

NEW MENU EVERY DAY

Catherine V. Mott

Robert Reilly

Founder, BlueTree Capital Group

Incoming president, Home Builders/ Remodelers Association

A

ngel investors take a lot of risk, investing in early-stage companies. The payoff, however, can be substantial, says Catherine V. Mott, president, CEO and founder of BlueTree Capital Group and BlueTree Allied Angels. Her group of angel investors has averaged a 27% return.

Who Can Be an Angel? We’re accredited investors. That accredited investor deﬁnition by the FCC is someone who has a networth of a million [dollars] or earns at least $200,000 a year for the previous three years.

Average Return? The most recent research that was conducted by the Angel Capital Education Foundation is that so far we’re exceeding those of seed funds and our average return is about 27%.

Same as Venture Capital? We are a form of venture capital – we’re early stage. We’re smaller amount of dollars, so we take the earliest risk. And, we manage our own money. It’s our own money; it’s not other people’s money.

Required Investment? Different groups have their different levels. Our minimum level is $20,000 [per investor] per deal. That’s done so we can aggregate a considerable amount of money together and negotiate good strong terms for the investors.

T

he construction industry may be feeling the brunt of the economic recession – building permits in Mahoning County are down 77% – but there’s still demand for upscale homes built for professionals looking to cash in on good deals, says Robert Reilly, incoming president of the Home Builders/Remodelers Association.

Your Expertise? I do all custom homes. We design them from the ground up to the speciﬁcations of the homeowner. … They range from $300,000 to $700,000.

Much Demand? Demand? No. But, there’s still a market for it.

Who’s Buying? It really varies. Professionals – doctors, lawyers, a lot of people who own their own businesses.

Effect of Tax Incentives? Indirectly, [the ﬁrst-time homebuyer tax credit]will help because the people I’m building for, they have to sell their house and that could be somebody buying their ﬁrst home. [The $6,500 tax credit for homebuyers who’ve owned a house in the last three years] will directly help my business a lot better than the $8,000 ﬁrst-time buyer [tax credit] will.

Visit BusinessJournalDaily.com to view video interviews with the Mahoning Valley’s most inﬂuential business and community leaders. Topics are always timely and pertinent.

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DECEMBER 2009

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