Economic development and business forecasts were the topics at the Galion-Crestline Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Tuesday in Galion. Attendees heard from Jim Watzel of Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor’s office and a number of local business and area representatives about progress they made in 2014 and developments to look for in the year ahead.
Watzel reviewed the Common Sense Initiative (CSI), which Taylor and Gov. John Kasich launched in 2011 to reform Ohio’s regulatory policies. “Our regulations should work to stimulate economic growth. They should be transparent and responsive; compliance with these regulations need to be as easy and inexpensive as possible for business. And lastly, the regulations should be fair and consistent,” said Watzel.
“This is just about making Ohio a more business-friendly state. That can lead to job creation and we want to be as the best [state] for businesses. We don’t want to be seen as we have in the past as a ‘flyover state.’”
Watzel provided highlights of CSI’s 2014 annual report stating that the CSI rule review process has had a significant impact on the state’s rule-making process, reviewing over 5,500 rules since 2012. Of those rules reviewed, Watzel said 56 percent have been amended or rescinded, “demonstrating a more business-friendly, common sense approach to regulating Ohio business.”
North Central State College President Dr. Dorey Diab addressed economic development from an educational perspective. “With the economy improving and unemployment dropping, there are three important and inter-related factors for which the business forecast will always be true regardless of the economic circumstances. These three factors are raising educational attainment, closing the skills gap, and increasing the labor participation rate.”
Diab noted, “The level of educational attainment in our area is very low: 8 percent at the associate degree level, 10-12 percent at the baccalaureate degree level in Crawford County. This is in comparison to 25 percent at the state level and 28 percent nationally, all at the baccalaureate level.”
He said the work ahead is to close the skills gap and help people find jobs.
Diab said the Crawford Success Center will be a means of addressing those needs. The Bucyrus facility, a former board of elections site, was offered to North Central State College for a $1 rent per year. State of Ohio controlling board approval is expected this month, construction is expected to begin in April, and the grand opening is slated for August.
Updates and forecasts from local businesses
Avita Health System: Vice President of Business Development Mari Swearingen outlined Avita’s major accomplishments for 2014, noting that Galion hosts the corporate headquarters for the 31-location health system. The biggest accomplishment was the grand opening of the Avita Ontario on Dec. 5 with 25 health providers and services including lab, imaging, CT, mobile MRI, and a retail pharmacy. Their walk-in clinic also held a grand opening in February 2015.
Avita acquired Summit Therapy in Ontario, improved Galion’s medical/surgical floor, purchased a CT scanner for Bucyrus, added video conferencing between Galion and Bucyrus hospitals, expanded their wound center and sports medicine programs, and was selected by PBS’s Leading Edge, similar to an infomercial. Avita hopes to be able move forward with phase two at Ontario, which will open the third floor of the building.
Economic Development: Coordinator Gary Frankhouse, Jr.: Frankhouse described how he was part of the vision committee for Crawford 20/20 Vision, a group intent on revitalizing Crawford County, and how they generated a written plan. He shared some of the plan’s strategies including business success and job availability by generating conversation with businesses. A six-week Boot Camp for Bosses started on March 11, and on May 20 they will cover some of the same ideas as well as customer service and sales, but in a one day session. Additional events include a hiring fair on April 29; last year 40 employers were represented.
He also describe an effort called WAGE, Workforce Awareness Graduate and Educators, which he said started this year as a pilot program in Bucyrus. The goal is to spread it to all of the county schools because already this academic year, students and their teachers toured schools in the industrial park and they discussed the correlation between education and business and workforce development.
“What we’re doing,” said Frankhouse, “is we’re creating awareness early so that they realize, ‘There’s opportunity here and we can actually stay in Crawford County and work here.’… When we stop the brain drain and we get people wanting to be here, who knows what’s going to happen. These are seeds we are planting in our youth today and we’re inspiring our teachers to do the same thing.”
Their Quality of Life vision includes SET (Sports, Entertainment, Tourism). The hope is to bring in a facility that has statewide and national appeal. There’s also conversation about bike trails connecting Bucyrus and Galion. He closed by mentioning Graders Baseball, the collegiate wood baseball team that is coming to Galion. “What’s most important is that we’ve got to establish pathways of success for kids. It doesn’t mean they’re going to play baseball: There’s broadcasting, there’s marketing…”
Galion, LLC.: President Michael Cedoz described updates for the precision machine company which does high volume machining for defense and for consumer goods like the automotive and transportation industries. They brought some of their operation that was moved to Florida, back to Galion. “We are diversifying and getting off dependency on government defense and getting more into transportation. We are not running from the defense work that we do, but we are complementing and using our equipment to grow the business,” said Cedoz.
Cedoz described 2014 as a “rough year” for the company. “We had some of our worst sales with defense because of the sequester issue, so our volume was way down. We held onto our employees as best we could; we had to take away a few things, a few of the perks they were accustomed to.”
Galion, LLC is expecting over 30 percent year over year growth in 2015. And they expect to have job offers for Pioneer Career and Technology students. “We’re struggling on the education side in the engineering area with lean manufacturing competing with the Columbus market….We’re putting in some really good training programs to bring in the young people.”
Lifetouch Church Directories & Portraits: Don Lane, Plant Mgr. said Lifetouch employees approximately 280 employee-owners. Citing their accomplishments for 2014, Lane said they serviced 1.8 million customers in North America out of their Galion operations: 1 million church customers and about 800,000 were customers from their retail segment in J.C. Penney and Target locations.
He said volume was slightly down but their margins improved as they focused on customer service, improving quality and delivery and reducing waste. And like many companies in 2015, adding mobile apps was a part of their strategy allowing customers, like churches, to pull up photographs, addresses and contact information of their congregations on their phones.
Schilling Graphics: President Doug Schilling said that the company’s major accomplishments over the last several years has been continued expansion and they now have over 90 employees company-wide, both in Galion and their sites in Minnesota and California. Last fall they acquired the former Charlie’s Market building, remodeled it, and moved some storage into the building and moved some of their processes inside.
Schilling Graphics is also adding new automation and the additional growth in automation requires more skilled and trained staff. “We’re doing a lot on training employees and trying to find those skills that we need in order to run that automation,” stated Schilling. He said finding employees that will work any shift and have the skills they need is an ongoing challenge.
“If you look at 2014, we are obviously heavily into the automotive market at the Ohio site. To give you an idea, automotive builds are projected to 17.5 million for 2015. That will be an all-time record. That will even surpass the build rate prior to the 2008 market crash that we had. So it should be a very positive year moving forward.”
More: Galion Mayor Tom O’Leary also addressed the chamber, addressing recent concerns in Galion regarding overcharges to residents’ electric bills. He also talked about the road projects on Hesby Road and Portland Way north and south.
Attendees at the breakfast also heard from Galion and Crestline schools superintendents. Their remarks have been held to be reported separately.
