I have struggled with ways to describe the rewards and
frustrations of having a technology company located in a small town in Ohio. I
have written about my home town of Akron, which was once a center of American innovation
and in my experience still has some of the most under-appreciated and talented
engineers I have come across. There are however at least a few times per month
when I find myself fighting an uphill battle against political complacency,
class stagnation, and delusion that can all be poisonous. The struggle is not
so much about how I feel, as this is fairly clear. The facts can be found
anywhere. Akron, and the even smaller town of Cuyahoga Falls where Nanotronics Imaging (the tech company I am CEO of) is actually located, has had a declining
population for my entire adult life. Large industries once sustained it not
only as a manufacturing hub, but also with research centers for companies like
Goodyear, Firestone, BF Goodrich, ABB, Timken, Lockheed Martin and many more.
As the population got smaller so did the opportunities for those scientists and
those skilled workers, leaving in its place the support structure of
universities, hospitals, stores and excessive real estate inventory. Though I live
in New York, I have long recognized this as an opportunity. Where there were
great engineering jobs, there are still great engineers. Where there are
Science and Engineering programs in universities, there are students graduating
who already know the region. This must be the story of much of rust belt
America and the European counterparts to it. Detroit is even a more famous
example, but I have never worked or lived in Detroit, so I will keep my
comments to Northeast Ohio, where my company and my emotions are still so tied.
Even with these feeling of the obvious advantages, I have been unable to fully
understand why other tech companies don’t see this. I now realize that it is
harder than I had expected for reasons that economists and sociologists have
understood for centuries.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) , the first political economist, understood
the Akron issue before Akron was an issue to be had. Most importantly to this
point, Smith assumed that a society thrives by access to technology and the ability
to trade it. A contemporary book by Matt
Ridley called “The Rational Optimist”, gives an encouraging and sensitive account
of how communities can thrive, and of the pitfalls to avoid that can lead to
death. Ridley speaks about the long history of Tasmania, which went through a nearly
7000 year regression in technological ability, and therefore in longevity, starvation
and vulnerabilities to the elements, which are indeed huge problems to deal
with in the absence of good tools. The Tasmanians, until 10,000 BC were connected
with the world, where large populations of different backgrounds could learn
from each other and help each other to develop new tools, and even inspire art.
The reason for this may seem a bit cynical, but it is more romantic to me than
the words will first appear. The reason why it was possible to create new specialty
tools was because the market for those tools was large enough. There is the
purely commercial aspect of course, but also the fact that creation and
invention is meaningless in isolation. With a world to share with, there is a
world who will share with you, and therefore there is a vibrant technological economy.
The 7000 year regression only occurred when removal from a growing active cross
culture trade was cut off.
This
technological age is one of early agriculture, not one of industrialization,
and certainly not one where mass international social networks connect the
planet through small devices that can be carried around. Still the "Tasmania
Problem" (as Ridley describes it in his book) serves as somewhat of an analogy and even a warning for Ohio and places
like it. While I don’t hold out our technology company as being transformative to a region, the idea of it could be. Ohio needs to do everything in its power
to avoid Tasmania style regression, and the way that countless cases in history
have shown is that technology, inclusion and collaboration with others outside
of the village, city, state or country are crucial. This also means
collaboration outside of the discipline of expertise in a specific community.
There are many times when I seem to be in rather bad taste
in my criticism of Summit County, the Ohio County that encompasses Akron and
the smaller town of Cuyahoga Falls where Nanotronics lives. I have considered
doing a whole series on these as a defensive vindication of my positions, by
including Hume, Jefferson, Paine, Tocqueville, Voltaire, and maybe even the
Dali Lama to throw people off a little, but just by mentioning these names
here, I am being pretentious enough. It is not just what these other people
say, but how the community is feeling. More important to this blog
though is how I am feeling, which is that the efforts made by some in the
region to be international, are lost in the blind and even dangerous religion
of a new type of community based spirituality which could be defined as hyperlocality.
I made that word up and it may not be a good one, but involves the well-meaning,
extremely diligent hard work of a community that has been in decline. This
group is trying to redefine itself by local businesses that appeal to other
locals. This by its nature is circular. In
the case of Summit County this means businesses, organizations and individuals who
support the only remaining industries, which are also support businesses. More specifically
I will propose two stories, both of which won’t use specific companies’ names,
and are not 100% “based on a true story”, but are very close. They are as least
as true as I understand, and have been represented to me. As you will see with
my titles, and descriptions (I tell these in the first person though neither
are meant to be a retelling of my own history), neither are meant as attacks, as I
respect people and organizations that are following both of these. You will
also see that I think however that despite my respect for the intentions of
both, I find one of these stories highly flawed and bad for the county (and
counties like Summit around the world).
Story of Summit County #1 – a story a of organic sustainability
Though the tire companies have left, the city of Akron has
never looked nicer, and we are doing everything we can to keep it that way. When I grew up Akron was a dirty place. Pollution
was rampant. I used to have carbon black that came from tire company smoke
stacks on my wind shield. That said my family worked for those companies, and
that is why I could afford a college education. Those tire companies leaving
was hard for a while, and many people moved out of Summit County as the jobs left.
Luckily for us in the wake of that exodus were 2 very good hospitals and within
50 miles 10 good Universities. Really though I don’t need to look 50 miles out
to see how my generation is benefiting from a renewed Summit County. The university
grounds are cleaner and nicer than ever, and professors are still living in our
city. The hospitals are also still very good. What I and my friends are doing
is making sure that we are taking this now ecofriendly city (since the industry
pollution is long gone), and creating local businesses that are sustainable and
attractive. We have organic farms that use no biotech. We sell these in local specialty
stores. We have recycling programs. We oppose fracking and believe that we can
have a nicer life through conservation. Though I know that I buy from places
that are not local, my goal is to support these local businesses, and to create
local businesses that will be supported by the others.
Story of Summit County #2-
International Technology Incubator
There is enormous opportunity since the tire companies left
our county, even though they were so good to our county for so many
generations. The benefit has all to do with human capital, and regional legacy.
Both of these things will come in handy. A far as people, we have smart,
talented engineers from those businesses that left, who would still like to
stay in this nice region. We also have great lawyers, doctors, and even
university partners if we need them. The population is declining in numbers,
which is a bad thing no matter how you look at it. The upside is that in a
global economy we are no longer dependent on the growth of our own county to
spur the success of our county. We can leverage the talent to create
intellectual property and manufacture products and software that are not just
the envy of the world, but more importantly allow us to be integral players in
the world. By doing this more people may very well move to Summit County as the
jobs here will not be made up only of support businesses and businesses to
support the support businesses.(The latter of which I find to be putting the
cart before the horse). Why do we need expensive organic food stores, which ultimately
deplete wealth, (and let’s be frank, they pay wages that are only slightly
better off than working at Walmart.) I look at West Orange and Menlo Park New
Jersey, the two business homes of Thomas Edison that cared little about those communities’
directly, but by creating the electric light, the phonograph, the motion
picture and 2000 other things, made the entire world healthier and wealthier, including
those smaller towns in New Jersey. I look at San Jose, where Silicon Valley was
born. The modern computer era that we all enjoy was not for the benefit of a
region, and had nothing to do with thinking locally. It had to do with invention
and the proliferation of those inventions. Now Silicon Valley is richer, but so
are all of us, in so many ways, which are not just financial. Summit County
should do the same.
As you can probably guess, I strongly support the second
story. There are some in our area that are doing these things. John West, my friend
and the former Director of Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute has helped us
and many other companies with grand and successful national and international ambitions. There
are others too of course. A rumor is that the area is courting biotech
companies, which is one reason for me writing this piece now. Just as these two
well-meaning people in the stories above are doing what they are claiming, part
of that is a debate over biotech. This is one example where intentions are not
everything. If the Organic Sustainability Akronite described above were to win,
we will have more low paying, low impact organic food stores, and less lifesaving
high paying biotech.
This is much more of a rant than my typical essays, and I apologize
if it seems judgmental. It is making a call that I think is rational. It is not
however questioning the ideals of those in story one. Well maybe some come to
mind that should be called out, such as University Presidents and politicians,
but that will be for another rant. Next blog will be back to science, philosophy
and free jazz…
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