A Cautiously Optimistic View from the Summit

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…

The New Local

(disclaimer. This blog was typed from Germany on a German keyboard. I am sorry for any errors)


I remember the first time that I was asked where I was from and got confused. It was 2004 at a conference in Koln Germany. You wouldn't think that this would be a tough question to answer, but I found that my difficulty to answer said something incredibly promising about the world we lived in. Here was the confusion. I was married, and my wife lived full time in New York. I worked for my family business called Tech Pro which was located in Summit County Ohio, so I spent part of the week there (where I rented a house) and part of the week in New York (where I rented an apartment). We employed up to 50 people in Ohio. I also was a co-owner of a new company that worked with Tech Pro in a German town called Bruggen. I spent one week out of every five there, and had taken a lot of time, and some pride in starting this with my partner Peter Day. My family business also had sales offices in 13 other countries that I visited often. For the first time in my life I truly felt like the cliched, but relevant “citizen of the world”. I loved this, as it showed that internationalism was no longer an artistic construct, or economist ideal as it was in the early 20th century, but was rather a reality of life.

Now times have again changed and we live in the most hyper globalized world in history, but with a strange reactionary tendency which seems to be at odds with the “citizen of the world” ideals which I so much cared about. We live in a Facebook and Google world, where we communicate globally. Strangely, however, there is a paradox, that we seem to be communicating about the importance of being local rather than global. This is seen in a number of places.


The first is in the buy local movement. While I see nothing wrong with buying local, and actually love the idea of supporting local businesses, the more formal movement does have the unfortunate quality of blinding many people to the value of international commerce. It is global trade, not local, which brings prices down, which makes the world more prosperous as a whole, and encourages technology. There are things that are just better when we collaborate globally, such as certain types of manufacturing, sharing of customs and work principles (think of the Toyota Lean manufacturing model which was Japanese), sharing of natural resources, macro and micro economic experimentation and much more. Even for those who support “buy local” for environmental reasons this can often be misleading as local for most of the United States is considered to be anything within 150 miles. To truck small amounts of goods this distance can often have a worse environmental impact than flying large quantities from other countries. As a solution to this, I do propose urban farming which is as hyperlocal as you can get. So you can see that I don't think everything should be removed from a tight community. In fact one of the greatest things about life now is the rapid rate of increase in urbanization which is better for everyone than rural or suburban living.


The other major place where being global has become controversial is in the recent US Presidential campaign. Talk of Bain Capital and the outsourcing of jobs has basically been a standard lie for both parties. Neither want to discuss the reality, taking instead the less substantive approach of avoiding the real issue. The reality is that we need to discuss the importance of a company's survival and when outsourcing is a good idea. We need to see when it has worked, and just as importantly when it has failed. What Romney should say, and actually Obama should agree with, is that there is not a one solution answer to where to place jobs. They should not always be local. That is a reality for a company's survival and ultimately in providing good jobs both in the United States and abroad. Both Romney and Obama know this, but it is politically incorrect to say it. What could be a politically correct and accurate follow up is that often experiments with outsourcing were not the best solution, and that companies are bringing jobs back to the United States when the conditions work out well.

This brings me back to my own identity. Where am I local to now? I live in Brooklyn, New York, and have a new business in Summit County Ohio that employees people who on average make over 50% more than the state average. That company also sells more internationally than in the United States. So to me I am a proud citizen of New York where I live and contribute by being a Dad and Professor, and to Ohio where I contribute by choosing to have a company and hire wonderful people there. I am still in my mind a “citizen of the world” though, even if that title is not en vogue. Something last night surprised me though. I have been giving TEDx talks in various places around the world. But I never considered, nor do i think TED would want, them to be considered local events in the way that only local topics, and a very small definition of local population would speak. Still there is a TEDx Akron coming up, which is in the same county where I grew up, and owned 2 businesses, including the current rapidly growing technology one. I was told by a friend when I asked about speaking at it, that she believed it was for locals. I said, rudely and defensively, that I am a local. (I did this from Germany and by e-mail by the way) I bring the coolest and best paid new jobs to the area. I use local banks, local patent lawyers, local accountants and our growing staff and I frequent local restaurants, stores and bars. We use local hotels constantly as well, because we are global. If I have to pick a place I am local to, Akron must be a contender, and certainly a place that should ask me to speak at a TEDx Akron. To be completely fair to my wonderful friend she is really great. She even worked with and advises our company (another example of us buying local) and she has helped change the landscape of the community. For me to talk about myself was as it sounds; selfish. She is nominated, rightly so, to speak at TEDx Akron. My worry however is not that I won't speak, which is absolutely fine. What worries me is that others like me, who have homes in New York or other places will not embrace my hometown (Akron) for starting businesses if they are perceived as outsiders, even by the very global TED community. I also worry that Akronites will see themselves as Akronites as a main definer of identity, which will prevent them from embracing globalization. I want everyone to eventually be citizens of the world. The world is too wonderful not to want that. This is not specific to Akron, but general to the ideas I mentioned before. We act more globally every day, but often seem to wish we were not. This is a shame, and should be acknowledged by communities and politicians, so that we can fully achieve the dreams that I had thought I had achieved for myself in 2004.