Thursday Feb. 18th
11am-1pm
The Ohio University Innovation Center
340 West State Street
Athens, OH 45701
Room 103

Register by calling Trenia Twyman 740-597-1460

With the theme of the conference being New Energy, New Jobs, I knew this would be a wonderful opportunity for our Alternative Energy Companies here in Athens County to show the wonderful things they are working on. It was a great honor to have Governor Strickland personally visit and see first hand the tremendous work that Third Sun, Sunpower, Global Cooling, and Dovetail are accomplishing. These companies are great examples of how Athens County is becoming a leader in the Alternative Energy Industry.

Day one of the conference kicked off with the option of touring sites around Athens County. These sites included:

Nelsonville Community Revitalization Tour, which included stops at Stuarts Opera House, Nelsonville Historic Square Arts District, and Hocking Colleges- Robbins Crossing Living History Site.

Athens County Arts Loop Tour, which included stops at The Dairy Barn Arts Center, Several Historic Quilt Barns, The Kennedy Museum of Art, Arts/West, and the Passion Works Studio.

Locavore Tour, which included stops at all things food in Athens. These stops included ACNET Facility in Athens, Eclipse Company Town, and King Family Farm in Albany.

I went on the Nelsonville Community Revitalization Tour and I was excited to see all the participants experiencing the great shops and stores around the square!

On day two, Governor Strickland kicked off the start of the conference by promoting all that Ohio has accomplished in regards to energy and green jobs. Expert speakers participated from all walks of the Alternative Energy field. They shared their expertise to help participants better understand where these technologies are heading, and how their communities can take advantage of it. Participants also had the opportunity to tour Alternative Energy sites around Athens County. These sites included:

Alternative Fuels Sites (Logan, Ohio): Hocking College Energy Institute and Chieftain Biofuels, LLC.

Business Innovation Center and Energy Sites (Athens, Ohio): Third Sun Solar and Wind Power, Ltd.; Sunpower, Inc.; and the Innovation Center, Ohio Universitys business incubator.

Alternative Energy Project Sites (Athens, Ohio): Ohio Universitys solid oxide fuel cell research facility, biomass gasification research facility, and electrostatic precipitation research facility; and the university’s Ohio Ecohouse.

I toured the alternative energy project sites in Athens. I was amazed at the work and research being done in regards to Fuel Cells, Biomass, and Clean Coal technology by Ohio University!

The third and final day provided everyone with more information from expert speakers, and allowed the participants to reflect and digest all the information they gathered. We all gathered for lunch and discussed next steps for our communities and how to keep the momentum going!

For Athens County and Ohio University, the momentum really did continue as Gov. Ted Strickland announced on Oct. 28 that Ohio University has been named a Center of Excellence in Energy and the Environment. The designation recognizes the institutions state and national reputation for energy and pollution research, as well as its potential to create jobs in the field. For more information you can read the full article on the Ohio University’s Website.

One of the construction workers found what appeared to be animal bones while he was digging out the pit for the elevator we are installing. To make sure, we called Dr. Nancy Tatarek, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio University. She is an expert in skeletal biology and is the instructor for some of ACHS&Ms student interns. She determined the bones were from a young horse. Next, an archeology student noticed some interesting-looking stone slabs in the pit that appeared to be purposefully set. So we called Dr. Elliot Abrams, a professor in the same department who specializes in Ohio Valley Archaeology. He determined that, since the North end of Court Street was home to many liveries, we had probably stumbled upon the edge of the livery building, making he horse bones make a lot more sense. Both neat things to have happen underneath the historical societys building.

Next came the uncovering of the original garage doors that hung from the back of the building. The historical societys building was built as a car dealership sometime in the late 1920s. The original garage doors are of oak and glass and measure 4 feet wide by about 9 feet tall. This prompted a flurry of ideas on how we could restore and preserve these doors and somehow work them into the design. What an exciting challenge to have.

So as you can see, Ive been part of an uncovering of fires and putting out of fires. So thats my excuse for not posting a blog last week. Pretty good, eh?

We used to get OU students who just wanted to volunteer somewhereanywherevia this website. The students were polite and meant well, but they didnt have a passion for history thats required when building an exhibit or organizing a collection. How do we get students that are already in the history tent? We approached professors in the history department and a history club already established at OU: the Undergraduate History Association. Now we were cooking with gas: these students, a small handful, researched, developed and designed their own exhibits and a few did collections work.

Enter our current Curator/Education Coordinator, Heather Reed. Heather is a recent masters degreed museum professional and is technologically savvy. She came into ACHS&M with the knowledge on how to best harness our museum collection software to properly accession, catalog and locate all of our 40,000 collection items. She worked with our volunteer collections committee to narrow down the scope of work and became an expert at how to work with ACHS&Ms collection. Then she turned to the history professors for student help, but this time she wanted elite students interested in working with collections using best practices. Because she knew about busy student schedules, she wanted the hours students spent under her leadership to have meaning beyond being a volunteer, which in and of itself doesnt look too shabby on a resume. So she arranged credit-earning internships for some of the students. The result? Twenty seven students studying history, archeology, and anthropology are either racking up volunteer hours or earning class credit at ACHS&M while getting hands-on, practical experience in handling collections and/or building exhibits. We even have students interested in history education developing content for school visits.

No longer are there multiple quite days in a row here at ACHS&M. Every day at work I see students with white gloves on peering through a box of letters, or trying to determine the nature of whatever 19th century object they are inspecting, or working out under which collection name a specific object should be catalogued. Its anything but quiet here now, and I have to say, I love the buzz!

One of the most cost effective ways is social networking/marketing. Most of us have heard of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These are the most popular social networks currently, but there are many others that can be just as useful. Using social networks can provide an avenue to market your products or share information about you or your business in timely and cost effective way. Even though this is a great way to curb some of your marketing cost, it is vital to note the importance of taking the time to learn and identify which networks to use, and the most effective ways to use them.

This can be very time consuming and we all know that time is money! This is why the Athens County Economic Development Council, in conjunction with the O.U. Innovation Center, was pleased to sponsor a Social Networking Workshop which took place on August 25th at the Innovation Center. Jared Vorkavich and Tobias Roediger of RAVE, a local marketing and visual effects company who use social networking on a daily basis, provided their expertise on the subject. Designed specially for entrepreneurs and small businesses, this workshop explained the how and why of social networking. Participants were educated on how to use the most popular social networks, and create a strategy for making the biggest impact for their businesses.

We hope that all of our attendees found this workshop resourceful, and have gained a better understanding of social networking/marketing. Thanks again to everyone who participated! Your success is our success!

This achievement would have never happened if it wasn’t for the hard work and commitment put forth by my fellow co-worker Sara Marrs. Sara has spent endless hours working to make the site a success in every fashion.

This accomplishment also would have not been possible without the dedication and creativity that was contributed by Jared Vorkavich and Tobias Roediger of RAVE, the creators of the website. Thank you both very much!

Since our website launched in January of 2009, we have work continuously to make BusinessRemixed.com a great resource for individuals looking to live and work in Athens County. Our website not only promotes economic development, but also provides testimonials to why Athens County is a great place to start a business and raise a family.

Sara and I look forward to continuing to work hard to make Athens County the best it can be, because your success is our success.

The Athens County Economic Development Council is a proud partner of the Entrepreneurship Development Group (EDG) which works to promote entrepreneurship in the county and region. The Lunch and Learn Series is an educational and networking event that will be held monthly on the third Tuesday of each month from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Innovation Center in Room 103. We will arrange to have one or more presenters speak on a topic at each workshop. Co-hosting organizations include: Innovation Center, Tech Growth Ohio, Small Business Development Center, and Athens County Economic Development Council.

Our first workshop Swimming the Capital Maze will feature Tim Kelley from The Community Bank. Tim will facilitate discussion around various State and federal funding programs. Please contact Trenia Twyman at twyman@ohio.edu or 740-597-1468 to register. The event is FREE and pizza will be provided by Tech Growth Ohio.

Future workshops will provide an opportunity to learn more on a variety of business related topics in addition top networking and building relationships with business owners and professionals.

My vacation this year is hereright here in Athens. Im so excited for Ohio Brew Week Festival, and the best part, it comes to me!! One of my favorite things to do is meet new people, engage in interesting conversations, share experiences. Ohio Brew Week brings an estimated 8,000 people into our little community throughout the week of carefully planned events and activities. All of our local businesses see overflow spending from OBW. Hotels are filled with Brew-goers who spend their money here in the Athens area as patrons in, restaurants, gift shops, carry-outs, and countless other businesses. There is a beautiful economic trickle down from all of this spending. This comes at a time when many of these businesses are experience less patronage because of the absence of the student population.

We have a great opportunity to continue to promote our community with OBW. If we expect people to come in from other areas and spend their money here for this festival, then we need to support it as a community. We need to open our town with a welcoming attitude and drink a beer or two with someone new. Talk about local Economic Stimulus!

For more information/event tickets & packages go to: www.ohiobrewweek.com

The credit can be claimed against personal income tax, corporate franchise tax, public utility excise tax or dealers in intangibles tax. The eligible entity or business must be involved primarily in research and development; technology transfer; Biotechnology; Information Technology; the application of new technology developed through research and development or acquired through technology transfer.

The business or entity must apply through the Innovation Center rather than through the Ohio Department of Development. The application cost to businesses is a non-refundable $150 fee.

Investors must also apply directly with the Innovation Center with a non-refundable fee of $200. For more information contact The Ohio University Innovation Center (740-593-1803), or go the Ohio Department of Development