2004 was a rough year for Deb Papes-Stanzak and her family. First her brother, Ron Papes, was on dialysis for renal failure. Her mother, Mary Papes, was undergoing blood transfusions for congestive heart failure. And her husband, Gary Stanzak, was getting chemotherapy treatments for a rare form of cancer. And Papes-Stanzak was taking care of all of them.
 
One day her brother complained that he was always cold during dialysis and asked his sister to bring some blanket... Read more >

Cleveland continues to gain momentum in leading the country and the Midwest in biomedical investments, according to BioEnterprise’s 2013 Midwest Healthcare Venture Investment Report. The report, released last month, shows that while overall investing is down nationwide, biomedical investments in health IT and medical devices in Northeast Ohio continue to be on the rise.

Ohio ranked number-one in healthcare venture investments. Cleveland earned the number-two regiona... Read more >

Team NEO, the entity charged with marketing Northeast Ohio to the rest of the country and the world, brought a record 16 new businesses to the region in 2013, seven of which are in Cuyahoga County. The new companies add to the region almost 1,400 new jobs and more than $85 million in new annual payroll. The average salary in these companies is $62,000, which also is a record high. The majority of the companies are in manufacturing, healthcare and biomedical.  
 
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In Cleveland, you might recognize the work of Think Media Studios from the Cavs intro videos that they produce. The award-winning Mayfield Heights company also has produced videos for Ohio State University sports teams and companies like Nestle, Progressive Insurance and Parker-Hannifin.
 
But Think Media owner Brian Glazen recently achieved his ultimate goal of establishing a reputation as a filmmaker. His film Fishing Without Nets, a feature about Somali pirate... Read more >

When they’re not working their day jobs, Josh Womack and Cameron Amigo are stand-up comedians. While his talents can leave them rolling in the aisles during an open mic night, Amigo was finding that friends were coming to him for help writing those dreaded best man speeches. In demand was advice on how to give that perfect wedding speech that is at once humorous and light, but sentimental and genuine.

After attending eight weddings in three months in spring of 2012,... Read more >

When Jeff Battershell and his wife lived in Ouray, Colorado, for six years, he fell in love with the numerous small town craft breweries in the area. A Cleveland native, Battershell moved back home a year and a half ago with the initial thought of starting a brewery.
 
“It was always kind of our plan to go out there and experience something different and move back,” Battershell explains. “But I felt like I was missing out on Cleveland’s renaiss... Read more >

A team of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute have developed a risk calculator for colorectal cancer, helping patients and physicians make better, more personalized decisions on whether or not to screen for the disease.

The tool, known as CRC-PRO, or Colorectal Cancer Predicted Risk Online, uses multiple factors to determine an individual person’s risk of developing cancer, instead of simply basing risk on general factors like age a... Read more >

On Monday, January 20, the Cleveland Museum of Art released to much anticipation an iPhone version of its award-winning iPad app, ArtLens.
 
“We’re really excited because lots of people have been waiting for the smartphone version,” says museum CIO Jane Alexander. “ArtLens for iPad got great reviews, but we found people really like using their own devices.”

ArtLens for the iPhone has some added features, such as a search function... Read more >

Tonight, January 23, FlashStarts will be hosting Global Pitcher Night at the January TechPint event at Mahall’s 20 Lanes in Lakewood. Don't come expecting free pitchers of beer; the night is about providing budding entrepreneurs with the opportunity to get up and pitch their business ideas for a chance to take home $5,000.

“We call it a karaoke-for-entrepreneurs concept,” says FlashStarts co-founder Charles Stack. “It’s an ... Read more >

In college, Glenn Harbold followed family tradition and pursued a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. While he was interested in the manufacturing process, Harbold quickly realized that he possessed an entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to be a part of bringing new products to market.
 
That curiosity and spirit led Harbold to buy into Zounds Hearing as a franchisee. He is opening his first of six stores in the area on February 10th, in Brooklyn.
 ... Read more >

Dan Young, owner of DXY Solutions, has been a busy man. The mobile app developer has hired additional staff, opened West Coast and international offices and is expanding his company's breadth of capabilities. “We started off as a mobile company,” explains Young. “Mobile apps are very popular, but we’re looking to put mobile technology in the palm of the user’s hand. We’re looking at design and connectivity to the user’s environment.&rd... Read more >

Running late for a business meeting at the local coffee shop? Not going to make it to happy hour with your friends? Prezto eases the guilt by allowing the user to instantly send a cup of coffee, cocktail or even a cupcake to the person on the other end awaiting your arrival.
 
“The app allows you to give a gift to a friend remotely and immediately,” explains Anne Jiao, founder of Prezto. “It’s a way to share spontaneous moments on a daily basis... Read more >

Pet owners are beginning to realize the value of quality pet insurance, resulting in rapid growth for Embrace Pet Insurance. With that growth comes new hires, a change in investors and a partnership with a celebrity veterinarian.

While less than one percent of U.S. pet owners insure their pets -- compared to 25 percent in the UK -- founder Laura Bennett is working to change those numbers by going to vets and educating them about the benefits of insurance and encourag... Read more >

When Addisah Sherwood-Ajiboye and her husband, A. Bolu Ajiboye, wanted to introduce their three-year-old to science and math, they were surprised by the lack of age-appropriate activities.

While parents often concentrate on early reading skills, they often don’t focus on science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM -- skills, Sherwood-Ajiboye says. “Eighty-five percent of brain development happens before the age of five,” she explains. &ldqu... Read more >

Amber Pompeii and her husband, Michael George, both Cleveland natives, spent the last couple of years in Seattle. While most people think of Seattle as a coffee hotspot, Pompeii discovered something different: tea. While working for Remedy Teas in Seattle, Pompeii saw that there’s a whole different mind-set in a tea shop than a coffee shop.

“Most of the time people walk into a coffee shop and it’s go, go, go, with a lot of carry out,” Pompeii says.... Read more >

Two years ago, after a 17-year career as a communications consultant with some of the area’s larger human resources firms, Denise Reynolds decided she wanted to put a little color in her job. So after she was laid off from her last position, she launched Outside the Lines Creative Group (OTL), a company that uses cartoons to convey company messages.

“I wanted to take all of my knowledge about benefits, wellness, policies and procedures and make it fun,” ... Read more >

When Craig Lewis, a mechanical science and engineering major at CWRU, was given an extra credit assignment in 2011 to come up with something that would increase household energy efficiency, he started thinking about how much water people use in the shower.

“We did a little preliminary research to see if people could track their water consumption in the shower,” Lewis recalls. “We found that 76 percent of people we surveyed had no idea what their water co... Read more >

As an investor in Biolectrics, a company that makes a battery-powered mouthpiece – think sports mouth guard -- that treats periodontal diseases with electric stimulation, Paul Ruflin began thinking about the device’s potential in other applications.
 
“The mouthpiece delivers a small amount of current that kills oral bacteria,” Ruflin explains. “In the lab it kills 75 to 100 percent of bacteria in the mouth in five to 10 minutes. The earl... Read more >

Researchers and hospitals literally can accumulate rooms full of paperwork documenting a single clinical trial. Rick Arlow offers a better method of document management without all that paper. RegulatoryBinder is an early stage software company focused on document management for medical clinic trials.
 
Arlow, who was earning a dual M.D. and Ph.D. a year ago, observed how much paper was wasted in clinical trials, came up with the idea to go paperless. So he quit his s... Read more >