Remember when your youthful imagination turned a large cardboard box into a race car or a castle? Mike Welsh does, and now he has started a company that gives kids the stuff they need to create the playhouses of their dreams.

Build a Dream Playhouses is a newly launched producer of corrugated cardboard boxes that can be painted, colored and decorated to make one-of-a-kind playhouses. Welsh, a father and an established entrepreneur, thought of the idea and recruited two re... Read more >

Each year, the Golden 30 awards recognizes 15 established and 15 emerging top-performing companies in Erie, Huron and Lorain counties. This year's winners represent a panoply of Northeast Ohio businesses serving consumers, healthcare professionals, military and manufacturing.

Among the 15 emerging companies who received 2010 Golden 30 awards on November 16 were Synapse Biomedical, Inc., maker of the NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System, which is used in the treatment of chronic ... Read more >

There are far windier places in the US than Ohio, but there may be few better in which to site a commercial-scale wind farm. Thanks to a combination of factors -- not the least of which is recently enacted legislation -- Ohio finally has reached the wind-power tipping point. Even the faintest breeze promises to send Ohio tumbling to the top of the renewable energy heap.

University Circle's Uptown project took a major step forward last week when the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland board approved plansfor a new home, a dramatic, six-faceted, $27 million structure ofhighly reflective stainless steel and glass to be built at EuclidAvenue and Mayfield Road.

The new building should make quite an impact on visitors to the busyintersection: "Viewed from the exterior, the building will appear as aninventive massing of six geometric fa... Read more >

The JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network has added a new funding resource as part of its group of entrepreneurial support organizations. The Wooster Opportunities Fund, developed by the City of Wooster and Wooster Growth Corporation, in collaboration with the JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network, will offer loans up to $35,000 for early-stage, high-growth technology companies.

The new loan source is part of an ongoing effort to expand the entrepreneurial community in Wooster, a... Read more >

It's possible that the success of a company can be measured by the amount of work it actually has to put on hold in order to make room for more pressing client projects. Such is the case with Sideways, a Cleveland-based producer of multimedia, multi-touch digital productions for the iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices.

Sideways had recently launched an experimental magazine, called Sideways, which is authored specifically for the iPad. The idea was to create a monthly m... Read more >

Essentially a buy-local campaign on steroids, Evergreen Cooperatives is launching multiple for-profit businesses that leverage the enormous procurement power of Cleveland's largest medical, educational and cultural institutions. And what's now being called "the Cleveland Model" is attracting attention nationwide.

A refocused business strategy seems to have helped Datatrak International get back on track. The technology and services company, which helps clients streamline the clinical trials process, enjoyed a cash increase in third quarter 2010 over the previous quarter. Laurence Birch, chairman and CEO of the company, says that the $1.8 million in revenue and $11.4 million backlog are due in part to Datatrak's recent investment in additional resources. These included hiring a vice preside... Read more >

When a Johnny Malloy's sports bar occupied the old Centrum Theatre on Coventry, management "honored" the once-grand movie house by installing an impressive array of video projectors and screens, to show multiple sporting events at once. Johnny Malloy's is now gone, and new occupant Fracas is taking a decidedly different approach.

Owner Phil Romano enlisted the aid of the Cleveland Heights Historical Society and Sherwin Williams to track down the colors the theater sported... Read more >

When it opens in early February in a renovated car dealership, LaunchHouse will symbolize a new direction for the City of Shaker Heights and the Chagrin-Lee neighborhood. The 22,000-square-foot building will be a headquarters for start-up companies, providing space for offices, collaboration efforts and conferences.

LaunchHouse has already created quite a buzz in and around Shaker Heights. The business incubator and seed capital investment company has to date incubated 12... Read more >

MDG Medical has been a two-country company for the last nine years. But by March 31, 2011, the developer of automated pharmacy technology equipment and software will have completely moved its R&D group from Lod, Israel, to its Aurora location. The company will begin electromechanical assembly at the Aurora facility in 2011 or 2012.

Mark Saffran, president and CEO of MDG, says consolidating the company operations into one facility in Northeast Ohio is in direct respons... Read more >

Laurence Gartel, considered a pioneer in digital media, lectured a fall semester VMCAD class via "telepresence," working with students remotely to create and design 3D models of high-end automobiles. Gartel makes use of modern technology to provide instant instruction and instant feedback to students, even though he is hundreds of miles away.

"The interaction between students and artist in real time is the wave of the future," says Gartel. "Students can send files and get... Read more >

Brandon Chrostowski, GM at L'Albatros restaurant in University Circle, made his way from Detroit to Cleveland -- via Chicago, Paris and New York. Now, you couldn't pry the guy out of here with a crowbar. As usual, you can blame -- or credit -- the move on a girl.