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In business for business

Posted on | February 16, 2011 | 1,507 views | Comments Off

In Piketon, OSU’s Endeavor Center has incubated, guided and helped growing companies survive

By Jeff McCallister

Butch Stall had five job offers waiting for him on the day he retired in 2005.

Stall had worked 31 years at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, one of only a few facilities in the nation that produced enriched uranium — first for use in nuclear weapons and later for atomic energy. He had been in procurement, in charge of buying everything from radioactive containment suits to coal to toilet paper, and there weren’t many people nationwide who knew the business side of atomic power the way he did.

Those rare skills were therefore in demand in places such as Carlsbad or Los Alamos, and they put on a press to recruit him. It was outfits in those places that had always sent personnel to Piketon when services were needed there.

But one of those who had presented a job offer was Frank Barbarits, who had started a small support company in his basement after Barbarits was laid off from the Piketon plant in 1997. Barbarits had grown that company, Innovative Solutions, to 10 employees — migrating from his basement to the barn in his back yard — from its start until that day in 2005 when the two men attended a ribbon cutting just down the way from the old plant.

“When they opened the Endeavor Center, we listened to all the speeches and saw what was going to be going on and Frank looked at me and said, ‘This is perfect for us. When you come and work for me, we’ll move in here and you can pick your spot,’” Stall said. “I realized I really wanted to stay in this area, where I’ve lived all my life, and support Frank in what he was doing.”

Barbarits and Stall toured the center and Stall picked the first office space visitors see as they come in.

“We knew right away that we wanted to be in on this from the ground up, and we wanted to be a very visible partner here,” Stall said.

In a region of Ohio beset by poverty and public pessimism, the Ohio State University Endeavor Center at OSU South Centers in Piketon provides hope and opportunity.

In just five years since its opening, the Endeavor Center has incubated and guided businesses that have created more than 300 new high-skill, high-wage jobs in Appalachia, resulting in $50 million in positive economic impact.

Seven businesses that initially set up shop in the Endeavor Center have moved into larger facilities, but Innovative Solutions, which was named one of the 200 fastest growing privately-held companies in the United States in 2008, grew with the center. Now known as InSolves Unlimited, the company has grown into a multimillion-dollar manufacturing, support and logistics provider for the nuclear industry with more than 150 employees. It’s moved into a much larger space on the second floor of the center.

“There are direct and indirect ways that Ohio State is an economic engine for this region,” said Jerry Driggs, manager of the Endeavor Center. “We are on the front lines in a very direct way.”

Driggs describes the two-tiered mission of the center: “First, we assist new and emerging businesses, those that are ready to move out of a garage or a basement, or are poised to grow but need professional office space, help in hiring or marketing strategy, or just need access to office equipment.”

The center is a 27,000 square-foot building divided into 40 office spaces from 200-1,200 square feet each, with a shared services room with high-speed printers and other crucial office equipment.

“Our second mission is just as important, and that is being a small business ourselves, and we operate that way,” Driggs said.

“We expect the building to support the staff required to run it. We face the same challenges as other small businesses and must find ways to address those issues. The businesses here know we’re making the same kinds of decisions they have to make, and that gives us credibility.”

“I know that if not for this center, our whole company could not have done what we’ve done,” Stall said. “For example, when we were pitching our services to Honeywell for a huge contract, we were able to bring them in here for our meetings and presentations.

“That would never have worked had we had to bring them to the barn in Frank’s back yard.”

Special onCampus section on Ohio State’s economic impact on the state of Ohio

Coming to America

Ohio State program hard at work keeping Ohio at work

Building boom

The Ohio State University: Ohio’s economic engine

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