Walnut Hills / East Walnut Hills / O'Bryonville : Innovation + Startup News

Today, Detroit-based Digerati launches its Intern in Ohio program to the public, which is sponsored by the University of Toledo. Like eHarmony, the program uses an advanced matching algorithm to match students with internship opportunities.
 
Intern in Ohio is free to both students who are looking for internships and businesses who want to post internships. To register, students and employers visit Intern in Ohio’s website to sign up and create a profile or post internship opportunities. Students fill out a short questionnaire about their preferences, and employers share information about the position. The system then identifies the top seven matches for each student, as well as for each position. When the match is made, both the student and employer are notified, and they must show interest before any contact information is shared.
 
“We encourage diverse companies—large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, government and corporate,” says Wendy Pittman, director of Digerati’s Classroom to Career. “It’s a great chance for employers to broadcast their company and internship program across the state and reach a larger pool of applicants.”
 
Only companies in Ohio can post opportunities to the Intern in Ohio website, but all types of internships are welcome. There are posts for marketing, engineering and social media, among others, says Pittman.
 
The program is open to all students who live in Ohio, whether they’re in-state or out-of-state students. Research shows that not only do internships often lead employment offers after graduation, but that students are more likely to remain in an area where they held and internship.
 
“This is the first replication of the Classroom to Career technology from Michigan to Ohio,” says Pittman. “Experiential learning is a game-changer; and we’re looking forward to working with smaller communities to make a difference.”
 
In 2011, Digerati launched its Intern in Michigan program, which has resulted in more than 127,000 matches and introductions between students and employers. Over 1,000 Michigan businesses have posted 4,824 internship opportunities, and 1,049 colleges and universities in the state use the site.
 
Full disclosure: Soapbox’s parent company, IMG, supplies content to Intern in Ohio on a contractual basis.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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Public schooling is multi-faceted, and each state legislature has a particular way of governing its districts.

Public schools are a large part of state budgets and efforts, and most years, there are new regulations for administrators and teachers to comply with. Many new rules—implementing an anti-bullying program, for instance—comprise of educational and professional development and reporting and tracking.

Taken together, each mandate can take up a lot of time, which leaves teachers struggling to do what they to best: educate children.

One Cincinnati company is growing by making it easier for K-12 schools to manage those mandates. PublicSchoolWORKS offers schools a suite of web-based software and ongoing support in the areas of staff and student health, safety compliance and behavior programs.

Founded in 1999, the O'Bryonville-based company has two software suites: EmployeeSafe and StudentWatch. PublicSchoolWORKS has clients in the Cincinnati area, but it also serves schools across North America. Its resources include written plans, forms, training courses and other content that school districts need in order to succeed.

PublicSchoolWORKS was developed by a team of actively employed school administrators. It's CEO, Steve Temming, has more than 22 years of experience working in public schools, including administration.

"We create complete programs that address the needs of a district, not from a strategy standpoint but from an implementation standpoint," says PublicSchoolWORKS' Vice President Tom Strasburger.

The company is constantly monitoring state legislatures to assure its custom-content software continues to meet school districts' needs. PublicSchoolWORKS also offers ongoing service support to help districts get the most out of the software, Strasburger says.

"We provide a signature product that completely addresses school issues," Strasburger says. "By knowing legislation and meeting that legislation, the system is built to manage what is expected of the school. It's virtually hands off, so (teachers and administrators) can do their jobs."

It's because of the system's automation and completeness that the company rarely loses a customer. Public School Works is growing with its own sales, support and research groups, in addition to IT. Not only are its services growing, but PublicSchoolWORKS is also physically outgrowing its current office space, and could soon move into a new, larger facility.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Miami University junior Samuel Frith was on vacation three years ago, and spent a little too much time in the sun. Today, when the rays get a little too intense, he relives a painful part of that vacation.

"My lips are very sensitive when I'm out in the sun," he says. "I get really bad sun poisoning and blisters when I go out in the sun."

Frith went through all of the cosmetically available lip balms around, especially those with high SPF levels, but they just didn't work.

"I wasn't getting any relief," he says. "I even tried the brands that were SPF 30 or 40."

Last summer, he decided to take things into his own hands, and create The Ultimate Lip Balm. It's a balm that would help sun-sensitive people like Frith. Active outdoor types could also use it, and it even has medical applications—chemotherapy patients often get severely dry lips during cancer treatment, and they could benefit from Frith's balm as well.

Frith, a finance and entrepreneurship student, was one of the top winners during this month's Innov8 for Health business pitch event. He was one of four $1,000 prize winners in the student track.

Frith's past experience includes working on a cosmetic lotion project for GA Communications in Chicago, which helped him learn about the process of getting a facial care product to market.

"I did a lot of reading and research about the FDA and regulation of product claims," he says. "While I was there, I learned about SPF, sun care products and the facial care industry."

After doing further Internet research, Frith decided to work with a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, company—Raining Rose—to develop the lip balm. Raining Rose is a small, custom lip balm manufacturer known for using organic and natural ingredients. The company and Frith are working to develop a formula aimed at making the lip balm last longer, and therefore, be more effective, Frith says.

"After SPF 30, [sun protection quality] plateaus," Frith says. "You have to come up with other ingredients that will stick better on lips, or attributes other than SPF to make a higher quality lip balm."

Currently, he's working to raise $15,000 for product testing. He hopes to get The Ultimate Lip Balm onto lips by late fall.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Four friends and homebrewers want to share the camaraderie they've developed around craft beer with more people in Cincinnati.

Local attorneys Eric Palmer, Steve Sharpe, Kieran Hurley and Nick DiNardo are working to open the BrewKraft Collective, a place were craft beer lovers can meet up to share and create brews.

Palmer describes it as a nanobrewery or craft beer community center. It will be part of the neighborhood, he says, and be a place that people can walk to and grab a Cincinnati-inspired beer.

"It will be as locally focused as possible," says Palmer. "We want to use local ingredients. With beer, it's a little tricky finding hops, but we believe we can get some in the local area. We also want the beers to be locally influenced. We're working with different folks to come up with beers that are reflective of Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio."

The partners are scouting locations, and Over-the-Rhine and Northside are at the top of the list. They're looking for a space that's 5,000 to 7,000 square feet that would contain the microbrewery, tasting room and learning center.

"We want to be part of the neighborhood," Palmer says. "There are some really good [microbreweries] here, but they don't get a lot of street traffic. You have to get in your car and go to them."

Palmer's been a homebrewer for 20 years, and he's been brewing with his friends for five.

"We are passionate about brewing," he says. "We love doing it. There is still a demand in Cincinnati for craft beer that is not being met. We have some craft brewers here, but Cincinnati is behind Columbus and Cleveland. The small brewers around here can't keep up with all of the demand."

A recent change in Ohio law that makes it less costly for small breweries to operate tasting rooms spurred the idea.

"The law makes it easier to get beer in the hands of people who like craft beer, and makes it less expensive to get a license and taste beer on site," Palmer says.

Plans are to open The BrewKraft Collective within a year. The partners are looking for investors and considering buying a property through the Hamilton County Land Bank, a new program aimed at cleaning up distressed and abandoned properties across the county.

The BrewKraft Collective was a winner of Xavier University's third XLab entrepreneurship contest. University MBA students are helping polish the collective's business plan.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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The Cincinnati Development Fund is soliciting donations to support urban redevelopment through the Create Jobs for USA program, but time is running out to make a difference.

Specificially, CDF wants to help local businesses in Walnut Hills and Pendleton through the targeted fundraising the crowd-sourcing opportunity provides.

“The funding will allow building owners to improve vacant storefronts,” says Jeanne Golliher, president and CEO of the CDF.

Golliher says the funding will help building owners lease their units at attractive rates, “which will lead to job creation and revitalization of street level business districts.” CDF hopes it will create a snowball effect that spreads through the targeted neighborhoods.

Create Jobs for USA was developed by Starbucks and the Opportunity Finance Network to restore and improve underserved urban areas that have suffered through tumultuous economic times. According to the program's website: “In one year, Create Jobs for USA has turned $15 million in donations into $105 million in loans to community businesses, creating or maintaining 5,000 jobs.”

CDF has raised $230,000 in loan capital that will go toward Create Jobs for USA.

“Our board decided that because it is a relatively small amount, we should focus on bringing life and jobs to vacant storefronts in one or two neighborhoods,” Golliher says. CDF's decision to focus on only a few areas will ultimately make a maximum impact in those neighborhoods.

Three loans have cleared in Walnut Hills that will help businesses capitalize off the reversion of McMillan and Taft Streets back to two-way roads. Discussions are underway for development in Pendleton in anticipation of the new casino, but no deal has yet been made.

Donations are being accepted through CrowdRise.com, a website developed by the OFN. The deadline is March 1.

“If you are one of those people who drive through these neighborhoods and ask ‘why don’t they do something about all this vacancy?’ This is your chance to be part of the change," says Goliher.  

By Sean Peters

For URBtank, it’s all about the cycle.

Kyle McGrath, 23, and Brad Ostendorf, 22, are the brains behind URBtank, an urban aquaponics system.

The team, who both studied architecture at the University of Kentucky, worked on proposals and plans for the River Cities Project, which addresses ecological and economic conditions and tries to bring people back to the water.

McGrath and Ostendorf couldn’t stop thinking about aquaponics all summer, and soon they found themselves building a system in Ostendorf’s garage in Cold Spring, Ky.

Aquaponics uses fish to fertilize plants, typically of the edible kind and can function in any kind of climate, indoor or outdoor. 

“Fish need nutrients, we feed the fish, they excrete waste, that fish waste can be turned into nitrates, which fertilize the plants themselves, so the plants then clean the water for the fish, and it gets returned back to the fish," says McGrath. "And it’s a close-loop cycle, so the water flows throughout the whole system."

The pair is in the process of moving their system to a warehouse at 111 W. McMicken Ave. There, they have plans for massive expansion.

“There thousands upon thousands of unused acres inside of old buildings, so why not tap into that?” Ostendorf says. 
Space isn’t the only advantage. “There’s no interruption; it just keeps going. You take out the seasons, and you’re providing for the whole year."

With no plans to stop, URBtank is currently growing microgreens, mizuna and watercress. Immediate plans include growing lettuce and other leafy greens.

Both McGrath and Ostendorf are interested in fine dining, and they want to develop a community aspect to their business by allowing chefs to choose what they grow and hand-pick items for menus.

“They have complete control over what they grow," says McGrath. "If they want Asian cress or mizuna or wasabi pea chutes, we can do that for them.

For updates, follow URBtank on Twitter.

By Gina Gaetano

Going on maternity leave changed Gail Yisreal’s life in more ways than having a new baby to take care of.
 
When she returned to work, Yisreal says she learned her position was no longer there, so she began to look for a different job.

As wife and mother to a blended family of nine children, she might bake up to 11 birthday cakes in a year. But she hadn’t considered turning her knack for kneading dough into earning dough until she baked a wedding cake for a couple from her family’s place of worship. Not only did they like the cake, they suggested she start selling them.
 
Listening to her fans, Yisreal founded A “Mother’s Touch” Cakes with the nurturing tagline, “Making fresh homemade cakes when you don’t have the time.” Celebrating her two-year anniversary as a registered business in August 2012, A “Mother’s Touch” features signature and custom made flavors of fresh, savory gourmet, organic and vegan cakes and cupcakes that are good—and good for you.
 
“I didn’t know anything about decorating, so I took a class to learn more decorating skills," Yisreal says. "And I was shocked to find out that 95 percent of the cakes you buy are box cakes—because everybody wants the decoration. I started doing some research about the trans-fats and artificial ingredients, and I vowed that everything I baked would always be natural and from scratch.”  
 
After working as a waitress for two years and in management at Starbucks for six years, Yisreal developed a love for coffee. She jokes that most ex-Starbucks managers feel they know enough about coffee to create their own line, which she actually did for A “Mother’s Touch.”
 
Having tried organic coffees with weak flavor profiles, she researched and found Dean’s Beans, a fair-trade pioneer that allowed her to design her own custom blends. Her signature A “Mother’s Touch” blend is made with Mexican and Indonesian beans and pairs with her carrot cake as an after-dinner coffee.
 
“I’m really proud of my coffee and the fact that it really was custom blended for what I wanted to complement my desserts,” Yisreal says. And, true to her mission to serve natural, sustainable goods, she says that her blends are 100 percent organic, fair-trade certified and are shade grown.
 
Being on the scene without a storefront hasn’t stopped Yisreal. Instead, she’s building her brand as the “cupcake lady” who networks everywhere and invites people to taste samples of her creations. Yisreal also tapped into hidden markets by hosting deals through social media.
 
“I did a Living Social promotion last year, which was huge,” Yisreal says. “That first day, I think I got 1,500 hits on my website, and probably about 85 deals, which I thought was really good for people who didn’t know who I was.”
 
And even though she sells more cakes today, the ease of transporting cupcakes built her clientele.
 
“When I first came out, because of my financial situation, literally, cupcakes were paying my rent,” she says. After she and her husband separated, she remembers what it was like to go from making an annual salary of $60,000 to less than $20,000 a year. But she doesn’t do it all alone.
 
“I have three almost-teenage girls; 12, soon to be 15 and 17, so they are my preppers,” Yisreal explains. “It’s hilarious because we’ll be in the kitchen and everybody has their big bonnets on, and they’re scraping carrots, mashing fruit, lining the liners. I have a girlfriend who I’ll sometimes sub-contract out to do deliveries. And if it’s a huge event—like for the Autism Foundation, I had to knock out 40 dozen cupcakes—I have two sisters, and at the time I had just split up with my husband so we were in literally an 800-square-foot apartment. The kitchen was all of maybe 150-square-feet, we put out six-foot tables and we were like an assembly line! It was hilarious, but we got it done. It was like an I Love Lucy episode!”
 
By Mildred Fallen

The hardest thing about being vegan, according to Caitlin Bertsch, isn’t figuring out where and what to eat; it’s other people’s reactions. “They’re worried I’m judging them, or think they don’t eat correctly.”

Bertsch, the founder of Vegan Roots, launched her business with the creation of a vegan goetta that has garnered a lot of incredulous responses, but, Bertsch says, is loved by vegans and omnivores alike.

“What I’m trying to do with Vegan Roots is to address that and say, 'Hey, there’s a lot of good stuff out there that can be made vegan.' Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s not tasty.”

Bertsch is a Xavier University grad who studied math and sociology before earning her master’s degree in anthropology. A travel addict, she’s studied abroad and worked in international development overseas and in Washington, DC. When she moved back to Cincinnati and settled down in East Walnut Hills, she set out to find a job locally.

“It’s hard to find international-related work in Cincinnati, so I needed to find another creative outlet,” Bertsch says. She enrolled in ArtWorks’ Springboard program, which helped her settle on goetta as her first product. She’d developed the recipe by gathering pork-based recipes, raiding her spice cabinet for just the right combinations and testing, testing, testing. When she brought her final creation in for Springboard classmates to taste, the vote was nearly unanimous: this could be the foundation of her business.

Bertsch hopes to expand her footprint, and is anxiously searching for rentable, commercial kitchen space that would allow her to crank out larger batches. She currently supplies vegan goetta to the Brew House in Walnut Hills, which offers it as a salad topping, and Bella Vino in West Chester, which plans to add mini vegan goetta sandwiches to its menu.

By Robin Donovan

“A digital spin on the traditional photo booth” is Kelley Andersen’s super-short explanation of Booth FX Photo Booth Company, which she launched with her partner, Allison Gates, last month. The pair built the idea for their company on a love of photo booths, two creative personalities and their vision for a photo booth that was more than a traditional, space-limited box.

“We first looked at the booths you can buy, and they were nice, but not what we were looking for," Andersen says. "We wanted something that was more digital. I love Instagram, and was trying to figure out how we could do that as a photo booth."

The booth they custom-built--“with a lot of time and a lot of mistakes,” Andersen adds--measures 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet, is 5.5 feet tall and incorporates software that allows photos to be viewed, edited and shared.

Rather than expecting participants to hop inside, the booth houses the photography equipment. Participants gather in the space around the booth to snap a photo in front of customized backdrops the women create for each event with input from hosts.

Features of the booth include a wireless remote and a touchscreen for viewing images on the back of the booth. This allows attendees to view photos, use filter effects (much in the same way as one would with Instagram) and upload images to social media immediately. The co-founders provide wireless internet with a mobile hotspot.

Booth FX launched last month, and both founders still have full-time day jobs--Gates as a designer and Andersen as an insurance analyst. So far, they’ve been commissioned for fundraising events and they plan to reach out to local brides- and grooms-to-be to expand their business into weddings.

By Robin Donovan

Cincinnati sports enthusiast and blogger Eddie Maisonet has upped his game with The Sportsfan Journal, a website devoted to all sports news.

The publication launched about two months ago, and expands on Edthesportsfan.com, Maisonet’s edgy, fast-paced personal sports blog. He maintained (the now dimmed) blog with help of two writing partners. Those partners, Kenny Masenda, of Dallas, and Phil Barnett, of Bakersfield, Calif., have joined Maisonet in this new endeavor, which is updated more frequently and now has a cache of a half-dozen writers.

“We are a full online sports and culture publication. The site is updated multiple times a day; it’s more interactive and keeps pace with the changes in the sports news world,” says Maisonet, also a regular contributor to SLAM basketball magazine.

The Sportsfan Journal features a mix of news, columns and video revolving around sports as varied as football, basketball, hockey and wrestling. It also features Maisonet’s ongoing, one-hour Unsportsmanlike Conduct show on Blog Talk Radio Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST.

Like Edthesportsfan.com, Maisonet’s describes The Sportsfan Journal as a place where sport is the star, not gossip about athletes' private lives or the latest off-the-field antics.

“It’s not salacious like you might see in a lot of other well-read sites. We don’t want to go that route. That might lose us some readers, but that’s not what we’re about,” says Maisonet, whose site had 25,000 unique page views last month.

While the site is expanding, it’s also increasingly hitting a little closer to home. Maisonet is planning to write more about Cincinnati’s sports culture and stars. He is also working toward bringing is Blog Talk Show to the Cincinnati airways, as well as pitching the site to potential advertisers.

“There are some good sports writers here, but I think there is room for more voices than are currently reflected in the city of Cincinnati,” he says.

By Feoshia Henderson
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Are you one of those sports fans who'd rather see your favorite player on reality TV than on the field? Do you devour the latest tawdry gossip on your favorite baller's private life?

Then Edthesportsfan.com is not for you.

"Some of the popular sports blogs rely on salacious news, rumors and conjecture, and those things just aren't important to me," said the blogzine's founder Eddie Maisonet, of Walnut Hills. "I don't care who's dating who, or who's doing something on reality television. I care about the sport. I love sports; it's the ultimate reality TV. It's got comedy, horror, sci-fi, history. It's got it all."

Maisonet's passion for all things sport is evident in his writing and on Twitter, where you can catch him Tweeting about a live college football, NFL or NBA game, draft picks, the latest sports news or links to his latest thought-provoking post. The articles are written in a brief, readable essay 2.0 style, often accompanied by videos or photos.

The 'zine has a Cincinnati flair, with articles about University of Cincinnati, Xavier, the Bengals and the Reds, but the site is national in scope with a little good humor thrown in. Some of the most popular headlines are "Five tips to help women survive football season," "Forgotten powerhouses of college football series," "The Prototype: The baddest women covering sports," and "The real ten best NFL running backs of all-time."

"Sometimes it's philosophical, or we talk about the lifestyle, or the culture of being a fan. We don't try to be experts. We're just fans; that's the only perspective we know," Maisonet said.

Along with Maisonet, there are two other contributors Kenny Masenda, of Dallas, and Phil Barnett, of Bakersfield, Calif. Together they reach 1,500 readers a day. Going multimedia, the trio also hosts the Unsportsmanlike Conduct show on Blog Talk Radio Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST.

Maisonet started the site three years ago when he was in between jobs. He's now working in consumer market research for The Nielson Company, but Ed The Sports Fan is thriving. It was named the 2008 and 2099 Best Sports Blog by the Black Weblog Awards Association and the Best Black Blog by Best of Black Cincinnati.

Maisonet has contributed to several sports websites and magazines including one of his favorites SLAM Magazine, which he's read since he was a kid.

Soon the Ed The Sports Fan team will further contribute to the sports wring world with the launch of a sports fan journal, which is set for a June debut. It will feature sports writers from across the country, guest commentary and more. While Edthesports.com has one update a day, the sports journal will have up to a dozen daily articles that will tackle not just sports, but music, culture and fashion.

Writer: Feoshia Henderson
Source: Eddie Maisonet, founder Edthesportsfan.com

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

In the grind of day-to-day life and responsibilities it can seem frivolous to spend time thinking about what could be. But without vision, goal-setting and planning, our lives - and our city - will grow stale.

Fuel Cincinnati, the innovation arm of the volunteer organization Give Back Cincinnati, is helping move forward the envisioning conversation with its first brainstorming event. Noted local brainstorming facilitator Joel Kashuba, author of the BlissProject, will lead the Fuel Brainstorm Idea Generation session.

The free, open event will be April 30, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cincy Coworks, 2400 Gilbert Ave. in Walnut Hills. Lunch will be provided. You can register for the event here. 

Kashuba, principal of design innovation at Procter & Gamble, wrote and created the BlissProject, a book and seminar series designed to help people "build a sense of purpose, influence, and control" in their careers through "inspiration, action, and influence." He's been published in Innovations magazine and has spoken at design conferences across the U.S.

"Joel approached us wanting to help Cincinnati, using skills from his professional career to give back," said Beth Gottfried, Fuel board member and communications director.

Fuel provides small grants to help young professionals launch projects that impact the region. Past projects include Cincinnati Coworks, a bike trail into Devou Park from the nearby Lewisburg Neighborhood and Kicks for Hope, a nonprofit that builds kids' leadership skills through soccer.

"There are a lot of people who have ideas, and lot of people who are implementers of ideas. We introduce them to one another so we can get things moving," Gottfried said of Fuel. "We want to channel some of that into community building."

Brainstorming participants will be asked what Cincinnati is today, and what it can offer in the future.

"When we see some common themes about where people want (the city) to go, we'll talk about those images and what needs to happen to make it a reality," Gottfried said.

Participants will leave the session with concrete action steps, and will partner with leaders who can start the process to push forward action.

Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Source: Beth Gottfried, Fuel board member and communications director

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

Like any successful metro area, Greater Cincinnati has a strong and growing international community making a mark on local culture, business and education.

Now the Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council has launched a website to link those organizations, and their work. The site, "Global Cincinnati: Gateway to the World" aims to offer a one-stop shop for the region's international and interethnic organizations, as well as to give them wider exposure throughout the community.

"Globalcincinnati.org is a way for any citizen in Cincinnati to get in touch with global resources and engage in global forums to improve their business, coursework, or career," said GCWAC Executive Director Erika Dockery. "Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council is the center of excellence for international education and citizen diplomacy in the Tri-state."

The site includes links to foreign chambers of commerce, businesses and trade associations as well as non-profit and educational organizations.

There's also a section listing local experts with knowledge of specific fields, like history or language, along with their contact information. They can be reached for media interviews or speaking engagements.

Perhaps the most dynamic portion of the site is the events calendar which will be constantly updated with a wide variety of international educational, cultural and business events across Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

The Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council is a longstanding, non-partisan organization founded in 1923 to build "global understanding and promotes international awareness through education, information and exchange of people and ideas."

The site is just part of the council's web outreach. You can also follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Writer: Feoshia Henderson
Source: Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

Greg Marischen knows first-hand how fragile yet resilient the brain can be. More than 20 years ago he suffered a traumatic brain injury during a water skiing accident. After hours in surgery, Marischen could only move one side of his body and doctors told him he'd never walk again.

But through months of intensive physical therapy that doctors were sure would never work, he eventually regained the ability to move and today he can walk and play sports with his sons.

"I was told I couldn't walk again, and I was only in a wheel chair for six or seven months," said Marischen, a tax attorney from East Walnut Hills. "That was something that really changed my views and I knew one day I wanted to help other people."

Now Marischen is getting a chance to help his own son as well as other parents whose children suffer from neurobehavioral disorders including ADD, Dyslexia, Autism and other learning disabilities.

He's opening The Brain Balance Achievement Center in Symmes Township to help treat those disorders without using drugs. A grand opening is being planned later in the year. This non-medical approach focuses on nutrition, sensory motor work and cognitive work to reconnect the brain's right and left hemispheres. The therapy known as Hemispheric Integration Therapy, or HIT, has been shown to improve student educational outcomes, according to a study in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health.

There are dozens of Brain Balance centers across the county. Marischen began to research the center when his son was diagnosed with ADHD.

"I was looking for alternatives to drugs for my son, and found Brain Balance. The more I found out about it, the more interested I was," he said.

It took him about a year to bring a franchise to Cincinnati, which included training by New-York based program founder Dr. Robert Melillo, an internationally known brain researcher, professor, author and functional neurologist.

Marischen is the Center director, but doesn't have a medical background. He has brought on a six-person team of special education teachers, motor skills coaches and a nutritionist. Initially the Center will work with youth ages 3 to 19 years old. Children will undergo a 12-week program, with three sessions a week. The work could later expand to adults, Marischen said.

The Brain Balance center is currently offering evaluations and Parent Lectures to answer questions about the center and its techniques. Call (513) 376-3085 or email Greg Marischen at gmarischen@brainbalancecenters.com for more information.

Writer: Feoshia Henderson
Source:  Greg Marischen, Brain Balance of Cincinnati

You can follow Feoshia on twitter @feoshiawrites

A survey co-sponsored by BlackBook EMG and Cincinnati USA Chamber's HYPE is looking for young professionals to share their work and community life experiences to gauge the risk of the region losing young talent.

The 25-question survey, located here, takes about 10 minutes to finish. It's geared toward anyone who lives in the metro Cincinnati area and is employed. The results will be unveiled at the HYPE talent symposium Oct. 19. The symposium's theme is "Ignite the Fire! Leverage Cincinnati's strengths as part of your recruitment and retention strategies."

BlackBook, whose Compass technology matches employee performance with local events, venues and businesses, has a 2,000-person response goal for the survey. So far, just under 1,000 people have responded, said Carla Messer, Blackbook's senior vice president of operations. To encourage responses, participants can enter to win one of three iPads. Survey results are kept confidential.

The survey asks questions related to the concept of "community embeddedness" or the experiences, people and places outside of work that keep a person in a particular area.

"The survey asks how an employee fits into culture of an organization, and also how people are connected to other people and places where they live. At the workplace you're made to feel like it would be a great sacrifice to leave, but from a community standpoint often things outside the workplace that keep people retained in the organization aren't considered. Things, if you left behind, like a country club, church or neighbors would feel like a big sacrifice to leave," Messer said.

The survey is an effort to drill down into how or even if workers have those outside connections. Under the theory of community embeddedness, the more satisfying community links a person has, the less likely they are to leave a current city or place of employment.

"Companies spend a lot of time and money trying to explain why people leave. We are trying to evaluate why people stay, and create those connections and experiences that get people to stay," Messer said.

The survey is open until Oct. 1.

Writer: Feoshia Henderson
Source: Carla Messer, Blackbook senior vice president of operations

You can follow Feoshia on twitter @feoshiawrites