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Entrepreneurs are key to more local jobs

Leaders: Economic growth will come from small businesses.

Mound Laser & Photonics Center president and CEO Larry Dosser looks on as laser technician Shirley Campbell manufactures small medical devices at the Miamisburg company. staff photos by chris stewart

Staff Photo by Chris Stewart Mound Laser & Photonics Center president and CEO Larry Dosser looks on as laser technician Shirley Campbell manufactures small medical devices at the Miamisburg company. staff photos by chris stewart

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Scientist Lance Jacobsen built a supersonic wind tunnel for his business GoHypersonic which researches supersonic airflow for the U.S. Air Force. Jacobsen also built this shadowgraph device to view the shockwaves in the wind tunnel.

Staff Photo by Ty Greenlees Scientist Lance Jacobsen built a supersonic wind tunnel for his business GoHypersonic which researches supersonic airflow for the U.S. Air Force. Jacobsen also built this shadowgraph device to view the shockwaves in the wind tunnel.

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Innova president Nilesen Gokay and husband Cem Gokay, executive vice president, are seen with an integrated targeting product they are hoping will replace the bulkier, weightier devices now carried by U.S. special forces. At left is production manager Michael Clark.

Staff Photo by Chris Stewart Innova president Nilesen Gokay and husband Cem Gokay, executive vice president, are seen with an integrated targeting product they are hoping will replace the bulkier, weightier devices now carried by U.S. special forces. At left is production manager Michael Clark.

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By Joanne Huist Smith, Staff Writer Updated 3:07 AM Sunday, September 25, 2011

While corporate departures and high unemployment have eroded the regional economy, a league of high-tech entrepreneurs have been working to restore it, one job at a time.

They are risk takers and innovators often mortgaging all of their assets to advance an idea to a military contract or commercial product.

Some don’t make it. Others fall short of their job promises. But through a series of interviews with community stakeholders and a diverse group of business leaders, the Dayton Daily News found a common theme: The secret to building a better future isn’t located in some distant city or state. It’s right here at home.

“This isn’t about attracting one or two new companies to the Dayton region. It’s about growing jobs here in the community,” said Steve Nutt, director of strategic development for Citywide Development.

Small businesses represent 43 percent of the total U.S. private payroll and have generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Shelley Dickstein, Dayton’s assistant city manager for strategic development, estimates 90 percent of the jobs in Dayton are at companies with fewer than 500 employees.

“Being a Midwest city, we don’t have throngs of Fortune 500 companies wanting to settle in Dayton, Ohio,” Dickstein said. “We are a city of small businesses. Entrepreneurs are helping us to reinvent and re-energize the economy.”

The Dayton Development Coalition’s Entrepreneurial Signature Program — with $13.5 million in Ohio Third Frontier funding and $7.5 million in private investment — has built a portfolio of 24 small, high-tech businesses since 2007.

Those companies have created or retained 388 jobs — and say they have 1,700 more in the pipeline in the next three to five years.

“These are not giveaway dollars,” said Scott Koorndyke, vice president of technology commercialization for the Dayton Development Coalition. “Our investors expect a return on their investments.”

Entrepreneurs start 600,000 new businesses annually in the United States, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. And, small companies innovate at a rate 13 times greater than large research and development firms, according to the Office of Advocacy for the Small Business Administration.

“The assets we have here are really beginning to jell,” Koorndyke said. “I think we’ll see the resurgence of the Dayton economy within five years.”

Gregg Cole, manager of information technology at the Edward Lowe Foundation, said data on jobs in the Dayton region shows small businesses are keeping the economy moving. While the number of jobs in the Dayton metropolitan statistical area — Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Preble counties — fell by nearly 3 percent between 2006 and 2008, the losses would have been greater if the expansions of existing small companies had not added 1 percent more jobs during the same period.

“You’ve got these companies going about their business growing jobs,” Cole said.

Location near  base an advantage

At Dayton’s TechTown campus, entrepreneur and aerospace engineer Lance Jacobsen is researching technology that would provide hypersonic, air-breathing flight and affordable access to outer space. He’s slowly building a staff to work beside him at GoHypersonic Inc., the small business he launched at TechTown in 2006.

By late October, Jacobsen’s staff will include eight engineers and two support staff.

“I’d say this is one of the better places in the country to be, because of Wright-Patterson (Air Force Base),” Jacobsen said. “It’s a great place for the business.”

Nilesen Gokay, president of Innova, Inc., based in Centerville, says her company has also flourished locally and is now looking to expand. The company received $848,000 in Third Frontier Funding in 2010 for development of a miniaturized solid state laser system. Cem Gokay, vice president of Innova and Nilesen’s husband, said they now have a battlefield-ready product.

Founded in 1994 Innova, Inc. is a growing player in the research, development and the manufacturing of high-tech lasers for medical and military use. Its latest innovation, called an Integrated Targeting Product (ITP), looks a lot like a thermos. It’s designed for use by special forces to target and communicate air strike coordinates. The ITP would replace a much larger and heavier unit.

Gokay wants to manufacture the ITP in his Centerville facility, but moving the prototype into full production will require increasing staff from 18 to 100.

Total cost: $5 million. The couple are now searching for financing.

“We have been sitting on this for a year and a half,” Gokay said.

He believes the key to the region’s future prosperity lies in manufacturing.

“Without manufacturing we have no chance of rebuilding the economy. It’s the only way we can hire the masses,” he said.

Entrepreneur Larry Dosser said he mortgaged all of his assets to establish Mound Laser & Photonics Center in Miamisburg. He has grown the company, which does military research and uses lasers to make small medical devices, from three to 43 employees. While many businesses struggled through the recession, Dosser added staff and made capital investments.

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