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Students earn scholarships while businesses save energy dollars
by Marcia Pledger/Plain Dealer Reporter
Wednesday January 07, 2009, 6:26 PM
Brother Charles McElroy, right, faculty member at the John Carroll University Borromeo Institute, came up with an idea to help local manufacturers get state grants to be more energy efficient. He's gotten some of his students, including, Saul Soriano, third from left, and Carlos Garcia, fourth from left, to help with his project. McElroy helped Kay Doyle, left, president of Fast Signs in Cleveland, and Bernie Doyle, second from left, vice president of Fast Signs, in Cleveland, to get over $22,000 in grant money. BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
Brother Charles McElroy is both a teacher and a graduate student at John Carroll University. Wearing those two hats helped him see a way students could earn scholarships by helping businesses save money on energy.
McElroy, a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, is an adjunct faculty member at John Carroll's Borromeo Institute. Students admitted to the Cleveland Catholic Diocese's Borromeo Seminary complete their academic requirements through the institute.
He also is a graduate student in communications management at the school in University Heights. When McElroy heard Bernard Doyle, vice president of Fast Signs in Cleveland, speak to a marketing class two years ago, his bright idea began to take shape.
Continue reading "Students earn scholarships while businesses save energy dollars" »
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Marriage proposal got Keir Kurinsky a bride and a business, Sillycone Inc.
by Marcia Pledger/Plain Dealer Reporter
Wednesday December 03, 2008, 4:47 PM
Keir Kurinsky of Bay Village-based Sillycone Inc. makes silicone letter, number and symbols trays that can go from the refrigerator and freezer to the oven.BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
Keir Kurinsky just wanted a clever way to ask for his love to marry him. His idea: Spell out the proposal in letters made of ice.
That idea got him a bride and a business to boot.
Kurinsky's home-based company, Sillycone Inc., sells alphabet-shaped silicone molds in stores and online, through retailers including Bed Bath and Beyond, Whole Foods and Target.
He started with one product, "Letter ICE," a set of three colorful ice-tray/cooking-molds featuring a full alphabet. Silicone is the key. The molds work in the freezer, refrigerator or oven, enabling consumers to make items ranging from brownies and gelatin to candles, crayolas and chalk.
Akron teen's basketball carrier scores with Cavs
by Marcia Pledger/The Plain Dealer
Tuesday November 04, 2008, 5:32 PM
Adrian Lindsey, a senior at Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy in Cuyahoga Falls, scored big when the Cleveland Cavaliers recently started selling his All-Net Sak basketball carriers in their Team Shop.As a 12-year-old in Akron, Adrian Lindsey got tired of having to balance a basketball while riding his bicycle to the neighborhood courts. He didn't like riding one-handed, but he didn't want to carry a gym bag, either. Instead, he just complained.
His mother, Cherrlyn Lampley, encouraged him to use his energy to figure out a solution.
Scribbling on his notepad, Adrian did just that, turning an ordinary basketball net into a practical bag for carrying a ball.
"My mom told me to think of something unique," recalled Adrian, now 17. "A net that resembles the one basketballs go through distinguishes it from other bags."
These days, the teenage entrepreneur is scoring big. Two weeks ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers Team Shop at Quicken Loans Arena started selling his $20 All-Net Sak. The carrier comes in the Cavs' colors, wine and navy, and bears the team's logo.
Switching on a new career in the lampshade business
by Marcia Pledger/Plain Dealer Reporter
Tuesday October 07, 2008, 6:55 PM
BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
Jim Prexta, left, teamed up with photographer Jim Ptacek to start a company making lampshades featuring Cleveland scenes.The company had been growing fast since 1991, when Target Stores bought into Prexta's sales concept that customers should be able to buy lamps and shades separately -- a strategy Target still follows today. But every year it became harder to compete with low-cost lampshade factories in China. Finally, after 30 years in business, he sold Nicole Corp. in 2004.
Now Prexta, 58, is back in business, launching a new line of lampshades with Jim Ptacek, a photographer and artist known for his sepia tone prints of Cleveland landmarks. After nearly a year of trial and error, their company, doing business as A Shade Better, is selling lampshades bearing images of Lake Erie, the downtown skyline and the city's pro sports facilities.
Continue reading "Switching on a new career in the lampshade business" »A game that aims to make winners of parents
by Marcia Pledger
Tuesday September 02, 2008, 5:21 PM
So far Michael and Juliette Reynolds of Cleveland Heights have spent about $30,000 developing and marketing their new Parent Talk game.| Parent Talk Location: Cleveland Heights Product: Board game about parenting by Babysteps Ltd. Employees: 2 Inspiration: A business opportunity that sprang from being excited about parenthood. Price: $29.99 Information: ParentTalkGame.com or 216-320-0602 |
The thought of an evening filled with money talk didn't especially appeal to Juliette or her friend, both of whom had put professional careers on hold to be stay-at-home mothers of preschoolers. Chatting as their children romped at a playground, "We jokingly agreed that we should have been playing a board game on parenting because that's what we spent all of our time thinking about," Reynolds recalls.
That night four years ago, she shared her playground conversation with Michael -- and both immediately saw a business opportunity. They formed Babysteps Ltd. with the idea of creating a board game to help parents to think about how to handle challenging situations as their child grows and develops.
That game is Parent Talk, aimed at the parents of babies and toddlers. Last month they launched ParentTalkGame.com, a Web site through which they sell the game.
A mother's invention matches women's skills with employers' needs
by Marcia Pledger
Tuesday August 12, 2008, 11:16 AM
BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
As a mother of toddlers, Shannon Davis had problems finding the kind of flexible work environment she needed. Figuring plenty of other stay-at-home moms were in the same boat, she started BeyondMotherhood.com to match the women's skills with the needs of local companies.UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS -- Shannon Davis was at home with two small children when a nagging thought just wouldn't go away: There has to be a better way for stay-at-home moms to leverage their skills and still be around for their children.
Davis, of University Heights, never wanted to be an entrepreneur. She just wanted to do something that she enjoyed with flexible hours, ideally a job that could draw on her master's degree in instructional technology and distance education. Instead, she found administrative jobs that didn't interest her or corporate jobs that weren't flexible.
"I started exploring things I always wanted to do and ended up working evenings as a sous chef coordinator for three years at Legacy Village," she said.
Before Davis changed careers, she managed e-learning and webcasting nationally for professional services company Ernst & Young. Prior to that she worked in a placement firm. Her background ties in perfectly with her new company, BeyondMotherhood.com, a niche job board aimed at connecting employers with experienced stay-at-home moms.
Continue reading "A mother's invention matches women's skills with employers' needs" »Policewoman finds her business niche with arresting jewelry
by Shaheen Samavati
Tuesday July 01, 2008, 11:15 AM
BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
Amparo Vega, a Cleveland police academy instructor, makes law enforcement-themed jewelry that she sells through her side business, Cuff-N-Stuff.She's always been selling something: pepper spray, miniature police badges, stun guns. She even owns her own ice cream truck.
Her favorite, though, is jewelry. On a given day, the Cleveland woman wears multiple hoop earrings, gold chains and bracelets. She started buying jewelry from a wholesale distributor shortly after she became a police officer 23 years ago and resold it to friends and coworkers. Today she is a police academy instructor.
Given Vega's social circle, it wasn't a surprise that her hottest sellers were items tailored to police and firefighters -- especially those featuring their respective patron saints, Michael and Florian, and custom pieces with individual badge numbers.
Continue reading "Policewoman finds her business niche with arresting jewelry" »How a pet project became a money-making business
by Shaheen Samavati
Tuesday June 03, 2008, 11:15 AM
BRIGHT IDEAS
A monthly feature about entrepreneurs with creative ideas or innovative products.
Corrie Hanton, 29, holds a freshly baked apple cinnamon muffin as her ferret, Jools, takes a sniff at her home in Lakewood. She sells a version of the muffin for both dogs and horses through her company, Pet Pastries, which also makes a variety of other specialty dry and moist foods for pets.After pulling a large apple cinnamon muffin in a bone-shaped cake pan from the oven, she explains that the healthy treat is designed for a special occasion -- like a doggie birthday party.
The muffins are among a range of pet food created by Hanton, who extends her holistic approach to nutrition to her four ferrets: Joey, Hobbes, Haley and Jools, who regularly enjoy home-cooked meals.
In January, she decided to do the same for other animals. She founded Pet Pastries, a home-based business that sells freshly made pet food with specialty ingredients. That includes using herbal remedies in custom treats for pets with specific health issues.
For example, she puts the dietary supplements glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM -- which some humans take for joint health -- in some of her snacks for animals with malformed hips or arthritis.
Continue reading "How a pet project became a money-making business" »
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