The case files.

The IP Venture Clinic

Case Western Reserve University School of Law · 2014–2020 · Founding Managing Attorney

The question

Law schools teach intellectual property as doctrine and venture finance as theory. Could an accredited practicum put students to work on the real thing — forming ventures and cultivating intellectual property portfolios for clients whose interests carried genuine consequence?

The constraint

Accreditation requires supervised practice rather than simulation: live clients who could genuinely be harmed, students who rotate out every semester, and a single supervising attorney of record responsible for all of it.

What was built

An accredited student legal practicum focused on venture formation and intellectual property cultivation. I served as founding managing attorney and as attorney of record for the clinic's matters.

What happened

The clinic ran for six years. Its teaching model — law, management and science students working the same matter together — carried forward into the FUSION certificate program (CF-02) and into the pro bono structure behind Ohio Invents.

FUSION

Case Western Reserve University · 2010–present · Co-founding faculty member and Director

The question

Commercialization tends to fail at the seams between disciplines: the scientist, the lawyer and the manager each hold a piece of the problem, and each is trained to read a different page. Could a graduate program put all three in one room, working on one technology, and evaluate them on the result?

The constraint

Three schools, with three calendars, three grading conventions and three faculty-approval processes — none of them with any particular incentive to cede control of curriculum.

What was built

An interdisciplinary graduate certificate program for law, management and doctoral science students, with coursework in commercialization and intellectual property management and in innovation and design.

What happened

FUSION is now in its sixteenth year. Of everything on this page it is the longest-lived, and the only one whose principal output is people rather than an organization.

The Great Lakes Institute for Energy Innovation

Case School of Engineering · Strategic plan and launch

The question

Case had energy researchers distributed across engineering, the sciences and management — often competing with one another for the same federal solicitations. Could they be assembled into a single institute with the scale to be credible nationally?

The constraint

There was no new money to offer, and no authority over any of the faculty involved. The institute had to be worth joining on its own merits before it existed.

What was built

The initial strategic plan and launch of a research and development institute, bringing a full complement of engineering, scientific and management faculty to bear on the opportunity to grow a research capability of $50–100 million housed at Case Western Reserve University.

What happened

The institute launched and became the university's front door for energy research partnerships.

The Cleveland Clinic Innovation Center

Cleveland Clinic Foundation · Chief Commercialization Counsel

The question

Cleveland Clinic Innovations was generating startups faster than it could house them. New ventures were being formed and then sent off campus to find space, losing daily contact with the clinicians whose work they were built upon. Where should a hospital's companies live?

The constraint

An existing building on an academic medical campus — with the regulatory, conflict-of-interest and facilities considerations that implies — and a requirement that the same facility house the CCF Innovations staff during its initial years.

What was built

A renovated and operationalized facility serving as both innovation center and accelerator for early-stage ventures, and as home to the CCF Innovations group through its formative years.

What happened

The startup program raised over $20 million in outside capital and created dozens of viable early-stage companies. Ventures structured during this period included Intelect Medical (a $3 million Series A in 2005; acquired by Boston Scientific in 2011 at a value of approximately $78 million), Cleveland BioLabs (seed funding through an early initial public offering in 2006, reaching a market capitalization above $100 million within two years), and PrognostiX (an initial $6 million investment and FDA approval of CardioMPO in May 2005; later reconceived as Cleveland HeartLab and acquired by Quest Diagnostics in 2017).

The Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center — BRITE

Warren, Ohio · Structure, design and launch · now General Counsel and Chief Innovation Officer

The question

The region needed an energy technology accelerator, and its federal partners had projected a development cost well beyond what the region could raise. Could one be built anyway?

The constraint

The capital had to be assembled from sources that do not naturally combine — Department of Energy funding, state and federal Historic Tax Credits, philanthropy and corporate sponsorship — around a building worth preserving, in a community with little margin for error.

What was built

The organization itself: nonprofit formation and IRS documentation, board development and cultivation, publicly funded technology collaborations, a shared-resource technology center, and the Historic Tax Credit financing that built a Department of Energy technology accelerator in Warren, Ohio.

What happened

Planning and launch were completed for approximately $7 million — a fraction of the funding its federal partners had projected for a comparable facility. The center operates today as BRITE Energy Innovators, where I continue to serve as General Counsel and Chief Innovation Officer.

The Beta Technology Park

Mayfield Village, Ohio · with Panzica Investments · President, first year of operations

The question

Could a suburb with an aging industrial base support a technology park that produced jobs in its first year, rather than waiting a decade on anchor-tenant economics?

The constraint

A public–private effort between Panzica Investments and the City of Mayfield Village, working in concert with sponsorships from National City Bank and the law firm of Thompson Hine, in flex space that had to carry itself from the first year of operations.

What was built

Flex and accelerator space with shared services and infrastructure; OneMayfield, a community-wide initiative delivering low-cost, point-to-multipoint wireless service to the business community; and a successful multi-phase application, for up to $1.2 million, designating Mayfield a Cuyahoga County Innovation Zone.

What happened

In the first twelve months of operations, more than thirty new, high-paying jobs were created across the Park's first five tenants — among them Quality Electrodynamics and Preemptive Solutions. I served as president of the Park during its first year.

The Case Connection Zone

Case Western Reserve University · with the University's VP of Information Technology

The question

Gigabit fiber to the home existed as a technology demonstration. The more interesting question was what it was for — and whether a working neighborhood could answer it.

The constraint

A live residential neighborhood as the test environment, and university, industry and community partners who each needed something different from the same infrastructure.

What was built

A dedicated alpha-test environment over first-of-its-kind gigabit fiber to the home, with application suites in energy, health and wellness, education, and security.

What happened

The program helped accelerate early-stage energy management technologies and produced new industry-academic relationships — a working demonstration of what connected infrastructure can do for a community.

NorTech Energy Enterprise

Northern Ohio Technology Coalition · Advanced Energy Fellow

The question

Northern Ohio held substantial advanced energy assets — universities, national laboratories, utilities and manufacturers — and no mechanism for acting as a cluster. Could the region be brought together to fund a coordinated advanced energy development program?

The constraint

No party could direct any other. Funders, universities and companies each held an effective veto, and none held authority. The work was the patient development of community support, in every direction at once, with nothing to enforce it.

What was built

Community support and participation in an advanced energy cluster development program, with the Fund for Our Economic Future, the Cleveland Foundation and the region's scientific and technical institutions as key stakeholders.

What happened

A $2.6 million initial investment in the program.

Chardon Tomorrow

Chardon, Ohio · 2010–2016 · Founding Chairman

The question

A county-seat town with an intact historic square and a weakening commercial base. Could a Main Street program be established and governed locally — without becoming either a preservation society that blocks development, or a development body that erases the square?

The constraint

A volunteer board, a community in which every stakeholder knows every other, and the National Main Street framework's requirement that preservation and economic development advance together rather than trade against one another.

What was built

A Main Street program, structured and co-founded, for the historic preservation, revitalization and economic development of the local community.

What happened

I chaired the organization for its first six years and then handed it to local leadership.

The Ohio Federal Research Network

State of Ohio · Air Force Research Laboratory (Wright-Patterson) and NASA Glenn

The question

Ohio is home to two major federal research institutions. Could university research be connected to them systematically — as a standing network — rather than one grant application at a time?

The constraint

Six centers of excellence across multiple universities, two federal laboratories with their own missions and procurement rules, and state funding contingent on demonstrated commercialization.

What was built

A framework for assessing and accelerating innovation, and for driving commercialization, across six centers of excellence — connecting university research to end users at the Air Force Research Laboratory and the NASA Glenn Research Center.

What happened

$20 million in state funding, with significant follow-on federal funding proposed against the framework.

The OneCommunity Stimulus Desk

OneCommunity and regional stakeholders · American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The question

Federal broadband funding under the Recovery Act moved quickly, and favored regions that could organize more quickly still. Could Northeast Ohio field credible applications in time?

The constraint

Federal deadlines measured in months, stakeholders who had not applied together before, and program rules still being written while the applications were due.

What was built

A working “Stimulus Office,” created with OneCommunity and regional stakeholders to design and build ARRA-funded broadband initiatives across the Ohio region — including the University Circle Innovation Zone that grew into the Case Connection Zone (CF-07).

What happened

An $18.7 million grant under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, assisting 25,000 low-income residents across seven communities in Ohio, Kentucky, Florida and Mississippi.

The Knight Center for Digital Excellence

OneCommunity · the 26 Knight Foundation communities

The question

The Knight Foundation's twenty-six communities each sought digital transformation, and none wanted a template imposed from outside. What could travel between communities, and what had to remain local?

The constraint

One national program, twenty-six local value propositions, and a regional nonprofit broadband provider as the delivery vehicle for all of them.

What was built

A $26 million program in which information and communications technology serves as base infrastructure for local transformation — including a Digital Opportunities Challenge Grant through which each community develops its own value proposition.

What happened

The challenge grant structure preserved the program's design premise: shared infrastructure, locally defined value.

The Global Technology Summits

With Team NEO and OneCommunity · Three summits

The question

Could Northeast Ohio attract technology companies by showing them the region at work, rather than pitching it to them?

The constraint

A business-community-led effort, undertaken with Team NEO and OneCommunity, with no incentive package to offer — only the region itself and vetted opportunities within it.

What was built

A summit series to identify, vet and bring synergistic technology companies into the region.

What happened

Over the course of three summits, more than twenty companies came to explore opportunities in fields ranging from broadband applications to high-speed communications to healthcare IT.

The Wright Fuel Cell Group

State of Ohio · Strategic analysis, ramp-up through wind-down

The question

A state-funded research and testing facility of more than $40 million, built to grow a fuel cell industry in Ohio, had a newly hired executive director and a mandate to produce a strategy. What should it do next?

The constraint

Substantial public money already committed; an industry developing more slowly than the original case had assumed; and stakeholders for whom continuation was the only welcome answer.

What was built

A strategic analysis of the statewide program — and the conclusion that the facility should not continue as a standalone entity.

What happened

The analysis became the foundation for transitioning the Group's activities into the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition, preserving the capability without the standalone cost structure. The same analysis that justifies building a program is the analysis that tells you when it has run its course.

Reserved