We had a small victory in East Cleveland this week. Some days ago, Vic Voinovich and I met with representatives of GE and Nela Park. Although they expressed concern about the long term trends in the city, their most immediate concern was far more mundane: fixing the traffic light at the end of their driveway.

Over the past day or so, I've been having an interesting e-mail exchange with my colleagues, Mark Chupp at CSU and David Cooperrider at Case. We are exploring what the next steps will be for our Universities Collaborative.

The Cleveland Botanical Garden Flower Show returns to University Circle on May 27 - 30, 2005. This show is the largest outdoor flower show in North America.



Cleveland Botanical Garden is the country's first urban garden center.

Earlier this week, Governor Taft dedicated a utility-scale fuel cell power substation in Westerville. Learn more. Fuel Cell Works carried the story.

Fuel Cell Today, a publication from the UK, also picked up the story.

Last week, The National Economic Development and Law Center (NEDLC) and Build Ohio produced a report outlining that the early childhood development industry in the state is about $2 billion. Read more about the report.

Here's a press release from the Fund on how the Dashboard project will be launched and administered. Read more. 

Ashland Univeristy and Ashland Economic Development have a good program to help companies in Ashland County connect with Canada. Read more from this article from Mansfield. 

Over the past six years, early childhood development has been gradually moving to the center of the economic development agenda. Investments in early childhood make a lot of sense in a global economy that runs on brainpower.  In Northeast Ohio, we could move to a national leadership position by placing early childhood development in the center of our Brainpower strategy. Here are some good links to learn more:

Last month, Missouri held a workforce summit, and they have posted some interesting presentations on the web. See the list.

Building a creative industry base in Northeast Ohio requires us to think in new ways. We're lucky, in that a number of other regions -- mostly in the U.K, Australia, and New Zealand -- have been moving in this direction.