career > trends

Broadband or bust

Plug into a list of entrepreneurial contributions from a city that now wants to be a magnet for IT careerists

Digital Dayton

November 6, 2000
Web posted at: 11:27 a.m. EST (1627 GMT)

In this story:

Wiring the potential

Diggin' Dayton (no ocean, sorry)

RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Larry Keller
CNN.com/career Senior Writer

(CNN) -- "We want to position ourselves as one of the best mid-sized cities to locate your IT or Internet business," says J.P. Nauseef, manager of e-business services for Deloitte & Touche.

Nauseef directs something called the "I-Zone" in Dayton, Ohio -- it's a consortium of business leaders working to make the city a new magnet for information-technology careerists.

Outside the city limits, few may be aware that Ohio's fourth largest urban center historically has generated a spirit of entrepreneurial risk-taking and innovation. The Wright brothers grew up and are buried there. They experimented with early aircraft around Dayton. Other inventions ranging from the cash register to the sponge mop originated in Dayton.

"Now we want to do the same for information-age innovations," says Nauseef.

This is the city most widely known as the place in which diplomats -- five years ago this month -- achieved the framework for the Bosnian-Herzegovinan peace accord. Now, they're talking the Internet: "If you want to have a family and be in this business, this is the place to come."

Wiring the potential

With a population approaching 200,000, it's not as if Dayton is a nondescript two-traffic light town. It has three universities and a community college, an art museum, a minor-league baseball team and employers including General Motors, Bank One, NCR and Emery Worldwide -- the shipping and customs-brokerage company.

A survey of city residents found 84 percent saying they like their neighborhoods. Construction has begun on a large riverfront renovation project.

But Nauseef and other Dayton leaders say their city's progress depends in part on attracting new businesses -- especially those associated with the data economy.


J.P. Nauseef

"The future growth in the economy is going to be around information," Nauseef says. "We need to aggressively pursue a process that's going to attract, retain and create opportunities in that new economy."

In fact, the city already has.

The I-Zone led by Nauseef, 34, is a core group of representatives of the business community: Bricks-and-mortar businesses, dot-coms, nonprofits and the chamber of commerce among them.

I-Zone members meet with entrepreneurs from startups or established businesses who are looking for advice and/or funding. If after interviewing the entrepreneur the I-Zone members think a business shows promise, they'll link its chief with attorneys, tax accountants, venture capitalists, angels -- whoever can make the project succeed.

Since the I-Zone folks have screened the entrepreneur's proposal and signaled they think it has merit, it gets fast-tracked. "It's a process that helps to accelerate the growth and success of new-economy businesses," Nauseef says.

DIRECT FROM DAYTON

Have a look at some inventors and inventions from Dayton, Ohio.

QUICK VOTE

Can Dayton do it? Do you see a new tech-industry center in the making?
Yeah -- all the right ingredients.
Unsure -- the virtual jury is still out.
Sorry -- great try, but I can't see the place jacked in.
View Results

The cost of this advice -- from business leaders Nauseef describes as being among Dayton's best and brightest -- is nothing. "Our only request is if we help you and you end up securing funding, we want to have a piece of that business here in the Dayton region," Nauseef says.

"The onus is on the entrepreneur to do the work. We just help identify how they get to the end of the game."

Most interest so far has come from local entrepreneurs and those in nearby Cincinnati, Columbus and Indianapolis, Nauseef says.

But he thinks Dayton, with its affordable housing, may be attractive to IT entrepreneurs who started companies in a costly, congested market -- perhaps the Silicon Valley -- when they were younger and single, but who now have a family.

"When they start having a family, they might not like that two-hour commute each way, and that $800,000, two-bedroom condo," Nauseef says. "It's tough to find an $800,000 house here. You get an 8,000- to 9,000-square-foot home here for that."

Diggin' Dayton (no ocean, sorry)

Even with all this help, getting a budding business person to stay in Dayton or relocate there is a challenge

"A lot of these medium-sized cities in middle America have an image problem," Nauseef says. "It's not unique to Dayton. The perception is that this community doesn't have new economy opportunities, or some of the nice amenities they might have in a bigger city."


Tom Baird

Count Tom Baird among those who feared the worst about Dayton. After working for 16 years at TRW and living most of that time in Los Angeles, he took a job with Reynolds and Reynolds in Dayton a little more than a year ago. The company -- which provides services to the automotive industry, including Web-site development and Internet-based operations -- has about 5,000 employees in the Dayton area.

"My biggest concern was (a background of) growing up on the beach in California and Virginia, I'm pretty much a beach guy," says Baird, 39, a vice president at Reynolds and Reynolds. "So recreationally, moving to a region like Dayton -- there's not much that I know how to do that people in Dayton know to do well. I played beach volleyball and surfed."

There's nothing Baird can do about Dayton's surf dearth. But, Baird says, "Dayton has a great volleyball scene, both sand in the summer and indoors in the winter, so I play regularly."

"For the most part, other than not being able to surf on a daily basis, it's a great place to be. I had set my expectations pretty low. This has been a pleasant surprise for me."

— Tom Baird, Reynolds and Reynolds

Recreation hasn't been the only leisure activity Baird has pursued. "I find I'm going to cultural events much more frequently here than I did in Los Angeles," he says.

"It's a nightmare there. You want to go to the opera and it's a two-and-a-half-hour opera. But it's an hour fighting traffic getting there, it's tough to get a reservation, to find parking, etc. It turns out the hassle factor gets so high, you end up not doing things like that. Here it's much easier."

DOING THE DEED

Career specialist Phil Van Horn talks about some of the things Dayton needs to do to come-hither the high-tech future it wants.

Baird also was able to buy a house in Dayton for the same price as his California home that has two-and-a-half to three times as much square footage.

Which isn't to say that Baird hasn't had to make some adjustments.

"The weather sucks. I'm from Southern California, so I'm not quite used to winters," he says. "It also takes a while getting used to a different mentality than the West Coast. Things are a little bit slower here.

"But the people are first-class. For the most part, other than not being able to surf on a daily basis, it's a great place to be. I had set my expectations pretty low. This has been a pleasant surprise for me."