By SHAWN PIATEK
SPIATEK@TRIBDEM.COM
April 21, 2008 10:07 am
—
Mike Hruska claims many titles.
Hruska, 32, is a full-time entrepreneur, a professional musician and an amateur illusionist. But a psychic capable of accurately predicting the future, he’s not – at least not yet.
Still, he has a very clear vision of what he believes is in store for the region. In his opinion, small, tech-savvy businesses will be the leaders toward new prosperity, but only if the region equips itself to make technology work for it.
“The technology is going to happen either way,” said Hruska, who has stakes in software and security firms based in Adams Township.
“The tools for small business and entrepreneurs are here. We need to enable people to find and use those tools in order to build and grow small businesses. I think if we work together we can replace mining coal with mining small business.”
Four for the future
Johnstown Area Regional Industries is betting a lot of the region’s future on homegrown business growth. While the organization works on many economic development fronts, farming small business that will take root long term in the region is one of the agency’s primary thrusts.
JARI works with many types of businesses from retail and restaurants to defense and bioscience. Linda Thomson, president of JARI, said she believes that four industries of emphasis hold the most promise for the region’s future.
“We believe the best bet for our region’s future is in the fields of information technology, sustainable energy, bioscience and advanced manufacturing,” Thomson said. “Those are four of the highest paying industries. That’s where we want to go, and we’re pushing for growth in those areas.”
Sustainable energy is largely seen in the presence of wind power in Cambria and Somerset counties. Spanish wind company Gamesa employs nearly 300 at its plant in Ebensburg, and Somerset County is home to dozens of windmills.
Bioscience is in its very formative stages. The major player in the region is Windber Research Institute. ITSI Biosciences also is readying to construct new headquarters in Johnstown’s Kernville neighborhood, which city leaders envision developing into a bioscience corridor.
An information technology sector is sprouting in the region with an array of small companies having taken strong root, as noted in a story today on page F5. Mike Stohon, founder of In-Shore Technologies of downtown Johnstown, believes that not only does the local IT sector have room for explosive growth, but it will enable other businesses in the region to succeed at higher levels.
“I would argue the leveraging of technology to achieve business expansion and further reach into the global economy is probably more viable than the physical means we usually think about,” Stohon said.
“Not to underestimate the impact of highways and better transportation, that does lead to growth and brick-and-mortar expansion, but the global market is so big and offers so many opportunities that companies here can find limitless growth by globalizing.”
Advanced manufacturing may have the best local base to build from of the four target industries.
Kongsberg Defense Corp., for instance, is currently reinventing space in Richland Township, where it will manufacture its Protector Remote Weapons System with the latest in manufacturing technology.
In Windber, Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems also are constantly updating equipment to provide the latest in manufacturing technology.
JWF Industries and its subsidiary, JWF Defense, also are staying on the cutting edge of manufacturing. As noted in a story today on page F9, the company is investing $3 million or more into significant technological upgrades this year alone.
“What we do has been and will continue to be significantly impacted by technology,” said John Polacek, chief operating officer of JWF Defense. “Our business has started to include engineers and software folks that 10 years ago we never would’ve thought that we would need.”
Johnstown Inc.
One of the major contributing factors to the renaissance of the region’s economy has been the conscious decision by some area companies to work together to draw more work to the region.
The idea of regional collaboration is probably best illustrated by the local defense sector. A committee of local defense contractors meets periodically to discuss current and future projects and how they can keep as much work from a contract as possible within the region.
They also look at ways they can combine their core competencies to go after contracts they never could compete for alone. That was the case last year when Concurrent Technologies Corp. and JWFI announced a strategic partnership, pairing their complementary capabilities to pursue work that would otherwise be out of their grasp.
The result of this cooperation has been creating a region that works similarly to a vertically integrated company. The result has been the creation of an attractive one-stop shopping package for the Department of Defense and major prime contractors that are often led to the region by U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown.
“Mr. Murtha has always said he can bring guys to the table but can’t close the deal, that’s our job,” said Bill Kuchera, CEO of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems.
“The only way we can do that is to give them something they can’t get anywhere else in the country. I do think those big guys are going to be here for a long while because they found just what they want here. They know the value of what they get here – they get a tremendous price and quality that is unsurpassed.”
Hruska believes that for small business and other sectors of the local economy to accomplish the same level of prominence that defense has here, a similar level of collaboration will be necessary.
Last fall, Hruska took what he hopes was the first step in the process of bringing entrepreneurs and small businesses together when he started the Collaborative Innovation Network, or CoIN.
The vision behind CoIN is to stimulate the opportunity and invigorate more opportunistic entrepreneurs to create and perpetuate the growth of their business in the region.
Ultimately, Hruska believes a collaboratively operating small business revolution in the region could lead to 100 people owning companies that employ eight workers apiece in place of hoping that one company will grow to support 800 workers.
“We have to find ways to co-evolve and find creative ways to organize and collaborate,” Hruska said.
“Even though I have a software company, I work with other software companies that do slightly different things. That allows us to do greater things through collaboration than we could have ever accomplished on our own.”
Defense will lead
The defense sector still figures to play the leadership role in the region’s technological evolution.
Government contracting companies in the region see better times ahead. MTS Technologies and Northrop Grumman, for instance, are planning to expand their payrolls once they move into their new homes later this year as the anchor tenants of the Greater Johnstown Technology Park.
Concurrent Technologies Corp. recently announced it has 200 vacancies, more than 100 of them at its Richland Township headquarters. Dan DeVos, president and CEO of CTC, doesn’t see an end to the prosperity being enjoyed by the region’s defense community.
“The fundamental economic future of this region has changed,” DeVos said.
“It is that impressive in terms of the changes this economy has undergone and will continue to experience.”
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