Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning Yas Motoyama and Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Tijs Van Maasakkers have published (with Sehun Oh, Kevin Block, and Luke Ciminillo Delamotte) “The State of High Growth Companies in Declining Northeast Ohio.” The paper investigates high growth firms in the seven-county region of Northeast Ohio: Columbiana, Mahoning, Trumbull, Portage, Summit, Stark, and Wayne.

The publication was supported by a grant from Burton D. Morgan Foundation.

We identified 657 high growth firms in the region and highlight our following findings:

1. High growth firms exist in every sector with distinct market niche and defined market areas, and some of them reach national and global markets

2. Many of the entrepreneurs were born and grew up in the area; About half of them are multi-generational family businesses, while others are newly started businesses

3. Entrepreneurs started their firms small with personal savings or line of credit, but were able to grow and continue to grow successfully

4. High growth firms recruit people with soft skills, such as high motivation, self-learning aptitude, ability to work in teams, and high interpersonal skills, not hard STEM skills

5. High growth firms have heavy engagement with local communities, such as sponsoring events, serving on board of nonprofits, and volunteering

6. The pandemic affected them, but they keep growing

Read the full paper