The Youngstown Business Incubator seems to be a success by everyone's account.
It's most prominent start up, Turning Technologies, now employs 140 people, which caught the eye of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. "There are a couple dozen incubators in Ohio now. Nobody does it better than the Youngstown Incubator. You look at the jobs coming out of here. You look at the companies coming out of here. That was really the reason for our idea to assist incubators all over the country," says Senator Brown.
This September, Senator Brown will introduce the Business Incubator Promotion Act that would increase federal funds for business incubators, as well as expand the number of communities eligible to receive those funds.
Brown feels incubators, like Youngstown, are a great investment for the federal government. The Senator says, "Seed money to get these incubators started, to help them grow, because every $10,000 the federal government invests on these incubators, turns into, on the average, about 50 jobs, and these are jobs often with young people, to help our young people stay in the Valley and stay in Ohio."
One community that may benefit from this bill is Warren. They've been trying to get the Warren Green Technology Research Incubator off the ground. Mayor Michael O'Brien says, "This type of federal legislation, promoting business incubators act or incubator act in general, would really focus on cities like Warren, because the issue is to assist disadvantaged cities."
