BORZA NAMED AMONG ‘NOTABLES’: Jessica Borza, executive director of the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, is among 25 people named by Crain’s Cleveland Business for its 2022 “Notables in Manufacturing.”
Crain’s said the winners “are a diverse representation of hard work and commitment. In their various efforts in manufacturing, they provide jobs, drive the economy and point to the future — while standing on the shoulders of those who did the work in the past.”
The nomination noted that the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association views the coalition as a model for manufacturing industry sector partnerships in the state. Borza in recent years has worked with the association to help those types of partnerships grow across Ohio, and funding for them has been included in state budgets.
LOCAL HOSPITAL RECOGNIZED: Mercy Health-St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Gold Get with the Guidelines-Heart Failure quality achievement award. The recognition acknowledges Mercy Health’s commitment to improving outcomes for patients with heart failure, leading to reduced readmissions and more healthy days at home.
The award is earned by hospitals that demonstrate a commitment to treating patients according to the most up-to-date guidelines as outlined by the AHA.
St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital is also recognized on the AHA’s Target: Heart FailureSM Honor Roll. Hospitals on the honor roll meet specific criteria that improves medication adherence, provides early follow-up care and coordination, and enhances patient education. The goal is to further reduce hospital readmissions and help patients improve their quality of life in managing this chronic condition.
In addition, the hospital received the AHA’s Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll award. Target: Type 2 Diabetes aims to ensure patients with Type 2 diabetes, who might be at higher risk for complications, receive the most up-to-date, evidence-based care when hospitalized due to heart disease or stroke.
WRHE GRADUATES TWENTY: The Western Reserve Health Education (WRHE), a teaching affiliate of Trumbull Regional Medical Center, Sharon Regional Medical Center and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital, recently celebrated 20 graduating residents.
The residents represented several specialty areas, including family medicine, internal medicine and surgery. During the ceremony, awards were given out to the following residents and faculty members:
• Research Award — Karla Luketic, surgery, first; Shyam Poudel, internal medicine, second; and Noha Soror, internal medicine, third.
• Quality & Performance Improvement Award — Joseph Miladore, family medicine, first; Emma Sayre, family medicine, second; and Ravi Patel, family medicine, and Sajni Patel, MD, family medicine, third.
• Case Reports Award — Allen Tsai, surgery, first; Nimit Dalal, internal medicine, second; and Ruben Neris, surgery, third.
• Above & Beyond Faculty Award — Shyam Bhakta, interventional cardiologist at Trumbull Regional Medical Center.
• Healing Heart Heroes — Arooj Ahmed, Poonam Choudhry, Sonali Koirala, Love Shah, Krutarth Pandya, Janki Patel, Pratik Saha, Roshani Shrestha and Muhammad Fahad Khalid, all internal medicine, and Rebecca Myers, research RN.
• Core Competency Awards for internal medicine — Arooj Ahmed, patient care; Shyam Poudel, medical knowledge; Frank Santana Martinez, practice-based learning improvement; Noha Soror, interpersonal and communications; Rajvee Patel and Subarna Gautam, professionalism; and Parth Shah, system-based learning.
The program also welcomed 25 new physician residents who began practicing under the supervision of board-certified physician faculty and advanced resident physicians. These new resident physicians were selected after a vetting and interview process of the more than 8,000 applications from U.S. medical students and physicians from around the world.
CLEVER PICKED: The Akron Chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF-Akron) has selected Clever, a Youngstown marketing agency, as the 2023 design partner for the American Advertising Awards to be held on Feb. 24, 2023, at The Akron Civic Theatre.
Clever will design the theme and create all promotional materials for the big annual event.
The agency is led by Whitney Burd, Tony Marr and Adrienne Sabo.
New businesses
NEW STORE AT MALL: BoxLunch, a pop culture gift store that features officially licensed apparel, accessories, collectibles, beauty, home goods and novelty merchandise, is the newest store to open at the Southern Park Mall.
BoxLunch’s civic mission is “Get Some. Give Back.” For every $10 spent in-store, BoxLunch will donate one meal to Feeding America, a national hunger-relief effort. Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley will directly receive a percentage of the donations raised at the store.
RESTAURANT OPENS: Swensons Drive-Ins is open in Boardman at 1247 Boardman Poland Road.
The restaurant is the Akron-based brand’s 19th location, but the first in the Mahoning Valley.
To help mark the opening, Swensons and the community raised $4,000 for the Boardman and Poland athletic departments.
SALON TO OPEN IN HOWLAND: Wilden Beauty will be Howland’s newest salon as of today.
The full-service salon, owned by Nicolette Wilden, will open with hair stylists, nail technicians, an esthetician, massage therapist and a spray tanning specialist. Plans also are to have lash technicians, makeup artists and more in the future.
Wilden Beauty also will have its own complete product line.
People on the move
MILLWOOD, INC. ADDS TOP STAFF: Vienna-based Millwood, Inc. a provider of pallet and unit load technology and custom engineered handling systems and solutions, has brought on Tom Paskert as chief financial officer and executive vice president.
Paskert previously served with the company in this role for 15 years as part of the executive team leading the company through its transformational operational, financial, process and systems growth and development.
Craig Gretter, who has served in this role for the past 10 years, will be leaving Millwood to pursue other opportunities.
PREMIER HIRES TECH DIRECTOR: Youngstown-based Premier Bank has hired Chuck Lorenz as senior vice president, director of digital technology.
Lorenz, who has more than 26 years of industry experience in technology, spent the past 15 years in various positions at M&T Bank in Buffalo, NY.
While at M&T, he led the online and mobile banking teams over several years through multiple platform conversions. His experience also includes directing teams in digital imaging, collateral management, financial and corporate systems, human resources, information security, fraud detection and interdiction.
In his new role, he will lead the organization’s digital technology space, working closely with various lines of business to better deliver digital capabilities and solutions to the bank’s customers across all business segments.
PALO ADDS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: PALO Creative, an advertising and digital media agency in Youngstown, recently expanded its business development and account service team by hiring Don Dragish Jr. as its new business development manager.
As business development manager, Dragish will identify new business opportunities, work with the team to execute marketing strategy and tactics and serve as the agency’s initial contact to prospective clients.
The Mahoning Valley native brings decades of marketing agency experience and has managed business development and account services for clients in various industries, including aviation, financial services, hospitality and restaurants, real estate development, senior living and home improvement.
During his stint as owner and creative director of Dragish Marketing, he helped develop and execute marketing plans for several national companies based in the Youngstown and Warren regions.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a concentration in graphic design, marketing and advertising from Youngstown State University.
BRITE’S SUMMER INTERNS: BRITE Energy Innovators in Warren has brought on three interns for the summer.
Emily Adamczyk is assisting the marketing and communications department. The Pennsylvania native studies economics and sociology at Youngstown State University and is expected to graduate in the spring of 2023.
Sahaj Thapa is a graduate student in mechanical engineering. He helps with assembly, management and calibration of instruments at BRITE’s energy labs.
Lindsay Hayburn is assisting the marketing and communications department as BRITE’s new graphic design intern. Lindsay is a senior visual communication design student at Kent State University and will graduate in December.
NEW DENTIST AT BRAYDICH: Braydich Dental has grown its practice with the addition of Dr. Brandon Gervasi.
Gervasi received his doctor of dental medicine degree from the University of Florida College of Dentistry before earning his general practice residency from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
AKRON CHILDREN’S NAMES TWO VPS: Akron Children’s Hospital has named Carole Ettinger as vice president, Information Services Division, and Troy Stairwalt as vice president of Information Security.
In her new role, Ettinger oversees the implementation and support for clinical and administrative software applications, custom software development, system interfaces, vendor management, SharePoint and 0365 collaboration tools, biomedical engineering, customer service and operations.
In his role, Stairwalt will oversee all aspects of information security efforts at the Akron and Mahoning Valley campuses in addition to more than 60 primary and specialty care locations in Ohio.
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