Building Business for Ohio

Sharell Mikesell might have been born in Coshocton, but these days he is in frequent communication with multi-million dollar businesses and CEOs across the United States pitching to them why they should partner with The Ohio State University.

“My activity is across a very broad spectrum of science and technologies. The puzzle is to match the technologies that are needed by industry with the science,” Mikesell said. “The professors talk very well about the science, but what the industries want to know is who cares and what could this do for me. That’s the role I play in providing the translational component so that it sparks and peaks the interest of industry.”

Mikesell is the associate vice president of OSU’s recently created Industry Liaison Office. His job is to find companies interested in the new technology and research being done at OSU and bring the two sides together; whether that might be medical breakthroughs in the College of Medicine, new nanotechnology in the College of Engineering or any of some hundreds of projects going on at one time at OSU and its subsidiaries.

“I have an understanding of what industry wants and needs and how to communicate with industry. My role right now is to help connect the Ohio State University with more companies. It’s connecting with companies that would come in and have research done here, but also companies that would have internships, co-ops and learning experiences for students with the ultimate expectation that we will help retain more students with jobs in Ohio,” Mikesell said.

Mikesell said current harsh economic times present him with challenges as many companies don’t want to expand or gamble on the new, but they know they must.
“They all know they can’t save their way into prosperity and their answer is they have to find value added products or new technologies to reduce cost or new technologies to add features. To get that first conversation on the possibilities we can offer is an easy task right now. The difficult one is, soon as we hit bingo, how are we’re going to fund it,” he said.

He previously worked for General Electric and Owens-Corning and still serves as the co-director for Ohio’s Center for Multifunctional Polymer Nanomaterials and Devices. It was through this state-funded program that he first started working with OSU.

“I have sat in all the industry seats,” Mikesell said. “I understand the technology. I understand the business. The things I’m doing now I’ve already had 30 years of experience doing. Now that I’ve landed at the university, I look at it in that context and it really reduces the time and discussion with a company by getting right to what are the critical issues.”

Mikesell was raised on a dairy farm in Coshocton County and was the star dairy farmer for the state of Ohio while in FFA in 1960. “I really cherish my time as I grew up on a dairy farm, but as I learned a lot of things about hard work and responsibility, I also learned I didn’t want to be a dairy farmer,” he said. “I had an excellent family arrangement where mom and dad were best friends as well as parents.”
He graduated from Union Local High School in 1961 and still comes back to the area often to visit his friends from that class along with family members and his mother who lives nearby.

He left the area following high school to attend college at Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Ill., before pursuing advanced degrees in chemistry from OSU and the University of Akron.

“When I left to go to college, I never dreamed I would be around the world, been the places I’ve been and done the things I’ve done,” he said. “It’s still home (Coshocton). All those good family and friend ties have matured over the years and coming back you get to relive some of those fond memories.”
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Note: A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Coshocton Tribune and was written by Leonard Hayhurst. This version appears by permission of the Coshocton Tribune.

The Center for Multifunctional Polymer Nanomaterials and Devices (CMPND) is a research and commercialization partnership in polymer nanotechnology. This multi-institutional, interdisciplinary organization, centered at The Ohio State University, partners with the University of Dayton, the University of Akron, the University of Toledo, Kent State University, and Wright State University.

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