Intel scholarship
Though computer chip maker Intel’s mega-investment is headed for Central Ohio, the impact is reverberating in our region, too. The tech giant is offering a $5,000 scholarship for current female high school seniors in Ohio who want to get into the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Applicants must be planning to get an associate’s degree in a non-medical STEM field — think areas like computer electronic technology or microelectronics — at a state community college or accredited technical school for the upcoming academic year. The deadline to apply is June 12. Find additional criteria by clicking here.
Hiring the hirer
Cleveland City Hall is in the market for a new human resources director to oversee the city’s roughly 7,000 employees.
According to the job posting, Bibb is looking for someone who will upgrade HR practices and modernize the city’s employment policies.
“It’s time to take our city’s proud heritage to the next level by investing in homegrown talent and attracting new talent to the city,” the posting reads.
Bibb’s first HR director, Paul Patton, left the job in March. At the time, we reported that he was out at City Hall, and the city said nothing of what he’d do next.
In fact, Patton is still working for the city, advising on union contracts until the end of the year, according to a spokesperson for the mayor. Eduardo Romero is serving as interim HR director.
The buddy show
Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne have spent so much time together lately some might think they are auditioning for the next buddy action movie. They recently took selfies together in Ireland as part of an economic development mission that also promoted Cleveland’s new direct flight to Dublin via Aer Lingus. They held a presser this week here to talk up a reimagined downtown as a live-work neighborhood.
The two will anchor a town hall-style discussion on Wednesday about Cleveland’s development projects. The event is sponsored by the networking group Engage! Cleveland as part of its young professionals week. They will be joined by Tania Menesse, president and chief executive of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, and Baiju Shah, president and chief executive of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. (I am the moderator for the event.)
Bibb and Ronayne are not shy about noting that cooperation between City Hall and county government is what they believe has been the missing ingredient for getting lakefront projects and other development completed.
Take note
At long last, Cleveland will replace its coin-operated parking meters with a smart-parking system that takes credit cards. Among the details flagged by Documenter Carolyn Cooper during a Committee of the Whole meeting: the new meters will take both coins and cards, and piggybacking won’t be allowed. Administration officials reassured City Council that this $5 million contract is not – we repeat, not – like Chicago’s meter deal, in which the Windy City is forking over parking revenue to private investors.
Hometown book tour stop
Shaker Heights High School graduate and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wesley Lowery was back in town Tuesday at the City Club of Cleveland to discuss his latest book, American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress.
The visit was technically his first stop of the book tour, he said, before recognizing his parents in the audience. Later that night, Lowery addressed Shaker Heights High School graduates, 15 years after speaking there at his own graduation.
Lowery’s first book took readers behind the scenes of his reporting on police shootings across the United States, including the police shooting of Cleveland’s 12-year-old Tamir Rice.
His latest book examines the backlash to the racial progress the United States has seen from the Black Lives Matter movement and from having a Black president.
“What we’ve seen time and time again is a massive resistance and backlash,” Lowery said. “And that backlash again is not philosophical, but it’s real. It’s a backlash that’s cost people their lives and their livelihood.”