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Talking Health, Business Over French Toast and Eggs at Bowman Breakfast

Bowman Breakfast brings universities and businesses together twice yearly

Jay Gershen stood behind the lectern and delivered one simple message: businesses and academia need to work together.

Gershen, president of Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy,  spoke in the Kent Student Center early this morning at the annual Bowman Breakfast, a tradition since 1963 that is sponsored by and the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce

“I think it’s very very important that we are proud of our home community,” Gershen said. “We need to start thinking about how we reach out to other groups, other communities, other organizations to enhance and leverage the things that are going on.” 

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Gershen, D.D.S. and Ph.D., was named the sixth the president of NEOUCOMP in January 2010. Over the last year, he has worked to create partnerships with local businesses to build cooperation and market the region.

“As we reach out to our neighbors, we help ourselves, and the ship rises for all,” Gershen said.

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When Gershen first arrived in Ohio, one of the first meetings he had was with Lori Wemhoff, executive director of the Kent Chamber of Commerce, about NEOCUOMP becoming a member. He also met with the Ravenna, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Cleveland and Ohio chambers and organizations like NorTech, MAGNET, Team NEO and BioOhio. 

“The point I’m trying to make is you can’t live in a silo,” he said to a laughing audience of about 250. “I really believe, and our university really believes, to be successful in this global economy, we have to be global at home. So those outreaches are really important to us.”

One way Gershen hopes to reach out is by putting recent NEOUCOMP graduates in both rural and urban under-served areas of Ohio. Gershen said about 72 percent of the school's graduates are serving their residencies in Ohio. Of them, about 95 percent are in the same well-to-do areas. 

So NEOUCOMP created a program called Educational Service, where graduates spend five years practicing medicine in under-served Ohio neighborhoods in exchange for free tuition. But the program is not just about scholarship, Gershen said. It’s about getting the communities and community organizations involved.

“We think by doing this, we can get a health model that might begin to alter the trend in terms of distribution of providers,” he said. “This community here, and all of you, really play a huge role in this.”

Kathleen Chandler, who works at the Northeast Ohio Regional Indicators and Objectives and is the former 68th district Ohio House of Representative, said what’s finally happening at NEOUCOMP has been talked about in northeast Ohio for years. 

“Many exciting things have been happening with the university and community, the hotel and downtown development with PARTA,” Chandler said. “We’ve spent many years talking about it. Now we’re getting it downtown.”

Kent State Provost Robert Frank said he had an "aha moment" while listening to Gershen’s speech.

“He laid out a great case that makes incredible sense,” he said of partnering with businesses. “We already have so much developed to grow into a big vision. That’s where our opportunities are.”

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