THE VISION ISSUE - City of Shaker Heights

Talk to Shaker residents who run businesses in the
City, like Weiss and Reimers, and within minutes,
here’s what you’ll hear: Shaker is a great place to work
and live.
Warmings. “We have 625 students
coming through the door every week,”
she says. “We still have families that
started with us back when we opened
in 2005.” The Little Gym offers classes
for children ages four months to 12
years. It pulls families in from as far
away as Willoughby.
And her commute isn’t too bad
either, says Pascarella, who lives less
than a mile away in the City’s Sussex
neighborhood. “I can get my sons off
to school in the morning and be home
for them in the afternoon.”
Though his children are now all
grown up, Ralph Dise says being close
to home was why he picked Shaker’s
Tower East Building when he founded
Dise & Company in 1991.
“At the time, my wife and I were
living in University Heights. We had
three young children, so I needed to
be nearby in case there was a babysitter
malfunction.”
“When we moved to Shaker 14
years ago, my commute went from
10 minutes to five minutes,” he says.
Early on, Dise was apprehensive that
being headquartered in a suburb could
be a drawback for his firm, which offers
human resource consulting.
“But my wife said that as long as
we have a top quality service, people
will come,” he recalls. “She was right.”
Today, Dise & Company, which now
employs eight people, is still located at
Tower East, though not in the same
offices Dise started in.
“We have a spectacular view,” says
Dise. “And architecturally speaking,
this is a very important building.” Tower
East was designed by Walter Gropius,
who ranks among the most prominent
architects of the 20th Century.
Coming back to Shaker was Terrence
Sullivan’s goal when he founded
Paragon Advisors Inc. more than 15
years ago. The company’s offices are
in the Chagrin Corporate Center on
Chagrin. “At the time, I was working
in Pepper Pike,” says Sullivan, who
lives in the City’s Malvern neighborhood.
“I wanted to be closer to home.”
Today, Paragon, which specializes
in managing the finances of high networth
families, employs 35 people at
its Shaker office.
Meanwhile, in a historic building
across town, the Hanna Perkins Center
(formerly Malvern School), you’ll find
Carrie Clark hard at work. Clark is executive
director of MedWorks USA, a
not-for-profit that provides free medical
care for uninsured and underinsured
residents of greater Cleveland.
The organization was founded three
years ago by Cleveland’s Zac Ponsky,
and Clark came on board in 2011.
Hanna Perkins, says Clark, is the
perfect location for MedWorks’ administrative
offices. “It’s fantastic.
First of all, being in the Hanna Perkins
building is wonderful. It’s easy for
people to come to us. We have lots of
parking. People love to come here and
they marvel at how beautiful our suburb
is.”
Being close to home is also a major
plus, says Clark. “I live in Mercer,
which is practically across the street
from my office here. It makes that
whole work-life balance all the easier,”
she notes.
Jacqueline Acho, President of The
Acho Group, a strategy and leadership
consulting firm, couldn’t agree more.
“I think Shaker is a special place,” she
says. “I see a lot of people, women especially
but men as well, doing great
work in new and flexible ways. Our
community can be a beacon for worklife
balance.”
Acho, who moved here from Chicago
in 1998 with husband John
LeMay – a partner with Blue Point
Capital Partners – was a partner in the
Cleveland office of the management
consulting firm McKinsey & Co. She
loved it, but by 2005, with two young
children at home, she found that balancing
the travel of global consulting
with her family life was becoming increasingly
difficult.
“So I explored a variety of career options,
and it just made a lot of sense to
open my own business,” she explains.
Today, from an office in her Shaker
home, Acho works with the likes of
the Cleveland Orchestra, Case Western
Reserve University, the Centers for
Families and Children, Dow Chemical
– she’s got a doctorate in chemistry
from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology – and RPM Tremco.
“I spend a lot of time with clients,
but the majority of thoughtful work
can be done at my office in Shaker
Heights. On most days, that allows
me to put my kids on the bus in the
morning and get them off in the afternoon,”
says Acho, who most recently
has started writing about what she sees
as a missing link to innovation at her
new WordPress blog, Currency of Empathy.
Cleveland-area newcomer Abby
SHAKER LIFE DECEMBER | JANUARY 2013 59