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PATH TO OPPORTUNITY: 

JOBS AND THE ECONOMY IN APPALACHIA II 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

OCTOBER 23, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

MARK HALVERSON, Majority Staff Director 

JESSICA L. WILLIAMS, Chief Clerk 

MARTHA SCOTT POINDEXTER, Minority Staff Director 

VERNIE HUBERT, Minority Chief Counsel 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

FIELD HEARING(S): 

Path to Opportunity: Jobs and the Economy in Appalachia II ............................ 1 

Thursday, October 23, 2008 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ............................. 2 

Panel I 

Baker, Kevin, former Meridian Employee, Jackson, Ohio ................................... 9 

Demko, Margaret, President, Advocating for the Rights of Citizens with Disabilities of Southeast Ohio, Albany, Ohio .......................................................... 7 

Farber, Katy, President, Highland County Chamber of Commerce, Hillsboro, 

Ohio ....................................................................................................................... 5 

Panel II 

Shuter, Mark, President and Chief Executive Officer, Adena Health System, 

Chillicothe, Ohio ................................................................................................... 21 

Lanier, Sherrie, Development Director, Ohio Valley Regional Development 

Commission, Waverly, Ohio ................................................................................ 23 

Lewis, Marsha, Senior Research Associate, Voinovich School of Leadership 

and Public Affairs, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio ........................................... 24 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Baker, Kevin ..................................................................................................... 34 

Demko, Margaret .............................................................................................. 36 

Farber, Katy ...................................................................................................... 39 

Lanier, Sherrie .................................................................................................. 43 

Lewis, Marsha .................................................................................................. 49 

Shuter, Mark ..................................................................................................... 57 

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Written letter from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Secretary to Hon. Tom Harkin with attached fact sheet on rural development ............................................................................................................... 62 

(1) 

PATH TO OPPORTUNITY: 

JOBS AND THE ECONOMY IN APPALACHIA II 

Thursday, October 23, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY, Chillicothe, Ohio 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., at PACCAR 

Medical Education Center, Kenworth Auditorium, 446 Hospital 

Road, Chillicothe, Ohio, Hon. Sherrod Brown, presiding. 

Present or submitting a statement: Senator Brown. 

Mr. METZGER. Senator Brown, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the main campus of Adena Health System and 

to the PACCAR Medical Education Center. My name is Ralph 

Metzger. I am the Executive Director of the Adena Health Foundation, and Senator, we are delighted that you have selected this new 

and beautiful facility for the venue for our United States field hearing. This is very exciting for us. 

Thank you to his staff, Jeanne Wilson and David Hodapp, for 

helping us with the arrangements, and thank you to Angel 

Chitwood here at the Center and Jenny Dovyak of our Marketing 

Department for managing all of the details. 

The PACCAR Medical Education Center is now only 7 weeks old. 

It was the result of the largest capital campaign in Ross County. 

This Kenworth Auditorium and the PACCAR name on the building 

honors the first $1 million gift, and that was from PACCAR Foundation. PACCAR, Incorporated, is the parent company of Kenworth 

Trucks and Peterbilt Trucks, and, of course, Kenworth Trucks is 

our neighbor right across the street. 

In this Center, Wright State and Ohio University are teaching 54 

nursing students at the bachelor’s degree level. The majority of 

these students are currently Adena employees, or they will be 

when they graduate. Current practicing nurses and physicians and 

technicians are receiving continuing education here at this facility. 

Our surgeons and physicians are teaching advanced skills and best 

practices to other physicians and surgeons across the region and 

across the country. 

This Center features simulation training technology using the 

most highly advanced human patient simulators to mimic over 

72,000 signs and symptoms. So students learn from their mistakes 

on mannequins before they ever touch a human patient. Every 

event, every hand wash, every step is recorded by video for instant 

feedback. Most importantly, we are showing children and teens in 

Southern Ohio that professional education and professional careers 

2 

are available in Southern Ohio to enhance the quality of life and 

health care in Southern Ohio. 

Thank you and good day. We are very pleased you are here. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OHIO 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thanks very much, Mr. Metzger, 

and thank you all for joining us, not just the panelists, but all of 

you that are students, that are employees of Adena, and that are 

now part of this fabulous-looking facility, and I am sure there is 

so much more, so thank you for that, Mr. Metzger, very much. 

Special thanks to Jenny and Angel for the work that they did. 

I know that often they do most of the work and Mr. Metzger gets 

most of the credit, but thank you. But he did credit them very generously, so thank you for that. 

Special thanks, too, to Commissioner Corcoran for joining us and 

Mayor Sulzer. Thank you. I have heard, Mr. Metzger, I have heard 

only good things already about this place, so congratulations as you 

embark on your first few months serving people of Southern Ohio. 

The hearing comes to order. This is an official hearing of the 

Senate Agriculture Committee. We have done—this is, to my 

knowledge, only the second hearing that the Senate Agriculture 

Committee has ever done in Ohio and the first one was yesterday 

in Steubenville, and this hearing will be to discuss rural health, as 

I think all of you know. 

Today, we are especially pleased to be holding the event not just 

in this part of the State, but holding it at the PACCAR Center, a 

building that came about, as Mr. Metzger said, through the foresight and the hard work and the dedication of many of the Adena 

staff here today. Through their efforts, we are sitting in one of the 

gems of Appalachian Ohio. Let me congratulate everyone that has 

had a major role and a minor role, too, in the creation of all of this. 

This building is of special relevance today because one of the topics that we will be covering is the lack of access to health care that 

too many in Appalachian Ohio face. The educators that now have 

an opportunity to teach here at the PACCAR Center are going a 

long way to help solve this problem. The students in the classrooms 

here today are the desperately needed nurses and other health care 

specialists that we all so much need in the years ahead. 

The PACCAR Center is one of the most high-tech, cutting-edge 

health care education facilities not just in the State, but in the 

United States and in the world, and I understand that a very small 

portion of Federal monies were used in acquiring that technology. 

This is a perfect example of how the United States Department of 

Agriculture funding can lead to real change and success with huge 

local effort. 

I would like to thank Senator Tom Harkin, who is the Chairman 

of the Agriculture Committee, Chairman Harkin from Iowa, for his 

support in these hearings and for his leadership on the farm bill. 

Finally, I would like to thank our witnesses, this first panel, and 

I will introduce them shortly, and then a second panel which we 

will hear from. We will hear testimony from the witnesses and 

then ask questions and then we will do the second panel shortly. 

3 

I would like to make a brief statement just about sort of the purpose of this hearing and what we are seeing and what we are hearing around the State and what you are also very familiar with. 

Small-town Ohio, like the rest of America, is hurting. Ohio’s unemployment rate reached 7.4 percent this summer, the highest it has 

been in a decade and a half. Even prior to this economic downturn, 

Ohio still had hundreds of thousands fewer jobs than it had prior 

to the last recession. 

With aging infrastructure, with high unemployment, with underfunded schools, with chronic access to affordable health coverage, 

rural Ohio, and throughout rural Ohio and rural areas throughout 

our nation already face daunting economic challenges. For rural 

areas, an economic downturn like the one we find ourselves in now 

has the impact of a kidney punch after 12 rounds in the ring. 

Over one-half of Ohio’s counties are rural and there is no doubt 

these counties face significant obstacles. Of the ten counties in 

Ohio with the highest unemployment, every single one of them is 

rural. Of the ten counties in Ohio with the highest poverty level, 

nine of those ten are rural. Of the ten counties in Ohio with the 

highest percentage of people eligible for Medicaid, nine of them are 

rural. 

Federal policymakers, frankly, have not devoted enough attention to rural America. We squander opportunities. We dismiss unacceptable gaps in the kind of support that allows families to lift 

themselves out of poverty and join the middle class. It is time to 

instead invest in the tremendous potential that rural America 

holds. Investment in rural communities is an investment in the 

American economic engine and the American dream. 

We fought for these rural communities and small towns across 

Ohio during the writing of the 2008 farm bill. USDA Rural Development Programs encourage rural business expansion and job creation and grants to expand, for example, to expand broadband 

across rural Ohio. These programs have invested more than $500 

million in over 120 different projects in Ohio over the past 2 years. 

These projects include $700,000 to build a child development center in Jackson County, the county directly to the Southeast where 

Mr. Baker is from; funding for dump trucks and road maintenance 

equipment for Pike County would have come under the farm bill, 

the county directly south of here; and in Ross County, USDA Rural 

Development funded 19 miles of water lines to rural customers 

worth almost $2.5 million. Rural Development provided $1.2 million to finance 60 units of affordable housing and $4 million for the 

construction of a new water treatment plant. 

These projects wouldn’t have occurred without a farm bill and 

without funding for Rural Development Programs. USDA Rural 

Development funding can help communities in many different 

ways. Some comes in the form of grants to communities for water 

and sewer and public safety projects. Others provide loans and loan 

guarantees for small businesses and rural housing projects. These 

loan guarantees in particular have seen a dramatic increase in 

usage during the recent credit crunch. Some lenders simply won’t 

provide funds to small businesses in rural housing without the additional security provided by farm bill Rural Development Programs. The farm bill funds so many programs that matter to Ohio 

4 

and we have made important strides toward providing additional 

investments in rural areas of our State. 

As Ohio’s first Senator to serve on the Agriculture Committee in 

40 years, I will fight to keep these vital programs alive, to continue 

them, to enhance them, to ensure Ohioans living in rural areas receive the kind of support that will help them thrive. The farm bill 

provided a needed boost, but the people in small towns and rural 

communities clearly and obviously deserve more. That is why we 

are having this hearing today. 

Over the past 20 months, I have conducted about 120 

roundtables across the State—Ms. Farber was in one, Mr. Baker 

was in one recently—where I have listened to 15, 20 activists in 

the community just talk to me about concerns and ideas that they 

have about their communities. Most of those roundtables were held 

in rural Ohio. 

The kinds of questions—we hear questions, how can the Federal 

Government play a role to help rebuild small towns in Appalachia 

and across Ohio? I have heard questions, what kinds of investments in infrastructure are needed to revitalize our rural communities and make them competitive in this world economy? How can 

we support small businesses who are struggling in the face of the 

credit crunch and the uncertainty of the financial crisis? 

These are questions our witnesses will help us answer today. I 

look forward to their remarks and our questions and discussion. 

I would close by noting that Randy Hunt, the Director of USDA 

Rural Development Programs in our State, in Ohio, was invited to 

testify today. The Bush administration did not allow him to attend. 

Mr. Hunt is a dedicated and well-respected public servant to this 

State, and as USDA Rural Development Programs play a significant role in addressing the challenges rural communities face, I 

know everyone here would have appreciated hearing Mr. Hunt’s 

perspective on the critical issues facing our State. 

I regret the decision of Secretary Schafer and the Bush administration because I don’t think it is in the best interest of the people 

I serve, but today’s hearing is too important to get mired in politics. The hearing is not about the Bush administration or Republicans or Democrats. It is about people and communities fighting to 

overcome daunting economic challenges. So it is in the nation’s best 

interest to support their success, and Congress and the administration alike have an obligation to promote the nation’s best interests. 

That is not partisan, that is simply a fact. 

So I would like to introduce the first panel and then we will 

begin statements. Please keep your statement to around 5 minutes. 

If you go a little over, it is OK. Then I will ask questions after you 

are finished. 

Our first panel is Katy Farber, who is a native of Highland 

County, Ohio. She is a small businesswoman and professor at 

Southern State and President of the Highland County Chamber of 

Commerce. 

Margaret Demko of Albany, Ohio, lives in Athens County. She is 

President of Advocating for the Rights of Citizens with Disabilities 

of Southeast Ohio, Southeast Ohio Coordinator for Ohio Consumers 

for Health Coverage, and serves on the Ohio Development Disabilities Council. She is a terrific advocate for her own child and for 

5 

people needing health care all over the State and I am particularly 

thankful for what you do. 

And also on our panel is Kevin Baker of Jackson, Ohio, a former 

employee of Meridian Automotives, whose workers were locked out 

a couple of years ago. Mr. Baker, along with 300 of his coworkers, 

lost their jobs. They were locked out for almost 2 years before being 

laid off and then the plant closed. It is nice to see you again, Mr. 

Baker. Thank you for joining us. 

Ms. Farber, if you will begin. 

STATEMENT OF KATY FARBER, PRESIDENT, HIGHLAND 

COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, HILLSBORO, OHIO 

Ms. FARBER. My name is Katy Farber and I am the President of 

the Highland County Chamber of Commerce and I appreciate the 

invitation and opportunity to present this information at today’s 

hearing. The USDA Rural Development Programs have provided 

support to Highland County in the past and for that we are grateful. We are, however, in need of an increased assistance in light of 

the economic realities of today and the looming economic devastation of the pending DHL decision to close its Wilmington, Ohio, hub 

operation. 

The current economic downturn is affecting each sector of our 

country, but is having what many believe is a disproportionately 

negative effect on rural Southwest Ohio, and in particular Highland County. The issues are many and cut through each sector that 

make up our local economy. 

Local tax revenues and the fees that are collected for the general 

fund are down, limiting the ability to meet the increasing demands 

on a county and local government level to provide services. This severely affects the day-to-day operations of law enforcement, the 

courts, and all departments dependent upon both county and municipality revenues. 

From the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, Highland County had the highest percentage of jobs lost, 6.2 percent, 

of any county in the State, according to Job and Family Services 

statistics. The decline in employment opportunities and the thousands of pending job losses is forcing families to choose what bills 

can be paid and what available cash must be used to take care of 

the family’s basic needs. Foreclosure rates continue to increase, 

climbing some 300 percent over the last eight to 10 years. 

Many people are becoming desperate. Local agencies, a last resort rescue resource for many citizens in our area, are seeing increased demands for goods and services while being faced with 

lower contributions from both Federal funding streams and the private sector. The result is straining the resources and limiting the 

ability to help our neediest in the county. For example, Highland 

County Community Action Organization served 27 percent of the 

Highland County population in 2007 and has seen a significant increase in new families served in 2008. 

The impact on small, local businesses, those employing five to 15 

people, is marked in Highland County. Within the last 2 months, 

we have lost at least seven storefront retail operations because of 

the slow economy. Bankruptcy has closed the door of a small manufacturer and threatens others. A long-established restaurant shutVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:14 Apr 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\48539.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
6 

tered its windows, unwilling to risk reinvestment in upgrades when 

patronage continues to decline due to the economy. An upstart 

manufacturing operation eager to open a new facility and add jobs 

continues to be caught in a battle with EPA regulations and requirements that keep it from opening operation. The ongoing struggle for many small businesses to borrow funds for operation due to 

the tight credit market is significantly affecting commercial competence and growth. 

Highland County also has a large agriculture industry. Grain 

producers faced a 100 percent increase in crop output costs for 

2008 and now face a 50 percent drop in grain prices. This will devastate a significant number of family farms. The impact will compound the current financial problems for local businesses. 

Beyond the economic recession that is affecting all of this country, and beyond the struggles we face as a rural American county, 

Highland County is bracing for the significant impact of an additional job loss from 20 percent of our total county workforce should 

DHL realign its Wilmington operation. Over 1,800 Highland County residents work at the Wilmington Air Park, directly employed by 

DHL, ABX Air, or ASTAR. Add to that the additional job losses directly or indirectly related to the $54 million loss to our local economy and that situation becomes grim. Our hospitals, already taxed 

with a 9.5 percent increase in uncompensated care, may be pushed 

beyond their means to stay in operation when additional residents 

no longer have health insurance. There will not be a social service 

agency or municipality and county operation that will not be affected by this financial catastrophe. 

When we examine the greatest areas of needs within Highland 

County, they all certainly lead to the all-encompassing category of 

economic development—the ability to attract and retain business 

and industry to provide good-paying jobs for our citizens, stabilize 

the local housing market, support the education systems throughout the county, and contribute to the overall tax base of our local 

communities and Highland County. To compete for business and 

industry opportunities, we need to be able to level the playing field. 

Rural Highland County, like its neighbors, needs assistance with 

six specific areas: Community infrastructure, broadband availability, health care access, education, transportation, and marketing. My written testimony details specifics about these challenges and I invite everyone to review those points. 

Without the continued support of the USDA Rural Development 

Programs, Highland County will not be able to weather the storm 

that we currently face. In Highland County, as in many parts of 

rural America, economic development is the difference between the 

hope of prosperity or continued decline. I urge this committee to 

work to increase the investment in rural initiatives that support 

the infrastructure upgrades, health care access, educational support, broadband capabilities, and specific economic development 

programs, including the marketing, that connect rural entities to 

the opportunities for commercial and industrial development. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Farber can be found on page 39 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Farber. 

7 

Ms. Demko. 

STATEMENT OF MARGARET DEMKO, PRESIDENT, ADVOCATING FOR THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS WITH DISABILITIES 

OF SOUTHEAST OHIO, ALBANY, OHIO 

Ms. DEMKO. Good morning, Senator Brown. I am honored to be 

able to speak with you here this morning in Chillicothe. 

As you mentioned, my family lives in Albany, a small village in 

the west corner of Athens County. We as a family are one of the 

8,900 families in Athens County that do not have access to health 

care coverage. My daughter with Down Syndrome does not qualify 

for Healthy Start, and as a family, we are unable to purchase private coverage due to several preexisting conditions. 

When I speak about my family’s access to care, obviously, I speak 

first about Emily. She needs intensive speech, physical, and occupational therapies to help her reach her best potential. When I 

looked for these facilities in the Athens area, I found only Ohio 

University for physical therapy and speech, and there the therapists are grad students who change every 3 months as their school 

schedules change. This was not the answer for Emily and she still 

needed occupational therapy for her fine motor skills. Those skills 

would be being able to hold a pencil, turn the page of a book, put 

a sticker on her shirt. 

As a family, my husband and I looked into Nationwide Children’s 

Hospital Therapy Services in Columbus. While a long way from 

home, we knew this was the best place for her to get the start she 

needed toward reaching her best potential. We signed her up for 

therapy, taking on the out-of-pocket expenses of each therapy, but 

also the total cost of getting there and being there for the day. 

There was 77 miles of travel one way, with gas at astronomical 

rates. We sold our van, bought a compact car to try to fight the 

costs. I tried packing a lunch for us since the costs of eating out 

were also hurting our budget. But my daughter has particular eating issues, so packing food became too difficult as she grew. 

All in all, the trips each week would cost us over $500 when all 

therapies, food, and gas were added together. I consider my family 

to be one of the lucky ones, since we had the gas money to get 

where we needed to be for Emily and we were able to essentially 

run a tab of therapy bills at Children’s Hospital. We kept this up 

for over 2 years until school-age therapy services were able to kick 

in. 

We also were able to take her to Nationwide Children’s Hospital 

for developmental disability clinic appointments, where an issue 

with her eyes was caught, a blood test to rule out thyroid disease 

was completed, as well as the need for orthotic shoe inserts was 

found. This essentially is a one-stop shop for services for children 

like Emily. There are clinics in rural health departments, but there 

are no areas that have all the tests be able to run that day on the 

spot. 

My daughter is not the only one who has had issues accessing 

the care she needs in her own backyard. My husband has a history 

of severe kidney stones. When he had an attack this July, I chose 

to drive him 35 miles right here to Adena Medical Center when he 

was working right around the corner from an emergency clinic. 

8 

Someone asked me why I would choose to do so. I couldn’t imagine 

the bill that would come to an uninsured person from a for-profit 

clinic who has no program to assist financially. I ran a huge risk 

of my husband passing out or having something more serious happen to his kidneys, but I knew that as a family, we could not take 

on a bill of several thousands of dollars and be expected to pay it 

within 30 days, as had happened to us in the past. 

Senator Brown, I am not the only family that lives in Southeast 

Ohio that has trouble accessing health care and health care specialists. I live in an area where two adjacent counties, Meigs and 

Vinton, do not have an emergency room or an emergency clinic 

within 25 miles. Meigs County does not have 911 services. The vast 

amount of these counties are remote areas where most folks do not 

have the most basic of services, let alone the gas money or proper 

transportation to get to that life-saving clinic. 

Yet another health care issue that hits Southeast Ohio hard is 

dental care. There are very few dentists. Athens has some dentists, 

but some won’t take Medicaid, some won’t take uninsured without 

full payment, and there are no pediatric dentists at all. Again, we 

have to head north toward Columbus for that service. 

This is a health care issue that can reach well beyond oral 

health. When there are oral health issues, sometimes there is 

missed work or school, systemic infections, and many other serious 

complications. All that aside, it is always harder to move forward 

with a job interview or with a school presentation if you are missing teeth or experiencing extreme halitosis. 

When we talk about access to services, there are so many more 

things to consider than the immediate health of the children and 

the adults in my hometown areas. If Emily doesn’t get speech therapy this week, it won’t hurt her immediately. What it will do, however, is potentially slow down her growth in her ability to speak. 

Not having adequate occupational therapy will not harm her immediately, either, but eventually her inability to stick a sticker on her 

shirt, stack blocks, or color with a skinny marker may turn out to 

be something that stops her from reaching her potential. 

Simple skills like this are building blocks for life skills she would 

use every day for the rest of her life. She needs these skills so she 

can speak intelligibly enough to be able to ask for what she wants, 

write her name, turn the page of a book, punch the buttons on a 

calculator to balance a checkbook, or even hold down a good job. 

All these services are connected to her future. Many other families 

are also experiencing the same, yet are unable to reach the services 

they and their children need. 

I work every day in my line of work to find and talk to families 

just like mine who are having issues accessing health care. I assure 

you, Senator Brown, that my family is not unique. I get calls almost every day from folks much worse off than my family that are 

trying to figure out what they can do to get their family the care 

they need without the ability to travel outside the area. I have 

made this work my life passion, to listen to, advocate for, and try 

to direct to the right people these families that are in crisis with 

their health. I am sure that it is reassuring to talk to someone like 

me who also lives these issues every day, but we need to do more 

9 

than talk. We need to find a solution to the access and cost issues 

in this great and beautiful part of Ohio. 

As a family, we make hard choices every day about our health 

care and we provide everything we can for our daughter and for 

each other since we know that healthy parents raise a healthy 

child. What we need is a government and a President on our side 

to help us. We are willing to put into the system what we can. 

What we need is the door to be open and make sure health care 

is affordable, achievable, and accessible, not only for my family, but 

so many thousands just like us. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Demko can be found on page 36 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Demko. 

Mr. Baker. 

STATEMENT OF KEVIN BAKER, FORMER MERIDIAN 

EMPLOYEE, JACKSON, OHIO 

Mr. BAKER. I would like to thank you, sir. It is an honor and a 

privilege. April 21, 2006, 300–plus workers at Meridian 

Automotives here in Southeast Ohio were locked out of their job. 

Some people had worked there over 30 years, most right out of 

high school. There were many married couples who both lost their 

job at Meridian. Most of us had family working in this factory. I 

myself had seven relatives who worked at Meridian Automotives. 

We worked 6 days a week mandatory and the maintenance crew 

7 days a week. We were all dedicated workers, responsible workers 

who took pride in their job. April 21 changed that immediately. 

Our lives changed when the company brought in immigrants to do 

our job, some found to be illegal. 

We stood on the picket line for the better part of 2 years. Along 

the way, many tragic events would unfold. Pretty much all of us 

began to lose our self-worth. The pride we had in working 6 days 

a week and providing a living for our loved ones was now starting 

to die off. After a year on the picket line, a beloved union brother 

took all he could take and ended his life with a gun. None of us 

had seen this coming, especially from this man. 

Families started to lose their homes within the first year. Depression set in with many of our union brothers and sisters. Pretty 

much everyone lost their health care unless provided by a spouse 

not working at Meridian. To this date, many of the workers have 

not found work and the ones in their 50’s and 60’s may never find 

a job in this area or affordable health care. Some of the people who 

lost their job at Meridian now work as far away as Cincinnati, and 

for some, the coal mines of West Virginia. 

What we need, Senator, is broadband in our area so people can 

search the job sites and educate themselves on what we could be 

doing in our area and the surrounding area to provide. Many of us 

have family right here in Southeast Ohio and don’t want to move 

to the city just to have high-speed Internet or more job opportunities. We need jobs here in our part of the State and we need them 

now. 

Some of our union brothers and sisters have gained employment 

at the local Wal-Mart starting at minimum wage or just above 

10 

that. Many of us were educated right here in the Appalachians, 

and for many of us, we are behind the times when it comes to joining today’s workforce. We live in the richest country in the world, 

but right in the heart of it all are the Appalachians, where I have 

witnessed the destruction of over 300 lives. 

We need help here and we need it now. We are the heartland 

and we want to work. We need jobs in our area and we do need 

them now. We need affordable health care and someone to help us 

with our bills so we can go to school and get the education we need 

to survive in today’s world, and we need job training. Broadband 

would help with that, with the online degrees and the online 

schooling. 

I don’t want to see anyone else lose their home or, even worse, 

lose their life because of this. We are asking for your help here in 

the Appalachians of Ohio. We need work. We need our self-worth 

back. And we want to work. We know what it takes to survive and 

we need your help to regain our belief system in not only ourselves, 

but in our leaders and our elected officials. Please bring our area 

up to date with broadband and bring businesses to our area. We 

believe we can do anything, but we do need your help getting started once again. There are simply no jobs here in Southeast Ohio and 

these are desperate times. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Baker. 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker can be found on page 34 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you for being with us. 

All the statements will be in the official record. If any of you 

wants to add anything—you had said, Ms. Farber, you have a written statement that may be longer. If you can just let us know all 

that. Joe Shultz in the second row there staffs the Agriculture 

Committee for us. He is joined here by Beth Thames, Dave Hodapp 

over here, and Jeanne Wilson, who may still be outside in case 

anybody else arrives late. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

Ms. Farber, let me start with you. You had said that 27 percent, 

if I heard you right, 27 percent of people in Highland County have 

gotten some services from Community Action. Would you outline 

those? I know LIHEAP and some nutrition. Tell me what exactly 

that is. 

Ms. FARBER. It goes the gamut of whether it is heat programs, 

there are Gator [ph.] programs, a dental assistance program, just 

things that supplement our social services system in the State, but 

it is also financial counseling, different things that homeowners can 

come in to access. Ohio now has a benefits bank and Community 

Action is completely—I think they have 27, or 20–some trained 

staff members that can reach out, and some of the services involve 

connecting so that people who have never had to come for help who 

we are seeing come in the lines more than ever know where they 

can go. 

But the President, or the Director of Community Action—we are 

caught between a rock and a hard place because some of the people 

we—she has to almost say, ‘‘You are not poor enough. You are not 

poor enough to access the programs that we can offer you,’’ and alVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:14 Apr 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\48539.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
11 

most have to say, try another 90 days. So we are forcing people just 

to go down to the lowest levels without giving them some assistance along the way. 

Senator BROWN. So is your recommendation that Community Action be given sort of a wider scope of ability to serve, I mean, not 

just more appropriations perhaps, but given a wider range of what 

they are allowed to do? 

Ms. FARBER. Well, that would be wonderful, yes. 

Senator BROWN. Well, what specifically would you—— 

Ms. FARBER. Specifically—you know, you kind of caught me off 

guard here, Senator, because I can’t really speak for all of the Community Action Programs, but yes, I think that the scope needs to 

be—the income levels at this point, because do we have to let everyone, especially those who are—there are people losing their jobs 

in the Wilmington Air Park because they can’t afford—they have 

not been laid off or warn noticed. They can’t afford to keep going 

to work because the hours have been cut back so dramatically. So 

now they are coming to look for assistance. Well, their previous 12– 

month employment, their tax records show that they are earning 

a good living. So you can’t give them that money right now and 

they are—— 

Senator BROWN. And come next year, they wouldn’t be earning 

a good living. I mean, they are not now, but it would show then. 

Are there significant, already, ASTAR, ABX, and DHL employees 

that have lost their health insurance? 

Ms. FARBER. There are significant and growing numbers every 

day of those employees who are being forced to walk away from the 

job because they can’t afford to stay there for their families. 

Senator BROWN. So where are they going? 

Ms. FARBER. Some are leaving. Some are just picking up parttime jobs. But yes, if they walk away, they have no unemployment. 

I mean, there is no compensation. 

Senator BROWN. So DHL—my understanding, and I know a lot 

of people in Clinton, Highland, Adams, Brown, the whole region, 

Montgomery, Clark, Green, that work there. Some number of them, 

I know, are farmers that work whatever number of hours to get 

health care. What is that requirement? How many hours must they 

work to get insurance? Is it 20 or 30? It is—— 

Ms. FARBER. The formula—it was about 28. The formula is 

changing, of course, as the scene changes up there, but it was 

mostly night sort operations, so it would be four or five nights a 

week, five or 6 hours a night, depending on the load required, and 

then they would have full health care benefits. 

Senator BROWN. So the impact obviously of closure of those 8,000 

jobs would be as heavy in rural areas as it is in cities and communities, right? 

Ms. FARBER. The exposure—the estimated exposure for this closure, if we will call it that, to the health care systems in the immediate Highland, Fayette, Clinton region is $63 million. That is what 

it will take out of the health care system for those uninsured. 

Senator BROWN. What is the Chamber of Commerce doing and 

what is the community doing as the Governor and I and others 

fight this job loss? We are not giving up yet and it is definitely not 

over yet. But what—and as I think you know, we have gotten 

12 

someone from the Department of Labor and we have gotten some 

people in the administration—the Bush administration has been 

cooperative on this—to prepare if that happens. What are you 

doing? What is the Chamber doing? What is the community doing 

overall in Highland County specifically on preparing if this job loss 

happens? 

Ms. FARBER. Since the beginning of June, we formed our own 

local, and I shy away from the term ‘‘task force’’ because it just— 

but we have our own local group that works closely with the official 

DHL process of local communities, but on our own, we are making 

plans. We have the faith-based community involved. We have 

talked to our lenders as a group, our health care providers, trying 

to get them to lay on top of our current situation in the economy 

what this will mean. We have got to exist. Our county has to make 

payroll. We have to keep our courts going, our law enforcement. So 

we are reaching out to try to build the reality that could come to 

us very soon. 

The Economic Recovery Coordinator that we are waiting to come, 

that EDA has funded, we are trying to align—the Chamber is trying very much to work with the county commissioners and other 

entities to align an economic development strategy that will be able 

to take advantage of this person who is helping us recover in the 

area to attract and retain. 

Senator BROWN. It strikes me that—I mean, I have seen good cooperation among the commissioners in each county with each other, 

so this is sort of two-pronged, if you will. One, what do we do to 

help people that are losing jobs in terms of providing services, and 

second, what do we do to grow the economy to displace as many 

of these jobs as we can with other kinds of jobs. So you feel comfortable that proper attention is paid to both? 

Ms. FARBER. We are getting there. We can use all the support 

we can get. 

Senator BROWN. No, I understand. 

Ms. FARBER. And expertise. You know, we are not really highend at this. We are a county that has no four-lane access and we 

have a very limited budget. So any resources and expertise that 

can come to the table to help us plan for the future—we will have 

to take care of the people who are—our county residents that are 

caught in this, and I believe that we our county can rise up to do 

it because that is the way we do it in Appalachia. But for the future, we need to be able to compete with everybody else who wants 

businesses to come to town. So that is, I think, in the pipeline and 

we are aligning to that and we just hope that it continues. 

Senator BROWN. I have noticed from DHL, ABX, and ASTAR 

that it is not unlike Meridian, I mean, much bigger, but not unlike 

Meridian in that a lot of husbands and wives both work there. I 

saw what happened in Meridian when husband and wife both lost 

their $13 or $14–an-hour job and kids couldn’t go to college then 

and kids stopped right at the end of the semester and all of that. 

One last question. What do you make of the delay in not signing 

the agreement between DHL and UPS? 

Ms. FARBER. I think a good business proposition is not looking 

so good anymore perhaps, frankly. 

Senator BROWN. Is that cause for optimism for us? 

13 

Ms. FARBER. Not necessarily. 

Senator BROWN. OK. 

Ms. FARBER. To be candid, I don’t think so. I just want to segue 

back just 1 second to something you said, husbands and wives and 

families. I made a call to our domestic violence agency that covers 

both Clinton and Highland County in our case. They have already 

seen a 20 percent increase in cases since the May 28 announcement and nothing has really happened, because the people who had 

been warn noticed have been given severance packages. They are 

entitled to unemployment compensation. They have some assistance. It is the strain and stress of wondering when the shoe is 

going to drop. 

Senator BROWN. A 20 percent increase in domestic violence reported cases since May. That is Highland County only, or that 

is—— 

Ms. FARBER. That is Clinton and Highland, and it is predominately Clinton. But they have three times as many—their workforce is three times as affected there. 

Senator BROWN. Are you prepared, and I am going to ask Mr. 

Baker this in a moment, too, but are you prepared for the mental 

health counseling and all that? Are the agencies in Highland and 

Clinton, the two counties I guess you know best about this, are 

they prepared for the onslaught? 

Ms. FARBER. They are trying. 

Senator BROWN. OK. 

Ms. FARBER. They are at the table. We talk very openly about 

what we are going to need. And again, they are stretched because 

of cuts in funding as they are, and the people that we are going 

to need to help don’t have any money in their accounts to pay for 

those services. 

Senator BROWN. OK. Thank you. Thanks for your service. 

Ms. FARBER. Thank you. 

Senator BROWN. Ms. Demko, thank you for telling your story, 

and every time I have heard you tell it, it is so moving. Thank you 

for that.21If you have a child with disabilities and you aren’t as 

worldly as you are, say, and you aren’t as knowledgeable about this 

and you don’t have as many connections as you have built over the 

last year-and-a-half since I first met you, year-plus, where do you 

start? If a parent, a couple of parents have a child that is disabled 

and they are looking for help and they don’t know Margaret Demko 

and they don’t know people in the county seat, where do they start? 

What is the first thing they do? 

Ms. DEMKO. I think the first thing they are going to do is, sadly, 

sometimes Children’s Services ends up at their doorstep because 

someone sees that they are not helping their child. And then possibly Help Me Grow will get involved, and through Help Me Grow, 

they tend to find services for them, and that is really Help Me 

Grow’s job, at least in our county, is to help these folks walk 

through the system and figure out who it is they need to contact 

next, which district are they in, and which school district can help 

them, what services are available for them right now. 

Before I started looking on my own, when Help Me Grow came 

to my home, they didn’t know where to send me for speech therapy. 

They didn’t know where to send me for physical therapy. And they 

14 

found OU and it just wasn’t the right fit for us. And so I am afraid 

that what happens is these kids don’t get the services that they 

need until they are school-aged because then the school finds the 

problems. The school calls home and says, we need to have an Individualized Education Plan, or an IEP, and by the way, we are 

going to put your child into services. We are going to put them into 

speech therapy. 

But in our district—in Athens County, there are five school districts, not including Athens City Schools, and there is one physical 

therapist, one speech therapist, and one occupational therapist to 

serve all of the children with disabilities or needs in that entire 

county. My daughter gets less than 20 minutes of therapy a week, 

and most of that is group therapy because there are three other 

children in her class that need the same therapy services. 

So I am not sure exactly where these parents go. My hope is that 

they start to look and they start to ask questions, because 

broadband is not available in a lot of the areas, so it is not easy 

to just jump online and take a look and try to find where they need 

to go. 

It is scary. I have met families who have just let—they didn’t realize there was a problem until they got to school, and then sometimes some of those problems are harder to overcome and harder 

to break through when you start at age five, when they could have 

been in school at age two-and-a-half or three, because there are 

services available. 

Senator BROWN. When did you start with Emily? 

Ms. DEMKO. I fought to get her into school. This is her first year 

that she is in school. She is three. She will be four on Election Day. 

And I fought to get her in school. I fought eight different child care 

providers to allow her to attend half an hour a day so that she 

could get socialization programs, because there are no play groups 

or places that accept children with disabilities in our area. I finally 

found a church that was willing to let me come in, but it was very 

strict rules and lots of questioning and issues with her having a 

disability. And so I found someone who welcomed me in Albany. So 

I started this past summer with her going 3 days a week. But now 

she is in public schools. 

Senator BROWN. So the biggest, it sounds from piecing together 

what you said, the biggest hole in coverage and care and help for 

children with disabilities is prior to their first year in school. That 

is when we just—our society doesn’t reach them very well. 

Ms. DEMKO. That is my experience. 

Senator BROWN. That is your experience. 

Ms. DEMKO. That is my experience, being that she is only four. 

However, with folks that I work with, I also see a huge gap happen 

after they are out of school, because what happens to these folks 

once they are 18? Where do they go? What do they do if they don’t 

qualify for sheltered workshop or they don’t qualify for any of the 

other programs that the county might have? What happens to 

those folks then? Are there social support networks? Do those 

things happen? I don’t have the answers to that because I am dealing with the early childhood situation. 

15 

Senator BROWN. And I know the fear—I have talked to a lot of 

parents—the fear they have that they are going to go before their 

disabled child—— 

Ms. DEMKO. It is a huge fear. 

Senator BROWN. and just the fear that you live with your whole 

life, I assume. 

Ms. DEMKO. It is a fear that my husband and I have. What happens down the lane, because we don’t have any other children. So 

what happens to her? What support network is out there to help 

take care of her if she is able to be independent, which that is my 

hope and she is on that road, but she is still going to need some 

support. And who is it, and is that program going to be funded in 

16 years when she needs it, or however long that takes? It is a 

huge fear. 

Senator BROWN. Can you imagine and try to share with us what 

Emily would be like today if she hadn’t had the early intervention 

you did? Can you contrast that? Can you see that at all clearly—— 

Ms. DEMKO. I can—— 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. By looking at other children and 

looking at her progress and all? Share that with us. 

Ms. DEMKO. I can. It took me 13 months to come to grips with 

the reality that I had a child with a severe disability, and during 

that 13 months, I did not have her in any program by choice. I was 

in great denial. She was not sitting up. She was not doing those 

developmental milestones that she should have been doing by the 

age of 13 months. 

When I started looking into services and getting the services, 

that I finally pulled myself up by the bootstraps and said, this is 

what she needs, she walked before she was two, which is not a 

feat—it is a huge accomplishment for a child with Down Syndrome. 

She is only 36 inches tall at almost 4 years old and she walks without tripping. She walks without braces. She does things that I was 

told she would absolutely 100 percent never do. 

Senator BROWN. And that would not have happened if you had 

not done—— 

Ms. DEMKO. I don’t believe it would have. I don’t believe, if I had 

not went out there and looked for the services that I needed and 

found what I needed and found the right answers. You know, it 

was because of asking questions that I put myself on the board of 

Developmental Disabilities. I found out about the Developmental 

Disabilities Council in Columbus. I needed the answers and I wanted access to services for her because she deserves that and she deserves as much access to everything that she needs to make her 

gain to her best potential. 

She right now uses about 75 vocabulary words and over 100 

signs, sign language, American Sign Language, and I just don’t believe that that would have happened if we had not had some of the 

intervention and the access that happened with Nationwide Children’s and with some of the local folks that just talked me through 

things. 

So I think I would have a 4–year-old who would be very disabled, 

still wearing the braces that she started wearing, possibly not 

chewing and eating the way that—you know, she eats just like 

every other little 4–year-old, hot dogs and chicken nuggets and 

16 

what not, and I don’t believe that all of that would be happening 

for her today. 

Senator BROWN. She is a lucky little girl to have you as a mother. 

Let me ask one other question a bit different from that. 

Ms. DEMKO. Sure. 

Senator BROWN. It strikes me that one of the biggest gaps or 

holes or problems in our health care system is the lack of availability, particularly in rural Ohio, but also inner-city and also any 

kids that are relatively low-income, is the hole in dental care and 

the effect that that has on—there is a clinic in Cincinnati, a federally qualified health center, that has done a lot of work. They have 

expanded their coverage, if you will, to dental care, and mostly in 

low-income areas. One of the things they have done is working not 

just with children, but working particularly preventive care with 

children. 

They showed me pictures 1 day of a young, very handsome young 

man that had just found his first job. He was 22 or something. And 

they showed a beautiful smile, and they showed the same picture 

of this young man before he had dental work, and he had terribly 

discolored teeth, missing teeth. They just talked to me about his 

difficulty in finding a job when he looked that way versus after his 

surgery. I mean, it just gives you such impetus. We have got to do 

better with children’s dental care. 

Talk to me about disabled children’s access to dental care. Is it 

even more severe than low-income children generally getting dental 

care? 

Ms. DEMKO. Generally, yes, because there is more challenges 

that you face with a child with a disability. They may not understand what is happening when someone comes at them with the instruments. It may be difficult to hold them down or to restrain 

them. There is not a dentist near us and I am ashamed to say that 

Emily has not seen a dentist for several reasons. First, because I 

just don’t think she can handle—I don’t think I can find a dentist 

that can talk to her—— 

Senator BROWN. You would need a pediatric dentist, for sure—— 

Ms. DEMKO. I would need a pediatric dentist, for sure, and I 

would need someone who would have had experiences with a child 

that small with a disability, a cognitive disability. You know, I just 

don’t—everything becomes more complicated when you throw in a 

disability, whether that be cerebral palsy or Down Syndrome or autism. Everything becomes—there is another stumbling block to get 

through. And sometimes—you know, there are some doctors and 

dentists who will not accept a child with a disability because they 

don’t have the experience and they don’t want to deal with that. 

So not only would we have to go—from Athens, Pickerington is 

the closest dentist. I am not sure how many miles that is, probably 

about 60 miles. That is the closest pediatric dentist. From there, 

then you would have to go to Children’s. 

When I was at the developmental disability clinic, they actually 

told me that they would possibly have to put her under some type 

of sedation in order to get the dental work done, or even looking 

and cleaning her teeth, and I am not sure that I, first, want to take 

on that. That is a huge expense, to put a child under sedation, but 

17 

it is also a huge risk to put a child under sedation, and so it is 

very—there are definitely some more things that have to happen 

when you have a child with a disability. You have to explain it and 

sit down with it and figure it out, and I think that there may not 

be many dentists that have that kind of wherewithal. 

We also have FQHCs in our area and they have expanded into 

dental care in Meigs and Vinton County and they have seen a huge 

up-rise in how many folks come to see them. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. Baker, I first apologize that some of the questions I asked 

you at the roundtable, I may ask similar questions of you because 

I want your comments on the record, if you would. 

When the 300 of you were locked out in 2006—— 

Mr. BAKER. Yes. 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. What were you told? Did the community reach out in terms of mental health services, in terms of 

food banks or Food Stamps, in terms of what options you had for 

health care? Did you personally, and you said you had several family members there and other coworkers, did you get anybody reaching out to you much? 

Mr. BAKER. Well, mostly, it came on the picket line, people coming by giving money, giving food. As far as the reaching out for 

mental health, no, that was not there. I don’t know why. Like I told 

you in my statement, we had a man who took his life. He went out 

trying to find other work. He was in his 50’s and just he couldn’t 

take it and he ended his life. 

Senator BROWN. Well, you told us at the roundtable how he loved 

his job. 

Mr. BAKER. He did. He loved his job and he was a good person, 

too. He was a deacon in his church and just a good man, you know, 

the kind of guy that whistled while he was at work, whistle while 

you work. He was just a good man. And it was very tragic, because 

I knew him personally. I knew his kids. He was a wonderful father, 

a wonderful person. To think that it got so bad for him mentally 

that he would end his life, it still troubles me today because I see 

it in other people that worked there. I see them defeated. I went 

through a bout of it myself. I went through disbelieving in the system. I didn’t understand how a company could just up and leave 

with really no recourse. It is like they just kind of got away with 

it. 

Senator BROWN. So they first—in the middle of the contract—you 

are a steelworker, right? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, a steelworker. 

Senator BROWN. They locked you out in the middle of the contract, brought in replacement workers, and then over time then 

shut the plant down a year and a half later, or 2 years later. 

Mr. BAKER. Well, first, they replaced us with immigrants, if you 

don’t mind, and then after about 2 months of that, because we were 

told that they had to have translators for the people they had 

brought in, and that wasn’t working out, so after about—I think it 

was about 60 days, they started hiring locally, and even some of 

the local business owners sent their workers in, construction, to actually help this company finish up and move out. 

18 

It was very discouraging to see the staples of our community actually help this business finish and leave, you know. It is like we 

didn’t matter anymore, the 300 people that were probably using 

these construction companies to do things for them, hiring them 

out, and the local businesses that we were all a part of by being 

in that area. Some of them turned on us. Now that company is 

gone and those staples of the community are still there, the ones 

that helped this company. Some of them sent their maintenance 

workers in to help them tear down the presses, to get the presses 

out of the factory. 

It was hard, because I have known these people myself. I am 40 

years old and I have known a lot of these people there most of my 

life. To see the ones coming in and out of the picket line and telling 

us the things—I have kids, I have this, I have that. It was discouraging. 

Senator BROWN. I remember at the picket line 2 years ago, the 

busses were either painted—the windows were either painted 

black—— 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, painted. 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. Or there was something black over 

them, a curtain or something, or paper or whatever. So later on, 

you knew who was crossing the line and you knew who—— 

Mr. BAKER. Yes. After a while, we began to know. Yes, I 

knew—— 

Senator BROWN. And they were people you grew up with? 

Mr. BAKER. I would say as many as 70 percent of them, local people—— 

Senator BROWN. What are they doing now, those replacement 

workers? 

Mr. BAKER. Some of them were actually—you mean the people 

that replaced us? 

Senator BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. BAKER. Some of them were actually even granted unemployment benefits, which, I mean, I don’t see how that worked. But 

they didn’t go through the rigorous beforehand, the drug tests, 

the—it was just a lot of training involved to do what we did. We 

ran big presses and they were just bringing these people criminals, 

like I told you, immigrants, anybody that they could get in that 

building, and some what I would have thought were good people 

beforehand. They just were replacing like we were nothing. Like I 

said, some of us had been there—well, I was there 10 years, but 

I have got a brother-in-law who was there 25 years, other relatives 

that were there as long as 30 years. 

Senator BROWN. They were making $12, $13, $14 an hour? 

Mr. BAKER. We were up to just over $14 an hour. 

Senator BROWN. With a 401(k)? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, a 401(k). 

Senator BROWN. And some decent health benefits? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes. The health benefits were good. They did diminish over time because the company was originally Goodyear, and 

Goodyear is a bigger name, bigger business. And then another company called Cambridge bought it. It was only around a couple of 

years. Things started to diminish starting with them. And then 

when Meridian took over, they basically wanted rid of our union. 

19 

They wanted to get rid of the 401(k)—matching the 401(k), it was. 

The treatment changed. We went from being able to help each 

other, having steak dinners to raise money for someone that might 

be having trouble in the plant, to when Meridian took over a lot 

of that did go away. They didn’t support us as much as Goodyear 

did, if that makes any sense. 

Senator BROWN. It does. Let me ask one more question. You said 

at the beginning, when you talked about Mr. Parker and—that was 

his name? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, Steve Parker. 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. And how much he liked going to 

work. Talk to us about that. One of the things I think the public 

misses and that I hear more and moire in these roundtables and 

just talking one-on-one to you is people’s sense of self-worth. When 

a plant closes, it is not just loss of income, loss of health care, family problems, communities having to lay off firefighters and police, 

as Ms. Farber said, what happens to the whole income of the—— 

Mr. BAKER. It is like dominoes. It just—— 

Senator BROWN. But even more than that, what I don’t think we 

think about enough is sort of people’s self-worth, that work is such 

an important part of our lives, no matter our job. Even if we don’t 

always like our job, it is still such an important part of our lives. 

Talk about your sort of feelings and what you saw from others as 

they lost their jobs and as they were locked out—— 

Mr. BAKER. Well, immediately, I started seeing people lose their 

homes. I know a family of four that lives in a camper on his mother’s property because he couldn’t keep up with his bills. He is still 

living in that camper, two-and-a-half years later, on his mother’s 

property. Coincidentally, his mother retired from that company. 

But with Steve, like I said, I mean, he brought me and my wife 

firewood while working. He was just a community man and a really 

good man. He whistled gospel songs while he was loading the wood 

out of his truck and stacking it for us, just a friendly man. To think 

that he went from that to putting a gun to himself and shooting 

himself is hard to me really to fathom. I can’t even imagine where 

he must have been at that time. 

I do wish he would have reached out to us. I was told that he 

did reach out to get help in like a mental treatment facility and 

they put him on medication, and I guess the medication just made 

him feel weird. That is what his family told me, that it just kind 

of made him feel weird. Within 2 days of coming out of that facility 

is when he took his life. I do wish he would have reached out, but 

he had so much pride, I don’t think he wanted anyone to know how 

much he was suffering. His son has taken on a business and his 

daughter is a nurse. I mean, he was a good father. You get that 

stuff from having a good support group, and that is what he was, 

was a support for his kids. Not having that, I told them, I want 

you to know how lucky you are to have had such an, if you don’t 

mind, an awesome father, because I didn’t have that. I never had 

that and I have always envied that. To see where they are because 

of that support system was a beautiful thing and I didn’t want 

them to focus so much on his loss as the fact of how lucky they 

were to have had such a great father. I envied him for that. I don’t 

20 

know if envy is the right word, but I sure would have liked to have 

had that myself. But Steve was a good guy. 

I see families losing their health care, like you mentioned there. 

Some of the people had to pull their kids out of college because 

they couldn’t afford the next semester. I am still seeing that. I 

talked to a man the other day who is in his 50’s. He can’t find 

work. No one wants to hire him. I am seeing that a lot still in our 

area. A lot of people cannot find work, especially the older ones. 

I myself am 40 and I am having trouble finding a good solid job. 

Telemarketing, I am doing some carpentry work. I lost my selfworth, too. I felt good, even, like you said, I didn’t so much like it, 

but there was a pride in getting up and working 6 days a week 

that they just took away from us in the blink of an eye. It has been 

very devastating for the community, even the pizza shops and the 

things right around Meridian there. They have told us they are 

hurting now because we don’t work there anymore and the building 

sits there empty while they lease it and do nothing with it. There 

is a lot to it. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. My wife said after the roundtable 

when she talked to you, she told me what a good father you are 

because—— 

Mr. BAKER. I have a son with spina bifida and my heart goes out 

to you. You seem like an awesome mother. 

Senator BROWN. But as Mr. Parker was a very good father for 

his kids—— 

Mr. BAKER. A great father. 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. My wife was convinced you are for 

your son, so thank you. 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you. 

Senator BROWN. Thanks to all three of you, and if you would like 

to stick around, certainly feel free to for the next panel. Thanks 

again for your openness and candor and service you all three give 

to your community. If you have anything else you want to add, you 

can, as I said, in writing give it to Joe Shultz and we will get it 

in the committee record. Thanks very much, Mr. Baker, Ms. 

Demko, and Ms. Farber. Thank you. 

We will bring the second panel up and take a two or three 

minute break if people want to do that, if people want to stretch 

or whatever. 

[Recess.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you all, and thanks for your patience. We 

went a little over on the first panel and I apologize. 

The second panel will include, from right to left, your left to my 

right, Mark Shuter, President and CEO of Adena Health System 

of Chillicothe, and I am sure he is so proud of all of this complex, 

as Mr. Metzger is. Mr. Shuter has worked in the health care field 

for more than 20 years. He is a native of Portsmouth. It is nice to 

see you. Thanks. Downtown Portsmouth is coming back. I was just 

there. They are doing a lot of interesting things in downtown Portsmouth. I was in a meeting in one of their old abandoned some 

building that they made into an apartment complex. It is really 

pretty neat. 

Sherrie Lanier is Development Director of the Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission in Waverly. She is a Southern 

21 

Ohio native. She is filling in for the Executive Director of the Commission, John Hemmings II. We are glad to have her with us 

today. 

And Marsha Lewis is a Senior Research Associate at the 

Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at OU. She is a 

native of Jackson County and is getting her Ph.D. in education and 

research, is that right? 

Mr. Shuter, please keep to about 5 minutes, if you can, and I will 

do questions. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MARK SHUTER, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ADENA HEALTH SYSTEM, CHILLICOTHE, 

OHIO 

Mr. SHUTER. [Off microphone.] Adena’s vision is to be the best 

health care system in the nation, and what we feel is geography 

is not a determiner of quality and we are determined to provide the 

best health care for more than 500,000 people in our service area. 

Adena provides care through our two inpatient hospitals, our 

main campus, Adena Regional Medical Center of 237 beds, and 

then a 25–bed critical access hospital in Greenfield. We have additional campuses, a satellite here in Chillicothe, Jackson, and Waverly. 

Well, in our region, Chillicothe is considered the big city, and 

here at our main campuses, our services include open heart surgery, interventional cardiology, cancer care, minimally invasive hip 

surgery, spine surgery, and an after-hours pediatric urgent care. 

Our medical staff of 250 gives our patients convenience and comfort in knowing they can receive in or near their home the primary 

care and specialty care that are common in metropolitan areas. 

Being the best means that Adena must continually expand our 

services and provide patients with up-to-date technologies and best 

practice medical care, and telemedicine is one of those areas I want 

to speak about because it has infinite possibilities. In fact, we have 

already witnessed this impact in our critical care newborn area, 

where through our partnership with Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, and Adena’s relationship with Children’s is one 

of the first of a kind in Ohio, in Adena’s maternity unit, we began 

utilizing in 2006 this unique capability of telemedicine with Nationwide Children’s, where our neonatologists assist Adena pediatricians with clinical assessments via high-definition video conferencing. In just its first year, telemedicine reduced by half the number of newborns transferred to Columbus, and these families avoided the travel costs, overnight accommodations, and the stress of 

transfer and separation. 

In November 2007, we received from our Congressman Zack 

Space news of being selected to implement a $14 million Federal 

Communications Commission project for building a fiber optic network throughout our region. Then just last month, we received 

from your office, Senator Brown, news of the United States Department of Agriculture grant that will enable Adena to expand its 

telemedicine capability beyond the nursery to other hospitals in 

Southern Ohio. These grants will enable us to provide more of the 

best care to our patients in what is, as we have heard this morning, a medically underserved area. 

22 

We are working with other health care systems through the Regional Health Care Information Organization and through the Appalachian Health Information Exchange. This is a voluntary association of health care providers that is developing an integrated 

health information system. 

We know that in order to provide this best care, we must continually expand and stay ahead of this curve, and there are several 

other information technology projects at Adena that we would like 

to inform you about that are critical to our patients. 

They are, first, an online portal that will feature the opportunity 

for patients to schedule their appointments and refill prescriptions. 

Patients will have the ability to access the information virtually 

anywhere through the Internet, and this is rolling out in the next 

6 months. 

Our electronic health record, a collection of patient health information, includes progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, 

medical history, immunizations and test results. 

Third is E-scribing, which enables health care providers to send 

prescriptions to pharmacies electronically and order refills. This 

will include bedside medication verification with scanners and 

hand-held devices to reduce medication errors. 

Fourth, telemetry equipment for home health patients that we 

can transmit test results directly to our physicians. 

Five, continuing advances in telemedicine through our partnerships with other hospitals in Columbus. Now we are focusing on a 

stroke patient care network with Riverside Methodist and maternal-fetal medicine with Ohio State University Medical Center. 

And then finally, an innovation to train and equip all volunteer 

emergency squads in Ross and Vinton Counties with satellite telemetry for electrocardiogram transmission from the squad of the 

emergency departments. Why satellite? Cell phones and radios in 

the hills are unreliable. 

Now looking to the immediate future for information technology 

and rural health care, here is what we need. I bet you thought that 

was coming. First is the FCC Rural Health Pilot Project mentioned 

earlier. This is an amazing example—and again, that is the $14 

million grant—of providing public-private cooperation in broadband 

capacity in our region. The FCC is paying 85 percent of the costs 

while eligible health care providers provide the other 15 percent. 

Adena Health System, for example, will be stretched to pay our 

match when costs are incurred, but other less financially resourceful providers cannot afford the match. Thus, they will not connect 

to the network and this will be a major concern for implementation 

and adoption of technology where it is needed. 

Second, as we mentioned earlier, federally qualified health centers and independent rural practitioners must establish electronic 

health records. At the same time, their Federal reimbursements 

are diminishing. Many cannot afford the costs. We will help where 

we can, although as you know, we are restricted in some part by 

the Stark Act, but Federal and State assistance is needed to help 

them fund those records. 

Third, Federal funds would be well spent to help this so-called 

door-to-balloon time for chest pain patients in rural areas nationwide. This is the time required to receive a heart attack patient 

23 

from the door until they get their stents. If the hospital knows in 

advance the patient is having a heart attack, we can help intervene. We have proven that basic and intermediate EMTs can reliably attach these 12–lead EKGs to the patient, but the paramediclevel EMTs have long been permitted to do this under State-controlled scope-of-practice rules. But the trouble is, paramedics usually don’t work on our volunteer squads and volunteer squads are 

the norm in rural areas. So grants are needed to help the training 

in this area and for the equipment in rural areas to provide this 

service. 

Finally, I would just like to say thank you for the opportunity to 

speak today about what we think information technology can do for 

rural health care, and this is an exciting and challenging time in 

health care. At Adena, we are committed to bringing this technology to our patients. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shuter can be found on page 57 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, and you have made huge process, it 

sounds like. 

Ms. Lanier, thank you. It is good to see you again. 

STATEMENT OF SHERRIE LANIER, DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, 

OHIO VALLEY REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, WAVERLY, OHIO 

Ms. LANIER. My name is Sherrie Lanier. I am the Development 

Director for the Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission. I 

want to thank you for giving us the chance to be here today and 

testify to the importance of the USDA and other programs to rural 

Southern Ohio. 

We have a longer, more detailed written testimony that I have 

submitted to Joe and I am just going to, I think, talk about some 

of the challenges facing our counties and our communities as far 

as infrastructure and economic development. 

Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission is a regional 

planning and economic development agency that works with 12 

counties in Southern Ohio to direct Federal, State, and local funding resources to those communities, give technical assistance to the 

communities, to make some of these programs available, and help 

the communities implement them. 

We have a longstanding relationship with the USDA Rural Development Program. They have been integral in many, many 

projects throughout Southern Ohio because we seem to be kind of 

behind the eight-ball in many of our counties for a combination of 

reasons. In Appalachia, the poverty rate is higher. The unemployment rate is higher. Combine that with a lower per capita income, 

a lower median income. That means our communities have a much 

lower and limited tax base to work from when they are trying to 

provide utilities to their residents. 

The USDA programs, along with the Appalachian Regional Commission programs and Economic Development Administration programs have really been lifesavers for many of our communities in 

these rural counties. They really have nowhere else to go unless— 

you know, they could go the traditional route, in a sense, to get 

loans, but they would be the higher-interest loans. If it is based on 

24 

their ability to pay it back, sometimes they would not get it, these 

small villages. They don’t have enough residents. But yet you have 

the residents in dire need of improved water—or there is access to 

water, access to sewer. Many of them have their own onsite sewer 

systems and they are failing if they have them in the first place. 

So it becomes—it is an economic development issue, but it is a 

health issue when you get into all of those things. It just—one 

thing builds on the other as far as needing to get some of these 

basic infrastructure programs in place. 

We have had success stories in the Village of Vinton in Gallia 

County, the Village of Highland in Highland County, new gravityfeed sewer systems that provided access to residents in those areas 

that they did not have it before. It may only be 200 people, but 

those 200 people needed that for both health, safety, and development reasons. 

On the business and industry side, the city of Jackson, we 

worked with them, with the former Luigino’s Plant, now Bellisio 

Foods, to expand their wastewater treatment plant. Luigino’s wanted to do a plant expansion, but because of the increased food production, the wastewater treatment plant couldn’t handle it. Four 

hundred new jobs were on the line, 1,000 existing jobs. They had 

the choice of going to Minnesota or somewhere else, taking everything, and the USDA with some other programs stepped in and we 

were able to help get them funding for that wastewater treatment 

expansion. Luigino’s added 400 jobs and saved 1,000 jobs. That is 

just one big example of how these programs—how important they 

are. 

It is so important because one builds on another and depends on 

another. If we lose almost any of these sources, these small communities would have to either go the traditional route, which in today’s market, many communities, they can’t sell bonds. Nobody will 

take it on. And they can’t get a loan, even if they were willing to 

pay the higher interest rates. If they could do that, then they are 

passing those rates on to consumers that can’t afford them in this 

area. 

So in conclusion, I just want to again express the importance of 

the USDA Rural Development Programs to us in the area, both at 

the very basic community development level, and then taking it 

into an economic development level. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lanier can be found on page 43 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Lanier. 

Ms. Lewis, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF MARSHA LEWIS, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, VOINOVICH SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC 

AFFAIRS, OHIO UNIVERSITY, ATHENS, OHIO 

Ms. LEWIS. Thank you, Senator Brown, for the opportunity to address this committee on important issues in support of rural communities. My name is Marsha Lewis and I have worked at Ohio 

University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs for 

15 years. We have worked on many projects with USDA Rural Development and other Federal agencies and have a longstanding 

25 

partnership with State Director Randy Hunt and many others 

throughout the agency. 

The work we do at Ohio University is in line with the mission 

of USDA Rural Development, to build partnerships and provide a 

broad set of services to improve the quality of life in rural areas. 

USDA Rural Development accomplishes this through a continuum 

of programs that help develop all of the crucial components of the 

infrastructure it takes to keep rural communities viable, foster economic growth, and compete globally. 

That continuum of services is what we focus on through programs like the Appalachian New Economy Partnership, which is 

the University System of Ohio program strengthening the region’s 

competitiveness by focusing on the three critical pieces to economic 

growth: Education, local government capacity, and business development. Any solution must involve all three. 

We, for example, are currently working closely here with Ohio 

University-Chillicothe Dean Rich Bebee and a group of public and 

private sector entities, including Adena, on innovative economic 

growth strategies for this part of the region. Our role is to provide 

the best available economic and demographic data so that the communities can make strategic decisions and target their efforts. We 

do almost all of our work through partners, through projects like 

the EDA-funded Community Economic Adjustment Program targeted at places like Jackson County that have suffered because of 

auto industry downsizing. 

Through a project called the Mayor’s Partnership for Progress 

which Chillicothe Mayor Joe Sulzer started a number of years ago, 

the Voinovich School brings together mayors and city managers 

from cities and villages throughout Appalachian Ohio to share information and resources, meet collectively with Federal and State 

partners on a regular basis, and tackle economic and community 

development challenges faced by municipalities. 

So much of our work is in conjunction with our Federal and State 

and local partners and much of it involves direct operational assistance to help businesses grow at the local level. With OVRDC, OSU 

Extension, and others, we identify startup businesses and existing 

businesses that have high growth potential and develop long-term 

consulting engagements to assist in making improvements and 

making them sustainable. Since 2005, this partnership has provided assistance to over 1,700 businesses and entrepreneurs and 

assisted businesses in securing $62 million in new loans, $80 million in government contracts, $3.5 million in funds from individual 

investors, and $8 million in venture capital funding, venture capital funding that was not available in most of the region before this 

partnership began. 

USDA Rural Development has historically been a critical partner 

in efforts to provide a comprehensive continuum of assistance to 

support economic growth. Through the support of the Voinovich 

School’s collaborative efforts, like the Appalachian Ohio Regional 

Investment Coalition, USDA has invested critical resources, time, 

and expertise to help develop strategies for Appalachian Ohio. This 

past June, the Voinovich School, USDA Rural Development, and 

the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Treasury cosponVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:14 Apr 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\48539.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
26 

sored a lender seminar focused on USDA guaranteed lender programs and how these loans can support local business growth. 

As an important component of the direct assistance to businesses 

in Appalachian Ohio, the Voinovich School and many partners are 

in the second year of TechGROWTH Ohio, a unique partnership focused on early stage businesses and entrepreneurs in technology 

sectors. In mid-October, just this past month, TechGROWTH gave 

the first pre-seed funding check to a Southeast Ohio-based interactive digital media company with a vision for social networking 

capacities via the Internet. With each milestone, this firm will receive further joint funding from TechGROWTH in technology-based 

economic development. 

In many Appalachian Ohio communities working hard to move 

forward, the technology infrastructure is still lacking. Yet technology infrastructure has become a basic utility without which 

communities cannot remain viable. This is why USDA Rural Development’s work to expand broadband access is so important to the 

region. 

In addition, the agency’s support of renewable and alternative 

energies, such as Hocking College’s Advanced Energy Campus in 

Logan, is an important project that will help rural Appalachia be 

competitive in this emerging market. 

This facility here, the PACCAR Medical Education Center, is a 

prime example of that collaborative work. The Voinovich School is 

currently conducting some research on college access for Appalachian Ohio students. In a survey of over 1,200 of last year’s high 

school seniors in the region, close to 30 percent of the respondents 

wanted to enter a nursing or allied health field. With health care 

targeted by both Ohio Department of Development and the Ohio 

Board of Regents as one of the State’s high-growth industries, facilities such as this provide critical training opportunities to build 

the type of workforce vital to Ohio’s current and future economic 

viability. 

Efforts to develop the health care sector is a prime example of 

why the work of USDA Rural Development and its partners is crucial and why development projects are not discrete, but interconnected. Keeping our rural communities viable to continue to attract professionals, such as those in the health care field, is hard 

work and costly. 

The building blocks for any kind of development involve solid 

physical infrastructure. Many communities in our region are in 

need of the first line of water or wastewater pipe. Others, such as 

many of our small cities, have aging infrastructure that no longer 

meets State and Federal requirements. Economic hardships that 

hit families throughout the region make it painful, if not impossible, to raise utility rates to the level necessary to upgrade or in 

some cases even maintain the critical infrastructure needed for economic development and make communities that people want to 

live, relocate to, and stay in. 

Our region needs the partnership and assistance provided by 

these programs and we respectfully ask that USDA and other Federal agencies continue and expand assistance to rural communities 

so that we rural citizens earn decent wages, raise healthy families, 

27 

and live in communities that provide great quality of life for everyone. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lewis can be found on page 49 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thanks very much, Ms. Lewis. 

Mr. Shuter, talk to me about—thanks to all of you, the testimony 

from all three of you. Almost everybody here has talked about the 

importance of broadband. Give me the intersection of—explain to 

me the intersection of what we do with broadband, with telemedicine, and with FQHCs in Southeast Ohio, and really anywhere, but 

how we—I don’t think when people talk about broadband they 

think enough about telemedicine. I also think that as this whole 

hospital and particularly what Mr. Metzger and all of you are 

doing now here, PACCAR is such a jewel for Appalachia, and with 

the proliferation of FQHC, it just seems that we don’t—would you 

just explain the synergism of it to me, if you would, where we come 

together on all of this? 

Mr. SHUTER. Well, I think it is important to note that, I mean, 

the grant to build this network throughout the region, it is pretty 

much a ten-county area, and again, it is not going to be exclusive 

for health care. This will be available for industry, business, government all to be able to tap into it. 

But relative to health care, the big shift here is we are in roughly 

in another year and a half rolling out all of our electronic record, 

including these portals that will have the ability to now connect at 

home. If you think through that connection at home, the average 

person over age 65 has roughly 15 medications and so they are 

going to have an electronic link to their primary care doctor, their 

pharmacy, whoever their health plan vendor is, as well as gain access directly for appointments, but more importantly, will be able 

to get information back to the practitioners to maintain health status. 

Roughly, if you look, we do a million encounters a year, roughly—the studies are 20 percent of the population is generating 80 

percent of that through chronic health care conditions. So the vision here, the bigger issue is long-term, is really regionally along 

with our partnership with Ohio University and the RIO is to really 

understand this in the chronic disease population and find ways 

through the Internet to keep people at home. 

We partner with federally qualified clinics in almost all of our 

communities we serve. The key thing is we still have that little 

bridge gap of getting them connected, but the key thing is to get 

them access to broadband. Second, help them adopt electronic 

health records, and again for the same purpose. As homes get more 

online with connected to the ring, again, to be able to provide that 

health status, shift that service away from having to go to a clinic 

to be able to get it in their home. 

Relative to the synergy of this building, we will be having national speakers coming in several weeks, again, providing the opportunity for health care providers to bring updates, and this topic 

would be cardiology, but we also have the capability through this 

building to connect into that ring, and again, we are going to be 

connected to provide more education. Wright State does our nursing school. We are connected such that we can do remote classes. 

28 

And so I think the opportunities relative to the education system, 

I think are kind of infinite, as well. 

The particular niche around telemedicine, there is, again, more 

and more. We have the nursery coming online. Stroke will be coming online. There is now increasing use of robots that will be able 

to be steered remotely because of all of this connection by a specialist really around the world to be able to provide specialty consultations, either in remote hospitals or in clinics and eventually 

at home. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Ms. Lanier, you had given the example of the infrastructure of 

what you were able to do with USDA and others on preserving 

those jobs and expanding the jobs. You mentioned Gallia County 

and Highland County, I think. Give me an example of how—we all 

talk about infrastructure, whether it is broadband or whether it is 

highways, roads, bridges, sewer systems, whatever. Give me specifically what USDA’s involvement, what infrastructure did in one 

or both of those communities, if you could. 

Ms. LANIER. Sure. In the—— 

Senator BROWN. And what it meant to the residents or to economic development down the line. 

Ms. LANIER. In both cases, in the Villages of Vinton, which is in 

Gallia County, and Highland, which is in Highland County, they 

did not have any sewage treatment. All the residents had their own 

septic tanks, many of which were failing and were discharging either barely treated or raw sewage into either the storm sewers or 

into area creeks. The funding allowed them to run sewer lines and 

build, in one case, in Vinton, to build a treatment plant. In Highland, they basically just built the sewer lines and pumped it to the 

Village of Leesburg, to their treatment plant. In that case, they had 

an agreement with them. 

Senator BROWN. Can you give an example of where it meant 

some kind of economic development? I mean, you gave the big example. Is there something else that you have done that—— 

Ms. LANIER. In the Village of Highland, there were four businesses that were able to connect to the system—— 

Senator BROWN. What kind of businesses were those? 

Ms. LANIER. Pardon me? 

Senator BROWN. What kind of businesses were they, retail? 

Ms. LANIER. Retail, yes. Retail and service. 

Senator BROWN. OK. 

Ms. LANIER. They were able to connect to the system and retain 

the jobs that they had there in the village and keep those—— 

Senator BROWN. What kind of sewer rates are they paying in 

Vinton? 

Ms. LANIER. I don’t really know the exact rate. I know, because 

of the low-interest loans and the grants, it is the absolute cheapest 

that they can make available. 

Senator BROWN. Do you know how it compares to people in the 

city of Chillicothe or in the city of Hillsboro or—— 

Ms. LANIER. Much cheaper than the city of Chillicothe. 

Senator BROWN. OK. Thank you. 

Ms. Lewis, one of the roundtables I did, it was at the Voinovich 

Center and I was really struck by the entrepreneurial activity of 

29 

Southeast Ohio and especially right there. They talked about Hocking and the alternative energy. Talk to me about what we do to 

make this. I have noticed around Ohio we have in this State now, 

we are in the top, I believe, five in the country in investment in 

solar energy in terms of businesses and we are in the top five in 

the investment of wind turbines and it is sort of an untold story 

and an unknown story and it is going to get bigger. We have the 

largest solar manufacturer in the country near Toledo. What struck 

me about what was going on in Athens and Hocking was how much 

was going on with installation of solar panels and all that. 

How do we make this region, from your work in development and 

particularly in economic development, how do we make this region—pull that together to really get these—to help these businesses to see more businesses grow and to sort of fan out outside 

of just Athens and Hocking, where I think most of the energy has 

been, in alternative energy specifically? 

Ms. LANIER. Right, and I think alternative energy, we all know 

that virtually every community in the country is looking to alternative energy as sort of the next wave of economic growth, but in 

our region in particular, which has a long history of an energybased economy, it makes particular sense. I think the work of the 

universities, the work of Hocking College and the work of Ohio 

University in looking at these things is certainly what is making 

that cultivate in that particular part of the region. 

But I think, again, that continuum of services and that access to 

capital, getting the venture capital in the region and getting people 

who have ideas and communities that have the natural resources— 

for instance, in Jackson County, looking at how to overcome the 

downsizing and the Meridian closure and the other things that 

have hit the county hard, what are the natural resource-based 

products that we have there that would lend themselves to, for instance, solar panel production, and how can we change over that 

manufacturing to something like that with the silica and the sand 

and the clay and the things that you need for some of those things? 

So I think it is that continuum of services, everything from access to all kinds of capital at every stage of those businesses’ lives, 

whether that be angel investment, venture capital, and then also 

some sophisticated business support services that we don’t have in 

this region. Sometimes access to special patent attorneys or access 

to specialized labs to bring some of these things to fruition and to 

production, I think are important. 

But also, kind of a regional approach to thinking about what do 

we want to pursue? What do the data show that we could support? 

And how do we target that best and how do we do that regionally? 

We talk a lot about regionalism, but that is hard to do. It is hard 

to bring local leaders together with these State and Federal agencies and really focus and be strategic and use the data to say this 

is something that we should pursue and let us pool our resources 

to figure out how to do that. 

So I think not only business development assistance, but also the 

work with governments and local leadership on how to do that and 

how to take a regional focus, to grow that out of just the little, sort 

of the core area where it is now and use some of the manufacturing 

30 

and the natural resource base that we have here to be able to grow 

that. 

Senator BROWN. How old is the Hocking program? 

Ms. LANIER. It is fairly new, within the last couple of years. OU’s 

Coal Research Center has been around for a while, but just now 

getting infused with capital so that they can do some of that research. We have got other things going on, an engineering professor at Ohio University looking at ammonia-based fuel cell development and even starting a little bit of some prototype manufacturing of that. So those things have—people have been thinking 

about them for a number of years, the last 5 years or so, but just 

in the last couple of years, they have really started to take off. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Let me ask one question of each of you. Take a couple of minutes 

to answer it, if you would. The same question of all three of you, 

and then we will adjourn. If there is one thing that you could ask 

my office or the Federal Government to do, other than send you 

millions of dollars, but if there is one thing that you could ask us 

to do, what would it be? I call on you first so that they have the 

advantage of thinking about this answer longer than you do, but 

Mr. Shuter, give me one major thing—— 

Mr. SHUTER. You have taken the No. 1 off the table. 

Senator BROWN. Yes, right. 

Mr. SHUTER. You know, I think when you go through our list of 

issues, I think this issue of the connectivity—well, first of all, the 

grant that we received to build the broadband network is huge, but 

still the issues around the edges of helping this region, helping the 

organizations that are struggling to pay that match of 15 percent 

to connect to that broadband network, which will take some loosening of the regulations. 

And second, I think there will be needed some assistance for especially the smaller providers, the federally qualified clinics, to 

help them adopt the full electronic health record, which is going to 

need to happen for us really to—still the issue of reducing utilization while improving quality is going to be the key challenge in 

front of health care for the next decade. 

Senator BROWN. OK, good answer. 

Ms. Lanier. 

Ms. LANIER. OK. Well, aside from more money, just the—if we 

could lessen some of the bureaucratic strings or restrictions from 

the various agencies or programs as to what things can be used for, 

how it can be used—— 

Senator BROWN. Give me one example. 

Ms. LANIER. Well, with—say the Economic Development Administration funding, and theirs and the USDA in some of their cases 

are very similar. The funding can only go to essentially a public entity, is how it would—a city, a county, a port authority, something 

like that. Many of the cases in our area, I was Economic Development Director in Jackson County for several years, so I am used 

to dealing with this firsthand. The land in our industrial parks are 

mostly private. So when we go to try to get funding to build access 

roads, to build sewers, to put water lines out, we can’t access these 

funds. 

Senator BROWN. Ms. Lewis. 

31 

Ms. LEWIS. Well, I think one of the key priorities has to be relieving the stress on local communities and continuing to infuse money 

into the region for infrastructure development. And technology infrastructure certainly is a very key component, but also the physical infrastructure components that make communities viable, that 

make communities places where people want to live and can live 

and that are healthy and vibrant. 

Our local communities, our counties, our small cities that have 

aging infrastructure are really up against a wall in terms of trying 

to upgrade that, trying to replace that, trying to meet new mandates, new State and Federal mandates, and really need help from 

the State and Federal Government in order to be able to provide 

the basic infrastructure that is the building block for any other economic development. 

I think relief in that, public works, basic infrastructure projects, 

and more support from the Federal Government to be able to fund 

those and make it so that the rates are livable for the people in 

Appalachian Ohio, I think is really crucial. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Thank you all. Thanks for your comments, your provocative 

thoughts, and feel free, as I said, to submit in the next few days 

anything additional. And anyone else here that feels that they 

want to submit any information to us can do the same. I appreciate 

that. 

Again, Mr. Metzger, thank you for hosting this at your beautiful 

facility. I look forward to coming here many times in the future. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned] 

(33) 

A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 23, 2008 

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(61) 

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