New Leadership at NEOCEP Schools

The Northeast Ohio Collegiate Entrepreneurship Program (NEOCEP) began the 2009-2010 academic year with new directors at three of the five colleges.

James A. Levin now heads the Center for Creativity & Innovation at The College of Wooster.

Cliff Somerville has taken the reins at the Center for Entrepreneurship at Lake Erie College.

Co-directors now head the Integrated Entrepreneurship program at Hiram College: Bill Fillner and Kay Molkentin.

The College of Wooster
James Levin might be labeled an "entrepreneur of performance." He brings nearly 30 years in arts management, theater production, and the law to his new position at Wooster.

He has founded theater groups, raised money, directed productions, written stage plays and even lyrics for rock bands.

In 1982, Levin founded the Cleveland Public Theatre to bring off-off-Broadway-style entertainment to the North Shore. He also founded and directed the Gordon Square Cultural Arts District. Most recently, he served as executive director of the Cleveland Ingenuity Festival, also known as ingenuityfest.

He has an undergraduate degree in literature from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Case Western Reserve. He practices criminal defense, civil rights litigation, non-profit and labor law. According to his on-line biography, Levin "has not acted for several years...except in the courtroom."

Hiram College
The entrepreneurship effort at Hiram is not new to Kay Molkentin. In 2006, she helped write the grant that won the college NEOCEP funding. At the time, she was serving as director of corporate, foundation and government relations at the college.

Prior to coming to Hiram, she worked in fundraising and development positions at the Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development and at Case Western Reserve University. She has an undergraduate degree from Cleveland State University in biology and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.

Bill Fillner brings a business background to the leadership position. He worked for ASM International from 1998 to 2006, where he helped secure funds for product research and directed market research for a new materials information database.

He has a bachelor's degree in marketing from Montana State University and an MBA from the University of Montana. Fillner has been teaching at Hiram since 1995 in an adjunct position and has developed two classes - the Entrepreneurial Process and the Entrepreneurial Mindset - to support the college's new entrepreneurship minor.

Lake Erie College
Cliff Somerville was the first entrepreneur-in-residence at Lake Erie and is eager to take on his new role at the college.

Somerville brings a wealth of manufacturing, operations, and management experience. He started his career as a mechanical engineer at Ford Motor Company's Automotive Assembly Division and was the founder and operator of Scientific Software Technologies (SST).

He most recently served as global vice president of a $2.7 billion automotive tier overseeing all sales, marketing and customer relationship activities related to vehicle manufacturers based outside North America with established domestic operations.

Somerville earned a masters degree in business administration in entrepreneurial management from Davenport University, a masters degree in industrial management and supervision from Central Michigan University, and a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Pacific Southern University.