CLS: Celebrate Ohio: Leaders in Technology

This week showcases the people and businesses who called Ohio home and impacted our everyday lives. From the lightbulb to space travel, Ohioans have left their mark on the world.

Chuck Mintz

Tuesday, May 27, 10:30 a.m. | Hoover Auditorium Lobby
“Lustron Stories: Americans at Home”

This photography project on Lustron homes emerged from Chuck Mintz’s relationship with the Ohio History Connection, whose exhibits and publications inspired him to explore these unique postwar steel houses. Born the same year Lustron began, Mintz was drawn to the contrast between their idealized origins and their current residents. With support from historian Tom Fetters and community connections, he used a large-format camera to document these homes. The final work was framed in porcelain enamel steel, exhibited in Louisville and Columbus, and published by The Ohio State University Press. Come explore these homes and learn the stories behind these photos from Mintz.

Mintz studied photography at Maine Photographic Workshop, Parsons School of Design, International Center for Photography, Lakeland Community College and Cuyahoga Community College. He has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cleveland State University.

Mintz is the former Board Chair of the ICA-Art Conservation in Cleveland and board member of the Cleveland Museum of Art – Friends of Photography. His interest in preservation and conservation is reflected in his service to the ICA and in his careful attention to producing work that lasts. He serves on advisory boards at the Cleveland Print Room and the Artists Archive of the Western Reserve.

Mintz is a Life Director at Jewish Family Services of Cleveland. His work can be found in museums, including the Smithsonian Museum of American History and private and corporate collections in North America, Europe and Asia. This artist was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in 2017 and 2015.

Angie Hoschouer Berghuis

Wednesday, May 28, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall
“The Grand Eccentrics“

This program follows the book The Grand Eccentrics by Mark Bernstein. It highlights the lives of John H. Patterson, Charles F. Kettering, Gov. James M. Cox and Orville and Wilbur Wright. The drive and passions of Dayton’s most eccentric men will be explored.

Angie Hoschouer Berghuis is a historian, public speaker, community volunteer and a lifelong Daytonian. She is a member of the Education and Heritage Committee at First Baptist Church and is currently the neighborhood liaison for Grafton Hill Neighborhood Association and Preservation Dayton. 

Additionally, she was the former development and marketing manager at Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum for nine years. While there, she created 22 programs and tours and has researched hundreds of Daytonians resting peacefully in the cemetery. 

She has served on boards, committees or participated with the following community associations: Randolph Twp. Historical Society, Dayton Region Walk of Fame, University of Dayton Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Sinclair Community College – College of Lifelong Learning and Aviation Trail, Inc.

Conrade Hinds

Thursday, May 29, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall
“Granville Woods and Ohio’s Heritage of Invention, Industry and Manufacturing“

The beating heart of America is Ohio, which was originally tailored for commerce, transportation, invention and manufacturing. Geographically, being located between a Great Lake and the Ohio River, Ohio was perfect for developing a canal system, a national highway and various railroad lines. This enables the bulk transportation of resources such as coal, iron ore and oil to industrial centers like Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Dayton and Cincinnati. These 19th-century industrial revolution communities, especially Dayton, fostered the ingenuity and practical inventiveness that made Ohio a mecca for productivity. The work of the forgotten, talented inventor, Granville Woods, and others will be highlighted. Author Conrade C. Hinds will also place a spotlight on Ohio’s heritage of manufacturing and inventions.

Hinds is a registered architect and historian, as well as a retired project manager with the City of Columbus. He is a graduate of Ball State University, where he studied architecture and industrial technology. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member in the Engineering Technology Department at Columbus State Community College for 25 years. Originally from Nashville, he has lived in Central Ohio for 47 years. In addition to being a 50-year veteran and teacher of the yodeling arts, he is also a storyteller with a special focus on forgotten history. Hinds previously served on the board of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. 

He has written and had four additional books published. The first book titled The Great Columbus Experiment of 1908 and the second published manuscript titled Columbus and the Great Flood of 1913 chronicles the events leading up to a record-breaking devastating flood that severely crippled industrial Midwest America. Third is Lost Circuses of Ohio, which is about 19th-century shows, such as The Sells Brothers of Columbus and John Robinson of Cincinnati, that competed with Barnum & Bailey. The fourth, Made in Ohio, is a history of manufacturing and the inventive ingenuity of the Buckeye State. A fifth book is scheduled for publication and release in early Fall 2025. 

John Blakeman

Thursday, May 29, 1:30 p.m. | Orchestra Hall
“Neil Armstrong Test Facility“

John Blakeman’s presentation is full of pictures showing this world class test facility in Erie County. Since the public is constantly amazed by NASA’s space vehicle design and pre-launch testing, the agency is thrilled that he am permitted to give this lecture. Regarding the space engineering and space vehicle testing that takes place at the Armstrong Test Facility, there will be many NASA stories to share. Without the space engineering developed, tested and validated at this magnificent NASA facility, we would not have been able to land on the moon. 

Blakeman, who grew up in Fremont, is a retired biology instructor with 30-years science teaching experience at Perkins Schools near Sandusky, and is an experienced Ohio prairie researcher. Blakeman planted one of Ohio’s first prairie restorations in Erie County in 1973 at Bowling Green State University Firelands Campus in Huron, using native prairie seeds collected from local prairie remnants and isolated plants in ditches and hedgerows.  

Blakeman helped form the Ohio Prairie Association and served as its president. He has presented papers at both state and national prairie conferences and is regarded as an expert in the history of Ohio’s tallgrass prairies. As proprietor of Meadow Environments LLC, he professionally designs, installs and maintains prairie restorations and landscapes at park, educational and private sites, including Erie MetroParks facilities, the COSI museum in Columbus and commercial sites across Ohio. He is particularly focused on the creation of prairie and beach grass environments on Lake Erie’s waterfronts, bringing singularly natural maritime landscapes to these unique sites. 

Blakeman is an Ohio Certified Prescribed Fire Manager and as an Environmental Specialist consultant he conducts several hundred acres of prairie and meadow burns at NASA Plum Brook Station each year. Also is deeply involved in Plum Brook Station’s species and environmental conservation programs, where he advises NASA on the restoration of up to 3,000 acres of native tallgrass prairie.

Currently, he is the prairie biologist in the University of Akron Research Foundation’s Vegetation-based HABs Solutions Research Project in northwest Ohio, where new types of vegetation are being planted, which will capture and retain algal nutrients, keeping them out of Lake Erie, thereby preventing harmful algal blooms. 

Robert Wheeler

Friday, May 30, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall
“Edison in Ohio”

Edison’s Roots of Genius are grown deep in Buckeye soil, the Edison Birthplace is the Edison family’s homage to the man and the environment that produced him. The aim is to inspire others with stories of his overcoming adversity and changing the world through hard work.

Robert Wheeler, a great-great-grandnephew of Thomas Edison, was born in 1957. He pursued a career in electronics and served as a Field Service Representative for Digital Equipment Corporation for 19 years. Subsequently, he held the positions of System Manager and Operations Manager at Fisher-Titus for seven years.

Throughout his life, Wheeler has been an avid enthusiast of electronics and played synthesizer for the Avant-Garde rock band Pere Ubu, touring the world for 27 years. His father, Dinsmore Wheeler, was an original Trustee for the Edison Birthplace, and Robert has been a member of the board since 1981. He assumed the presidency of the board in 1984.

Notable projects undertaken by the board include the Edison coin in early 2000’s, the Edison statue representing Ohio in the U.S. Capitol, the expansion of the Don Gfell Education Center and the Edison Birthplace Museum’s adoption of solar energy, reflecting Edison’s ongoing work if he were alive today. Wheeler and his wife, Linda, reside in Edison’s sister, Marion Page’s, house and maintain the family farm.