Para Jones heads back to Stark State
Former administrator at the school will be paid a $225,000 base as fourth president

By Carol Biliczky, Beacon Journal

Para Jones will tread on very familiar ground come Feb. 6. She will return to an employer for whom she has worked for 22 years – but this time as president.

Jones said she is delighted to become the fourth president of the tax-supported Stark State College.

“To say that I have goals would be presumptuous,” said Jones, 56. “I do know what’s most important to us – access, affordability and, increasingly, accountability.”

Stark State hired Jones away from Spartanburg Community College, near Greenville, S.C., where she has been president for two years. But Ohio apparently was never far from her mind.

She was a finalist in 2010 for the presidency at Owens Community College near Toledo. That didn’t happen, so she applied to Stark State when John O’Donnell quit to accept a similar post at MassBay Community College in Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Stark State trustee chairman Dr. Michael L. Thomas said the search committee whittled the applicants from 35 to four and then to Jones, Stark State provost Dorey Diab and Quintin Bullock, president of Schenectady County Community College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Thomas won’t confirm written reports that trustees were divided over the selection of the president. “All three had avid supporters,” is all Thomas would say.

Jones emerged the victor because she had “the necessary charisma,” he said. “Her intellect and philosophy are aligned with the community and the school.”

Outside experience

Jones also comes to Stark State’s top job with more outside experience than many in higher education.

After graduating from the University of Mount Union, she edited books and manuals for flight simulators at Goodyear Aerospace, then went on to public relations and marketing posts at the city of Canton and Roadway. She spent a semester in journalism school before deciding that wasn’t for her.

Her interest in higher education administration was piqued when she joined Stark State in 1987 as head of public relations.

She earned an M.B.A. from Ashland University in 1994 and a doctorate from the University of Nebraska in 2008, the latter while vice president for advancement, planning, college and community relations at Stark State.

Along the way, she raised twin sons who are now 26, wedging study into the early morning hours before she went to work.

Expanding institution

She will rejoin an institution that’s been successful in many ways.

A surge of students propelled college enrollment to more than 15,500 last fall — an 82 percent increase since 2007 and the fastest rate of growth among Ohio’s two-year colleges.

As enrollment has grown, so has the number of students graduating with certificates and associate degrees – from 582 in 2001 to 1,084 in 2010, an 86 percent increase, according to the Ohio Board of Regents.

Stark State has kept a lid on tuition, which at $4,215 a year is less than half that of the University of Akron ($9,500) or Kent State’s main campus ($9,300).

Jones will oversee the largest college in Stark County — 73 acres in Jackson Township plus seven satellite locations. The college employs 428 full-time faculty and staff and hundreds of part-timers on a $70 million operating budget.

Fair offer

At the same time, though, Jones will not make as much as her predecessor or colleagues at other two-year institutions.

Her three-year contract calls for a salary of $225,000 a year plus standard Stark State benefits, while O’Donnell, her predecessor, made $284,000 plus fringes such as allowances for housing and personal travel and a $50,000 performance bonus in 2010.

In contrast, Cuyahoga Community College’s Jerry Sue Thornton makes $259,000 plus $44,000 for housing and $25,000 each for longevity and performance. And Roy Church, president of Lorain County Community College, made $256,500 plus a $76,000 longevity supplement in 2010, six weeks of vacation and up to four weeks of sabbatical leave yearly.

Thomas, the Stark State trustee chairman, said Jones is being paid “appropriately to her level of experience. We’re trying to be cost conscious with the taxpayers’ money.”

Jones implied that money is not her goal.

“The trustees made me an offer and I thought it was fair,” she said.

Now, she’ll return to the Tudor home in Jackson Township that she shares with her husband, Greg, who is the general manager of an industrial and commercial roofing company.

He stayed in Ohio to try to sell their home when she moved to Spartanburg.

Jones may be able to pursue her hobbies — reading and gardening — after she settles in. But she said she will spend the first three months conducting listening sessions with students, community leaders, employees and others.

Then she said she will come up with a plan.

The ultimate goal will be to help students to find employment and “earn a good, solid living. That’s what we’re about,” she said.

Oil, gas lease filing more than quadruples in 2011
CantonRep.com staff report

CANTON — Companies seeking the potential of the Utica shale drilled only one well in Stark County during 2011, but they lined up thousands of acres for future development.

Employees of Stark County Recorder Rick Campbell filed 4,563 oil and gas leases during 2011, more than four times the number processed during 2010.

“We’ve never been this busy before,” Campbell said of the leases filed last year.

Even with the increased filings during 2010, the surge in new leases filed during 2011 was surprising, he said. “We’re keeping up, but it’s a lot of work.”

Chesapeake Exploration — a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy — led the pack with 3,771 leases filed. That’s a jump compared to 2010 when Chesapeake and business partner Ohio Buckeye filed 653 leases. (Ohio Buckeye filed 40 leases in 2011.)

Chesapeake’s filings in 2011 — including 1,046 leases filed Dec. 5 — accounted for nearly 83 percent of leases filed. Chesapeake has a stake in 78 percent of the oil and gas leases filed in Stark County since the Utica shale boom began.

Interestingly, the firm that finished a distant second to Chesapeake, with 246 lease filings during 2011, hasn’t gotten involved in Utica shale drilling. Ohio Valley Land & Exploration, based in Youngstown, drills conventional wells in northeast Ohio.

NEW OIL BOOM

Oil and gas leases give companies permission to access underground natural resources. Most deals give landowners a one-time signing bonus and a percentage of royalties. When the shale boom began during 2010, landowners were averaging between $1,000 and $1,500 per acre, but that price since has topped $5,000 per acre in some areas.

Companies are using horizontal drilling to reach and penetrate shale rock formations, and hydraulic fracturing to break the rock and release oil and gas. But hydraulic fracturing has been controversial because it requires forcing up to 5 million gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the well.

Chesapeake has been working more than two years to develop the Utica shale formation in eastern Ohio. Reports are the company has invested $2 billion to lease more than 1.5 million acres.

The company is confident oil and natural gas liquids will be found in the Utica formation, which is a band of rock up to 300 feet thick and about 6,000 feet below the surface. Natural gas liquids — also called wet gas — are considered valuable because they contain butane, propane and ethane.

PLENTY OF PARTNERS

During 2010 Chesapeake teamed with EnerVest, a Houston-based company with offices north of Hartville, in a joint venture to develop Utica shale holdings in Ohio. EnerVest got into the Ohio oil fields before the shale boom when it bought the holdings of Range Resources and Belden & Blake.

In addition to working with EnerVest, Chesapeake has teamed with Total S.A., a French company. Total will spend $2.32 billion — with $2.03 billion going to Chesapeake and $290 million to EnerVest — for a 25-percent stake in Chesapeake’s holdings in 10 Ohio counties, including Stark.

When Chesapeake announced it had reached and agreement with Total, Aubrey K. McClendon, chief executive officer, called the Utica shale “a world-class asset with world-class returns.” Chesapeake has said it might drill up to 12,000 wells in Ohio and it has projected returns of $20 billion.

LEADING DRILLER

Through the end of December, Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources had registered 159 Utica shale drilling permits, and Chesapeake had its name on 111 of the permits.

So far, the company has drilled a well in Osnaburg Township and started work at sites in Washington and Bethlehem townships. The company opened offices in Canton last summer.

Chesapeake has 41 permits for wells in Carroll County. Last year, it touted production from a Carroll well as a sign of future success.

Keith Fuller, director for corporate development, said the Utica shale is part of Chesapeake’s efforts nationwide to increase oil and wet gas production.

“The oil and natural gas liquids produced in this area have an advantage in the market over dry natural gas due to higher prices,” Fuller said.

Chesapeake is pursuing more leases in Ohio. In November, McClendon told investors the company believes more oil will be found in the Utica shale’s western end. The projected break between oil and wet gas discoveries splits Stark County.

MORE TO COME?

Other large U.S. oil and gas companies — Anadarko Petroleum, Devon Energy Corp. and CNX Gas among them — also have targeted the Utica shale for development, according to ODNR permit records.

County recorder officers around the state have seen oil and gas lease filings increase, Stark County’s Campbell said. Offices in smaller counties have been bombarded, he said, and forced to create space for oil industry employees who are scouring lease records.

Over the past 10 years, Campbell has increased use of computers in the Stark Recorder’s office. Information is easier to access. and it can be done from other states. Down the road. he plans more advancements, including setting up a PayPal account to allow for online payments of filing fees.

Campbell said there are days when 10 to 15 people from oil companies visit the office to review records. “I guess it’s nice that we don’t have 100,” he said.

State loans to aid energy savings
Hope is program will help employers focus resources on hiring

by Mark Williams, The Columbus Dispatch

It isn’t just environmentally sound to save energy. It also makes sense financially.

To help finance the projects needed to reduce energy consumption and costs, manufacturers, small businesses, nonprofit groups and government agencies have access to a new source of low-interest loans.

The Ohio Department of Development has started the Energy Loan Fund that can lend money for projects such as installation of insulation, new lighting, more-efficient heating and cooling systems, renewable-energy projects and improved production processes that could cut energy consumption.

“The cheapest kilowatt is one we don’t use,” said Christina O’Keefe, assistant deputy chief of the department’s Office of Energy.

The program is another option in the state’s package of tools to help businesses create and retain jobs and lower the state’s 8.5 percent unemployment rate.

In theory, the fewer dollars that manufacturers and small businesses spend on energy costs, the more they can spend on investments that can help their businesses grow. That can allow them to retain or increase jobs.

“In the manufacturing sector, there is a lot of opportunity for energy efficiency,” O’Keefe said.

The program will use more than $7 million in state funding from the Advanced Energy Fund that came from a utility-bill fee that expired last year.

The state also will tap federal funds from the State Energy Program.

The goal is for loan repayments to replenish the fund for future loans. Borrowers will benefit from loans that come with low interest rates.

To be eligible, projects must reduce energy use by 15 percent, achieve economic benefits and improve environmental quality.

The department has established an online tool to help applicants determine whether they might be eligible and complete a pre-application program. Those applications will be evaluated to determine eligibility.

O’Keefe said the savings on energy costs should be substantial enough to help borrowers make a big dent in loan payments.

Utility bills can be a significant cost for some manufacturers and other small businesses, said Chris Ferruso, legislative director of the Ohio chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Such investments in ways to reduce costs can free up capital that a business could use to fund expansion, leading to job creation, Ferruso said.

“You just hope it’s significant enough to allow all those who want to take advantage to do so,” he said.

Ferruso credits the state for trying to come up with new ways to help businesses.

“The state is looking at different avenues to certainly try to find jobs to jump-start Ohio.”

New pipeline to carry Ohio gas
70-mile extension of Texas-N.Y. line would connect to state’s developing shale wells
By  Dan Gearino  – The Columbus Dispatch

Chesapeake Energy and American Electric Power are working together on a pipeline expansion that would connect Ohio’s Utica and Marcellus shale gas resources to markets in the East and South.

The companies, joined by Spectra Energy Corp., are calling the project the Ohio Pipeline Energy Network, or OPEN. They will build 70 miles of pipeline to connect Ohio resources to Spectra’s Texas Eastern pipeline system, which runs from Texas to New York. The estimated cost is $500 million, according to Spectra.

“It’s an issue of building infrastructure, and infrastructure needs to be built to manage these wells,” said Tom Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

Stewart described this as a “chicken and egg” situation, in which investment in a pipeline can lead to investment in gas wells and processing, and vice versa.

Chesapeake, based in Oklahoma City, is the largest leaseholder in Ohio’s Utica shale. AEP, based in Columbus, is one of the largest electric utilities in the country and an operator of several gas-fired power plants.

“It’s a huge investment in Ohio and another encouraging sign that energy and natural gas will have a massive impact on our state’s economy in the near future,” said Rob Nichols, spokesman for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

While significant for Ohio, such announcements are not unusual during the recent boom in North American energy production, said Brian Milne, refined-fuels editor for Telvent DTN, a market-research company.

“For a while there, you couldn’t go a week without someone announcing a pipeline,” he said.

The Texas Eastern pipeline already goes through Ohio from east to west. This new addition will create a connection between the pipeline and the northeastern Ohio counties that are expected to have the most shale-gas resources, though the specific path is still being determined, said Wendy Olson, spokeswoman for Houston-based Spectra.

“It will likely originate in Carroll County and head south,” she said. “That could take any number of routes” to reach the existing pipeline.

Work on the project will begin next year, with a goal of completion by late 2014.