CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM I FEBRUARY 26, 2024
Thompson Hine names first Black firm leader Tony White to succeed longtime managing partner Deborah Read By Jeremy Nobile
Boston Mills and Brandywine rely heavily on snow machines during winters where natural snowfall is below normal. | CODY LINCK/BOSTON MILLS/BRANDYWINE
For regions’ ski resorts, light snowfall can be a big problem Visits are down across North America amid ‘unfavorable conditions’ By Joe Scalzo
It’s not the Winter Olympics. It’s not a Super Bowl commercial or a viral TikTok video or a celebrity’s Instagram post. No, if you ask Boston Mills general manager Jake Campbell to name the
single best promotion for his ski resort, he’ll point to something simpler. Snow. “The best marketing is snow in your backyard,” he said. “Natural snowfall is incredible because it gets you thinking about winter and that there’s a ski resort right around the corner. If you’re
an outdoor enthusiast — a skier or a snowboarder or a tuber — when you see snow, you want to get outside and sled. “If it’s 60 degrees, you’re not thinking about that.” See SNOWFALL on Page 20
Thompson Hine has announced the election of a successor to longtime managing partner Deborah Read, who has led the Cleveland-based law firm since 2012. The firm said that it has elected Tony White, a trial partner largely specializing in the transportation and logistics industries who has been with the firm since 2004, as its next managing partner. His transition to that role is effective May 1. White The first Black attorney to lead the firm in its 113-year history, Thompson Hine notes that White will be “one of a handful of African Americans currently occupying the top role at an Am Law 200 firm and one of only about a doz- Read en to have held the position at any point.” “I am honored to be entrusted with the firm’s leadership at an exciting time in the evolution of legal service delivery,” White said in a statement. “I look forward to advancing the positive momentum Debbie initiated, and I am committed to further leveraging the See LEADER on Page 21
Meet Electra, the robot that may one day paint your roads By Dan Shingler
In the future, when a road painter gets hit by a motorist, it will likely require a trip to a repair shop, rather than a hospital or a funeral home. At least, that’s the future Wyatt Newman and the company he co-founded in Cleve-
land, RoadPrintz, hopes to make a reality. Newman and his partners are developing robotic painters that can put down lane markings and other on-the-road signage faster and better than humans, without the risk to life and limb that comes with humans working alongside moving traffic. “We’re halfway through our sixth year
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and on our third generation of machines,” Newman said. The “machine” RoadPrintz is making, dubbed Electra, is built on and around a Ford F550 truck chassis. “We drive by the F250s and go ‘cute truck,’” Newman said with a chuckle. It’s a big vehicle, he said, but importantly
it’s also small enough that it can be operated on the road without a commercial driver’s license. That means it's big enough to do large jobs, but still small enough for contractors to operate with existing workers and at lower costs than a larger vehicle would entail. See ELECTRA on Page 20
NOTABLE WOMEN IN LAW This year’s honorees are making their mark in and out of the courtroom PAGE 8
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