Board Games

For Frank Sullivan, bringing an after-school chess program to Cleveland’s public schools was a move that has paid off for kids

Frank Sullivan knows all about making strategic moves. As chairman and CEO of RPM International, a $3.6 billion company based in Medina, Ohio, that produces high-performance coatings, specialty chemicals, and sealants (including the brands Rust-Oleum, DAP, and Mohawk), he’s constantly looking for ways to beat the competition. But these days, one of Sullivan’s greatest passions extends beyond the boardroom, to the chessboard. He seeks to expose young minds to the venerable game. “Chess offers a great way to develop critical thinking, math skills, and thoughtful patience,” he observes.

Sullivan has played a key role in funding and building Progress with Chess, a Cleveland-based nonprofit organization that brings chess instruction to public schools. Third- through eighth-graders who sign up for the program receive instruction after school and play in an annual tournament at the Cleveland Public Library. Approximately 600 children participate each year, and more than 4,000 kids have signed up for the program since its inception in 2002. Teachers and recognized chess masters instruct the children at nine different schools.

“The kids love it,” Sullivan says. “When you visit a school, you see a bunch of bright-eyed young kids who are excited as all get-out. It’s accomplishing what the schools want, which is developing young people’s minds so they’re able to engage in deep thinking and problem solving.” The Chess Challenge, held each April, invites the students to put their knowledge and expertise to the task. The event brings in celebrities as well as renowned chess masters who demonstrate their skills and interact with the children.

One thing that makes the tournament special, Sullivan notes, is the fact that the John G. White Collection of Chess and Checkers resides in the Cleveland Public Library’s main building. The collection is the world’s largest trove of boards and pieces, literature about the game, and other chess- and checkers-related items from across the globe. “It was just great feng shui that the world’s premier chess museum happened to be here, and we could hold the annual Chess Challenge in the rooms and halls where the kids can see and experience the environment,” he explains.

The origin of the program was equally fortuitous. Sullivan, who serves on the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, found himself chatting with Carl Bowers, a Cleveland police detective and former national chess champion, before a Hal Ketchum concert at the hall in 2001. By happenstance, the two began talking chess and suddenly tripped across the idea of developing a program for the Cleveland public school system. Sullivan provided seed funding, the group received permission from the local teachers union and schools to use their facilities, and the program, initially named Chess 4 Success, was forged.

Today, several organizations, including the Cleveland Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, the Cleveland Police and Patrolman’s Association, and RPM International, provide funding and support. For Sullivan, who has four children of his own and enjoys playing chess recreationally, Progress with Chess is part of an ongoing effort to improve the community and advance educational causes. He also oversees the Sullivan Scholars Foundation, a program he developed to provide scholarships to private and parochial schools for economically disadvantaged students with outstanding grades. Together with RPM, he has donated more than $3 million to the program.

Sullivan hopes to see Progress with Chess grow and involve more Cleveland-area students. “There’s an amazing eagerness among children to learn and play the game,” he states. “In an era of constant television, Internet, and video games, it’s a chance for kids to switch off the electronics, gain some old-fashioned analytical skills, and have fun.” More important, he concludes, “It’s an example of how a small idea can have a big impact on kids. This program prepares them for greater success. It’s good for everyone in the long run.”

Popular Science

Linda Abraham-Silver brings her West Coast spirit to Cleveland’s harborfront science center

Linda Abraham-Silver escorts her visitor to an outdoor spot at the Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), where she briefly admires the view of Lake Erie and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum next door. Inside, squealing children are playing with hundreds of multicolored balls in the Polymer Funhouse, a popular hands-on exhibit. But out here on the sun-splashed terrace, Abraham-Silver seems to be silently considering the next phase of her expansive vision for the museum.

“We have the best view in Cleveland, but coming from L.A., it drives me crazy that you can’t eat anywhere on the water in Cleveland,” says the GLSC’s 39-year-old president and CEO. While she doesn’t say so, she leaves the impression that filling that vacuum is on her to-do list.

In four years on the job, Abraham-Silver, who previously spent 13 years at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, has been busy doing as well as dreaming. She’s already left her stamp on the 12-year-old GLSC, which sits on a prime lakefront spot between Cleveland Browns Stadium and the Rock Hall.

In a city full of venerable cultural institutions, the GLSC has been among the most ambitious. Two years ago, the center installed a giant wind turbine, the first on the American shores of Lake Erie, in its front yard. “It gives us a chance to be involved in advocacy for smart public policy, which museums don’t always get to do,” Abraham-Silver says. Last year, the center added a solar panel canopy near the front entrance. It’s now the fourth-largest solar panel installation in Ohio.

In her first year on the job, Abraham-Silver was instrumental in attracting the Body Worlds 2 exhibit. The anatomical exhibition of actual human bodies, preserved through a process known as plastination, “helped put us on the map,” she says, noting that exhibits of that kind give GLSC a better chance of attracting two particularly elusive audiences — young adults and empty-nesters.

Abraham-Silver, who holds a doctorate in science education, is an advocate for taking science out of its silo and connecting it to everything else. She’s proud of the center’s recent exhibit on baseball, which stressed the science behind the game but also served as a reminder that science is fun. As we walk past one of the center’s most impressive holdings — a replica of the Mars Exploration Rover, which comes courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California — she explains how the science center plays a central role in connecting emerging industries such as advanced energy with the region’s historic strengths in manufacturing and technical innovation, and in educating the region about those connections.

Among plans still in the pipeline are a $3.4 million connector that will join the GLSC and a floating museum dedicated to lake shipping, and the establishment of a fresh water institute that would serve as a think tank devoted to Great Lakes water issues. Next year the center hosts a major exhibit on the work of naturalist Charles Darwin to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of his landmark book about evolution, On the Origin of Species. The exhibit continues the GLSC’s ascension into the forefront of cosmopolitan science centers.

Continental is an official sponsor of the Great Lakes Science Center.

All in the Family

Eighth-generation vintner Gerhard Reisacher makes delectable reds in the heart of Napa

Dogs may outnumber people some days at Delectus, a family-owned winery in California’s Napa Valley. Owner Gerhard Reisacher has only four full-time employees, who aren’t always around. But Splash and Fannie Mae, an Australian shepherd and a border collie respectively, hate missing a chance to greet visitors who’ve come to taste the Reisacher family’s reds — some of which have scored as high as 96 (out of 100) in Wine Spectator’s ratings. Reisacher himself is usually around as well, because for him winemaking is personal.

At many other wineries around Napa, CFOs and computers drive decisions such as when to harvest and when to bottle. But at Delectus it comes down to Reisacher’s gut. “To me, winemaking decisions get made by instinct,” the 42-year-old vintner says. “What do you smell? What does the grape feel like? What’s in the air? That’s how to make wine you love.”

Personal, too, are the tours — $25 per person, by appointment only. This is Reisacher’s showtime. He pulls out a barrel thief (a tool that allows the winemaker to test wines still aging in the barrel) and scampers around his warehouse, enthusing, “Here, try a sip of this cabernet.… Oooh, that syrah.... The merlot is extraordinary!”

Exactly what is a Delectus wine? Think big red with intense flavors. With every mouthful, you’ll know you’re also tasting the exact Napa County vineyard where the grapes are grown. Reisacher is a terroir guy who believes the precise dirt surrounding a vine is what shapes the taste of the grape. That makes sense because the Austria native is following in the footsteps of seven previous generations of winemakers in his family.

What drew him to California? “The wine,” he says, not surprisingly. A college roommate in Austria introduced him to Napa reds and he was hooked. That led him to a succession of jobs in California wineries, and in 1995 Reisacher and his wife, Linda, decided to open their own winery. Why call it Delectus? “In Latin that means the utmost choice, and what we wanted to produce is a wine that’s exactly that.”

Delectus wines (delectuswinery.com) are priced within an average drinker’s means. Reisacher’s Argentum, a blended wine, runs around $25 per bottle. The big reds — cabernet sauvignon, for instance — cost around $75 per bottle.

Is there really a future for the family winery in Napa? Reisacher smiles and mentions his 9-year-old daughter, Julia. “She says she wants to run this winery eventually. She gets right in there with us, helping with the harvest. The next generation may already be here!”