YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The Youngstown Innovation Hub for Aerospace and Defense staged its inaugural Hub Exchange, known as HUBX, in Youngstown on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, bringing Northeast Ohio manufacturers together with leaders from across the defense supply chain for a first exchange focused on new technology and new work.
Keynote speakers for the event included Matthew Elliott, Executive Officer in the Office of Small Business Programs at Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support in Columbus, Kimberly Gibson of America Makes and Rich Lonardo of the Youngstown Business Incubator, known as YBI, according to the Youngstown Innovation Hub’s own event posts. Their presence put federal defense buyers, a national manufacturing institute and a local business incubator on the same program — the combination the Hub was created to connect.
For Mahoning Valley and Northeast Ohio manufacturers, the practical question behind the Exchange is how a small or mid-sized shop becomes part of the aerospace and defense supply chain, and stays there. Defense work demands specialized certifications, exacting quality standards and technologies many traditional manufacturers are still adopting. Putting those manufacturers in direct conversation with supply-chain leaders is designed to shorten that learning curve and turn introductions into contracts and partnerships.
The Hub itself is led by America Makes, which was founded in Youngstown in 2012 as the U.S. Department of Defense’s national manufacturing innovation institute for additive manufacturing, according to an Ohio House release. Additive manufacturing — building parts layer by layer, often described as industrial 3D printing — allows complex components to be produced in new designs and, in some cases, closer to where they are needed. That history matters for Youngstown: the city that helped launch the national institute is now building a dedicated hub around the same technology for aerospace and defense.
The investment behind the Hub is substantial: $26 million from the Ohio Innovation Hubs Program plus $36 million in local, federal and private investment, according to the Ohio House release and the Governor’s office. Innovation hubs are the state’s model for concentrating research, companies, training and capital in one place around an industry where a region already has strengths.
The partner list reflects that approach. In addition to America Makes and YBI, partners include Youngstown State University, the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, the City of Youngstown, JobsOhio and the Ohio Department of Development, according to the project announcements. Together they cover what a manufacturer needs at different stages: university research and engineering support, business incubation, city and regional development backing, and state workforce programs.
State projections for the Hub’s first four years set out what success is supposed to look like in concrete terms: 450 new jobs, 185 new STEM credential opportunities, 40 internships and $161 million in economic productivity, according to the Ohio House release. Those are projections, not results, and Tuesday’s Exchange was an early test of the pipeline behind them — whether area companies show up, defense partners engage directly, and students can see a path from a credential or internship into a job.
The Hub’s permanent home is intended to give that pipeline a physical address. Its future home is the renovated former Vindicator Printing Company building, a five-story, 130,000-square-foot building planned with manufacturing bays, labs, offices and workforce training areas, according to the Governor’s office via GovDelivery. Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel joined a celebration marking the start of construction on the project, the Governor’s office reported. A former newspaper printing plant becoming a defense manufacturing center is also a familiar Youngstown story: an industrial building from one era put back to work in another.
The timeline reaches back to February 2025, when Gov. Mike DeWine first announced the Youngstown Innovation Hub. Since then the project has moved from announcement to funding, partners and construction, and now, with HUBX, to public programming for the manufacturers it intends to serve — a sequence that asks to be judged on activity, not just plans.
One of the most immediate opportunities is already open. The Hub has a project call awarding $300,000 in total, in up to three awards, for technology-development white papers, according to a Hub post. For a smaller manufacturer, a white-paper award is a lower-barrier first step than a major defense contract — a chance to develop an idea with support and build relationships that larger work requires.
The Exchange lands in a Northeast Ohio manufacturing economy that is seeing other significant moves. In Summit County, for example, Peak Nano is expanding its Macedonia capacitor film output twenty-fold and hiring, a reminder that advanced materials and components are a growing part of the region’s industrial base. Elsewhere, in Cuyahoga County, Newburgh Heights police have dropped to five patrol officers, with the chief warning of a crisis
What happens next will play out on several tracks at once. Construction continues on the former Vindicator building as it is converted into the Hub’s five-story home with manufacturing bays, labs and training space. The $300,000 project call moves forward, with up to three technology-development white-paper awards to be made. And the connections made at the inaugural HUBX will be measured against the Hub’s four-year goals — 450 jobs, 185 STEM credential opportunities, 40 internships and $161 million in economic productivity. For Youngstown manufacturers, the next step is the simplest one: follow the project call, stay in the Hub’s exchange network, and be ready when defense supply-chain partners come looking for Ohio capacity.