CEOs You Should Know - Cleveland

Travis Nelson is the CEO of Diversified Fall Protection, the largest turnkey fall protection integrator in the U.S. for regulatory-driven systems and services. Nelson is a distinguished leader and influencer in the fall protection industry and brings over 20 years of industry experience to the position.

Nelson's journey with DFP began in 2019, initially as Vice President of Engineering and later as Vice President of Strategy. His tenure at DFP commenced after the acquisition of PEAK Fall Protection, where Nelson served as managing partner and president for nearly 12 years.

A trusted industry leader since 1994, Diversified Fall Protection (DFP) specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of complete fall protection solutions that keep workers safe from falls, one of the most common causes of workplace injury and fatality. The company minimizes customer liability and protects employees through a comprehensive system of OSHA-compliant fall protection solutions, education programs and an in-house engineering and design team. As a certified integrator of every major manufacturer of system components, DFP provides fall protection partnership for life through the systems we engineer, produce, install, and service.

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Presented by Cleveland, Ohio-based, non-profit organization, Values-in-Action Foundation, the Kindland movement is bringing together communities, businesses, organizations, and schools by recognizing and sharing the acts of kindness around us in an effort to inspire a ground swell of positivity and goodness.

Kindland relies on the power of the people to do, recognize, report, and share the acts of kindness happening everyday. ​The goal is to create a communities that can sustain a unified sense of kindness, compassion, empathy and understanding. These values are the foundation we need for our community to have the strength to find solutions to our most prominent issues including poverty, social justice, racism, and political polarization.

Stuart Muszynski is the co-founder, President and CEO of Values-in-Action Foundation. He has been a business and community leader in Greater Cleveland for more than 25 years. 

He co-founded Project Love, Remember the Children Foundation, with his wife, Susan Muszynski, Ph.D. in 1994, and is the author of the book Searching for Values: a Grandmother, and Grandson and the Discovery of Goodness (Hiram College, 2005) as well as numerous articles on education, character and values.

Muszynski graduated from Hamilton College in 1976 and is the 2011 recipient of the National Cyberbully Day of Awareness Caring and Daring Award. He and Susan have been married for more than 30 years.

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   1978 the Waterproofing company where DiCello worked folded on a Friday afternoon. DiCello's over-the-weekend scramble prompted a new business venture: Ohio State Waterproofing. With a shoestring budget, a basement waterproofing system that would prove to be years ahead of its time, and dogged determination to make the home services company succeed, DiCello was well on his way to building the industry-leading provider of basement waterproofing services.

Early on, the Company's vision was week to week, with the main objective to generate enough revenue to make payroll for its three employees. Fourty-six years later, DiCello has grown the Company, establishing Ohio State Waterproofing as the number-one provider of waterproofing services in Northeastern Ohio, and operating 13 EverDry Waterproofing franchises throughout the United States.

To date, the Company has installed more than 100,000 successful waterproofing and foundation repair systems.

In an industry laden with fly-by-night contractors, Ohio State Waterproofing has established itself as the professional and dependable solution for basement water issues. The Company invested in R&D efforts, refining and then patenting its Multi-Step waterproofing system in 1984. Today, it remains the only system on the market that attacks water issues from inside and outside the home. DiCello worked with vendors to ensure quality product procurement, and in the process, developed patented concrete mixes and other products that are incorporated into the exclusive waterproofing system. Quality is it’s benchmark: Ohio State Waterproofing guarantees it’s work for the life of the home-a point that differentiates the Company from its competitors.

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Cliff A. Megerian, MD, is Chief Executive Officer of University Hospitals (UH), a comprehensive health system with annual revenues of $6 billion, 21 hospitals (including 5 joint ventures), more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and over 200 physician offices located throughout 16 counties. He assumed this position in February 2021 and joined UH in 2002. He is also the Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair.

In December 2019, Dr. Megerian was appointed the system’s President, where he led the organization through an unprecedented pandemic. Prior to that, he served as President, University Hospitals Physician Network, Physician Services and System Institutes. In these positions, he was charged with managing the clinical integration strategies, policies and practice guidelines for more than 2,500 UH employed physicians as well as the operations and infrastructure for UH system institutes. These clinical care institutes bring highly trained subspecialists together from multiple disciplines to collaborate on the best treatment for patients – promoting uniform, standard care protocols and the sharing of best practices.

Additionally, he raised physician productivity to its highest level and significantly increased physician engagement and research funding. UH’s physician network includes the full-time academic medical practice at UH Cleveland Medical Center and UH’s community-based, multi-specialty physician network throughout Northeast Ohio.

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E. Douglas Beach, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging (WRAAA), has empirical leadership experience and expertise at the federal, state, and local levels. Having spent much of his childhood on family farms, it quite naturally followed Dr. Beach would pursue a doctorate in agricultural economics. Engaged in this pursuit at North Carolina State University, Dr. Beach found it necessary to return to Ohio to care for his ailing father. This circumstance led him to an awareness and interest in a different national resource: the senior population.

Dr. Beach began a career advocating for elders while serving as the Ohio Department of Aging's Deputy Director of Programs, and after many years at the Department of Aging, Congressman David L. Hobson (R-OH) asked Dr. Beach to come on board as a staff economist. Utilizing his assured background in education and economics, Dr. Beach drafted major long-term care insurance legislation working for Congressman Hobson; it was then that Dr. Beach's desire to promote and defend the needs of seniors was revitalized.

In September 1999, Dr. Beach was named the CEO of the Senior Resource Alliance, Florida's most prominent and industrious area agency on aging. Under his leadership, the Orlando-based organization's budget rose from $16 million to $25 million. Soon after, the Senior Resource Alliance became Florida's first Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) and was honored as one of the nation's top 10 Information & Referral systems.

February 2007 brought a knock on the door from Governor Charlie Crist tapping Dr. Beach to be Secretary of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. Although rough economic times ensued, the Department's budget matched in equal measure to meet the needs of Florida's seniors with the preponderance of funding allocated for senior community and healthcare needs.

One of the premier aging providers in the State of Florida, the Council on Aging of Volusia County (COA) welcomed Dr. Beach as its new Executive Director in June 2010. The COA provided traditional Older Americans Act (OAA) services but also emphasized private pay services and in-home Medicare services.

In October 2014, Dr. Beach became Chief Executive Officer of WRAAA. With his blend of skills, business acumen, and respect for older adults and individuals with disabilities, Dr. Beach continues to provide comprehensive leadership and panoptic guidance to future opportunities and anticipated challenges. Over the past decade, Dr. Beach has transformed an agency on the edge into the largest minority-dominated Area Agency on Aging in the State of Ohio.

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Adam Nash is the co-founder & CEO of Daffy.org, a fast-growing platform and community for charitable giving. Adam has served as an executive, angel investor, and advisor to some of the most successful technology companies to come out of Silicon Valley. Adam previously served as President & CEO of Wealthfront. He has held executive and technical roles at Dropbox, LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple. Adam also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches “Personal Finance for Engineers.” As an angel investor, Adam is well known for being an early investor in Firebase (sold to Google), Opendoor (Ticker: OPEN), Figma, Gusto, and over 120 other startups. Adam holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, as well as an MBA from Harvard.

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AmCoat Industrial, maker of high-performance coatings for walls, roofs, and specialty industrial applications. AmCoat is home to some of the most recognized paint brands in the U.S., most notably Rhino Shield Ceramic Coatings, Floor Shield Polyaspartic Coatings and, Super Shield Roof Coatings. Through a network of independent dealers, AmCoat distributes its products nationally and internationally coating thousands of homes, buildings and, commercial and industrial applications.

Terry Andre has led AmCoat as its CEO since 2010. With more than twenty years of contract manufacturing experience, he is uniquely qualified to help dealers develop their businesses and keep the supply chain moving. Terry and his wife Kathy, reside in Destin, Florida and have three adult children

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Corina Diehl is a passionate woman. Her passion for cars and for serving her customers has built Diehl Automotive into one of the region's most successful and fastest growing dealerships. Corina also has a passion for giving back to the community that supports her business and where she raised her family.

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Stewart KohlStewart A. Kohl is Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Riverside Company, a $13 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 1,000 companies globally. The firm’s investors include leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies and banks. The firm employs more than 350 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr. Kohl joined Riverside in 1993. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., the private equity arm of Citibank.

In addition to his work with Riverside, Mr. Kohl serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. He is also on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. He was inducted into the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence in 2009. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Building for Hope Capital Campaign of the Center for Families and Children.Mr. Kohl earned the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award in 2018. He was inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2014.

After spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Mr. Kohl founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $20 million to fund cancer research since 2014.Mr. Kohl holds a BA from Oberlin College.

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Mike Malley is Chairman of the family-owned Malley’s Chocolate, Inc., leading operations and personnel across the specialty retailers’ 19 regional stores and manufacturing facility headquartered in Brook Park, Ohio.

As grandson of company founder Albert Martin (Mike) Malley, and in partnership with his five siblings, he serves in the third generation of family chocolatiers since its incorporation in 1935.

Malley re-joined the family business in 2012 after a progressive 23-year career in the publishing industry. He was Advertising Director and Sales Manager at Crain’s Cleveland Business before returning to chocolate, and previously held multiple executive editorial, publisher-level and sales management positions with Questex Media and Advanstar Communications, Inc. Throughout his career, Malley was recognized for leading innovations in traditional print and electronic media, and for helping business-to-business publications expand their audiences and advertising sales revenue.

At 63, he is also active in several local and civic organizations, including as Director, Board Member for Cleveland Roots, an organization dedicated to urban agriculture while providing affordable access to fresh produce; Board member of Cleveland Spice Acres; and was past Director, Board Member of LifeBanc, a local organ procurement agency and past Director, Board Member for the Cleveland Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland; and is an alumnae of Leadership Cleveland, class of 2018.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in English and Psychology from Cleveland State University and recent graduate of Leadership Cleveland Class, 2018. Malley lives in Brecksville, Ohio with his wife Angela, with whom he has two adult children.

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