Gary Wakeford moved his company home.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Youngstown State University, with help from U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17th Ohio, launched a public relations campaign Thursday it calls “Grow Home.”

Aimed at graduates of the university who have become entrepreneurs elsewhere, the campaign seeks to inform or remind them of the advantages and benefits of owning and running their own businesses in the Mahoning Valley.

The president of YSU, David Sweet, credited Ryan with the birth of the idea to persuade graduates who have started businesses elsewhere to return and take advantage of the resources the Valley and YSU have to offer. “This is a concept that will reach out to alums across the county, throughout the world,” Sweet declared.

In his travels, Ryan said, he meets many former Youngstowners at airports. “I always ask, ‘Why don’t you come home?’ ” the congressman said. “You could see in their eyes, their heart, that they wanted to.”

Presenting Gary Wakeford, the president of Syncro Medical Innovations, as an alumnus who moved that company from Macon, Ga., to offices in 20 Federal Place, Sweet and Ryan praised his efforts and success to date.

Syncro’s products help soldiers who suffer burns and wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan heal faster.

At the press event, Wakeford introduced Syncro’s new director of research, Mandy Anand of Warren, and announced the newly hired director of marketing from Denver will soon relocate to Youngstown.

The parent of Syncro, Norwich Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Massachusetts, hired Wakeford as a consultant in early 2007 to assess whether Norwich should take a controlling stake. Wakeford, who earned his baccalaureate (1983) and M.B.A. (’94) at YSU, said yes. Then, to Wakeford’s surprise, Norwich asked him to become president of Syncro, the YSU graduate related.

Only if it relocated to Youngstown, Wakeford said. “I’m not leaving,” he told the management of Norwich. Moreover, “I wanted to bring Syncro to Youngstown because it made good business sense,” he added.

Within a month, Norwich agreed.

Among the reasons it made good business sense, Wakeford said, were the extremely low rent the city of Youngstown charges for Syncro’s office space, the lower cost of living, and the help Ryan and the state of Ohio provided. Ryan secured $500,000 in the Department of Defense budget of $370 billion and the state’s Third Frontier program allocated another $350,000 grant to fund clinical trials to three hospitals here including St. Elizabeth Health Center.

Youngstown is a “city that rolled out the red carpet [for] a hometown kid,” Wakefield said in near disbelief.

The hope of Sweet, Ryan, and Tom Humphries, president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, is to have other YSU alumni follow in Wakefield’s footsteps.

The chamber is doing its best to inform potential entrepreneurs of the various incentive packages available in the Mahoning Valley, Humphries said, and echoed Sweet’s statement about making YSU’s resources available.

On those trials and research Syncro has conducted through YSU, Wakefield noted, he has paid the university for use of its labs and for professors’ time.

Alumni interested in learning more about Grow Home can log on to the campaign’s Web page. The page is linked to the chamber’s Web site that lists various incentives available that include tax breaks, low-interest financing and other resources.