Engineering and law serve as foundation for entrepreneur
Compassion for the hard-of-hearing and an entrepreneurial spirit have marked the career of Mike Medley ’97. While at SHS Mike wrestled, played baseball, tennis and golf and served as vice president of his class.
Afterward he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering at Ohio University and a law degree at The Ohio State University. In 2010 he started a law firm – Medley, Behrens & Lewis – that specialized in patent and trademark law.
Recently his firm merged with a large Cleveland firm – Calfee, Halter & Griswold – where Mike is a partner. Calfee acquired Mike’s firm because of his experience in technologies such as artificial intelligence, radar systems and renewable energy systems – fields for which Calfee was actively looking to add attorneys due to the lack of attorneys with this technical expertise.
Along the way, Mike managed to make time to develop a phone system for the hearing impaired that transcribes conversations in real-time – without anyone listening in. He was inspired to develop the system due to difficulties communicating with his grandmother who was in her 90s. Mike’s goal is seeing the system retail for less than $200. Meanwhile the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has allowed several patents on the system.
Mike is the son of two Shelby alums (John and Nancy Medley), a son-in-law of two Shelby alums (Les and Lisa Clabaugh), and has been married for 20 years to yet another Shelby alum, Katy (Clabaugh) Medley. Mike and Katy have two daughters, Leah and Laura, and currently reside in Medina, Ohio.
Mike and Katy both attended Ohio University and have an engineering scholarship in their names (the Michael and Kathryn Medley Engineering Scholarship). Mike is an avid golfer and enjoys spending time at the beach with his family.