rick Snyder is back in the tech world, having helped build a powerhouse at Gateway before he was elected to two terms as governor of Michigan.
rick is in the tech world, build a before he was elected to two terms as
he’s the in among small- and
Today, he’s leading the way in preventing cyberattacks among small- and medium-sized businesses.
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FOCUS: As sales of electric vehicles continue to make gains in the marketplace, can the nation’s electric grid handle the added demand for power?
By Paul A. EisensteinPERSPECTIVES: Mass timber, a sustainable and fire-resistant material, is becoming more favored by contractors as a construction alternative to steel and concrete.
By Tom Beaman
Rick Snyder is back in the tech world after serving two terms as governor of Michigan. Today, he’s helping to prevent cyberattacks among small- and medium-sized businesses.
By TomMurray
A mining company plans to operate a gold and silver mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but the project has garnered the opposition of local residents and Native American tribes.
By NormSinclair
Three generations of the Kircher family have built Boyne Resorts in Boyne Falls into a tourist mecca that spans northern Michigan, the United States, and Canada.
By Norm Sinclair
18
As businesses and organizations strive to draw the best talent, the hiring process will continue to be challenging in 2023 and beyond. 18 HIGHER GROUND
The path to redeveloping I-375 in downtown Detroit faces numerous challenges. 18 DERAILED SERVICE
The QLine, like the Detroit People Mover, has failed to meet ridership levels. 20 COMPENDIUM How outsiders view Detroit.
24 COPPER CRAFT
Detroit’s CASS Sheetmetal has evolved to become one of the region’s go-to companies for historic renovation projects.
26 PDA Q&A
Rod Alberts, executive director, Detroit Auto Dealers Association, Troy.
By R.J. King
ByTim Keenan 25 GROWING TALENT
How one company is expanding its workforce during a national labor shortage.
By Jake Bekemeyer 25 CONSTANT CARE
Rochester’s Michigan Knee Institute is participating in a national study of the mymobility app from Zimmer Biomet for smartwatches.
By Jake Bekemeyer 26 PRECISE VIEW
StradVision, which has its U.S. headquarters in Troy, has plans to introduce an advanced heads-up display for vehicles.
By Jake Bekemeyer
28 SUPPLY SIDE
SLI Medical in Novi was in position to help organizations find needed medical supplies during the pandemic.
By Tim Keenan
28 BOOK IT
The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit is undergoing a $20-million renovation that starts in January and will be completed in early summer 2023.
By R.J. King
01-02.23
Marvelous Marvin’s Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills is part arcade, part museum, and all fun.
By Tim Keenan
Forged Revenue: Weldaloy in Warren left the auto market to help propel rockets into outer space.
By R.J. KingDeep Dish: How Ryan Ososky launched a Detroit-style pizzeria in Los Angeles that charges $100 for a deep-dish pizza featuring Wagyu beef.
ByTom Murray
Profit Code: Frank Venegas Jr. has built a nearly $500-million business in southwest Detroit by developing ideas that generate revenue.
ByNorm Sinclair
76 OPINION
Network to Success: What it takes to make powerful, lasting connections in a room full of business professionals.
ByDerek Dickow
77 THE CIRCUIT Our party pics from exclusive events.
80 FROM THE TOP Top Hotels in Metro Detroit, Top Corporate Counsel.
82
Flivver Talk: In the early 20th century, flivvers sailed the seas, swarmed the roads, and one even took to the air. How did flivvers become forgotten?
By Ronald AhrensFinancial support for the things that matter most. Whether you’re running a household, growing a business, serving on a board or planning for retirement, our PNC-Certified Women’s Business Advocates are here to help. We’ll work closely with you to understand your unique needs. Then we’ll access resources and connections, and provide financial solutions to help you get where you want to go, in work and in life. Reach out to an advocate today at pnc.com/women
Starting a business from scratch is a tough proposition.
Access to capital is one hurdle entrepreneurs must overcome, along with stiff competition, market timing, and securing key talent.
one must stiff Labor percent two reasons R.J. KING
According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 20 percent of businesses fail in the first two years of operation, whether they provide a product or a service. The reasons include a lack of market demand, cost-related issues, introducing an unfriendly product or a service, and not being able to hire the right team.
After the first five years, 45 percent of businesses are no longer around, while 65 percent of enterprises aren’t around after 10 years. About 25 percent of companies make it past the 15-year mark. While some businesses are acquired, most failures are caused by customer-centric challenges, a lack of resources, and slow payment schedules.
On the latter front, many large- and medium-sized companies, those producing more than $10 million in annual revenue, offer programs to advance entrepreneurs, especially among minorities — Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American — along with women-owned and veteran-owned businesses. But when it comes time to pay an invoice or a purchase order, long and aggravating delays often ensue.
The fact that many companies, organizations, and municipalities can’t pay an invoice within 30 days to 45 days is unconscionable, especially when they require entrepreneurs to fill out mountains of paperwork just to get in the door. In some cases, medium- and large-sized corporations hold up their newly signed minority businesses like shiny objects or adornments — a symbol, more than anything else.
Behind the scenes, it’s a crap shoot. Once a small business gets past the first step, the irony is there are few, if any, resources available to help them navigate working with multiple departments and people, or maneuver around inconsistent operations from one division to another — and there’s little or no access to the people who actually pay the bills.
That lack of basic backend support is a major reason small businesses fail. It also explains why entrepreneurs avoid working with some organizations or avoid labor-intensive small business competitions; it’s not worth the time and effort when it can take months to receive funds.
Given that access to capital is a recurring challenge, DBusiness is launching a new and free service in January called Hustle and Muscle. At the outset, minorities, women, veterans, small business owners, and first- and second-stage companies that are seeking capital and are based in Michigan can visit our website and fill out a profile.
From there, we’ll review the information and then send it in an email, with a link back to the profile, to investors across the state. In preparation, we’ve compiled a list of venture capital firms, family funds, private equity groups, angel investors, economic development organizations, and more.
Our goal is to be a conduit to assist Michigan-based entrepreneurs in scaling or opening new businesses — whether it’s a bakery, an online store, or an insurance firm. And if a deal comes together, we’ll report on it. We’ll look to add more services for entrepreneurs, as well.
The mission of DBusiness is to cover businesses based in metro Detroit and Michigan that are either growing here, nationally, or internationally. Now we’re taking it a step further. Please join us.
With everyone working together, we can advance economic growth and open up opportunities in Michigan like never before.
King
rjking@dbusiness.com
Great article re: GM Defense (in the Oct. 24, 2022 DBusiness Daily News). It should “wake up” a lot of people in our state government, but probably won’t. As you know, the roots of GM Defense can be traced back many years ago to GM’s work in fuel cells, combined with a co-development program relating to a unique vehicle platform that incorporated fuel cells, fully autonomous driving, four-wheel-drive, and four-wheel-steering.
Ron Lamparter Sterling HeightsIt was great meeting you at the DBusiness Breakfast Series event at Wayne State’s Mike Ilitch School of Business. I appreciate your team hosting the event. It was an informative session on Michigan’s cannabis industry and productive for networking.
Quintin Meek SouthfieldYour editorial comments (in the July-August 2022 issue of DBusiness) were right on target. I’ve been saying for some time that Detroit is primed for a renewal of its neighborhoods.
Steve Keyes Sterling Heights
Norm Sinclair has been a contributing writer for DBusiness for nearly a decade, during which time he’s produced a variety of cover stories including the demise of Art Van Furniture, the resurrection of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel, and a profile of Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. His features covering the Midland dam floods and Art Van won him two of three national Gold Medals awarded to the magazine in the 2021 Alliance of Area Business Publishers Editorial Excellence Awards. A Michigan State University graduate, Sinclair spent 34 years at The Detroit News, where he was an investigative reporter covering criminal justice and white-collar crime. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, he was elected to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2008. In this issue, he covers the effort to bring gold and silver mining back to the Upper Peninsula, and writes profiles of Stephen Kircher of Boyne Resorts and inventor Frank Venegas Jr.
Matthew LaVere is a commercial portrait and corporate photographer based in Detroit. He understands that most people don’t enjoy being in front of the camera, which is why he continues to learn how to direct and capture realistic expressions in his portraits in the least amount of time by working on personal portrait projects outside of client work.
LaVere photographed former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder for this issue’s cover story, Return of the Nerd. He has worked with many brands and publications, including Hour Detroit, DBusiness, Car Design News, DFCU, Shinola, the Detroit Lions, Ford Motor Co., and HBO.
DIGITAL DIRECTOR Nick Britsky
DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Matt Cappo DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS Jim Bowser, Marissa Jacklyn, Luanne Lim, Kevin Pelll
VIDEO EDITOR Taylor Lutz
VIDEO PRODUCER Nicole Toporowski
DIGITAL STRATEGY MANAGER Travis Cleveland DIGITAL MEDIA ASSISTANT Robyn Banks
IT
IT DIRECTOR Jeremy Leland
CIRCULATION
DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Geralyn Wilson CIRCULATION MANAGER Riley Meyers
CIRCULATION COORDINATORS David Benvenuto, Laquetta Harris, Cathy Krajenke, Rachel Moulden, Samantha Robacker, Michele Wold
MARKETING AND EVENTS
MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER Jodie Svagr
COMMUNICATIONS AND
Trever Long is a metro Detroit-based freelance photographer who specializes in architecture, portraiture, and editorial photography. In this issue, he put his architecture photography skills on display shooting the new STEM Teaching and Learning Facility at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Since graduating from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit in 2010, he has created work for clients including Quicken Loans, Olympia Entertainment, and Theatre Bizarre. His images have appeared in a variety of publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, and Prosper magazine. When he’s not taking photos, he can often be found exploring local hiking trails with his wife and their pup, Luna.
MARKETING RESEARCH SALES COORDINATOR Alex Thompson MARKETING RESEARCH ASSISTANT Alyssa Fueri JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alexa Dyer BUSINESS CEO Stefan Wanczyk PRESIDENT John Balardo DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS OPERATIONS Kathie Gorecki
PUBLISHING AND SALES COORDINATOR Mikala Bart ASSISTANT OFFICE MANAGER Natasha Bajju SENIOR ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATE Andrew Kotzian ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATES Sammi Dick, Austin Schmelzle SALES INTERN Gabrielle Mancini DISTRIBUTION Target Distribution, Troy
Days to complete typical hiring process/best-in-class hiring process
As businesses and organizations strive to draw the best talent, the hiring process will continue to be challenging in 2023 and beyond. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, three ongoing trends are impacting hiring: a declining participation rate, an aging population, and slow labor force growth.
Moving forward, businesses must be agile and realize that potential employees have plenty of bargaining power. Consider a few years ago, progressive companies sought to improve upon workplace culture by offering mentorship opportunities, defining a clear sense of purpose, providing activities like after-work gatherings, and developing employee recognition programs.
Today, those attributes are standard, along with offering some form of remote work to promote better work/life balance, providing more communication and transparency, and allowing employees to form committees to review and enhance internal operations such as safety measures or work schedules.
With plenty of job postings to review — a stark change from 2018, when the nation’s economy was running at breakneck speed — recruits can take their time weighing different options. But employers don’t have that luxury. In fact, slow feedback following a job interview can often alienate recruits. According to the latest research from SHRM’s Talent Acquisition Benchmark Report, the average time to fill a position is 36 days; it was 45 days four years ago.
“Not receiving timely feedback is among the top frustrations for candidates, and will quickly sour them to the opportunity,” says Pete Davis, president and CEO of Impact Management Services, a premium staffing and professional search firm in Southfield. “Best practices are to get them feedback within 24 hours to 48 hours after each step of the process.
Percentage of job recruits who say a lack of response from employers is their biggest frustration
“Setting, and delivering on, this expectation proves to the candidate that it’s a real opportunity, a priority for the company, and the company delivers on its commitment. It’s the first impression and will set the tone for the rest of the relationship. Internally, we see success rates drop by over 50 percent if we don’t get candidates feedback within 48 hours and/or if the process lags from the expectation we set at the start.”
Once new recruits are hired, employers can’t stand pat. According to multiple sources, including Assured Partners, new hires want and need to be seen as valued members of the workforce, apart from hitting productivity goals. In turn, new benefits and perks are more important than ever.
THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT of Transportation — along with federal and local officials — has, in recent times, advocated for redesigning I-375 in downtown Detroit to atone for what politicians refer to as “mistakes” from the original construction project, which adversely affected Black residents in the area.
But look at any stretch of freeway in Detroit and it’s easy to find that the same issue has impacted other minority communities and neighborhoods. Portions of I-75 and I-96 in southwest Detroit, along with the upcoming Gordie Howe International Bridge, have divided Mexicantown; the Davison Freeway cut a swath through neighborhoods in Highland Park; and I-75 separated Hamtramck from Detroit. In fact, every stretch of any new or current urban freeway affects all residents and businesses in the area.
While the recent focus on I-375 is a rallying cry for politicians fixated on identity politics — consider in 2022, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he had “been advocating for six years to fill in this ditch and knit the city back together” — where was his concern before that? Rather than push urban renewal as a means to gain favor with certain voters, politicians should look holistically at Detroit’s freeway system.
The plan to replace I-375 with a boulevard is a mistake and will generate lawsuits from local businesses. A less disruptive and more fiscally responsible model is to build a landscaped park above I-375 (at street level), just as MDOT did in Oak Park when it built I-696.
WHEN THE QLINE, a streetcar system that runs for three miles on either side of Woodward Avenue from downtown Detroit to New Center, was built in 2017, planners said the service would be self-sufficient and wouldn’t require tax dollars to operate. Recently, though, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was expected to sign legislation that will provide close to $90 million until 2039 for the QLine.
The funds, roughly $5 million per year, are intended to offset low ridership levels — around 2,400 people rode the QLine on a daily basis over the last quarter of 2022 — for what has been a free service since the pandemic. Planners had said the service would be a success if an average of 5,000 tickets were sold per day.
Percentage of recruits who turn down offers that lack remote work options
Beyond standard benefits like health care, vacation time, and sick days, new workplace trends include flexible work schedules, parental leave, mental health support, financial planning, and continuing education. Most of all, employees today don’t want to feel like a number; rather, they desire opportunities to advance, learn, and be considered a valuable member of a team that makes a difference at work and in society.
The challenge with fixed rail services is confined routes. The QLine, which provides efficient travel for some commuters, can’t switch lanes and is subject to changing traffic patterns.
The other major impediment of the QLine is its design. The system should have been routed down the center of Woodward, or above it, so that schedules wouldn’t be impacted by traffic. Instead, the QLine, like the Detroit People Mover, never met the rosy projections of planners and politicians, and taxpayers are left to foot the bill.
THE NEW YORK TIMES OCT. 20, 2022
BY JOSEPH B. TREASTERThe Detroit Institute of Arts — now heralding its long relationship with Vincent van Gogh — is one of the finest museums in America and a sanctuary in a city that has gone through moments of glorious wealth — think Henry Ford — and decades of rough times.
The sprawling museum has a Diego Rivera masterpiece mural; lots of powerful African American art; a Rembrandt; a Michelangelo; a rare Pieter Bruegel; an expansive collection of African sculptures, textiles and masks; and one of the first and biggest American collections of the bold, strident German Expressionists that enraged Hitler.
The Diego Rivera mural is the jewel. “It’s our Sistine Chapel,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, the director and chief executive of the museum. “Everybody goes to the Sistine Chapel when they’re in Rome. When they’re in Detroit, they come to see our Diego Rivera.”
The museum has a huge collection of American art going back to colonial days, and lots of modern European paintings and sculptures. It has several Warhols, and works by some of the giants of
Abstract Expressionism — de Kooning, Rothko, Frankenthaler and Motherwell. And it has mummies, ancient Chinese porcelain, centuries-old Greek statuary and shining body armor from Germany and Italy.
Couples come to the museum for dates. On Saturdays, convoys of limousines pull up with brides and grooms to pose for wedding pictures against the museum’s delicately streaked marble walls and Beaux-Arts lanterns.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid,” said Laura Hureski, stretching out on a bench on the museum lawn in her flowing wedding gown one afternoon in August. “It’s so beautiful.”
THE CENTER SQUARE OCT. 25, 2022
BY BRETT ROWLAND AND TOM GANTERTDrug raids in Detroit have fallen 95 percent since a peak in 2012, largely as a result of voters’ decision to legalize recreational marijuana and shifting other police priorities.
Detroit police conducted 3,462 drug raids in fiscal year 2012. Nearly every year since then, that number has declined. Last year, police conducted 186 drug raids, according to
the city’s annual financial report.
The 95 percent decline in drug raids in the city is the result of a combination of factors, Detroit police officials said. One clear factor: Voters approved a 2018 ballot measure to legalize recreational use and possession of marijuana for those 21 and older and imposed a tax on marijuana sales. The measure passed with 56 percent of voters supporting it.
Detroit Police Assistant Chief Charles Fitzgerald said a significant number of the department’s drug raids used to involve marijuana.
“Marijuana raids used to make up a large percentage of our drug enforcement activities,” he said. “With the legalization of marijuana, there has been a significant drop in those types of raids.”
But that’s not the only factor. The decline in drug raids began well before voters passed Proposition 1 in 2018 and recreational sales began in December 2019.
Fitzgerald said the way illegal drugs are sold also has changed.
“The very nature of drug sales has changed a great deal in recent years,” he said. “The neighborhood drug house is much less of an issue than it used to be. Dealers, to a much larger extent, are no longer
selling from fixed locations, such as a vacant house. Instead, they are setting up individual meetings at various locations with their customers. That makes them harder to track, but it also creates less of a neighborhood nuisance if there is not a stream of activity at one location.”
Fitzgerald said the department is focused on what residents are concerned about in their neighborhoods
NEWSWEEK • NOV. 14, 2022 • BY JAKE
fresh take on the Bolt, the Bolt EUV, a larger crossover with Super Cruise hands-off driver assist technology.
LINGEMANGeneral Motors has come a long way since 2009 when the United States government provided the financing for its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Today, the company’s focus is on developing and implementing its battery electric vehicle (BEV) architecture, the Ultium EV Platform, which underpins some of its newest electric vehicles (EVs) in the passenger and commercial vehicle space.
In 2021, GM sold less than 25,000 electric vehicles in the United States, most of them either the Bolt EV or the Bolt EUV. It moved one GMC Hummer and its BrightDrop commercial van was still in the reservation phase. Cadillac Lyriq orders were open, but deliveries had yet to be made.
CEO Mary Barra has shown confidence in GM’s ability to gain electric vehicle market share with billions in investments, despite having only those three consumer EVs currently on sale. Several additional models have been announced and revealed for the coming years.
Barra took the helm at GM in January of 2014, the first woman to hold the highest office at a global automaker. Soon after, the roadmap and promises on electric vehicles started coming fast and furious. The next year Chevrolet introduced the Bolt EV, a crossover designed to compete with the Tesla Model Y but cost less.
GM promised in 2017 that it would introduce two new vehicles based on the learnings from the Bolt EV, and that they would be the first of “at least 20 new all-electric vehicles that will launch by 2023.” Out of that came a
“EVs are about Mary [Barra] having a story for Wall Street to say how they are going to compete with Tesla (and Ford) and to reach a new market for them which is the coastal buyers who prefer Toyota and BMW to Chevy and Cadillac,” Loren McDonald, CEO of EVAdoption, an EV/EV charging consulting and analyst firm told Newsweek.
“The Bolt is, in essence, their Toyota Prius; the GMC Hummer EV was a prototype beast of a $100,000 vehicle to learn from when building the Silverado EV. The Lyriq is an exciting opportunity to reinvigorate the Cadillac brand (GM executives have told me reviving the Cadillac brand via electrification is a once-in-a-career opportunity); the Celestiq is a halo car that will sell maybe a few thousand over several years and is just a form of advertising to help excite people about the brand,” McDonald said.
The first two brought to market after the Bolt EV and Bolt EUV were the GMC Hummer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq EV. Since then, the market has seen the introduction of the Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox EVs, Chevy Silverado EV, GMC Sierra 1500 EV, Cadillac Celestiq and the two BrightDrop vans, which GM is including in its 20-vehicle total.
A representative from GM told Newsweek that their definition of launch means introduce, not put on sale.
FORBES • OCT. 11, 2022 •
BY PETE WILKINS
In preparation of speaking at the Michigan Tech Week (MTW) on Oct. 12 and 13, I discovered so many connections to the University of Michigan (U-M) that I decided to dig into what powers U-M’s entrepreneurial success.
Seemingly everyone knows that the University of Michigan is the world’s leading public research institution. What’s not as widely known is how Ann Arbor has a storied and growing entrepreneurship ecosystem that shows no signs of slowing down. From the pioneering machine vision, medical device, and digital manufacturing startups of the 1980s and 1990s to the groundbreaking pharmaceutical and medical device spinouts of the 2000s, and the cybersecurity leadership of the 2000s and 2010s into current-day, Ann Arbor and the broader U-M-affiliated entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to make a positive impact on the world.
While the University of Michigan has been formally educating students on entrepreneurship for decades, the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has notably ramped up in the last 10 years and has effectively used its powerful alumni network to amplify its growth. I found that the university has more than 15 programs and centers in entrepreneurship and exceeds 30 entrepreneurial student organizations.
The most notable activity is emerging from the College of Engineering, Ross School of Business, and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts — respectively the homes of the Center of Entrepreneurship, the Zell Lurie Institute, and optiMize. The U-M’s Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) is one of the key engines driving that growth. The CFE is a unit of the College of Engineering and the Center has helped more than 30,000 researchers and students since 2008.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of U-M’s entrepreneurship ecosystem is its large and engaged alumni network. With more than 500,000 members,
ambitious students and researchers can always count on an alum (if not several) to work at the forefront of any given industry. Like many of the programs at the university, the CFE connects more than 3,000 students to this dynamic audience and grants its next-gen leaders the ability to learn directly from remotely based founders.
When CFE was founded by famed NASA administrator and former U-M professor Thomas Zurbuchan in 2008, its aim was to evangelize entrepreneurship in Ann Arbor and to help instill the entrepreneurial mindset into the regional culture.
In the mid-2010s, that focus began to evolve. Alums Dug Song and Jon Oberheide were on the verge of having their Ann Arbor-based cybersecurity startup acquired. Just as the $2.4B acquisition of Duo Security gave Ann Arbor its first modern unicorn…
25, 2022
BY ARIANA BROCKINGTON Daredevil tourists in Michigan can now walk across the world’s longest timber-towered suspension bridge.
The attraction, located at Michigan’s Boyne Mountain Resort, connects the peaks of McLouth and Disciples Ridge.
According to the resort, thousands of guests visited the pedestrian bridge for its opening on Oct. 15.
“Standing at approximately 1,200 feet long, bridge visitors experience a thrilling adventure with panoramic views of Boyne Valley and this season’s picturesque fall foliage,” the resort said in a press release.
Guests who travel to SkyBridge Michigan can take in the beautiful scenery while riding a chairlift to the top of the mountain. Then, they can experience the open-air walk across the 5-foot-wide attraction, which hangs 118 feet above Boyne Valley, the press release said.
Those who aren’t afraid of heights can enjoy a clear view of the fall leaves below them at the center of the bridge, which features a 36-foot glass floor.
Visitors can stroll along SkyBridge Michigan from 10 a.m. until dusk daily, through Oct. 31. The bridge will be open from Friday through Sunday starting on Nov. 4 until Dec. 4. Daily openings will resume on Dec. 9 and last through the winter season until Jan. 7.
Tickets are valid the day of purchase. They are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors 70 and older and $15 for children who are 3-10 years old. Children 2 and under receive free entry.
The bridge is the latest addition to the Boyne Mountain Resort, which has been open since 1948.
“If either lightning or thunder is present within a 15-mile radius of the site, SkyBridge Michigan must not operate or must be evacuated,” the website said. “SkyBridge Michigan is able to operate during precipitation as long as visibility is adequate and walking surfaces are clear.”
BY JAMIE KITMAN
There’s a reason retired athletes, family trusts, and private equity like to park big chunks of cash in automotive dealerships. And it isn’t necessarily that they like cars. In the United States, the sale of automobiles annually accounts for close to a trillion dollars in economic activity, and it turns out that situating yourself somewhere near the receiving end of all of that money changing hands is a pretty good place to be. Lately, it’s been better than ever.
Against all odds, the COVID-19 pandemic made for some extraordinarily fat times for carmakers and car dealers alike. After some grim months — sales fell off the table in April 2020 to an annualized rate of 8.8 million units, marking an almost 50 percent year-over-year decline — volume came quickly roaring back, as people realized they’d rather drive around in their own private automobile than ride the bus next to some dude with the sniffles. And even if shortages of chips and other components meant sales didn’t come all the way back, profits certainly did, with many carmakers.
Many dealers fear that manufacturers, whose business model historically wants them operating factories at maximum potential, will eventually solve their supply-chain issues. And when they do, the industry’s overcapacity will flood the market anew with vehicles, leading once again to excess inventory.
This brings us to another series of dealer worries. If people who can afford new cars are able to pay more and continue to exhibit the willingness to wait substantial amounts of time for delivery, perhaps OEMs might be tempted to adopt the direct-to-consumer sales model Tesla uses. The EV giant’s high sales prices, glacial delivery times, tech-bro share price, and eye-popping market capitalization are the stuff of envy for smokestack industrialists from Detroit to Stuttgart to Tokyo and back.
CASS Sheetmetal in Detroit has become an expert in historic renovation projects, including restoration work at the Book Tower in Detroit. The company, which got its start in 1990, today has 38 employees.
JOSH
Detroit’s CASS Sheetmetal has evolved to become one of the region’s go-to companies for historic renovation projects.
BY TIM KEENAN | JOSH SCOTTCASS Sheetmetal Owner Glenn Parvin describes his company as one that does things the old-fashioned way, with pride and craftsmanship. Because of that, it’s become one of the go-to companies in metro Detroit for historic renovation projects.
CASS, or Custom Architectural Sheetmetal Specialists, began in 1990 as a spinoff of Royal Roofing in Orion Township. “We didn’t start out of a garage,” Parvin recalls. “We started with some help, with seven or eight guys. Gradually we gained more and more independence, and enacted a friendly buyout from Royal Roofing after five years.”
Parvin acquired his current 12,000-square-foot shop, located in the shadow of Coleman A. Young International Airport on the east side of Detroit, in 1995 when the company was doing “a couple million a year” in revenue. His best year, he says, was $13 million right before the pandemic.
A team from CASS Sheetmetal in Detroit works on a roofing project at the Book Tower in downtown Detroit, left, and Water Works Park along the Detroit RIver.
CASS’s team of historic restoration experts also worked on the Basilica of Ste. Anne de Detroit, on the city’s southwest side, to repair and restore the building in time for its 300th anniversary in 2001. From there, CASS’s reputation slowly grew.
Those projects led to replacing the tin roof of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing with a gleaming copper roof envisioned by the architect. CASS also helped restore the base of the Capitol’s dome. Other jobs of note include the restoration of the copper dome at the Cranbrook Observatory and installing a new copper roof at Kingswood School, both in Bloomfield Hills.
In addition, CASS fabricated more than 20,000 pounds of 16-ounce copper parts and 7,000 square feet of copper shingles for new domes at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Troy. The company also created and installed a new, bell-shaped copper roof at St. Paul of Tarsus Church in Clinton Township.
In other noteworthy jobs, CASS handled the restoration of the copper roof atop the Book Tower, 475 feet above downtown Detroit; refurbished the stone and waterproofed the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial at Put-in-Bay, Ohio; and renovated and repaired the Lurie Bell Tower on the north campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
One of the company’s most famous jobs was preventing the 90-foot steeple of Detroit’s St. Josaphat Church from collapsing after a severe wind storm in November 2014.
Current projects include restoring 250,000 square feet of copper roof above the waiting room at Michigan Central, part of Ford Motor Co.’s emerging mobility innovation campus in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.
“The talented people created CASS Sheetmetal, not me,” Parvin says of his 38 current employees. “We’ve always been blessed with great craftsmen. That’s been a key to our success, because I always know they can pull it off when a tough job comes in.”
NCAA Selects Detroit for 2027 Men’s Final Four
The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee has selected Ford Field in downtown Detroit to host the 2027 Men’s Final Four. The semifinals are set for April 3, with the championship game tipping off on April 5.
Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls has added the Midwest’s first D-Line, eight-passenger chairlift for 2023. It offers the latest in lift technology and is improving access to the Disciples Ridge area with a three-minute ride to the top.
In FY22, Add 433 Inventions
Startup companies from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor raised $760 million in capital and generated 433 new inventions during fiscal year 2022. The school also launched 16 new companies last year.
GM to Invest $45M to Expand
Capacity for EV Pickup Parts
General Motors Co. is planning to invest $45 million at its Bedford, Ind., aluminum die casting foundry to expand the facility’s production capacity of EV drive unit castings, supporting the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV full-size pickups.
An $80 million expansion of the indoor water park at Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth is underway. When completed, the new 140,000-square-foot, family-friendly attraction will be Michigan’s largest indoor water park.
“The ’90s were a great boon for our industry and we were in the right place at the right time,” Parvin says. “Our first major historic restoration was in 1999 at the Henry Ford Estate in Dearborn. We were brought in to look at all the tile and copper restoration.”
DR. JEFFREY DECLAIRE, founder of Rochester’s Michigan Knee Institute, has performed thousands of knee surgeries in his lifetime. Until now, however, he would only see patients for their post-operative meeting and not again until their one-year follow up.
DeClaire is one of a few physicians in the country to participate in a national study of the mymobility app from Zimmer Biomet for smartwatches, which tracks and aids a patient’s progress after surgery. The app monitors a patient’s activity level, prompts daily recovery exercises and progress notes, and automatically reports the progress via text to the care team.
“The watch uses AI to collect the patient’s activity data and shares it with the app on the patient’s smartphone,” DeClaire says. “The app messaging feature allows patients to send photos, ask questions, and provide updates to me and my team, with such timely communication ensuring the absolute best care possible.”
Presently, 250 of DeClaire’s patients are enrolled in the program. Some of the data that will be coming back to DeClaire and his team to monitor include step count, gait speed, stand hours, flights of stairs climbed, and heart rate — all critical to a successful recovery.
— By Jake BekemeyerLaunches eMobility Business
Alta Equipment Group Inc. has launched Alta eMobility, a new business segment formed to handle converting truck fleets and heavy equipment to electric power. It will provide turnkey service to customers, utilizing the best solutions available.
How one company is expanding its workforce during a national labor shortage.
BY JAKE BEKEMEYERWhen Lockton Cos. — a global independent insurance, employee benefit, and risk management firm — expanded its presence in Michigan with the addition of an office in Detroit’s historic Hemmeter Building last summer, Elaine Coffman, president of Lockton Michigan, was tasked with developing a growth strategy and an attractive work culture.
Her challenge, as in every growth-minded company, is finding talent during a labor shortage both here and across the country.
The company opened its first Detroit office in 2015, and in November 2019 the firm reported its annual Michigan revenue increased by more than 50 percent, and its team tripled to more than 50 employees statewide. Coffman attributes much of that growth to the company’s culture.
Talent drives success in most industries and Lockton, she says, has no problem recruiting the best-of-the-best from around the nation. She cites Jack Lockton, the company’s founder, and the ownership entity he created upon his death for keeping Lockton independent and growing.
“If you rewound time in Michigan, there used to be a lot of very strong regional, privately held brokerage firms that had a lot of talent, (a) strong culture, and balanced client assignments,” Coffman says. “What’s happened is (that due to) mergers and acquisitions in our world and the state, there are barely any privately held brokerage firms left because they’ve all been bought by private equity or publicly traded firms.”
The ownership entity set up by the late founder allows a maximum profit of 10 percent to go to the Lockton family, along with what effectively is a poison pill if the family wants to sell. Coffman says the arrangement sets associates up with balanced workloads that don’t leave them burned out — and that’s a strong recruiting tool. And with better talent comes strong growth.
On top of the balanced workload, for every client dollar spent, the associate fee is nearly double its competitors. All of these factors lead to a culture of focused employees and an improved client experience.
“In a world where everyone else is taking 30 percent to 40 percent margins, we’re not, so we’re able to have a much better client and associate environment for doing the work our clients need us to do,” she says.
This growth comes at a volatile time in the health
Domino’s Rolls Out 2023
Chevy EV Delivery Fleet
Ann Arbor’s Domino’s Pizza Inc. is electrifying pizza delivery with more than 100 custom-branded 2023 Chevy Bolt electric vehicles arriving at select franchise and corporate stores throughout the U.S.
Stellantis Offers Electrification Consulting to Dealerships
Stellantis is focused on transitioning its dealerships to EV sales and service. It’s now offering consulting and on-site evaluation of EV integration needs within every area of the dealership business through a partnership with Future Energy.
M1 Concourse Breaks Ground for Vehicle Service Center M1 Concourse in Pontiac has begun construction on its new 3,000-square-foot performance service center, a joint venture with Prefix Corp. It’s expected to open in 2023 to service M1 garage owners and participants in M1 signature events.
insurance industry, which Coffman sees changing in the coming months and years, largely driven by increased cost pressures on employees and businesses due to inflation and other factors.
When Lockton Michigan looked to expand in Detroit, they selected space in the Hemmeter Building in Paradise Valley.
“I think we’re going to see disruption happen on the health care side in the next 24 months,” she says. “We’re going to have to have solutions for organizations that aren’t continuing to share all these high costs with employees.”
Pet Supplies Plus in Livonia Expands Wag N’ Wash Stores
The largest multi-unit operator of Livonia-based Pet Supplies Plus, US Retail Holdings, has signed a deal to purchase 29 Wag N’ Wash stores. The agreement follows an announcement to open 20 additional Pet Supplies Plus stores over the next five years.
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StradVision, with its U.S. headquarters in Troy, is introducing an advanced headsup display for vehicles.
BY JAKE BEKEMEYERStradVision, a vision artificial intelligence company based in South Korea, is working with its U.S. headquarters in Troy on a deep learning platform that includes an innovative heads-up display for autonomous driving applications.
Founded in 2015 by five people, the company now has more than 300 employees worldwide. With the company’s growth has come new advances in the marketplace, including StradVision’s first commercial implementation with Geely, a Chinese automaker. All the innovative products from StradVision are built on the backbone of the company’s SVNet platform, including one of its newest offerings, ImmersiView.
The company also has partnered with a German OEM to create an augmented reality infotainment solution that looks like it’s out of a science-fiction movie. It will be released for commercial use this year. “We found an area where we can contribute (to cabin experience) and we want to expand it more,” says Sunny Lee, CEO of StradVision Technology USA.
ImmersiView transforms the sensor data it receives to output precise positioning information that can be implemented as a realistic heads-up display projecting navigation and hazard warning features on a vehicle’s windshield.
“Once you understand the depth of every object in front of you or inside of the view, then you can make the information (work) — such as a vehicle being too
EYES UP StradVision, which has its U.S. headquarters in Troy, will soon debut ImmersiView, an advanced heads-up display for a range of vehicles.
close or that you should change (lanes),” Lee says. “It’s designed to bring a more enjoyable driving experience using augmented reality.”
The virtual heads-up display has the capability to show distance from other cars on the road and alert drivers, in addition to other vehicle vitals such as speed, range, what setting the windshield wipers are at, whether the bright headlights are on, if a tire needs air, and more.
Perhaps the most sci-fi element of ImmersiView, however, is its potential for navigation overlay. With this feature, a driver would no longer need to glance at
DB: WHERE ARE YOU?
RA: Antalya, Turkey, which is the country’s fifth largest city and the largest on the Mediterranean coast.
DB: WHAT’S GOING ON?
RA: I’m competing in the World Arm Wrestling Championship. This past summer, I was invited to participate in the National Arm Wrestling Championship in Kansas
City. I won in what is called the Senior Grandmaster Division, which is people over 60 years old.
DB: WHAT’S TURKEY LIKE?
RA: I’ve traveled all over the world, and it’s my first experience where hardly anyone speaks English. There’s a group of 12 of us who came from the United States, but given
Turkey straddles the Middle East and Asia, it’s a very different atmosphere and hardly anyone speaks English. There are 54 countries represented, and around 1,000 people for the competition.
DB: HOW DID YOU DO?
RA: I won my initial matches, but then lost to a gentleman from Israel,
a small digital map on their cell phone or infotainment screen. Instead, ImmersiView can project this information onto the windshield.
For example, at a right turn along a navigation route, arrows pointing in the direction of that turn will appear, as if in the real world, above the road the driver is meant to turn onto.
While this is a powerful program with many applications, Lee lauds it for its size and efficiency. “You can run it on very, very, very small semiconductors and consume very little power, so it can share battery power with other systems,” she says.
who’s No. 2 in the world, and then I lost to a gentleman from Kazakhstan. I met some really good people from Ukraine, and it was sad to hear what was going on there. Because of the war, Russia wasn’t allowed to compete.
DB: WILL YOU GO BACK?
RA: Yes, but I’m not sure if it will be (in 2023). Europe
has a different arm wrestling technique than the U.S., so I need to train more in their style. The tournament (by the World Armwrestling Federation) was well organized, and they did a great job. The sport doesn’t pay a lot of money, so you can’t make a career out of it, but it’s a lot of fun
R.J. King
ROD ALBERTS
Executive Director
Detroit Auto Dealers Association Troy
SLI Medical in Novi was in position to help organizations find needed health care suppliers during the pandemic.
BY TIM KEENAN | NICK HAGENBeing a company that solves supply chain problems was just what the doctor(s) ordered when COVID-19 hit in 2020. But for SLI Medical in Novi, being in the right place at the right time brought challenges.
The company was founded in 2013 as an outgrowth of SLI — an automotive company with the same mission, which opened its doors the previous year.
“We saw a void in the medical supply space and learned how to address it,” says Josh Kaplan, president of SLI Medical. “That’s essentially rethinking the way medical supplies go to doctors’ offices, hospitals, state governments, and the federal government.”
The secret, according to Kaplan, is buying products all over the world. “We specialize in going directly to the OEMs, whether it be automotive or medical, and being able to source from them.”
SLI Medical was bringing it about $1 million per year in revenue before the pandemic. Once the virus hit U.S. shores in early 2020, opportunities began to open up.
“When COVID-19 hit, we were able to solve problems for some of the largest hospital systems in the country,” Kaplan says. “The way the medical supply system was set up, it wasn’t agile enough to react to COVID-19.”
During those hectic early pandemic days, the automotive side of the business ebbed, so those
employees moved over to the medical side to avoid layoffs. From there, the company saw its revenue spike to $100 million per year during the height of the pandemic.
Kaplan recalls his team working 22 hours a day to ensure frontline health care workers were protected. In one instance, if SLI didn’t deliver an order to a children’s hospital by 10 a.m. the next day, the facility wouldn’t have been able to open.
“Even though it was hectic and exhausting, the value gained during this time was measured by the fulfillment of being able to help frontline health care providers rather than monetary gains,” says Kaplan, who expects earnings to settle in at about $30 million annually for the medical side of the business and around $20 million for the automotive side as the pandemic eases.
The SLI story began with two people in a 2,000-square-foot office in Commerce Township and a $50,000 seed loan from Hebrew Free Loans. The company now has 28 full-time employees who work out of a 15,000-square-foot warehouse in Novi, 12,000 square feet of which is occupied by medical goods.
“The problems are massive and it feels good to solve a problem and sell a product that’s in such dire need by so many people at the right price,” Kaplan says.
SLI Medical in Novi works with more than 180 health care and dental manufacturers around the world, and offers one- to two-day delivery for most U.S. locations.
THE WESTIN BOOK
Cadillac Detroit, located at Michigan and Washington boulevards, will undergo a $20-million renovation that will start in January and be completed in early summer 2023.
The project will feature a new, contemporary design of the hotel’s 453 guest rooms and suites, 36,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space, and all public spaces within the property, in addition to introducing a new dining experience next year.
Chicago-based Gettys Group will oversee the transformation. The facility will remain open and operational throughout the renovation period.
“We’re extremely excited about the renovation plan,” says Debra Schultz, general manager of The Westin Book Cadillac. “When we emerge from our renovation, we look forward to amplifying (our) familiar experience with a rejuvenated one that invites guests to create new, inspiring memories.”
The renovation includes the conversion of 133 Double Double guest rooms to 133 Double Double Queen rooms, the inclusion of pull-out sofa beds in 32 executive suites, a conversion of the majority of guest bathrooms with tubs to walk-in showers with the water-saving Heavenly Rainhead and a dual-function handshower, plus the addition of illuminated vanity mirrors, along with the redesign of two 1,500-square-foot luxury suites.
By R.J. King
When Ford Motor Co. announced plans for an all-electric pickup truck in 2021, the automaker’s expectations were modest. It tooled up the sprawling Rouge Manufacturing Complex in Dearborn to produce up to 25,000 units a year — but when reservations for the F-150 Lightning opened, it quickly accumulated nearly 10 times as many.
“Just when we finished the walls” at the new Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, “we had to knock them down,” says Darren Palmer, vice president of electric vehicle programs at Ford. And now, even with an expanded annual capacity of 150,000 units, it will take the automaker into 2024 before it can fulfill the backlog — never mind new orders.
Ford also is struggling to meet demand for its all-electric Mustang Mach-E, and it’s not alone. Tesla now has four assembly plants, including its original factory in Fremont, Calif., and a new one in Austin, Texas, but it’s running heavy overtime to keep pace. Other EV makers are having trouble, as well.
Battery-electric vehicles accounted for barely 1 percent of the U.S. new car market in late 2019. That jumped to 5 percent by early 2022, and pushed past 7 percent late in the year. What’s particularly significant is that sales were up by roughly two-thirds, yearover-year, even as the overall new car market remained in a slump.
Most observers now forecast EVs will reach 20 percent to 25 percent of new vehicle sales by 2025, although John Murphy, an auto analyst with Bank of America Research, is a bit more cautious. He thinks the figure will be closer to 10 percent unless automakers address several key challenges — pricing, for one, as today’s average EV costs nearly $20,000 more than the
Energy experts say the nation’s electric grid must be upgraded considerably to handle what is expected to be growing demand for electric vehicles.
typical gas-powered vehicle. Then there’s the need to develop new sources of raw materials like lithium, copper, cobalt, and nickel.
But there’s an even more worrisome issue that could short-circuit the nascent EV market: the health and capabilities of the nation’s electrical infrastructure.
Range anxiety often is cited as a key concern for potential EV buyers, but newer models are generally delivering 250 miles or more per charge, with some now topping 400 and even 500 miles. The bigger issue, says John McElroy, a veteran analyst and host of the streaming video program “Autoline Detroit,” is the ability to charge in public.
On the plus side, corporate providers like ChargePoint, Electrify America, and EVgo have raised billions of dollars to invest in public charging. And the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021 set aside $5 billion to fund the nationwide rollout — including the latest high-speed systems.
Michigan already received a federal commitment for $110 million from Washington under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, or NEVI. It will contribute to the state’s goal of having 100,000 chargers in place by 2030 — which will mean installing about 12,000 chargers annually through the end of the decade. “Growing the network of charging stations is critical for EVs to achieve widespread adoption,” says Kelsey Peterson, manager of transportation electrification at DTE Energy in Detroit.
The program already is underway. “We’re beginning to make sure our interstate network (and other main roadways) are covered,” says Trevor Pawl, the state’s chief mobility officer. The development of the charging infrastructure “is moving faster than a lot of people realize.”
Perhaps, but it’s one thing to put chargers along highways and another to make sure they’re working. “I’ve had multiple issues with EV chargers while on the road,” says Mercedes Lillienthal, a rally driver and EV fan. A recent study by EV advocacy group Plug In America found about half of its respondents have run into problems using public chargers. A study published in early 2022 by the
As EV sales take off, can the nation’s electric grid handle the added demand for power?
University of California, Berkeley estimated 72.5 percent of the 657 public quick chargers in the San Francisco Bay Area were operational at any given time.
The problem varies by the entity operating the charger, with most studies and anecdotal evidence suggesting Tesla’s Supercharger network is the most reliable — albeit currently limited to Tesla owners.
One way or the other, “If EV owners continue to experience chargers that don’t work as well as expected, that’s going to slow the EV revolution down,” McElroy says.
The lack of a public charging network isn’t as much of a problem as some might fear — at least for now — says Pat Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, as “at least 80 percent of EV owners currently charge their vehicles at their home or office. But it will become increasingly problematic as EVs go from niche to mainstream, especially if regulators and automotive manufacturers expect to get urban motorists to plug in.”
“It’s great to be able to charge at home,” says R.J. Juliano, senior vice president of Philadelphia-based Parkway Corp., “but we have to provide power” for the nearly 50 million Americans who rent their homes, as well as the millions more living in condos or other housing where they may not be able to install their own chargers.
Founded 92 years ago, Parkway is the largest operator of public parking facilities in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s investing millions of dollars to be ready for the EV revolution, Juliano says. It initially is installing slower Level 2, 240-volt chargers, since most of the motorists now using those systems simply top off their batteries when shopping or dining. Moving forward, however, Parkway is starting to install substantial numbers of DC quick chargers, especially in urban lots for motorists who can’t plug in at home.
Despite high prices, sales of electric vehicles like the Ford F-150 Lightning, top, and the Tesla Model X are growing.
After the infrastructure bill was passed, President Joe Biden announced plans to have at least 500,000 charging stations in operation across the U.S. — most with multiple chargers — by 2030. But that raises another question about the broader health and capabilities of the U.S. electric grid.
Today, the U.S. consumes the equivalent of 30 trillion kilowatt-hours of energy annually — or 100 quadrillion BTUs. Measured another way, that’s equal to 17 billion barrels of oil, according to government data. Much of that comes in the form of gasoline — which EV proponents envision will be replaced by cleaner electricity.
There are, of course, skeptics who question whether battery-electric cars are cleaner than those with internal combustion engines. But numerous studies by the EPA, the NRDC, and others suggest that they’re even, as one battery requires 25 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic.
There’s also the matter of whether enough clean energy is being produced. Wind and solar are the fastest-growing sources of electrical energy in the U.S. but contribute just 5 percent of total energy, according to the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems.
Michigan has set an aggressive goal for shifting to renewables, Pawl says, and it’s getting a welcome nudge from some of the state’s largest corporate citizens. In August 2022, Ford and DTE Energy announced plans to install solar farms capable
of providing zero-emission energy to power the automaker’s total Michigan operations. Ford also plans to have renewables provide most, if not all, the energy for the massive EV manufacturing complex, BlueOval City, it’s setting up near Memphis, Tenn. General Motors and Stellantis have also expanded their use of renewables.
The general agreement is that the U.S. has enough energy generation capacity to cover any EVs likely to be added to the nation’s vehicle fleet through at least 2025, and possibly 2030. But the further out we go, and the higher the share of the new-vehicle market EVs become, the bigger the challenge. Local utilities are “rising to the challenge,” Pawl claims.
Still, electric production varies “from region to region, state to state, and utility to utility,” cautions Dave Reuter, chief marketing and communications officer for NextEra Energy in Jacksonville, Fla. Without pointing fingers, Reuter worries that some providers simply aren’t adapting to what is necessary going forward.
Gary Silberg, a partner and leader of KPMG’s global automotive sector, is even less upbeat. “Even before you throw in electric vehicles, (the U.S. electric infrastructure) is going to need a lot of work,” he says.
That’s been highlighted by a series of recent episodes that has left millions of Americans in the dark — or even worse. In California, during this past summer’s heat waves, customers faced the prospect of rolling blackouts when demand levels overstretched energy supplies. It was so bad, California officials told EV owners not to charge their batteries, leaving people stranded.
To spur more sales of electric vehicles, automakers can reduce prices, improve charging times, extend range, and offer more models.
What’s more, during the past several years harsh winds have led to downed power lines that, in turn, set off raging wildfires. Downed PG&E lines were blamed for a massive blaze in Sonoma County in 2019 that destroyed hundreds of homes and caused 100,000 people to evacuate — often just ahead of the flames.
Indeed, when pressed, Pawl acknowledges everything isn’t entirely rosy. “I think our infrastructure, where we are right now, has had some unique things happen to it over the last few years, ”he says.
That underscores the fact that the state’s infrastructure is both all-encompassing and a bit nebulous. In reality, it consists of multiple discrete elements, starting with power generation, as well as transmission from generators to local communities, and then the distribution network delivering power to individual homes and businesses.
There clearly needs to be significant new investments in energy generation, and those facilities need to be properly equipped and maintained. The dangers were underscored during an unexpected spring 2021 ice storm that struck the regional grid serving the state of Texas. It saw wind turbines freeze up, and other generating facilities failed to fill the gap. That left many parts of the state in the cold and dark for up to a week.
But it’s the downstream portion of the energy infrastructure that really worries Christine Oumansour, a partner in Oliver Wyman’s energy practice. “The (transmission and distribution grid) is very old, with a quarter of it over 50 years old,” she says. On the plus side, Wyman’s research suggests American utility companies and those that manage the transmission and distribution side are investing about $100 billion annually to catch up on what’s going to be needed.
Oumansour also warns that utilities like DTE Energy and Consumers Energy need to change their approach to planning by learning to respond more rapidly to changing infrastructural realities, rather than laying out plans that cover five-year or even 10-year cycles.
For its part, the state’s second largest utility contends it will up its spending to prepare for the demands the grid will face in the coming years. “That bright future is within our reach if we invest in a modernized grid of the future powered by cleaner energy generation,” says Trevor Lauer, president and COO of DTE Energy.
While spending on everything from tree-trimming to new solar and wind farms will be critical, experts say utilities must put in place a more high-tech energy network if they’re to achieve maximum efficiency going forward. The grid of the future is expected to be significantly different than what we have today.
For one thing, there will be the challenge of load-leveling power from renewable sources. Winds don’t always blow and solar panels are useless at night. That’s why NextEra Energy installed a 945-megawatt battery storage system in Manatee County, Fla., several years ago. Then the largest system of its kind in the world, it can handle enough power to cover peak load demands for up to four hours.
At a local level, we’ll likely see smaller storage systems, perhaps down to a few hundred kilowatts, providing backup for individual neighborhoods. GM, for one, has been experimenting with so-called “second life” batteries previously used in electric vehicles like its Chevrolet Bolt. They’re expected to still have as much as 70 percent of their capacity left after the vehicle itself reaches the end of its life.
At the same time, the grid will have to become a lot “smarter,” according to analyst Oumansour and other experts. It will need to learn to detect faults, even predict them before a failure occurs, and it will have to be able to redirect energy when and where it’s most needed. It will also need to be able to cover everything from the big, high-tension power lines down to individual distribution points.
At the local level, as more and more vehicles go electric, “we’ll have to be able to monitor” and adjust the way the chargers in a parking structure operate, says Parkway’s Juliano. Using load management systems, chargers will “talk” to one another to see how they’re being used. They may collectively slow down if they exceed the available power supply, and they might adjust individually according to the vehicles plugged in. Batteries with less energy might get more power, for example.
Around 79 percent of the nation’s energy comes from fossil fuels, 12.5 percent from nuclear, and 8.4 percent from renewable sources, according to the University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems.
Tomorrow’s grid also will be taught how to take advantage of the “vehicle-toload” technology many new EVs, such as the F-150 Lightning, are capable of. The truck can be used to provide power to a home if there’s a blackout, Ford notes.
But, in the coming years, it could also push power back into the grid when there’s peak demand, essentially using its battery as a backup. And, company officials state, vehicle owners could get paid for providing that power. Owners already can set a limit on how much power can be drawn from their Lightning batteries, so they don’t wind up with a dead pack. When demand drops, the vehicle would automatically start charging again.
The software to manage vehicle-to-grid technology is still in the development stage, but it will become an important feature helping tomorrow’s energy infrastructure meet greater demand as millions of vehicles go electric.
What’s clear is that the advent of the EV era will both strain and transform the nation’s electrical energy infrastructure. In the short term, most experts believe the existing network can handle demand.
Longer-term, however, significant changes will be necessary. New power generation capacity will be needed, especially from renewable sources. And both the transmission and distribution networks must be smarter and more robust. If industry and government agencies start working together now, proponents contend, the transition should be a smooth one. But it will require better planning and significant investments — and there’s no time to waste.
Mass timber, a sustainable and fireresistant material, is becoming more favored by developers and contractors as a construction alternative to traditional steel and concrete.
BY TOM BEAMAN | TREVER LONGSince the 1940s, the coal-fired Shaw Lane Power Plant on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing produced steam to heat buildings and generate electricity. After the power plant was decommissioned in the 1970s it sat mothballed for years, housing three giant green boilers that bristled with valves and pipes, recalling a scene from the dystopian film “Blade Runner.”
When the university decided to enlarge and modernize the power plant in 2017 to create MSU’s landmark STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Teaching and Learning Facility, it passed on using traditional building elements like concrete and steel, and instead chose wood — specifically, mass timber.
Cited by National Geographic as the sustainable material with which future cities could be built, mass timber is an engineered wood that architects and builders increasingly see as a structural alternative to steel and concrete. Not to be confused with the stick framing used in residential construction, mass timber is a more substantial material with fire-resistant attributes particularly suited for larger commercial and industrial projects.
It’s typically formed by bonding multiple layers of spruce, pine, or fir with glue, nails, or dowels, and it comes in several forms. For columns and beams, architects typically specify the glue-laminated (glulam) method, in which lengths of dimensional lumber (2x4s, 2x6s, etc.) are laid up in the same direction and compressed with adhesive between each layer.
Cross-laminated timber (CLT), meanwhile, which is used for large floor and wall panels, also stacks and bonds layers of lumber, but in alternating 90-degree directions. The use of CLT can create lateral resistance and makes a building more resilient to wind and seismic forces.
Mass timber was developed in the 1990s in Europe, which has abundant softwood forests. The technology
The STEM Teaching and Learning Facility at Michigan State University in East Lansing is fashioned from a former coal-fueled power plant. The expansion includes the use of mass timber, a structural alternative to steel and concrete.
emerged in North America in the early 2000s. Manufacturers were drawn to the softwoods in Canada, the heavily forested Pacific Northwest, and some southeastern states. Until recently, the tallest mass timber building in the world was Mjøsa, an 18-story, 174-foot mixed-use development in Brumunddal, Norway. That record was toppled last July when Ascent, a 25-story, 284-foot wooden apartment building opened in Milwaukee.
Although Michigan is heavily forested, it lags behind other states in embracing the innovation. According to woodworks.org, an industry trade group, 1,502 mass timber projects had been built or were being designed in the United States as of June 2022.
The state has two completed mass timber buildings, including Michigan State’s STEM facility and Grace Bible Church in Ann Arbor, while four more are under development — Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, a renovation of the Kalamazoo Country Club, The Coda in Detroit’s Brush Park, and the A.B. Ford Park and Community Center in Detroit — and 33 are in the design phase. California leads the nation with 88 projects either finished or begun, and 132 in design.
Before the Michigan State University building was given the green light, architects, builders, and university officials studied the pros and cons of mass timber, spoke with industry experts, and studied prices and construction techniques. The team visited the John W. Oliver Design Building at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to see a mass timber building up close.
“We concluded that there was no reason why we can’t use mass timber,” says Bill Bofysil, senior project manager at Granger Construction in Lansing, part of the contracting team.
When the former Spartan power plant’s renovation was completed in 2021, it had grown four times its original size to 176,000 square feet. Black spruce mass timber, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, was used exclusively throughout the building, and in 100 percent of the new wings. The core of the building that housed the boilers contains original and new steel, but also features four-ply CLT floor panels and seven-ply CLT stair tower panels that stretch nearly four stories tall. All columns and beams are glue laminated.
While two boilers were removed, the remaining unit was gutted and its interior is now splashed with stylized real-time projected readouts of the university’s power consumption. The STEM building’s total renovation price tag was $110 million. Builders generally see cost parity between mass timber and steel and concrete, and
predict that the former will become more economical once supporting infrastructure is in place.
A force driving the adoption of mass timber construction is its ability to sequester, or trap, greenhouse gas emissions. Wood is made up of about 50 percent carbon, which is released to the atmosphere when trees die or are consumed by forest fires. Mass timber captures that carbon indefinitely.
“The 3,000 cubic meters of mass timber in the STEM building store at least 1,856 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, which is like not driving an average car about 4.7 million miles or not burning about 2 million pounds of coal,” says Sandra Lupien, director, MassTimber@MSU. A “carbon dioxide equivalent” is a standardized metric for reporting the global warming potential of a variety of greenhouse gasses.
Apart from the MSU project, other area builders are recognizing the business advantages of mass timber. “When we look at the carbon reduction properties the mass timber initiative offers, this market is incredible,” says Dave Robson, group vice president, new business development, at Walbridge, a building design and construction consultant in Detroit. “We have customers that have sustainability goals, and they want to be carbon neutral by 2030 or 2040. Our goal is to get ahead of the curve so we can help them (achieve those goals).”
Builders can also realize logistical efficiencies. Mass timber beams, columns, and panels are 3-D modeled, then precisely cut, milled, and finished offsite before they’re assembled like Legos at the build site. According to the American Wood Council, developers of the Ascent building in Milwaukee said mass
timber construction required 90 percent less construction traffic and 75 percent fewer workers on-site.
In turn, when Seattle-based design firm DLR Group calculated the potential cost savings of building a hypothetical 12-story mixed-use tower with a mass timber frame, it projected a five-month savings on the total duration of the project. This translated into completing and turning over the building in three quarters of the time of a traditionally framed concrete structure.
As part of its entry into the mass timber market, Walbridge recently signed a licensing agreement with Cree Buildings of Austria for a proprietary hybrid mass timber floor system that Robson says will allow them to install 40,000 square feet of space per day.
Compared to steel and concrete, “With mass timber you’re plumbing and detailing as you go up, so when you’re done erecting, you walk away,” Bofysil says. “There’s a quicker exchange between putting up the structure and handing it off to the next trade partner. There’s a potential for schedule compression there.”
Assembling roof and wall components at ground level can also potentially reduce the risk of worker injuries.
“Mass timber is having a moment now,” says Kevin Marshall, senior associate at IDS Architects in Troy, which is the architect of record for MSU’s STEM building. “It provides an opportunity to do things a little differently, to bring the natural environment in. We consciously kept almost all of the timber exposed, to express the material in its natural form. It expresses a biophilic nature by having timber in the structure.
“Studies are showing, more and more, that even though we spend 90 percent of our time inside
buildings, we still have an innate or biological need to connect with nature. That’s evidenced in schools with improved test scores and a better ability to concentrate, and higher worker satisfaction in office environments. Just having the timber and plant material as part of your environment inside the building helps connect you to nature. Also, with steel, the connections can be messy and ugly, whereas wood connections are more elegant, machined, and finished because they’re typically more exposed.”
A 2018 report by the Beck Group, a forest products consultancy in Portland, Ore., states the business case for mass timber is promising, with potential benefits including strong fire and seismic performance. When burned, mass timber products form an outer char layer that prevents oxygen from reaching the wood beneath.
According to the report, “Mass timber structures far outperform stick framed structures and, due to the charring effect, can even outperform steel structures during very high-temperature fires in which steel will melt, deform, and fail.”
But what about earthquakes? Professor Daniel Dowden, of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, says steel and mass timber buildings can be built to respond in an equivalent manner to an earthquake of the same magnitude, but a mass timber structure built with cross-laminated timber walls that are designed to resist lateral forces must also be designed to withstand larger forces because wood is a brittle material compared to steel. Dowden says designers can solve this issue by using more ductile metal connections between walls and floors to secure the timber components.
The main hall of the second floor of MSU’s STEM Teaching and Learning Facility utilizes cross-laminated timber (CLT), far left, as does a lecture hall on the third floor. At right, the expansion of the original power plant utilizes CLT, complemented by steel and glass panels.
For all its benefits, hurdles remain to the wider adoption of mass timber in Michigan. The state currently enforces 2015 rules established by the International Code Council, which limits mass timber buildings to six stories.
“We can build many buildings under the 2015 code, including Michigan State’s STEM building,” Lupien says. “If Michigan were to adopt the 2018 building code, which they’re working on right now, there would be additional mass timber options available.”
If the state adopts the 2021 building code, it will open the door to mass timber buildings up to 18 stories, depending on the building type and occupancy.
While Michigan created numerous millionaire lumber barons in the 19th and early 20th centuries, of the state’s current 20.3 million acres of forests, 19.2 million acres are open to harvesting, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. That’s a lot of wood, but just because it exists doesn’t necessarily mean it can contribute to a mass timber boom.
Some 14 percent of Michigan’s timberland acres are owned by corporate entities, while private owners hold 63 percent. On top of that, only mass timber made from softwood is certified for use in North America, and softwood makes up only 25 percent of Michigan forests. Research conducted at Michigan Technological University hopes to provide the technical data needed to determine if hardwoods could someday be certified for use in mass timber construction in Michigan.
Currently, the state is home to 1,200 lumber mills that directly employ 41,000 workers and contribute $12.2 billion in economic output, with products ranging from furniture to paper products. The closest mass timber manufacturer is in St. Thomas, Ontario.
“We have the resources, but we don’t have the infrastructure to produce it,” says Tod Sandy, state director of training for the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights. “It doesn’t make sense to log it here, then ship it down to Alabama to have it manufactured, and send it back.”
Still, Sandy foresees more mass timber construction in Michigan, if not manufacturing. “We’re in the process of developing a mass timber installer curriculum in our training centers in Detroit, Wayland, and Marquette,” he says. “Our parent union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, has a curriculum, as well. When we begin training our 15,000 apprentices and journeymen in 2023, manufacturers will be coming through to help us understand how to install their products.”
CLT stacks and bonds layers of lumber, but in alternating 90-degree directions. The use of CLT can create lateral resistance and makes a building more resilient to wind and seismic forces.
DLT is created by stacking dimension lumber on its edge, and fitting it together with hardwood dowels. It is the only all-wood mass timber product made without metal fasteners or adhesives.
Glulam is composed of lengths of dimensional lumber (2x4s, 2x6s, etc.) laid up in the same direction and compressed with adhesive between each layer.
The strength and durabilty of mass timber ensures a project goes up fast. The material also is sustainable and fire-resistant.
Prefabricated wood panels slot together and are fastened with dowels or steel connectors.
Metal cross beams are used for added support and decoration. The outer skin is finished in metal and glass.
Coda, a $29-million project in Detroit’s Brush Park, will offer 10 condominiums, a restaurant, commercial space, and parking. It will be integrated into a 19th century carriage house, and open in 2024.
Under Lupien’s direction, Michigan State University is spending money to understand the potential interest in mass timber in Michigan and to foster its advancement. With $150,000 recently awarded by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, an 18-month supply chain analysis and demand survey began this fall. A follow-up survey will be conducted in three years.
In addition, a $650,000 National Science Foundation grant will be used to develop, in collaboration with community colleges and universities nationwide, a curriculum for mass timber design, engineering, and construction. “This curriculum will be designed as modules that can be dropped into existing architecture, construction, construction management, and structural engineering programs so that students will have exposure to mass timber as part of their education,” Lupien says.
On a related front, a $250,000 U.S. Forest Service grant will showcase the use of nail-laminated Michigan hardwood mass timber at Shophouse Park, an outdoor recreation hub in Marquette, and at the Great Lakes Boat Building School’s facility in Cedarville, northeast of Mackinaw City in the Upper Peninsula.
“Mass timber is definitely here to stay,” says Bofysil, of Granger Construction. “We need to educate clients, engineers, architects, constructors, and building code authorities on the use of mass timber and why it’s a positive for our industry.
“I think there’s going to be a point where, if Michigan continues to adopt this, especially from a code standpoint, you’re going to start to see interest from some suppliers to mobilize in the Midwest and Michigan.”
What’s more, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Economic Development Corp., and Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development are working to identify mass timber manufacturing companies that might consider locating in the state.
“They’re looking at the Great Lakes region because we have a secure and steady supply of softwood lumber — pines, spruces, and firs,” says Brenda Haskill, forest marketing and outreach specialist at the DNR’s Forest Resources Division. “We’re now just in the investigative stages with several companies. We don’t have an agreement, a solid handshake from a company yet, but we’re hopeful that it’s coming as more projects are started.”
THE FIRST RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT constructed of mass timber in Michigan wasn’t spearheaded by an architect or a developer, but by Michael VanOverbeke, an employee pension attorney.
The former restaurateur — he once owned the On Stage Restaurant near Grand Circus Park — confesses to a love of Brush Park, located across Woodward Avenue from Little Caesars Arena, where he has restored four mansions from Detroit’s gilded age. His law office is nearby in the old J.L. Hudson home. “I really enjoy something that looks like it’s not going to make it, and then breathing life back into it,” he says.
VanOverbeke’s current project, Coda — named for a music or a literary term that denotes a reimagining of or a return to an earlier theme — restores and integrates a 19th century carriage house with a planned, 10-unit luxury condominium project.
“We had done the design work for the building, and then did value engineering with Oombra Architects in Philadelphia and general contractor AMHigley out of Cleveland,” VanOverbeke says. “During this process, Higley happened to mention the STEM building at Michigan State University, and they suggested that maybe we should consider mass timber.
“I was familiar with its sustainability benefits, but I automatically thought it would be double or triple the cost. The fact of the matter is, it’s very competitive. I found (mass timber manufacturer) Element5 in St. Thomas, Ontario, and learned how popular it is in Europe. The more I looked into it, I really felt that mass timber would lend itself to the beauty of these historic buildings.”
The $29-million, 89,500-square-foot Coda project along John R Street comprises a four-story parking structure, two townhomes, and a third structure that houses a first-floor restaurant, commercial space on the second floor, and eight condos on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. Mass timber will be used only in the condo building, with cross-laminated timber/CLT ceilings and floors, and load-bearing beams and columns constructed of glue-laminated timber, or “glulam.” VanOverbeke expects the project will be completed in mid-2024.
“I would like to think (Coda) will lead to more use of mass timber,” VanOverbeke says. “I did a lot of research to make sure I wasn’t building something too much out of the norm, and it was very interesting to discover how prevalent these buildings are elsewhere. Mass timber is remarkable for its sustainability and the low carbon footprint it leaves. I think that’s a huge selling feature for my prospective buyers, because
people today want to be part of that change, to the extent that they can afford it.”
Element5 and Sterling Structural near Chicago are the closest manufacturers of mass timber to Detroit, but local advocates are spreading the gospel of the novel building material.
“We’re trying to build a mass timber manufacturing base in Michigan,” says Dave Robson, group vice president at Walbridge, a large contractor in Detroit. In 2021, the company became the first U.S. license holder for a patented mass timber hybrid structural system (“hybrid” means also combining concrete and steel where necessary) developed by Cree Buildings in Austria.
“Cree’s system of prefabricated panels was not only scalable, but it was modular — it used the best of all materials to create the ultimate system that could be erected faster, sequester more carbon, and be a safer installation with lower overall project costs,” Robson says. “We had to get on board with this.”
Robson says Cree is educating the Walbridge team on the world of mass timber, about which they had known nothing. “In a lot of cases, (Cree) was 10 years ahead of us,” he says. “They’ve shown us that there’s a better way to build without impacting the environment that also doesn’t impact schedule, cost, or quality, and improves safety by taking labor hours out of the field. They make suggestions and they come up with solutions. For us, that’s been huge as we embark on this mass timber evolution.”
Although Walbridge has yet to sign a deal in Michigan, Robson says the company is in discussions with architects, engineers, subcontractors, and potential customers throughout the country, including those representing higher education, office buildings, data centers, mixed-use projects, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities. “Our strategy is going toward our existing customer base,” Robson says. “In several cases, we’ve run schematic comparisons, alternate designs, and feasibility studies to be considered.”
Robson says if a mass timber manufacturing base emerges in Michigan, it won’t be one that churns out truckloads of two-by-fours destined for do-it-yourself stores, but rather will be project-based with every panel and column custom designed and manufactured for a specific job.
“There’s 100 percent a place for mass timber manufacturing and fabrication in Michigan,” he says. “It’s just a matter of getting the critical mass on board, dispelling the myths, and lowering the costs.”
Michigan developers and contractors are starting to embrace mass timber.
Technology is all around us - from the phone in our hand, to the medicine in our bathroom, to the food in our kitchen, to the sky up above and to pretty much everything here on earth. The goal of technology is to not only introduce amazing new products but to improve on everything from how we fight cancer to how we listen to music. It’s also about doing things faster,
better, cleaner and safer.
Two excellent examples of what technology can deliver are here in the DBusiness Expert Q&A. Prism Triangle uses state-of-the-art equipment and technology to provide shorter testing times for cannabis because patients medicating with cannabinoids need accurate data. And they need this information quickly – the latest technology can provide extremely
fast and accurate results.
RouteOne, founded as a FinTech joint venture to improve the purchase process for automobile dealerships, have been at the center of the most significant transformation ever in the vehicle finance industry. They have used technology and innovation to help streamline and simplify what was once a complicated and confusing process.
A: Prism Triangle is a full-service cannabis lab with state-of-the-art equipment and technology that provide for shorter testing times. You can sell your products sooner as you won’t need to quarantine your products for long periods of time.
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Prismtriangle.com
A: Start with the goal of creating a consistent buying experience for all buyers, no matter where they start their shopping process: online, in-store, or through a combination of several channels. Allow customers to arrive at your virtual or actual doorstep from all possible channels: your website, in-store, or wherever your business is discovered. Give them the flexibility to engage how they choose, and not lose any continuity or data if they move between channels.
It helps if you’re connected to a central hub — a management system capable of connecting you with a multitude of partners that each offer unique services you can plug into to create a
customer experience unique to your specific business strategies.
RouteOne started, as most innovations do, as a way of vastly improving a current process. Twenty years ago, several parties who were passionate about the vehicle finance industry saw a need for a more transparent workflow and came together to enhance how dealerships and finance sources do business. Today, their fintech is thriving as the industry’s central hub, connecting more than 18,000 dealerships, 1,400 finance sources, and 250 dealer service providers to improve the vehicle buying experience, wherever business happens.
Chris Irving Chief Information Officer
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Q: I own a cannabis shop and I plan to open more cannabis businesses this year. Does Prism Triangle offer fast testing results?
BY TOM MURRAY | MATTHEW LAVERE
Rick Snyder is back in the tech world, having helped build a powerhouse at Gateway before the computer giant was sold and he was elected to two terms as governor of Michigan. Today, he’s leading the way in preventing cyberattacks among small- and medium-sized businesses.
During his time as Michigan’s governor from 2011 to 2018, Rick Snyder visited all 83 counties. He also traveled around the world marketing Michigan as a manufacturing and tech hub, including stops in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
ick Snyder is still one tough nerd, a tagline he rode to the Michigan Capitol as the state’s 48th governor in 2011, where he served for two terms. But today, he has modified his self-described moniker
“I’m a proud nerd,” Snyder says. “How I define nerd is (that) I love to learn about everything, and so I view it as having great intellectual curiosity to learn about any topic you can think of. That has always been exciting for me, since I was a kid.”
What inspires Snyder these days is SensCy, the cybersecurity startup he launched with three longtime colleagues last spring in Ann Arbor. “I’ve known these folks anywhere from 10 years to 20 years, and they were talking about this idea before I joined them,” Snyder says. “When they asked me if I’d be interested in building a good business and really helping people, I said sure.”
And with that, SensCy — an acronym for Sensible Cyber — was “off to the races,” with Snyder as the CEO. In December, the company announced it had raised $4 million in an early-stage funding round.
“My connection to cyber goes back to my Gateway days,” he says, then laughs, “and to my fish and lettuce days.”
In the early 1990s, Snyder was appointed executive vice president of Gateway, which developed, built, and distributed personal computers, monitors, servers, and accessories. The company was a forerunner to Apple, which followed a similar retail expansion. He also served as president, COO, chairman, and, during 2006, as interim CEO, as the company searched for a permanent replacement.
“The life cycle for product evolution was very quick, particularly personal computers,” the Battle Creek native explains. “Back in those days, new models were coming out every three or six months. The life cycle for product evolution was very quick, and I used to say selling PCs was like selling fish or lettuce. None of it is very good after very long, so to the degree you had inventory, you had to move that product.”
The product clearly moved: In Snyder’s six years at the helm of Gateway, it grew from 600 to 13,000 employees and increased revenue tenfold, from $600 million to $6 billion.
Snyder also had experience as a successful entrepreneur, founding two $100 million venture capital firms in Ann Arbor: Avalon Investments Inc. and Ardesta. In addition, there was the knowledge and
expertise he gained during his time as Michigan’s 48th governor from 2011-18.
“I established a Cybersecurity Advisory Board that helped focus on what we needed to do with cybersecurity, not only in Michigan, but nationally and internationally,” Snyder says of his time as governor. “I made cybersecurity a priority. We aligned Homeland Security, the National Guard, and our chief information officer and created a joint focus and mission on cyber. (Michigan was) the first state to have this alignment. Also, we signed a memorandum of cooperation with the state of Israel and made mission trips to (build) economic development ties between us, with a focus on cyber companies.”
Snyder also launched an array of cyber initiatives, including education and awareness training for high school students and all state employees. During his tenure, Michigan began hosting an annual Cyber Summit that brought together public and private educators to engage and discuss cybersecurity.
“We were held up as the model for our Incident Response Plan, which was the collaboration between government, education, and business. Even today, many of these things are still in place, and the National Governors Association refers to the ‘Michigan Model’ when talking about how other states should approach cybersecurity. We were the leading state in the nation by a significant margin, and I’m very proud of that.”
Snyder pauses here, then adds, ruefully, “The interesting part is we didn’t actually tell anyone because that just would have made us a target. If you go out and tell people how good you are at cyber, it’s just like putting a bullseye on yourself.”
When Snyder and his partners began researching the idea for SensCy, the first task was to determine whether there was a niche for a company specializing in cybersecurity on a more modest scale for small- and medium-sized organizations — or SMOs — generally defined as businesses with 500 or fewer employees.
“We did discovery interviews with small businesses, and insurance brokers and carriers, to get their perspective on whether this would be the right solution for the market,” he says.
“There are roughly 6 million organizations that meet that definition, and cyberattacks on those businesses from 2020 were up by over 400 percent in 2021,” says Snyder. “That number isn’t going to go down, because it’s too easy for the bad guys to launch more and more attacks.”
Too easy, Snyder and his partners discovered, because most of the companies specializing in security for SMOs weren’t up to the task.
“What we found is there are really very few people out there that can help them,” he says. “The big thing that really stood out is there is one group of companies called main service providers, and they’re quite often the kind of outsource IT that serves about half the marketplace. They’re hired as an outsource provider to come in and manage networks and PCs and other devices, and a lot of those folks are good people.”
But, Snyder quickly adds, most were sorely lacking in one critical area.
“They tend not to be cybersecurity experts,” he cautions. “There was still a need for somebody to say, Our sole focus and drive is to help our clients become safer and better in cybersecurity and be 100 percent focused in on that. And that’s where SensCy really stands out.”
The SensCy security protocol starts with what amounts to a quiz for the client.
“We ask 30 to 40 questions that are interactive, and we give a health score — what we call our SensCy score, which is sort of like a FICO score for your credit,” Snyder says. “The SensCy score is for your cyber health, and it’s on a 1,000-point scale, just like your credit score. And the nice part about giving a
score is it makes it tangible for our clients. Instead of just talking about cyber, this thing out in the ether, it becomes a tangible number they can relate to and it gives them a benchmark.”
The score in itself is significant, and telling.
“Most small businesses that we’ve been scoring are in the 300 to 400 range,” Snyder says. “Our goal is to get them to 700 to 800, or higher. And we come back with a recommendation and a path to get the score up to a much safer range, with a number of activities to help them make that happen.”
One of the first steps is awareness training for all the client’s employees. “Ninety-five percent of successful cyberattacks are caused by employees making avoidable mistakes,” Snyder emphatically declares. “The main point we make is even if you get these techie solutions, the bigger risk is the human side of things.”
And, he adds, cyber-attacks are happening even at the largest companies in the state. “Michigan Medicine got phished last fall,” Snyder says. “They had employees that clicked on an email.”
As a result, almost 40,000 patients had to be immediately notified about the breach and the potential exposure of their health information. And it turns out the health care sector is one of the most vulnerable to cyberattacks because hospitals and other medical facilities, in general, have
CLOSE TO HOME
Snyder served at Gateway in various management and board positions from 1991 to 2007, when the computer company was sold to Acer Inc. During his time at Gateway, he advocated for domestic production and voted against outsourcing as a board member.
Our priority should be to support existing Michigan businesses, and then focus on attraction. Key items would be:
1. Invest in creating talent in high demand fields like IT.
2. Improve our tax and regulatory environment.
3. Do more and better marketing of doing business in Michigan like we do with tourism with Pure Michigan.
Michigan has one of the nation’s gems for startups in ann arbor Spark. replicate Spark in other areas of Michigan. For later stage companies, support and market great groups like the Small business association of Michigan and the edward Lowe Foundation. Support and grow Pure Michigan business Connect, a program which connects Michigan based buyers and sellers. It is one of the best programs that we created when I was governor.
Create more certificate programs in high demand, wellpaying fields. Support great programs for our youth like FIrST robotics and Girls Who Code. Grow walkable lifestyle communities. Have accessible and affordable broadband coverage across our state, particularly near our incredible waterfront areas.
legacy equipment and security systems that weren’t designed to fend off today’s sophisticated cyber criminals.
“Think about the resources Michigan Medicine has,” Snyder says. “They’ve got training, they’ve got cybersecurity people, and they’ve got all these tools, and they’re subjected to a successful phishing attack. Now ask yourself: How good is the 20, or 50, or 100-person organization going to fare if a place like Michigan Medicine and all those resources is getting successfully attacked?”
That thought process is a significant part of the pitch Snyder and his team make to their clients.
“Our goal is to help change an organization’s culture from being passive to active regarding cybersecurity,” he says. “So, six times a year, once every other month, we’ll have a short video on how to do passwords the right way, or how to look out for phishing emails, with a video and some quiz questions to make sure the learning is reinforced.”
During each of the other six months, the SensCy team will actually attempt to send a phishing email to the client.
“The goal is not to have anyone click on it,” Snyder says. “Some people will, but we’ll track that and then will be able to give them constructive feedback on how they could have identified the things they missed, and how they can be more successful, longer term.”
While SensCy tests the employees, it also analyzes the client’s overall cyber defense system. “We look for vulnerabilities using software to look for openings, holes, and ‘open doors’ in a client’s network,” he says. “We’re also going to look on the dark web, which is the scary place where, if your stuff is taken, it’s liable to end up.”
The videos, quizzes, phishing expeditions, and other virtual tests are supported by face-to-face executive briefings.
“We believe you need to have human interaction, so as part of our service we’ll go in and talk to the people leading the organization. A client may ask, How are we doing on our cyber health? How is our score? Where are we today? What else do we need to do? How do you see other people out there that are our size, and how are they looking? What are the big issues? And we’ve created a nice dashboard our clients can look at any time, showing them what their score was and is today, and how it’s historically changed.”
If the worst-case scenario occurs and a company’s security is compromised, the same kind of Incident Response Plan Snyder utilized as governor should already be implemented, and the company should be on high alert.
“I ask almost every audience I talk to, How many of you have an Incident Response Plan?” Snyder says. “They raise their hands and typically it runs less than 10 percent, which is a really scary thing. If you have a problem, the Incident Response Plan is what you pull out to recover quickly. And it should be in place long before you have a problem. The worst time to figure out what to do after you actually have the problem is when you’re in the middle of the mess.”
SensCy offers three subscription tiers for its potential clients. “It’s basically flat, depending on how many employees with emails you have,” Snyder says. “If you’re between zero and 20 employees, it’s $750 a month. Between 20 and 100, it’s $1,000. And from 100 to 250, it’s $1,500. If you’re bigger than that, we’ll come up with a number, but those are the three basic tiers.”
There are currently a dozen or so employees at SensCy. “We have some shared office space that we
• Aug. 19, 1958, Battle Creek
• Earned 23 college credits by his senior year at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek
• Graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1977 with a Bachelor of General Studies degree (an admissions director recommended Snyder create his own study program), followed by an MBA (1979) and a juris doctor degree (1982). He’s also a CPA.
• In 1982, started in the tax department of Coopers & Lybrand in Detroit. Was named a partner in 1988, and the following year was appointed head of the M&A practice at the Chicago office. From 1982 to 1984, he was an adjunct assistant professor of accounting at U-M.
• Joined Gateway in 1991, then based in Irvine, Calif., as executive vice president. He went on to serve as president, COO, interim CEO, and chairman. During his time as CEO, he pushed for bringing computer production back to the United States. As a board member, he voted against outsourcing.
• Came to Ann Arbor in 1997, where he launched Avalon Investments Inc., a $100-million fund with Gateway founder Ted Waitt. Snyder also co-founded Ardesta with three partners who, together, invested in startup companies.
• In 1988, became an angel investor to HealthMedia Inc., a developer of virtual health coaching applications. It was later sold to Johnson & Johnson for a reported $200 million.
rent and we get together a couple times a week,” Snyder says. “But we’re virtual. It’s the way the world is.”
He adds that the company is building its clientele slowly and deliberately.
“We’re in the teens right now, primarily in Michigan, because we want to start in our own backyard and help our neighbors as much as possible,” he explains. “Most of our marketing has been through Michigan-based membership associations, but we can handle clients anywhere in the country. Our goal is to be in the hundreds over the next year.”
Snyder is confident he and his team have pulled together a compelling package for potential clients, but he’s also a realist.
“We recognize this will never be the highest priority for a company,” he admits. “I mean, they have to run their business. But we view education as a huge part of what we’re doing. We occasionally get pushback from somebody in an organization, saying, I don’t think my employees are going to do that. They’re going to get upset that they have to watch a video and take a quiz.”
Snyder has a tough time accepting that rationale.
“Everything the 10 minutes that lesson is going to take out of their life, they should absolutely be taking home to their spouse, their kids, and everyone else,” he declares. “Everything they’re learning there is equally applicable in their personal lives, because a lot of these folks are getting creamed at home by hackers, in some fashion. So a lot of this is being proactive and saying the training is a positive, and let’s portray it that way and promote it as a free employee benefit.”
As far as acquiring the necessary funding for SensCy, the timing for Snyder and his team might be perfect.
“Cyber protection is becoming more and more necessary for companies of all stages,” says Aaron Hodari, chief investment officer and managing director at Schechter Wealth in Birmingham. “Our wealth management arm manages approximately $2.7 billion in assets, and we had a client get hacked (recently). So as a business owner,
we’re incredibly focused on making sure we have great cyber security protection, and we continue to invest in having better and better cyber tools. You’re not going see a slowdown in the amount of investment going into cybersecurity.”
As for the specific SMO niche SensCy is focused on, Hodari adds, “As investors, we’re very interested in the cybersecurity sector. Companies that can build solutions that can work for smaller employee teams is critical. Snyder is going to have no problem raising money.”
Meanwhile, the former governor clearly relishes being back in entrepreneurial mode. He admits that once his duties in Lansing ended after eight years and he resumed life at home with his wife, Sue, the adjustment was challenging.
“I would drive Sue nuts,” he says. “I was used to going a million miles an hour, just in terms of meetings, events, running all over the place — and then when you’re done, you go from 200 mph to zero. I used to joke to people, I have the cleanest garage in North America.”
The downtime allowed Snyder to spend more time with his family, which included going on a safari with Sue. “We went to Tanzania, and then to Rwanda, and hung out with gorillas where they’re literally surrounding you. You’re within two or three feet of these big gorillas. Absolutely amazing.”
Snyder chuckles, then adds, “And those gorillas are in charge, you know? If they want you to move one way, or want you to do something? It’s like, Yes, sir, I’m ready to move wherever you want.”
Snyder and his wife also took a 3,700-mile drive from Ann Arbor to Alaska to help relocate and settle their daughter and her fiancé into their new careers. “We spent seven days on the road and it turned out to be a lot of fun, and the best part is we were still speaking to each other when we were done,” he laughs.
There was also time for Snyder to reflect on his eight years in office — “we did an incredible amount to make Michigan a better place,” he proudly asserts — while also reckoning with the Flint water crisis.
I USED TO JOKE TO PEOPLE, I HAVE THE CLEANEST GARAGE IN NORTH AMERICA. ”
— RICK SNYDER
As part of a plan to save money and boost local jobs, in 2014, Flint and Genesee County officials, along with then Emergency Manager Edward Kurtz, approved a cost-cutting plan to end a 47-year relationship with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and join the newly formed Karegnondi Water Authority, which proposed building a 70-mile-long pipeline from Lake Huron to bring lake water to Genesee County.
The pipeline would save Flint $100 million to $300 million over 30 years, officials said at the time. The plan also called for refitting the city’s water plant to treat the heavily polluted Flint River water for use as a stopgap community water source until the new pipeline was operational in 2016.
The water crisis was a real-life tragedy of lead poisoning caused by government disfunction, undermining of authority, and mismanagement. Mike Glasgow, a laboratory and water quality supervisor at the Flint plant, didn’t hold back in his April 25, 2014, email to the MDEQ: “I do not anticipate giving the OK to begin sending water out anytime soon. If water is distributed from this plant in the next couple of weeks, it will be against my direction,” he wrote.
That same day, Flint officials, including then Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, greenlighted using water from the Flint River. Within days residents began complaining that discolored, brownish water was flowing out of their taps. As many as 12,000 children may have been permanently harmed by lead poisoning, court records show.
“In Flint, errors were made at every level of government,” Snyder admits. “The question is, what do you do about that? I apologized, and I still feel for the people affected by that. We put in the strongest lead and copper rule in the nation that I was proud to see happen. We also were the leaders in dealing with the next big set of issues beyond lead, which is PFAS.”
Of course, Snyder was also a major player behind the decision in 2013 that led to Detroit filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, and then helping to spearhead the city’s restructuring and comeback. Ironically, a vital part of that resurgence is the flurry of startups like SensCy that have built and enhanced metro Detroit’s reputation as a global tech hub in automotive, manufacturing, robotics, medical devices, and more.
When the former politician and current entrepreneur pitches a prospective client on the attributes of SensCy, he often relies on a medical reference to make his point.
“Cybersecurity and the whole topic of being safe is much like being a diabetic,” Snyder begins. “It’s a chronic condition and you’re never going to be cured to the point where you can say, Hey, I’m never going to have a cyber issue. It’s always going be with you. But that’s not to say you can’t have a good life.
“If you’re a diabetic and you manage your insulin, and if you diet and exercise the right way, you can live a really great life. The same thing is true of cybersecurity. It’s not the main focus of your life, but you have to be vigilant, you have to be thoughtful, and you have to take some steps to be healthy. And if you do that, you can also have a good life.”
Following the mid-term elections last November, Democrats have control of the governor’s office and both chambers of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in four decades, which puts the state’s Right to Work law, a Republican initiative, in jeopardy.
Signed into law Dec. 11, 2012, by then-Gov. Rick Snyder and enacted the following March 28, the measure allows workers to opt out of paying dues in union-represented jobs, although they remain eligible to receive benefits.
Those in favor of the law say it’s good for Michigan — and the data backs up their claim. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 6,102 applications to start businesses in Michigan in March 2013. That number moved steadily northward until hitting an apex in 2021 at 13,148. In October 2022, the number of applications was 11,472.
Timothy Nash, who leads economic research at Northwood University’s McNair Center in Midland, points to the improvement in net population migration since 2013 as proof of Right to Work’s effectiveness.
“Over the 13-year period from 2000 to 2013, Michigan’s net population migration showed a loss in population of 619,147, or 47,700 people per year,” Nash says. “Since 2013, Michigan’s population migration has continued, but at a much slower pace — with a net population migration for 2021 being just under minus 7,900.”
Business leaders, as well as everyday citizens, would prefer the law to stay in place, according to a survey conducted by the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Right to Work has strong support among Republicans, Democrats, Independents, men, and women, the survey results show. The support held for every age group and in every region of Michigan. Union households supported the law by a nearly 2-to-1 margin (55 percent to 28 percent).
“It’s giving rights to workers themselves to make the choice of belonging to the union or not,” says Snyder, currently CEO of SensCy in Ann Arbor. “The bigger issue, the economic impact it has on the state, is the perception of Michigan and the marketing of our state. In many cases, prior to Michigan becoming a state that had Right to Work, we were disqualified before we had a chance to compete for a lot of economic development projects.
“We wouldn’t even get considered. The number of prospects that came to Michigan (since that time) went up significantly. Michigan now has an open for business sign out, and if we got rid of Right to Work it would be like putting up a closed for business sign.”
Brian Calley, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan and lieutenant governor when Right to Work went into effect, says: “In the 10 years since Right to Work passed, Michigan has undeniably improved economically,” he says. “And while Right to Work is certainly not the only factor, it played an important role. Michigan’s economic recovery is fragile and the last thing new leadership in the Legislature should do is make big, sweeping changes to disrupt our progress.”
By Tim KeenanData shows Michigan’s 2012 Right to Work law is helping attract businesses to the Great Lakes State and has wide appeal among citizens.
2 NORTH PARTNERS 171 Monroe Ave. NW Grand Rapids 616-325-2100 42np.com
ABUNDANT VENTURES 42690 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills 248-481-3157 abundantventures.com
AMHERST FUND 401 E. Stadium Blvd. Ann Arbor 734-662-2102 amherstfund.com
ANNOX CAPITAL 40701 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills 248-712-1086 annoxcapital.com
APJOHN VENTURES 350 E. Michigan Ave., Ste. 500 Kalamazoo 269-349-8999 apjohnventures.com
ARBOR PARTNERS 130 S. First St., Ste. 200 Ann Arbor 734-668-9000 arborpartners.com
ARBORETUM VENTURES 303 Detroit St., Ste. 301 Ann Arbor 734-998-3688 arboretumvc.com
ARIA VENTURES
380 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 290 Birmingham 248-766-2903 ariaventures.com
ARSENAL 303 Detroit St., Ste. 301 Ann Arbor 734-436-1496 arsenalgrowth.com
AUGMENT VENTURES 206 S. Fourth Ave.
Ann Arbor Phone:NA augmentventures.com
BAIRD CAPITAL 2950 S. State St., Ste. 401 Ann Arbor 734-302-2900 bairdcapital.com
BELLE IMPACT FUND 217 Lake Shore Dr. Grosse Pointe Farms Phone: NA bellefunds.com
BERINGEA 32330 W. 12 Mile Rd. Farmington Hills 248-489-9000 beringea.com
BIOSTAR CAPITAL 206 Bridge St. Charlevoix 231-497-1286 biostar.capital
BLUE VICTOR CAPITAL 2103 Rochelle Park Dr. Rochester Hills Phone: NA bluevictorcapital.com
BOOMERANG CATAPULT 236½ W. Front St. Traverse City 231-631-1734 boomerangcatapult.com
CANTILEVER INVESTORS 600 S. Wagner Ann Arbor Phone: NA cantileverinvestors.com
COURTSIDEVC Detroit Phone: NA courtsidevc.com
DETROIT VENTURE PARTNERS 1555 Broadway, 3rd Floor Detroit Phone: NA detroit.vc
DOW VENTURE CAPITAL
2030 Dow Center Midland 989-636-1000 dow.com/venture
DRAPER TRIANGLE VENTURES
303 Detroit St., Ste. 100 Ann Arbor 734-215-7577 drapertriangle.com
DTE ENERGY VENTURES 414 S. Main St., Ste. 600 Ann Arbor 734-302-5309 dteenergyventures.com
DOW VENTURE CAPITAL 2211 H.H. Dow Way Midland Phone: NA dow.com
EDF VENTURES 425 N. Main St. Ann Arbor 734-663-3213 edfvc.com
EICONICA CAPITAL
34300 Woodward Ave., Ste. 200 Birmingham 248-981-6688 eiconicacap.com
EIGHTEEN94 CAPITAL
One Kellogg Square Battle Creek 269-961-2000 1894capital.com
ELAB VENTURES 505 E. Liberty, LL500 Ann Arbor 734-926-5221 elabvc.com
ENVY CAPITAL 39665 Northwestern Hwy., Ste. 200 Farmington Hills 248-522-7166 envycapital.com
EVERGREEN CAPITAL PARTNERS
201 W. Big Beaver Rd. Troy 248-619-1864 evergreencappartners.com
FIREFOX VENTURES Bloomfield Hills 248-766-3040 firefoxventures.com
FONTINALIS PARTNERS
One Woodward Ave., Ste. 1600 Detroit 313-432-0321 fontinalis.com
GENERAL MOTORS VENTURES 300 Renaissance Center Detroit Phone: NA gmventures.com
GENESIS INNOVATION GROUP 13827 Port Sheldon St. Holland 616-294-1026 genesisinnovationgroup.com
GIBBS CITY INVESTMENTS Ann Arbor Phone: NA gibbscity.com
GRAND VENTURES
38 W. Fulton St., Ste. 308 Grand Rapids 616-326-1585 grandvcp.com
HONOR EQUITY 63 Kercheval Ave., Ste. 111 Grosse Pointe Farms 313-444-0093 honorequity.com
HOPEN LIFE SCIENCE VENTURES 171 Monroe Ave. NW, Ste. 410 Grand Rapids 616-325-2110 hopenls.com
HURON RIVER VENTURES
303 Detroit St., Ste. 100 Ann Arbor Phone: NA huronrivervc.com
INCWELL 1000 S. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 105 Birmingham 248-593-9355 incwell.net
INVEST DETROIT 600 Renaissance Center, Ste. 1710
Detroit 313-259-6368 investdetroit.vc
INVEST MICHIGAN 19 Clifford St. Detroit 313-727-2500 419-345-7688 investmichigan.org
JXP CAPITAL 6735 Telegraph Rd. Bloomfield Hills 248-550-0838 jxpcapital.com
KELLY INNOVATION FUND 999 W. Big Beaver Rd. Troy 800-535-5901 kellyservicesinvestments.com
LIS VENTURES 28555 Orchard Lake Rd., Ste. 100 Farmington Hills Phone: NA lisventures.com
LUDLOW VENTURES 1555 Broadway Detroit Phone: NA ludlowventures.com
MADDOG TECHNOLOGY 233 Pierce St. Birmingham 248-686-0900 maddogtechnology.com
MCKINLEY TECHNOLOGY GROUP 106 S. Walnut, Ste. 1 Bay City 866-616-1463, ext. 4 mckinleytechnology.com
MERCURY 303 Detroit St., Ste. 100 Ann Arbor 713-715-6820 mercuryfund.com
MICHIGAN ACCELERATOR FUND 140 Monroe Center NW, Ste. 300 Grand Rapids 616-235-3567 maf-1.com
MICHIGAN BIOMEDICAL VENTURE FUND 3350 Duderstadt Ann Arbor 734-763-1021 cfe.umich.edu/mbdf
MICHIGAN CAPITAL NETWORK 40 Pearl St. NW, Ste. 336
Grand Rapids michigancapitalnetwork.com
MILLER CAPITAL PARTNERS 1411 W. Long Lake Rd., Ste. 100 Troy 248-901-1650 millercapital.com
MICHIGAN INVESTMENT IN NEW TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS 2281 Bonisteel Blvd. Ann Arbor Phone: NA bf.umich.edu/news/michiganinvestment-in-new-technologystartups-mints
MICROTECH VENTURES 550 Merrill St., Ste. 240 Birmingham Phone: NA microtechventures.com
MISSION THROTTLE 2 Towne Square, Ste. 900 Southfield 248-415-1455 missionthrottle.com
MK CAPITAL 353 W. William, Ste. 303 Ann Arbor 734-663-6500 mkcapital.com
MONROE-BROWN SEED FUND 2281 Bonisteel Ave. Ann Arbor 734-763-1021 cfe.umich.edu/mb-seedfund
NARROW GAUGE VENTURES 330 Detroit St., Ste. 200 Ann Arbor Phone: NA narrowgaugeventures.com
NORTH COAST TECHNOLOGY INVESTORS
206 S. Fifth Ave., Ste. 550 Ann Arbor 734-662-7667 northcoastvc.com
NORTHBROOK INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
2149 Jolly Rd., Ste. 500 Okemos 517-347-0347 northbrookinvestment.com
OMEGA ACCELERATOR 3707 W. Maple Rd., Ste. 100E Bloomfield Hills 248-633-8557 omergaaccelerator.com
PLYMOUTH GROWTH
555 Briarwood Circle, Ste. 210 Ann Arbor 734-747-9401 plymouthgp.com
QUANTUM MEDICAL CONCEPTS
120 W. Saginaw St. East Lansing Phone: NA quantummedicalconcepts.com
QUANTUM VENTURES OF MICHIGAN 1030 Doris Rd. Auburn Hills 248-292-5680 qvmllc.com
RED CEDAR VENTURES
325 E. Grand River Ave., Ste. 275 East Lansing 517-256-4040 msufoundation.org/redcedarventures
VENTURE CAPITAL 201 S. Main St., 10th Floor Ann Arbor 734-997-8661 renvcg.com
RESONANT VENTURE PARTNERS
425 N. Main St. Ann Arbor Phone: NA
RHV CAPITAL INVESTORS
38710 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills 248-561-5508 rhvcapital.com
RIZVI TRAVERSE MANAGEMENT
260 E. Brown St., Ste. 2500 Birmingham 248-594-4751 rizvitraverse.com
ROCK COS.
6400 Telegraph Rd., Ste. 2500 Bloomfield Hills 248-430-7712 rockcompanies.com
RPM VENTURES
350 N. Main St., Ste. 400 Ann Arbor 734-332-1700 rpmvc.com
SECRET SAUCE CAPITAL 28 W. Adams Ave. Detroit 313-818-3260 secretsaucecapital.com
SI CAPITAL 38955 Hills Tech Dr. Farmington Hills sicapitalllc.com
SKYPOINT VENTURES 601 Saginaw St. Flint 810-547-5591 skypointventures.com
SLOAN VENTURES 430 N. Old Woodward Ave. Birmingham 248-540-9660 sloanventures.com
SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN
FIRST LIFE SCIENCE FUND 261 E. Kalamazoo Ave., Ste. 200 Kalamazoo 269-553-9588 southwestmichiganfirst.com
SPECTRUM HEALTH VENTURES 221 N. Michigan St. NE, Ste. 501 Grand Rapids 616-281-6720 spectrumhealth.org
TAMARIND HILL 220 E. Huron St., Ste. 650 Ann Arbor tamarind-hill.com
TAPPAN HILL VENTURES 425 N. Main St. Ann Arbor 734-355-7399 tappanhillventures.com
TGAP VENTURES 7171 Stadium Dr. Kalamazoo 269-217-1999 tgapvcfunds.com
THIRD SHORE GROUP 25909 Meadowbrook Rd. Novi 248-291-7758 thirdshoregroup.com
TKM VENTURES MANAGEMENT 706 Dornoch Dr. Ann Arbor 734-369-3456 tkm-ag.com
TRANSHUMAN CAPITAL Ann Arbor trasnsumancapital.com
TROUT CREEK VENTURES Grand Rapids troutcreekventures.com
VENTURE INVESTORS
HEALTH FUND 201 S. Main St., Ste. 900
Ann Arbor 734-274-2904 ventureinvestors.com
VINEYARD CAPITAL GROUP 26111 W. 14 Mile Rd. Franklin 248-415-8000 vineyardcap.com
VOYLET CAPITAL 719 Griswold, Ste. 820-101 Detroit 734-788-4199 voyletcapital.com
WAKESTREAM VENTURES 40 Pearl St. NW, Ste. 200 Grand Rapids wakestreamventures.com
WHITE PINES VENTURES 2401 Plymouth Rd., Ste. B Ann Arbor 734-747-9401 whitepines.com
WOLVERINE VENTURE FUND 701 Tappan Ave., R3200 Ann Arbor 734-615-4419 zli.umich.edu/programs-funds
Sources: Michigan Venture Capital Association, DBusiness research
248-792-3644 bluewaterep.com
BRIDGE STREET CAPITAL PARTNERS 171 Monroe Ave. NW, Ste. 410 Grand Rapids 616-732-1051 bridgestreetcapital.com
CAMELOT VENTURE GROUP 27725 Stansbury St., Ste. 175 Farmington Hills 248-741-5100 camelotvg.com
CHESTMORE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 43842 W. 12½ Mile Rd., Ste. 150 Novi 248-231-0900 chestmoror.com
CITG CAPITAL PARTNERS 354 Indusco Centre Troy Phone: NA citgcapital.com
COLFAX CREEK CAPITAL Birmingham 248-631-4620 colfaxcreek.com
ABUNDANT VENTURES 390 W. Dryden Rd. Metamora 248-812-2418 abundantventures.com
ALIDADE CAPITAL 40900 Woodward Ave., Ste. 250 Bloomfield Hills 248-593-7878 alidadecapital.com
AMERIVEST GROUP 119 Church St., Ste. 236 Romeo 877-745-1976 amerivestllc.com
ANDERTON INDUSTRIES 3001 W. Big Beaver Rd., Ste. 310 Troy
248-430-6650 andertonindustries.com
AR2 3600 Wabeek Dr. W Bloomfield Hills 812-418-0639 ar2.global
THE ASCENT GROUP 28 W. Adams, Ste. 800 Detroit 313-908-0476 ascentgroupmi.com
AUXO INVESTMENT PARTNERS 146 Monroe St. NW Grand Rapids 616-980-9810 auxopartners.com
AVENIR GROUP 380 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 314 Birmingham 248-594-6350 avenirgroupinc.com
BLACKEAGLE PARTNERS 6905 Telegraph Rd., Ste. 119 Bloomfield Hills 313-647-5340 blackeaglepartners.com
BLACKFORD CAPITAL 190 Monroe Ave. NW Grand Rapids 616-233-3161 blackfordcapital.com
BLUE WATER EQUITY PARTNERS 251 E. Merrill St., Ste. 202 Birmingham
CONCURRENCE CAPITAL HOLDINGS 1600 E. Beltline, Ste. 213 Grand Rapids 616-649-2510 concaphold.com
CORTEX GROUP 383 Elmington Ct. Canton 734-981-1027 answerthink.com
COVINGTON PARTNERS 1734 Crooks Rd. Troy 248-450-5900 covingtonllc.com
CRESCENT WAY CAPITAL PARTNERS 339 E. Liberty St. Ann Arbor 734-276-9914 crescenwaycapital.com
DEMPSEY VENTURES 40 Pearl St. NW, Ste. 1000 Grand Rapids 616-259-8430 dempseyventures.com
DETROIT VENTURE PARTNERS DIVERGENT 1555 Broadway St., 3rd Floor
Detroit Phone: NA detroit.vc
DIVERGENT CAPITAL 21411 CivicCenter Dr., Ste. 211 Southfield Phone: NA hello@divergentcapital.com
ENDURANCE VENTURES
121 W. Washington St., Ste. 400 Ann Arbor 734-994-3406 enduranceventures.com
EQUITY 11 2701 Cambridge Ct. Auburn Hills 248-377-8012
EVANS INDUSTRIES
200 Renaissance Center, Ste. 3150 Detroit 313-259-2266 eiihq.com
FRESH WATERS VENTURE FUND 7600 McCain Rd. Parma 517-914-8284 freshwater.ventures
GAL-MAR 32255 Northwestern Hwy., Ste. 290 Farmington Hills 248-522-6964 gal-mar.com
GR INVESTMENT GROUP 839 N. Rochester Rd. Clawson 248-588-3946
GRAND SAKWA CAPITAL 28470 13 Mile Rd., Ste. 220 Farmington Hills 248-855-5500 grandsakwa.com
GREENSTONE INVESTMENTS
2605 Greenstone Blvd. Auburn Hills 248-276-0800
GVD INDUSTRIES 3440 Windquest Dr. Holland 616-836-4067 gvdindustries.com
HIGHGATE 260 E. Brown St. Birmingham 248-385-5285
HURON CAPITAL PARTNERS 500 Griswold St., Ste. 2700 Detroit
313-962-5800 huroncapital.com
INVESTMICHIGAN 500 Griswold St., Ste. 1640 Detroit 313-244-0667 investmichigan.org
JACOB AND ROHN EQUITY 1345 Monroe Ave. NW, Ste. 410 Grand Rapids 616-710-1437
LAKE STREET CAPITAL
Detroit Phone: NA lakestreetcapital.com
LAKELAND VENTURES DEVELOPMENT
410 Lakeland St. Grosse Pointe 313-886-8370
LEAPFROG HOLDINGS
4984 Champlain Circle, Ste. 1800 West Bloomfield 248-432-2861 leapfrogholdings.com
LONG LAKE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
74 E. Long Lake Rd., Ste. 210 Bloomfield Hills 248-712-6160 longlakecapital.com
LONG POINT CAPITAL 26700 Woodward Ave. Royal Oak 248-591-6000 longpointcapital.com
LONGHOUSE PARTNERS Detroit 313-618-9735 longhousepartners.com
LORIENT CAPITAL 55 W. Maple Rd. Birmingham 248-247-3900 lorientcap.com
LV2 EQUITY PARTNERS 2013 W. Wackerly St., Ste. 200 Midland 989-631-2687 lv2partners.com
M GROUP 805 E. Maple Rd. Birmingham 248-540-8843 mgroupinc.com
M3 CAPITAL PARTNERS 5755 New King Dr., Ste. 210 Troy
248-247-3045 mcubedcp.com
MICHIGAN CAPITAL ADVISORS 39520 Woodward Ave., Ste. 205 Bloomfield Hills 248-590-2275 michigancapitaladvisors.com
MILLER CAPITAL PARTNERS 1441 W. Long Lake Rd., Ste. 100 Troy 248-901-1650 millercapital.com
MOTORING VENTURES 29155 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield 248-795-5469 motoringventures.com
NEW CENTURY INVESTMENTS
1 Towne Square, Ste. 1690 Southfield 248-262-3140
NORTHSTAR CAPITAL 100 Jackson St., Ste. 206 Jackson 517-783-5325 northstar-capital
O2 INVESTMENT PARTNERS 40900 Woodward Ave., Ste. 200 Bloomfield Hills 248-540-8040 o2investment.com
OAKLAND STANDARD CO. 280 W. Maple Rd., Ste. 305 Birmingham 313-701-7735 oaklandstandard.com
OTTAWA AVENUE PRIVATE CAPITAL 126 Ottawa Ave. NW, Ste. 500 Grand Rapids 616-454-4114 linkedin/company/ottawa-privatecapital/
PENINSULA CAPITAL PARTNERS
One Towne Square, Ste. 1400 Southfield 313-237-5104 peninsulafunds.com
RAINSTAR CAPITAL GROUP P.O. Box 140991 Grand Rapids 616-200-8677 rainstarcapitalgroup.com
RIVERSTONE GROWTH PARTNERS 6400 Telegraph Rd., Ste. 2000 Bloomfield Hills
248-430-7961 rgpequity.com
ROCKBRIDGE GROWTH EQUITY 1070 Woodward Ave. Detroit 313-373-7000 rbequity.com
SIGMA INVESTMENT COUNSELORS 186 E. Main St. Northville 248-223-0122 sigmainvestments.com
SIMON GROUP HOLDINGS 335 E. Maple Rd. Birmingham 313-662-3538 simongroupholdings.com
SOARING PINE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 335 E. Maple Rd. Birmingham 313-662-3538 simongroupholdings.com
SPEYSIDE EQUITY Ann Arbor 212-994-0308 speysideequity.com
STAGE 2 INNOVATIONS 26800 Haggerty Rd. Farmington Hills 248-536-1970 stage2innovations.com
STONE RIVER CAPITAL PARTNERS 261 E. Maple Rd. Birmingham 248-203-9840 stonerivercap.com
STRATFORD-CAMBRIDGE GROUP 801 W. Ann Arbor Trail, Ste. 235 Plymouth 734-667-1925 scgequity.com
STRENGTH CAPITAL PARTNERS 350 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 100 Birmingham 248-593-5800 strengthcapital.com
STURBRIDGE CAPITAL 280 N. Old Woodward Ave. Birmingham 248-220-8400 sturbridgecapital.com
SUPERIOR CAPITAL PARTNERS 500 Griswold St., Ste. 2320 Detroit 313-596-9600 superiorfund.com
TALON GROUP 400 Talon Centre Dr. Detroit 313-392-1000 talon.us
THORNLEA CAPITAL 380 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 205 Birmingham 248-225-3616 thornleacap.com
TILLERMAN AND CO. 59 Baynton Ave. NW Grand Rapids 616-443-8346 tillermanco.com
TMW ENTERPRISES 101 W. Big Beaver Rd., Ste. 800 Troy 248-844-1410 tmwent.com
TRANSPORTATION RESOURCE PARTNERS 2555 S. Telegraph Rd. Bloomfield Twp.
248-648-2101 trpfund.com
TRP CAPITAL PARTNERS 2555 S. Telegraph Rd. Bloomfield Twp. 248-648-2101 trpfund.com
TRUE NORTH EQUITY 477 S. Main St. Plymouth 248-890-3961 truenorthequity.com
UNION LAKE MANAGEMENT 7609 Locklin West Bloomfield Twp. 248-363-0080
VALSTONE PARTNERS 260 E. Brown St. Birmingham 248-646-9200 valstonepartners.com
VENTURE INVESTORS 201 S. Main St., Ste. 900 Ann Arbor
734-274-2904 ventureinvestors.com
VISION INVESTMENT PARTNERS 700 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 300 Birmingham 248-865-1515 visioninvpartners.com
VOLUTION CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 130 S. First St., Ste. 201 Ann Arbor 734-669-8260
THE WINDQUEST GROUP 201 Monroe Ave. NW, Ste. 500 Grand Rapids 616-459-4500 windquest.com
WOLVERINE CAPITAL PARTNERS 2478 Heronwood Dr. Bloomfield Hills 248-220-2200 wolverinecapital.com
AMHERST PARTNERS
255 E. Brown St., Ste. 120 Birmingham 248-642-5660 amherstpartners.com
ARBOR CAPITAL MARKETS Ann Arbor 734-678-0483 arborcapitalmarkets.com
BEACONVIEW CAPITAL 1002 N. Main St. Rochester 248-302-0671 beaconviewadvisors.com
BLUE RIVER FINANCIAL GROUP 1668 S. Telegraph Rd., Ste. 250 Bloomfield Hills 428-309-3730 goblueriver.com
BOULEVARD AND CO. 333 W. 7th St., Ste. 280 Royal Oak 313-230-4156 boulevardusa.com
CASCADE PARTNERS 29100 Northwestern Hwy., Ste. 405 Southfield 248-430-6266 cascade-partners.com
CHARTER CAPITAL PARTNERS 1420 Broadway St. Detroit 313-879-2565 chartercapitalpartners.com
COWEN 300 Park St., Ste. 480 Birmingham 248-594-0400 cowen.com
FINNEA GROUP 34977 Woodward Ave., Ste. 210 Birmingham 248-792-3000 finneagroup.com
GREENWICH CAPITAL GROUP 189 Townsend St., Ste. 200 Birmingham 248-480-2030
greenwichgp.com
P&M CORPORATE FINANCE INC. 2 Towne Square Southfield 248-223-3300 pmcf.com
PAINT CREEK CAPITAL PARTNERS 755 W. Big Beaver Rd. Troy 248-792-3544 paintcreekpc.com
PENDO ADVISORS
400 Renaissance Center, Ste. 2600 Detroit 313-309-7134 pendoadvisors.com
UHY CORPORATE FINANCE 719 Griswold St., Ste. 630 Detroit 313-964-8311 uhy-us.com
Source: DBusiness research
TALBERT “TED” AND LEOTA
ABRAMS FOUNDATION 271 Woodland Pass East Lansing 517-853-6900 the-abrams-foundation.org
ALLEN FOUNDATION 812 W. Main St. Midland 989-832-5678
BAIARDI FAMILY FOUNDATION 2328 Pinecrest St. Harbor Springs 231-526-8395 baiardifoundation.org
(GUIDO A. AND ELIZABETH H.)
BINDA FOUNDATION 15 Capital Ave. NE, Ste. 205 Battle Creek 269-968-6171 bindafoundation.org
COOK FAMILY FOUNDATION 120 W. Exchange St., Ste. 202 Owosso 989-725-1621 cookfamilyfoundation.org
WILLIAM DAVIDSON FOUNDATION P.O. Box 1688 Birmingham 248-788-6500 williamdavidson.org
(DOUGLAS AND MARGARET)
DECAMP FOUNDATION 3485 W. M 179 Hwy. Hastings 616-945-4700
(DANIEL AND PAMELA)
DEVOS FOUNDATION P.O. Box 230257 Grand Rapids 616-643-4700 dpdevosfoundation.org
(DICK AND BETSY) DEVOS FOUNDATION P.O. Box 230257 Grand Rapids 616-643-4700 dbdevosfoundation.org
(DOUGLAS AND MARIA)
DEVOS FOUNDATION P.O. Box 230257
Grand Rapids 616-643-4700 dmdevosfoundation.org
(HERBERT H. AND GRACE A.) DOW FOUNDATION 1018 W. Main St. Midland 989-631-2471 hhdowfoundation.org
(ALDEN AND VADA) DOW FUND 315 Post St. Midland 989-839-2740 avdowfamilyfoundation
(VERA AND JOSEPH)
DRESNER FUND 6960 Orchard Lake Rd. West Bloomfield Twp. 248-785-0299 dresnerfoundation.org
ERB FAMILY FOUNDATION 215 S. Center St., Ste. 100 Royal Oak 248-498-2503 erbff.org
(JOHN E.) FETZER INSTITUTE 9292 W. KL Ave. Kalamazoo 269-375-2000 fetzer.org
(MAX M. AND MARJORIE S.) FISHER FOUNDATION Two Towne Square, Ste. 920 Southfield 248-415-1444 mmfisher.org
FORD FOUNDATION 320 E. 43rd St. New York, NY 212-573-5000 fordfoundation.org
FORD MOTOR CO. FUND 1 American Rd. Dearborn Phone: NA fordfund.org
FREY FOUNDATION 40 Pearl St. NW, Ste. 1100 Grand Rapids 616-451-0303 freyfdn.org
GENERATIONS MANAGEMENT
13919 SW Bayshore Dr. Traverse City 231-946-8772 generationsmgnt.com
HAGERMAN FOUNDATION 601 S. Saginaw St. Flint 810-285-9223 thehagermanfoundation.org
(EDWARD AND JUNE) KELLOGG FOUNDATION 1250 Byron Rd. Howell 517-546-3330
W.K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION Battle Creek 269-968-1611 wkkf.org
(JAMES S. AND JAMES L.) KNIGHT FOUNDATION
440 Burroughs, Ste. 380 Detroit 305-908-2600 knightfoundation.org
LAIDLAW FAMILY FOUNDATION 314 Newman St. East Tawas 989-362-9117 laidlawfoundation.org
(RICHARD AND JANE) MANOOGIAN FOUNDATION 21001 Van Born Rd. Taylor 313-792-6246
MCGREGOR FUND 333 W. Fort St., Ste. 2090 Detroit 313-963-3495 mcgregorfund.org
MEIJER FOUNDATION 80 Ottawa Ave. NW, Ste. 101 Grand Rapids 616-453-6711 meijercommunity.com
MORLEY FAMILY FOUNDATION
P.O. Box 2485 Saginaw 989-753-3438 morleyfdn.org
(CHARLES STEWART) MOTT FOUNDATION 503 S. Saginaw St., Ste. 1200 Flint 810-238-5651 mott.org
(RUTH) MOTT FOUNDATION 111 E. Court St., Ste. 3C Flint 810-233-0170 ruthmottfoundation.org
R.E. OLDS FOUNDATION P.O. Box 4900 East Lansing 517-402-1009 reoldsfoundation.org
(SUZANNE UPJOHN DELANO PARISH) FOUNDATION 211 S. Rose St. Kalamazoo 269-388-9800
PORTER FAMILY FOUNDATION 212 W. Summit St. Ann Arbor 313-881-0500
REID FAMILY FOUNDATION 3159 Alco Dr. Waterford 248-766-3738 reidff.org
RUSSELL FAMILY FOUNDATION 333 W. Fort St., Ste. 2010 Detroit
313-961-6675, ext. 118 cfsem.org/organization/Russell-familyfoundation
SCHAAP FOUNDATION P.O. Box 75000, MC 3302 Detroit 313-222-3568
CHARLES J. STROSACKER FOUNDATION 812 W. Main St. Midland 989-832-0066 strosacker.org
TAUBMAN FOUNDATION 200 E. Long Lake Rd., Ste. 190 Bloomfield Hills alfredtaubman.com
(HARRY A. AND MARGARET) TOWSLEY FOUNDATION 240 W. Main St. Midland 989-837-1100 towsleyfoundation.org
TUMMALA CHARITABLE FOUNDATION 1240 Woodkrest Dr. Flint 810-733-8673
(HAROLD AND GRACE) UPJOHN FOUNDATION 300 S. Westnedge Ave. Kalamazoo 269-385-0439 haroldandgraceupjohnfoundation.org
VAN ELSLANDER FAMILY FUND 6500 E. 14 Mile Rd. Warren 586-939-0800 vanelslanderfoundation.org
WALTERS FAMILY FUND P.O. Box 370 Midland 248-205-1390 waltersffmi.org
WILLIAMS FAMILY FUND 380 N. Old Woodward Ave. Birmingham 248-642-0333
KAREN COLINA WILSON FOUNDATION P.O. Box 728 Grosse Ile Phone: NA kcwf.org
MATILDA R. WILSON FUND 1901 St. Antoine St., 6th Floor Detroit 313-392-1040
RALPH C. WILSON, JR. FOUNDATION 3101 E. Grand Blvd. Detroit 313-885-1895 ralphwilsonjrfoundation.org
Source: DBusiness research
ANN ARBOR ANGELS
201 S. Division St., Ste. 430 Ann Arbor Phone: NA annarborangels.org Mission: Invest in young companies with breakthrough products or services while sharing expertise, providing mentoring, and facilitating connections to the broader marketplace.
ARK ANGEL FUND 30095 Northwestern Hwy., Ste. 101 Farmington Hills 248-851-1200 arkangelfund.com
Mission: The fund invests in earlystage, startup, and other technologybased businesses, along with assisting in the development of such firms.
BELLE MICHIGAN IMPACT FUND
217 Lake Shore Rd. Grosse Pointe Farms Phone: NA bellefunds.com
Mission: Provide superior returns for investors while serving the earlystage capital needs of companies led by women.
BLUEWATER ANGELS INVESTMENT NETWORK 1320 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 6 Saginaw bluewaterangels.com
Mission: Recognize the value of supporting and nurturing the entrepreneurial community for the economic benefit of mid-Michigan and Michigan in general.
CAPITAL COMMUNITY ANGEL INVESTORS 1181 Ridgewood Dr. East Lansing 517-242-0972
Mission: Introduce qualified entrepreneurs to member investors, focusing on disruptive early-stage investments that offer a sustainable competitive advantage.
COMMUNE ANGELS
440 Burroughs St., Ste. 631 Detroit Phone: NA communeangels.com
Mission: To expand access to angel investing and capital investing in scalable consumer, enterprise, and life science companies that transform lives. Diversity is essential to transformative innovation, and members are committed to contributing their experiences, relationships, and resources to drive better outcomes for investors, portfolio companies, and their customers.
GRAND ANGELS
40 Pearl St., Ste. 336 Grand Rapids 616-566-1770 grandangels.org Mission: Invest in new ideas that will have a positive effect on the world, focusing on west Michigan and border states.
GREAT LAKES ANGELS 568 Woodway Ct., Ste. 1 Bloomfield Hills Phone: NA glangels.org
Mission: Provide funding to capitalefficient, early-stage companies located in the Midwest.
KA-ZOO ANGELS
40 Pearl St. NW, Ste. 336 Grand Rapids 616-566-1770 grandangels.org
Mission: Measure impact through business growth, job creation, and the attraction to and retention of talent in west Michigan. (This is an affiliate of Grand Angels.)
MICHIGAN ANGEL FUND
201 S. Division, Ste. 430 Ann Arbor Phone: NA miangelfund.com
Mission: Provide funding to the most promising, capital-efficient, earlystage companies in Michigan.
MICHIGAN CAPITAL NETWORK 37 Ottawa Ave. NW Grand Rapids
616-566-1770 michigancapitalnetwork.com Mission: Through prompt investment and constant monitoring, assist entrepreneurs who want to establish world-class businesses.
MUSKEGON ANGELS
200 Viridian Dr. Muskegon Phone: NA muskegonangels.com Mission: Find, fund, and mentor great young companies, from pitch through successful exit, with a priority on job creation and development in the Muskegon area.
POINTE ANGELS Grosse Pointe Phone: NA
WOODWARD ANGELS 616-566-1779 woodwardangels.com Mission: Invest in tech and digitally scaling companies in and around Detroit at the pre-seed and seed stage.
Sources: Michigan Venture Capital Association, DBusiness research
ANN ARBOR SPARK
330 E. Liberty St. Ann Arbor 734-761-9317 annarborusa.org Mission: Advance the economy of the Ann Arbor area by establishing it as a desired place for innovation and growth.
DEARBORN ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 16901 Michigan Ave., Ste. 6 Dearborn 313-943-2180 cityofdearborn.org Mission: Business retention, attraction, and investment; improving neighborhoods; contributing to a high quality of life.
DETROIT ECONOMIC GROWTH CORP. 500 Griswold St., Ste. 2200 Detroit
313-963-2940 degc.com Mission: Design and implement innovative solutions that attract investment, create jobs, and advance Detroit’s economy for all residents.
FLINT COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 1101 S. Saginaw St. Flint 810-766-7015 cityofflint.com Mission: To improve the quality of life for all residents of the city of Flint through the creation of safe and healthy neighborhoods, and promoting a growing and diverse economy.
GRAND TRAVERSE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP. 202 E. Grandview Parkway Traverse City 231-995-7108 grandtraverseedc.com
Mission: To help grow, retain, and expand businesses in the Grand Traverse region.
LANSING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP. 1000 S. Washington Ave., Ste. 201 Lansing 517-702-3387 lansingmi.gov Mission: Attract, expand, and retain business and industry in the city of Lansing.
LIVONIA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
33000 Civic Center Dr. Livonia 734-466-2200 livonia.gov
Mission: The retention and expansion of existing Livonia businesses, and attracting new business.
MICHIGAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP. 300 N. Washington Square Lansing 888-522-0103 michiganbusiness.org Mission: Market Michigan as the place to do business, assist businesses in their growth strategies, and foster the growth of vibrant communities across the state.
THE RIGHT PLACE 125 Ottawa Ave. NW, Ste. 450 Grand Rapids 616-771-0325
rightplace.org Mission: To build the next chapter in west Michigan’s growth story.
STARTUPNATION 34300 Woodward Ave., Ste. 200 Birmingham 1-866-59-STARTUP startupnation.com Mission: Provide resources and services to start and grow a business.
STERLING HEIGHTS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 6633 18 Mile Rd. Sterling Heights
586-884-9322 sterling-heights.net Mission: Attract, expand, and retain business and industry.
WESTLAND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 36300 Warren Rd. Westland 734-467-3264 cityofwestland.com Mission: To provide leadership in the retention, expansion, and attraction of businesses.
Source: DBusiness research
ADVANCE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
1 Towne Square, Ste. 800 Southfield 800-345-4783 acadviser.com
AZIMUTH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 200 E. Long Lake Rd., Ste. 160 Bloomfield Hills 248-433-4000 azimuthcap.com
BLOOM ASSET MANAGEMENT 31275 Northwestern Hwy., Ste. 145 Farmington Hills 248-932-5200 bloomassetmanagement.com
R.H. BLUESTEIN & CO. 260 E. Brown St., Ste. 100 Birmingham 248-646-4000 rhbco.com
CLARKSTON CAPITAL PARTNERS 91 W. Long Lake Rd. Bloomfield Hills 248-723-8000 clarkstoncapital.com
DEROY & DEVEREAUX 2000 Town Center, Ste. 2850 Southfield 248-358-3200 deroydevereaux.com
JAY A. FISHMAN LTD. INVESTMENTS 901 Wilshire Dr., Ste. 555 Troy
2488-740-9400 jaf-ltd.com
FORMULAFOLIO INVESTMENTS
89 Ionia NW, Ste. 600 Grand Rapids 888-562-8880 formulafolios.com
MAINSTAY CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 10775 S. Saginaw St. Grand Blanc 866-444-6246 mainstaycapital.com
MUNDER CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 480 Pierce St. Birmingham 248-647-9200 vcm.com
PLANTE MORAN FINANCIAL ADVISORS 27400 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield 248-352-2500 plantemoran.com
Q3 ASSET MANAGEMENT 2175 Cole St. Birmingham 248-566-1122 q3tactical.com
REHMANN CAPITAL ADVISORY GROUP 1500 W. Big Beaver Rd. Troy 866-799-9580 rehmann.com
RETIREMENT INCOME SOLUTIONS 2301 Platt Rd., Ste. 300 Ann Arbor 734-769-7727 risadvisory.com
SCHWARTZ AND CO. INVESTMENT ADVISORS 3707 W. Maple Rd., Ste. 3212 Bloomfield Hills 248-644-2701 gjsco.com
SEIZERT CAPITAL PARTNERS 34100 Woodward Ave. Birmingham 248-593-1500 seizertcapital.com
TELEMUS CAPITAL 2 Towne Square, Ste. 800 Southfield 248-827-1800 telemus.com
WORLD ASSET MANAGEMENT 411 W. Lafayette Blvd. Detroit 313-222-1227 worldasset.com
ZHANG FINANCIAL 101 W. Big Beaver Rd., 14th Floor Troy 269-325-1826 zhangfinancial.com
Source: DBusiness research
A mining company in Denver has proposed operating a gold and silver mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that could deliver untold riches, but the project has garnered the opposition of local residents, Native American tribes, and environmentalists.
BY NORM SINCLAIR | RUFFA VILLOTADespite a $100 million loss suffered by a Canadian company in its decades-long efforts to open a gold mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a Denver-based mining group is taking on the challenge of tapping into what geologists say are vast underground riches in the Back Forty Mine in Menominee County.
Worn down by battling local opposition both in Michigan and neighboring Wisconsin, and with two Michigan judicial rulings blocking their efforts, in 2021 Aquila Resources Inc. of Toronto threw in the towel after nearly two decades of trying to develop the mine in Lake Township, 15 miles west of Stephenson in the south central section of the U.P.
In December 2021, Aquila completed the sale of the 1,000-acre Back Forty site for $24 million to Gold Resources Corp. (GRC) in Denver, publicly traded as GORO on the New York Stock Exchange.
While gold and silver are the flashy objects drawing the most attention at the mine, geologists believe
LODE CENTRAL
Near the Menominee River in Lake Township in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Gold Resources Corp. of Denver seeks to mine deposits of gold, silver, zinc, copper, and other minerals, pending various government approvals.
there are also massive deposits of zinc, copper, and lead buried in the area. Since the last century, geologists have identified the ancient, mineral-rich Penokean Volcanic Belt in the U.P. as a depository for fortunes in gold, silver, and other minerals.
It’s estimated that the site contains 468,000 ounces of gold worth $259 million; zinc deposits of 512 million pounds; up to 86 million pounds of copper; 6.26 million ounces of silver; and 26 million pounds of lead.
This latest gold rush in the U.P. was touched off in 1999 by a local landowner who was deepening the well at his retirement home. Drillers brought up rock containing substances that turned out to be zinc and copper. Further exploration found the presence of gold and silver.
Unlike Aquila, which specializes in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties, GRC is no amateur when it comes to mining; the company owns the successful Don David Gold Mine in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The president and CEO of GRC, Allen Palmiere, has spent more than 35 years working the financial and operational aspects of mining worldwide. His experience covers mining in South Africa, Central America, Guyana, and Brazil, as well as 10 years in China.
According to its second quarter 2022 financial report, Gold Resources had net sales of $37 million in gold, silver, zinc, copper, and lead from the Mexican mine. The company reported a cash balance of $33 million after investing $15 million in
capital improvements and exploration. Of that amount, $3.1 million was spent on new feasibility studies and permitting for the Back Forty Mine.
Palmiere, who is Canadian, is aware of the history and the nature of the opposition to the Back Forty Mine and is determined not to imitate Aquila.
“The days of mining companies coming in and building a mine and totally ignoring their neighbors and doing whatever they want is long since over,” he says.
The major problems Aquila couldn’t overcome include the location of its sulfide ore mine site — 50 yards from the banks of the Menominee River — and the 2,000-foot by 2,500-foot open pit on the river, in which the ore would be processed with toxic chemicals.
Gold, silver, and the other materials would be extracted from the rock and ore using chemicals like sodium cyanide and mercury. The resulting residue, known as tailings — a toxic, slurpy mixture in the open pit — would be left exposed to the Menominee River, one of the largest and most important natural water systems in Michigan. The river basin drains more than 4,000 square miles of the U.P. and northern Wisconsin, and separates Michigan from Wisconsin.
Another flash point was the fate of River Road, which runs beside the waterway and above the ore body. Aquila proposed digging up the road, a move that was vehemently opposed by Lake Township officials and the Menominee Road Commission.
The most emotionally charged opposition, however, comes from the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, for whom the river is a sacred religious and cultural site. The five clans of the Menominee Nation trace their creation to the mouth of the river. The tribe says the mine site sits on their ancestral homeland, which was ceded to Michigan in the Treaty of 1836, and is home to numerous sacred sites and burial mounds up and down the Menominee River.
The switch from Aquila to GRC doesn’t impress tribal Chairman Ronald J. Corn Sr. “The Menominee were not afforded the opportunity to give our free, prior, and informed consent as to the siting of the mine, nor its impacts on the land, plants, and wildlife which form the body of our cultural traditions and modern cultural practices,” Corn said in a release. “As such, it is our firm position that the Back Forty Mine
Estimates show the Back Forty site contains 468,000 ounces of gold valued at $259 million, along with sizeable deposits of silver, zinc, copper, and lead. The minerals were discovered in 1999 by a local landowner.
still lacks the social license to operate regardless of who the developer of the mine happens to be.”
Supporting Corn’s position is the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest and largest American Indian and Alaska Native organization, founded in 1944. The 12 tribes in the United Tribes of Michigan also oppose the mine.
Palmiere says he has and will continue to make efforts to reach out to the Menominee Tribe. He’s awaiting a response to a letter he recently sent to Chairman Corn. In the meantime, the mine’s feasibility study is being revised to address the concerns of tribal members and their supporters, he says.
Included in the changes GRC is proposing is moving the mine eastward 150 yards, to a spot 200 yards away from the river. That move would also leave River Road intact, he says. The handling of the tailings pit waste is also being addressed.
“The tailings pit we’re proposing is much smaller and most of the mining processing will be underground,” Palmiere says. “The tailings pit will be 15 percent to 20 percent smaller, and much shallower that the one Aquila proposed.”
The toxic tailings waste won’t be left in a pond to degrade, Palmiere adds.
“We employ a dry stack method where we filter the water out of it and the dry material is stacked, and as we raise it into a hill, we cap it and seal it with topsoil and vegetate it,” he says. “When it’s grown in, it will look like other hills around it. What little water that remains we will treat and dispose of. This is a much better way of treating tailings, and it’s the method we use at our gold mine in Mexico.”
Another significant change is reducing the size of wetlands impacted from the 26 acres in Aquila’s plan to less than an acre of what Palmiere refers to as “identifiable” wetlands. The disruption of wetlands was the issue that harpooned Aquila’s effort to obtain operating permits from the State of Michigan. It was also the issue on which an administrative law judge in Haslett, and an Ingham County Circuit judge in Lansing, ruled against Aquila.
Palmiere says Gold Resources projects that its feasibility study will be ready for submission to the state early this year. Allowing another eight to 12 months for the permitting process, and a similar amount of time for possible court challenges, work could begin on the Back Forty Mine in two years, he predicts.
Previous estimates, including one by Aquila, put the cost of the buildout at $294 million. Palmiere said he doesn’t yet know what the cost will be, as his team is significantly revising the project.
“There’s a sort of rule of thumb that you need 40 percent by way of equity and 60 percent by way of debt, and given our very robust cash flow coming from Mexico, cash on hand, and additional sources, we feel very confident we will be able to fund this project with our internal finances and financing from a third-party lender,” he says.
The mine project has the support of some state lawmakers, including Sen. Wayne Schmidt (R-Traverse City). In 2022, state Sens. Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan), along with Reps. Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain), Greg Markkanen (R-Hancock), John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs), and Sara Cambensy (D-Marquette), all representing the Upper Peninsula, issued a joint statement praising the Department of Natural Resources for renewing the metallic mineral lease for the mine.
They point to the 350 skilled trades jobs needed for the two-year construction of the mine, including iron workers, operators, electricians, carpenters, and painters. When the mine comes online, officials believe it will employ some 240 mining and business professionals.
In the past five years, Cambensy has championed mining in the U.P. She has successfully introduced numerous bills, passed into law, that she says will strengthen and expand mining in the U.P., protect the environment, and reward companies practicing safe mining techniques.
She says such legislation is especially timely with the national campaign to switch from fossil fuels to electric power. “You can’t be an advocate for climate change while opposing mining, because a green economy depends on digging up exponentially more minerals to make that transition,” she said in a recent radio station interview.
That argument doesn’t move Jean Stegeman, the City of Menominee’s mayor for more than 10 years. “Let me be as concise as possible: I am dead set against this mine. I know we need these metals for some of the things we use, but just because you found these resources it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea,” she says. “And I know this can sound like a notin-my-backyard thing, but the potential for disaster is frightening. When something bad happens people will look back and say, What where you all thinking?”
Stegeman says treating sulfide ore in the open tailings pit creates toxins like sulfuric acid, which can leach into the river and ground water tables.
“The Menominee River feeds into Green Bay, where the City of Menominee and the City of Marinette, across the river, have their drinking water intakes,” she says. “We draw surface water there. This is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Stegeman says she also stands with the Menominee Tribe and their objections to the mine. “These are
Gold Resources Corp.’s plans to establish a gold mine near the Menominee River is favored by some state legislators, but has drawn opposition from many local politicians from Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as several Native American tribes.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula powered the Industrial Revolution and today is a source of minerals needed to build lithium-ion batteries.
BY NORM SINCLAIR
After copper was discovered in the Upper Peninsula in 1841, the Centennial Mine began operating in 1863 and stayed in business through 1966. Above, a geologist inspects rock samples in 1956. Below, a group from the Mining History Association gathers at the Eagle Mine in 2019. The operation opened in 2014 in Marquette County and is America’s only nickel mine.
he first great mining boom in the country wasn’t the 19th century California gold rush; rather, it was a copper stampede in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that was sparked by a report describing rich lodes of the mineral. The report was delivered in 1841 to the state Legislature by chief geologist Douglass Houghton.
In the following years, thousands of prospectors and explorers found their way to the U.P. and the Keweenaw Peninsula, along what is now known as the Copper Range on the Lake Superior shoreline, according to Michigan State University researchers.
Their discoveries — more than 5 million tons of copper were mined from 1845 to 1969, when the mines shut down — are credited with fueling the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Houghton’s most intriguing discovery, though, was his find of gold while on an expedition in the U.P. in 1845. Writing in Michigan Conservation Magazine in 1945, geologist Franklin G. Pardee relayed that Houghton left a copper camp with a Native American and later returned with specimens of rich gold ore.
Fearing his crew would desert their mining jobs to search for gold, Houghton kept the find a secret, revealing it only to his close friend, local prospector Samuel W. Hill, who’s said to have been immortalized in the euphemism: “What the Sam Hill.”
Tragically, a few days later, Houghton drowned at age 36 when his boat was swamped during a storm on Lake Superior. “He either did not make any notes of the location of this gold ore, or they were destroyed with him,” Pardee wrote in the magazine. It’s not known if Hill ever revealed the location.
In his short career, Houghton was a medical doctor, a professor at the University of Michigan, and a one-term mayor of his hometown, Detroit. The city of Houghton, Houghton Lake, Houghton County, and Douglass Houghton Falls near Calumet were named after him.
Since his time, mining no longer dominates the U.P. The largest industries today are real estate, manufacturing, and health care. The lure of gold, though, remains seductive, even as minerals such as nickel are becoming more valuable.
The Eagle Mine, which opened in 2014 in Marquette County, is America’s only nickel mine, and a critical national resource in the burgeoning lithium-ion battery industry that powers electric vehicles. The other active mine in Marquette County is the Tilden iron mine, which opened in 1989.
The U.P.’s longest running gold mine was the Ropes Mine, north of Ishpeming in Marquette County; it operated on and off from 1883 until 1991. Over its lifetime, the mine produced almost $1 billion worth of gold.
In 2023, a Canadian-based company is planning to open the new Highland Copper Mine in northern Gogebic County. The company also plans to revive the nearby White Pine copper and silver mine, which operated from 1955 until it closed in 1995. The 13 miles of underground operations produced 4 billion pounds of copper and 45 million ounces of silver.
people who have been there for hundreds of years and we should listen to their concerns,” she says.
While the mayor admits the eight-member Menominee City Council is split on their support of the mine, she says eight counties, including her own, have passed resolutions opposing the project. As for the 240 permanent jobs projected for the mine, she says those positions won’t go to local workers, but to outside mining specialists.
The most visible group opposing the Back Forty gold mine is the Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River Inc., a formidable grass roots movement co-founded in 2017 by Dale Burie and his wife, Lea Jane. They’ve built a force of support from Native American groups on both sides of the river, as well as environmental activists, residents, and concerned citizens from around the state and country alarmed by the possible pollution of the river.
Dale Burie grew up in the area and graduated from Stephenson High School before following his music calling to Nashville, Tenn., where he worked as a musician and promoter. Lea Jane, also a musician, sang backup for music stars including Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, and Merle Haggard.
When the couple retired, they moved back to the U.P. and built their retirement home near the Menominee River. In addition to concerns for their riverfront property, they said they were especially moved by the deep reverence for the river displayed by the Menominee Tribe.
A partner in the coalition is Guy Reiter, a community organizer from the Menominee Tribe who serves as executive director of Menikanaehkem Inc., a nonprofit group of “community builders.” Reiter’s organization is based on a reservation in the Village of Keshena, north of Green Bay, where it supports sustainable projects in the region.
The eight-member Menominee City Council is split on their support of Gold Resource’s proposal for the Back Forty project. Eight counties oppose the effort, including Menominee County.
In the past five years the partnership has raised community awareness of the mine through media campaigns, parades, bridge walks over the river between Menominee and Marinette, and 5K walk-a-thon festivals, all the while raising money for legal fees to block the mine.
Those efforts, detailed on the coalition website, have drawn national attention as well as acclaim from around the world.
“There’s never been a successful sulfide ore mine that hasn’t contaminated the waters of its region or its chemistry,” Burie says. “This doesn’t happen in the mining action itself, but in the reaction to the cyanide used to leach out the minerals from the sulfide ore. This deposit runs parallel to the Menominee River.”
He acknowledges that mining is embedded in the history of the U.P. The location of the sulfide ore vein alongside the river is the dynamic that changes the equation, he says.
Burie says liquefaction of the chemicals in the tailings pit from exposure to the atmosphere eventually will find a weak point in the dam, allowing toxic material to escape into creeks and valleys, and eventually into the river.
Such a failure occurred in Brazil in 2019, when an iron ore tailings dam collapsed and the resulting mud slide killed more than 300 people at the mine site and beyond. That mining company was responsible for a similar disaster at another mine in 2015 that killed 19 people and devastated a river.
Burie says he isn’t convinced Gold Resources can rework the project to make the mine safe. “Although they’re saying they’re going to come back with a new and improved mine design, I haven’t seen that yet,” he says.
He acknowledges that the dry stack method proposed by GRC to handle tailings “is somewhat safer,” but because it’s more expensive, he’s skeptical about the company following through.
Last April, Burie and his wife, along with Al Gedicks, a prominent tailings mine critic and environmentalist from Wisconsin, met for two hours with Palmiere and Kim Perry, Gold Resources’ CFO.
Burie says that as Gedicks explained the Michigan state permitting process, Palmiere and Perry incorrectly believed that Aquila had obtained four of the five necessary permits to open the mine. “They said they were going to proceed with the Back Forty project and we told them we would definitely stand in opposition and we are prepared,” Burie says. “We have an environmental attorney staff that’s very good, and if it goes to court, we’re prepared to do so.”
Palmiere describes the meeting as informative, and says he agreed to further meetings and taking part in a public forum when the mine plans are formalized.
Green Bay MenomineeGold Resources states it is working with the local community and the people directly impacted by the project in its bid to win approvals to operate the Back Forty Mine.
Another hurdle GRC may need to overcome is the possible reclassification of the Menominee River as a navigable waterway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Menominee Tribe is petitioning the Corps to update a 1979 designation and declare the entire Menominee River as a federal navigable waterway. That label, which already applies to the Wisconsin side of the river, would place the entire river basin under federal jurisdiction — making it subject to the Clean Water Act under the Environmental Protection Agency. It would also rescind Michigan’s sole authority over the mining permitting process.
The river is already deemed navigable from Green Bay two-and-a-half miles up the mouth of the river on the Wisconsin side to the Interstate Bridge, Burie says, facilitating traffic to and from the Marinette Marine Shipyard, where ocean-going war vessels are built.
The five-mile-long steel suspension bridge between the two states carries U.S.-41 over the river, connecting the cities of Marinette and Menominee.
A year-long public comment period on the petition ended July 20. Burie says the Coalition turned over to the Army Corps 253 letters it received supporting the petition.
Gedicks, an environmental sociologist, Indigenous rights activist, and author, is an emeritus professor of environmental sociology at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He’s also the executive secretary of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, a statewide environmental organization that opposes metallic sulfide mining projects in the upper Midwest.
He says changing the designation of the river to navigable will have repercussions beyond giving the EPA jurisdiction over the mine project.
“If the EPA has a greater decision-making role in the project, that would mean that the Tribe, for the first time, would have the ability to argue under the National Historic Preservation Act that the excavation of the mine would endanger their traditional cultural resources,” Gedicks says. “That issue has never been on the agenda of Michigan because Michigan doesn’t abide by federal regulations as the sole permitting authority for the mine.”
Gedicks says after blowing $100 million with nothing to show for it, Aquila Resources was nearly bankrupt when it went looking for new investments in 2021. “They sent out their financials and background on the project to over 30 investors, and none of them took the opportunity to invest in the project,” he says.
He adds Aquila’s version of the events in its sales pitch was that the wetlands permit setbacks were due to technicalities, and a new permitting process will be relatively easy and inexpensive to pursue. “None of those assumptions are accurate,” Gedicks says. “So, this project is proceeding on the basis of a false narrative that isn’t reflective of the grass roots opposition to the project.”
Regardless of how GRC proceeds, the Back Forty Mine is still a sulfide ore operation that will have potentially grave consequences, Gedicks says. “The value of the ore body discounts the environmental effects of storing 50 million tons of mine waste on the surface,” he says. “It also doesn’t consider the environmental and economic cost of maintaining that structure in perpetuity.”
Palmiere cites his international experience as a bedrock underpinning the company’s operating philosophy that will eventually win over skeptics.
“Anywhere in the world, whether it’s in the United States, Canada, Mexico, or Africa, you cannot build a mine without obtaining what’s known as your social license,” he says, ironically mirroring Chairman Corn’s comment. “And what that means is listening to and working with the local community and the people who are directly impacted by the mine. It’s fundamental to any mine anywhere in the world, and the U.P. is the same.
“Can we make everyone happy all of the time? No. But what we can undertake is to listen to their concerns and, to the greatest extent possible, accommodate or address those concerns in the way we design the mine and the way in which we operate the mine.”
he world’s largest privately-owned resort company began as a startup in 1947 in northern Michigan’s Charlevoix County when the owner of 40 acres of scrubland with a modest hill sold the parcel he said was useless for farming to 30-year-old Everett Kircher, a former Studebaker dealer from Detroit.
“Anybody damn fool enough to want to build a ski hill, well … I’ll give you this property,” William Pearson, a former Michigan state senator, said as he accepted $1 from Kircher for the hill that is now the popular Hemlock ski run at Boyne Mountain Resort.
Seventy-five years later, that humble hill near Boyne City has spawned 12 Boyne-owned resorts and recreation properties from Vancouver, Canada, across seven states to the Atlantic Coast in New England. Boyne Resorts also operates an apparel and equipment division, Boyne Country Sports, with stores at
Boyne Mountain, the Highlands at Harbor Springs, and five other Michigan cities, including Bloomfield Hills and Novi.
Another property in the Boyne sphere is the Victorian-style Inn at Bay Harbor on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay, as well as 10 golf courses in Michigan and courses at three of out-of-state resorts.
“We passed a half a billion dollars in sales last year,” says Stephen Kircher, son of Everett Kircher and president and CEO of Boyne Resorts. “I thought of dad when we crossed the half-a-billion mark. When he died (in 2002) we had just crossed $100 million. We’ve grown five-fold from when he passed away. We have 11,000 team members at peak times, with more than 2,000 in Michigan.”
Six and a half million people visit Boyne properties annually, 4 million of whom are skiers.
The company’s headquarters remains at Boyne
Mountain, and its properties include the Highlands at Harbor Springs; Big Sky Resort in Montana, founded by legendary newscaster Chet Huntley; Brighton Resort in Utah; Cypress Mountain, the 2010 Olympic Winter Games venue for skiing and snowboarding in Vancouver, British Columbia; The Summit at Snoqualmie in Washington; Loon Mountain in New Hampshire; and Pleasant Mountain, Sugar Loaf, and Sunday River resorts in Maine.
Boyne’s most remote and unlikely asset is a chairlift Everett Kircher introduced to the non-skiing South in Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 1953. The chairlift punches way above its weight. It’s a virtual cash register, churning out money seven days a week all year round. Revenue from the chairlift financed much of Boyne’s early growth and kept Boyne Mountain alive during perilous financial times, Kircher says.
Today that small two-person chairlift is gone,
Three generations of the Kircher family have built Boyne Resorts into a tourist mecca that spans northern Michigan, the United States, and Canada.Boyne Mountain Resort, left, offers panoramic views of Boyne Falls, Avalanche Bay Indoor Waterpark, two golf courses, and more. At right, Big Sky Montana in Big Sky, Mont., boasts multiple ski runs, the Solace Spa, the Mountain Sports School, and five hotels.
replaced by a three-person chair dubbed the Gatlinburg SkyLift. It whisks riders up 1,800 feet to the top of Crockett Mountain, which offers miles-long views of the Smoky Mountains.
In recent years, Boyne developed the SkyPark on the peak with a viewing deck and a café. In 2019 came the SkyBridge, the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America, stretching 680 feet across a valley and 500 feet above Gatlinburg.
In 1953, as Everett Kircher and his two partners were struggling to make a go of their fledging Boyne ski club, he received a phone call from Rellie Maples, the owner of a small hotel in Gatlinburg. Maples saw a story about Kircher and his Boyne ski area in a AAA magazine, and was impressed by Kircher’s expertise with chairlifts.
The hotel property backed up to Crockett Mountain and Maples suggested building a chairlift to take
paying guests and tourists from his backyard up to the top of the mountain.
Kircher was uninterested, but Maples was persistent. Eventually, Kircher’s father, John, who was intrigued by the idea, went to Gatlinburg, looked at the site, and encouraged his son to take Maples up on the offer.
“Grandpa went down and looked at it and came back and said this is going to be amazing,” Stephen Kircher says. “This is going to make you money, not that pie-in-the-sky hobby thing you’re doing up north.”
His father also had another reason for encouraging Everett to follow up on Maples’ idea. From a recently found trove of records in a box, the young Kircher learned how much his grandfather had been lending his son to keep his Boyne dream alive.
“When dad would always say, ‘I never borrowed money from a bank, I did it all by myself,’ he omitted
to say he borrowed from his mother and father,” Kircher says. “Every time he got into trouble, they bailed him out.”
An IOU note in the box for one of the loans Everett received from his parents was for $15,000, a small fortune in those days.
Everett Kircher eventually went out to California and bought a ski lift and chairs from a ski resort, dismantled it, and shipped it to Michigan. He rebuilt it in his father’s Studebaker dealership in Rochester and carted it to Gatlinburg. In 1954, he signed a 99-year lease to operate the lift, making Maples a very wealthy man.
“It made money immediately after it opened,” Kircher says. “It was a fantastic injection of cash, and dad was able to buy out his partners. We wouldn’t have survived without Gatlinburg doing well. From 1981 to 2003, when Boyne Mountain
HEADQUARTERS: PETOSKEY
PRESIDENT/CEO: STEPHEN KIRCHER
EMPLOYEES: 11,000 MICHIGAN RESORTS: 4 TOTAL RESORTS: 13 REVENUE: $500M+
• Cypress Mountain 6000 Cypress Bowl Rd. West Vancouver 604-926-5612
• Pleasant Mountain
119 Mountain Rd. Bridgton 207-647-8444
• Sugarloaf Resort 5092 Sugarloaf Access Rd. Carrabassett Valley 207-237-2000
Sugarloaf Golf Club – Sugarloaf Golf Course
• Sunday River 15 South Ridge Rd. Newry 800-543-2754
Sunday River Golf Club – Sunday River Golf Course
• Boyne Mountain Resort 1 Boyne Mountain Rd. Boyne Falls 855-688-7024
Boyne Mountain Golf – The Alpine, The Monument
• Boyne Country Sports Bloomfield Hills, Boyne Mountain, Grand Rapids, Novi, Traverse City
• Crooked Tree Golf Club 600 Crooked Tree Dr. Petoskey 888-483-4946
• The Highlands 600 Highland Dr. Harbor Springs 855-688-7022
The Highlands Golf – The Heather, Arthur Hills, Donald Ross Memorial, The Moor
• Inn at Bay Harbor 3600 Village Harbor Dr. Bay Harbor 855-351-4295
Bay Harbor Golf Club – Links/Quarry, Quarry/Preserve, Preserve/Links
MONTANA
• Big Sky Resort 50 Big Sky Resort Rd. Big Sky 800-548-4486
Big Sky Golf Course – Big Sky Golf Course
• Loon Mountain 60 Loon Mountain Rd. Lincoln 603-745-8111
• Brighton Resort 8302 South Brighton Loop Rd. Brighton 801-532-4731
WASHINGTON
• Summit at Snoqualmie 1000 WA-906 Snoqualmie Pass 425-434-7669
• Gatlinburg SkyLift Park 765 Parkway Gatlinburg 865-436-4307
BIG SPLASH Avalanche Bay Indoor Waterpark at Boyne Mountain Resort offers 88,000 square feet of rides, slides, activity pools, the Rip Zone Surf Simulator, the Lazy River Adventure, and more.
was losing money, we (wouldn’t have survived) survive without Gatlinburg.
“If the lift doesn’t happen, Boyne doesn’t exist. It transformed Boyne Mountain and allowed us to buy and develop the Highlands. It was the engine that gave us summer cash flow, and made us the longestrunning family ski resort.”
Over his career, Everett Kircher was acknowledged as one of the ski industry’s most innovative operators and inventors. He held numerous patents for his development of snow guns that made artificial snow and snow grooming equipment, along with the world’s first triple-chairlift at the Highlands resort in 1964.
In the same year, he introduced the first four-person chairlift at Boyne Mountain. Three decades later, the northern inventor debuted Michigan’s first high-speed detachable quad chairlift at the Highlands, and America’s first six-seat, high-speed chairlift at Boyne Mountain.
Stephen Kircher recalls when the development at Boyne Mountain peaked in the 1980s, the resort’s growth atrophied, and it was losing millions of dollars with a negative cash flow.
“We were subsidizing the Mountain. As my brother, John, famously said, we were burning furniture to keep the house warm, and that’s unsustainable as eventually you run out of furniture,” he says.
A major drawback for Boyne Mountain was an antiquated sewage system dating back to the 1960s. In a meeting discussing the problem, the wife of the general manager at the time pointed out that nearby Boyne City had plenty of excess sewage capacity and might entertain the idea of taking on the resort as a customer.
“We cut a deal within a month or two and got a Michigan grant for $365,000 to run a 6-inch pipe to Boyne City and we were off and running, building condos instead of shutting the whole resort down,” Kircher says. “We were at a crossroad. Shut the Mountain down, or turn it into a day ski area like Nub’s Knob, or go forward with a new business model. We took that third fork in the road.”
Kircher says the deal with Boyne City included a state grant. “That grant allowed us to make the leap and we invested $150 million into Boyne Mountain in subsequent years,” he says. “We sold a fair amount of condos (and) that was part of that capital. It’s truly a great example of a successful business transformation during a stressful time in our economy.”
Boyne moved onto the next major phase of development with the construction of the 220-unit Mountain Grand Lodge and Avalanche Bay, the state’s largest indoor water park.
The company had banked $35 million in condo sales to launch the project. “It wasn’t without its own drama,” Kircher reveals.
Nine months after breaking ground, work stopped as the construction loan fell through. For four years, as the family tried to figure out how to finance the project, the site remained an eyesore, a tangle of rusting steel girders greeting visitors to the resort.
Eventually, they found an investor in Gerald Forsythe, a wealthy Illinois-based industrialist and sportsman who was a major player in Indy Car racing; his team included Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One champion Gilles Villeneuve.
Kircher says Forsythe was interested in developing water parks, and became Boyne’s partner. His New Frontiers Capital financed the completion of the lodge and the water park. Forsythe would later purchase the Garland Resort in Lewiston.
After the passing of Kircher’s father in 2002, the company was run by his sons: John, the older son as president of western operations; and Stephen, president of eastern operations, which included the two resorts in Michigan and the company’s Big Sky jewel in Montana.
In 2007, Boyne began a relationship with CNL Income Properties, an Orlando-based real estate investment trust company (REIT) that invested in resort properties. Eventually Boyne would sell seven of its properties to CNL on a lease-buyback arrangement. In 2018, Boyne bought back the properties from CNL’s successor, a move that Stephen Kircher says freed Boyne to chart its own future.
“We were hamstrung for years with those leases, because the REITs owned the assets and we had to go to them to get capital to put into the resorts. If they didn’t want to put money in except for maintenance capital, they didn’t have to,” he says. “We had a lot of great projects that were sitting there in mothballs waiting for some future day when there was capital to do it. So we reacquired those resorts and got all the resorts on the same capital stack.”
Another major milestone for Boyne earlier in that period was Stephen Kircher’s ascension to the company’s top job. The eastern and western operation divisions were merged.
John Kircher left after purchasing Crystal Mountain, a popular Washington state ski resort owned by Boyne Resorts. One year later, he sold the resort without offering it back to Boyne, a move that still annoys Stephen Kircher.
In turn, Kathryn, the oldest of the siblings — who
IF THE 4,000 PEOPLE who showed up on a Saturday this past October just to walk across Boyne Mountain’s new SkyBridge Michigan in Boyne Falls is an indicator, the resort’s newest attraction will be a money-making complement to the company’s winter ski and summer golf revenue.
With a nod to the Mackinac Bridge, SkyBridge, longer than three football fields, is billed by Boyne as Michigan’s “second bridge.”
The company says it‘s the longest timber-towered suspension bridge in the world.
The structure spans 1,203 feet, dangles 118 feet in the air, and connects the peaks of McLouth and Disciples Ridge ski runs.
On that October opening day, pedestrians on the bridge were treated to a panoramic, dazzling show of orange, yellow, and red fall colors blazing across the valley below and in the forests covering the Charlevoix County hills around it. To further heighten the experience, there are 36 feet of clear glass panes in the walkway at the center of the bridge.
The Hemlock ski lift takes walkers to the top, near the entrance to the bridge and the Eagles Nest restaurant, now open year-round to accommodate bridge pedestrians.
Walkers can continue hiking after crossing the bridge, as it connects to the resort’s paved 17-trail system, or they can retrace their steps and ride the chairlift down. The structure is lighted and is open until 8 p.m.
The bridge has attracted national media coverage ranging from “Saturday Night Live” to “The Weather Channel.”
“It’s been crazy,” says Stephen Kircher, president and CEO of Boyne Resorts, describing the public reaction to the bridge. “We’ve had people come up from Texas to walk the bridge. They drove on up on Thanksgiving weekend to northern Michigan, which is the last thing you would think someone from Texas would spontaneously do with their family.”
The Boyne span is similar to one the company opened in 2019 at its SkyLift Park in Gatlinburg, Tenn. That bridge and a lookout park on a peak directly above downtown Gatlinburg are the latest additions to a novel chairlift attraction Boyne’s founder, Everett
Kircher, introduced to that Southern city more than six decades ago.
A seven-day operation, it’s one of the most popular attractions in the region, taking hundreds of thousands of riders each year on a nine-minute trip, 1,800 feet to the top of Crockett Mountain, to see miles-long views over the Great Smoky Mountains.
“One of our initiatives we’re developing we call ‘thrill with no skill,’ as we look for things for people to do that don’t require skills,” Kircher says, “Golf and skiing are heavy skill sports and are in a special niche because of that. The bridges allow us to draw a broader audience who simply love to be outdoors.”
Over the years, to prepare for SkyBridge, Boyne modernized a lift by adding three-person chairs, while building a sky deck and park at the top of the peak. Part of the investment came from the 680-foot-long Gatlinburg SkyBridge, which opened in 2019 and is the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge.
Both bridges were designed and built by Experiential Resources (ERi), based in Hawaii and Washington state. The company has 25 years of experience building suspension bridges, zip lines, and canopy tours.
The company’s CEO, Mandy Stewart, is co-owner of the company with Todd Domeck, a bridge designer and engineer. Stewart says SkyBridge Michigan is the largest project they’ve completed.
The company spent three months in design, another three months in prefabrication, and took a year to erect the bridge, Stewart says. The elongated timber for the towers is from Douglas fir, grown in Oregon but supplied locally by the resort’s neighbor, Matelski Lumber Co. in Boyne Falls.
Domeck says the exaggerated M in the Pure Michigan logo inspired his design of the 52-foot-high, 70-foot-long towers that anchor each end of the bridge. Each tower weighs 40,000 pounds and is seated in 2.5 million tons of concrete. The 5-foot walkways along the bridge slope down 30 feet from the ends to the middle.
“The top two cables are 3 inches in diameter, weigh 23,000 pounds, were made in Houston, and are proof-tested at 1.2 million pounds,” Domeck says.
Kircher says with the success of the Gatlinburg Bridge, he started looking around a few years ago for another location to duplicate it, including the U.S., South and Central America, and the Caribbean, without success.
“I started looking at Google Earth and it came up that the most likely site was right here on Boyne Mountain,” he says. “I called up ERi, sent them the Google Earth shot, and asked them if it was possible. They said yes, they could do it, and we did. We like doing cool things, and we like to set records.”
Norm SinclairAS PART OF A 10-YEAR MASTER PLAN, Boyne Resorts in Boyne Falls is retooling its hospitality and recreation divisions, while renovating and adding new attractions to its golf course portfolio.
Raymond Hearn, a golf course architect in Michigan, has been collaborating on current and future golf projects with Bernie Friedrich, Boyne’s longtime director of golf, who recently stepped down from his role as a company senior vice president to devote his time to upgrading the courses.
Boyne operates 10 golf courses around its two Michigan resorts, and one each at Big Sky Resort in Montana, and Sugarloaf Resort and Sunday River in Maine.
Friedrich says the Highlands at Harbor Springs, Big Sky, and Sugarloaf will each get a new par 3 course this year. Additionally, a Himalayan-style putting course and a new driving range are going in at Sugarloaf, while a 4-acre putting course is under consideration for Big Sky.
Hearn has retooled bunkers on the Moor and Hills courses at the Highlands, and is preparing master plans for changes on the Monument Course at Boyne Mountain and the Bay Harbor Golf Club in Petoskey.
“The short course will go in right behind the day lodge,” Friedrich says. “Our goal is to have 4,000 square feet of greens with no tee boxes, so players can have a lot of different angles to play from.”
Hearn says he and Friedrich, along with Stephen Kircher, president and CEO of Boyne Resorts, have drawn on their experiences
playing golf in the British Isles to design the new greens.
“We’re having a little bit of fun emulating our favorite greens from overseas,” says Hearns, while stressing that even though the greens will resemble a Redan, a Biarritz, and a Postage Stamp — names of iconic greens from legendary clubs — they won’t be exact replicas.
Even more ambitious is the work on The Donald Ross Memorial in Harbor Springs, a re-creation of some of the most famous holes designed by legendary golf architect Donald Ross. The 18-hole course was commissioned nearly 40 years ago as a salute to Ross at the Highlands by Boyne founder, Everett Kircher.
Friedrich says at that time, Boyne depended on primitive research tools like Polaroid pictures to capture the features of the holes they selected for the course.
“There weren’t the tools to get these golf holes as close (to the) original as we can now with technology,” he says. “With Google Earth, CAD (computer aided design), and drawings, it gives us a much better opportunity to get the holes right.”
Three holes have been redesigned and rebuilt so far. The first hole, modeled after No. 6 at the exclusive Seminole Golf Club in North Palm Beach, Fla., is almost unrecognizable for golfers who have played it in the past.
Trees were taken out to enlarge the fairway and open a new approach to the green. Large waste sand bunkers now flank both sides of the fairway, like they do at Seminole. Bunkers in the front of the green are smaller, and the once-narrow green is much larger and sloped at a 45-degree angle toward the fairway.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have gone to all those private Ross courses, so we want to make this course as close to the originals as possible so our customers who might not have a chance to play those courses can have that experience,” Friedrich says.
Norm SinclairThe Donald Ross Memorial at the Highlands in Harbor Springs re-creates some of the greatest holes conceived by Donald Ross, a legendary golf course designer.
was the company’s interior designer — was bought out, Kircher says. Amy Kircher Wright, the youngest sibling, remains chairman.
Gary Campbell, a golf club and commercial developer from Lansing, has known Kircher since the two competed against each other as teenagers at a U.S. Junior Amateur golf qualifying tournament at Meadowbrook Country Club in Northville Township.
He later became an adviser to Kircher in the development of the Bay Harbor Golf Club, the Inn at Bay Harbor, and other projects.
“I think Stephen’s love of golf and of skiing really makes him the perfect one to lead the company. He’s accomplished in both disciplines,” Campbell says. “He’s very cerebral and knows how to ask the right questions.”
Campbell says Kircher made Boyne an early booster of spikeless shoes on its golf courses, as well as adopting GPS yardage systems for golfers measuring shot distances.
“He’s always at the cutting edge of ski technology with parabolic skis and snowboards, as his dad was at chairlifts and snow-making,” Campbell says. “With Stephen growing up around those assets, he became very knowledgeable of not just the operations, but of the creation of them. He took what his father had created as a year-round concept and was able to escalate it and bring it up to a modern and national scale.”
Clarity of ownership and the reacquiring of the six resorts, along with the Gatlinburg operation, were critical in moving Boyne toward Kircher’s goal of being the country’s best four-season resort company.
“Those moves changed our capital structure because we could look at the whole company as a complete unit,” Kircher says.
The bond market where Boyne courts investors looked favorably on the streamlined management, he adds.
“Clarity in knowing where you’re going as a team
CHECKING IN Developer Gary Campbell and Stephen Kircher, president and CEO of Boyne Resorts, break ground on The Inn at Bay Harbor. The 116-room hotel opened in 1998.unleashed the power of those 11,000 people in the company, and with leadership, we’re doing some things that were hopes and dreams before,” he says. “We’re in the Golden Age of North American skiing and we’re in another Golden Age for Boyne, and it’s an exciting period to be part of this.”
He says the company’s focus isn’t on getting bigger, but on getting better. As a result, he says Boyne has less leverage on its balance sheet than at any time in its history. E-commerce tools that weren’t available 10 years ago are boosting revenue even higher.
In addition, the company’s national reach contributes to a healthy balance sheet.
“Geographic diversity is certainly one of the things we’ve been working toward, along with weather diversity and economic diversity,” he says. “Having assets in fast-growing communities like Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Tennessee is one of our strengths that has smoothed out our cash flow year in and year out. We are way, way less volatile than those resorts that may have a large footprint in one area.”
The scale and breadth of the company has enabled it to access higher levels of funding opportunities.
In April 2021, for example, Boyne Resorts announced a private offering to investors of $540 million in senior notes at 4.70 percent. That was followed in February 2022 by another $150 million offering on the same terms. “Because we’re private, and because every nickel goes back into the machine and into the business, we’re out-competing our competitors at this point in time,” Kircher says.
As part of a recent 10-year expansion program announced for each property, the company is installing six new chairlifts at four of its resorts. This represents the largest investment in North American skiing, according to ski industry analysts. Kircher declined to reveal the costs.
Four of the lifts, one of which is being installed on Boyne Mountain’s Disciples Ridge ski run, are
eight-passenger models, the first of that size on the continent, Kircher says.
At Big Sky, the final stage of what was announced as a $150 million expansion is underway. It includes a new tram and gondola to take skiers and sightseers 11,166 feet up the sheer vertical face of Lone Mountain.
For the first time, summer and pedestrian visitors will be able to reach the peak and see panoramic views of three states — Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho — as well as Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.
“It’s transformational for our business model in a huge way,” Kircher says. “We have 7, 8, 9 million people going past our doors every summer, and we hope to pull some of those folks into Big Sky.”
The gondola and tram, new hotels and restaurants, the bridges at Boyne Mountain and Gatlinburg, 13 first-class golf courses, canopy rides, zip-lining, hiking and mountain bike trails, tennis courts, and lacrosse fields, coupled with its varied skiing venues, moves Boyne closer to that all-season crown the company envisions.
The Highlands at Harbor Springs includes a Main Lodge that’s designed after an English country estate (shown). Other lodging offerings include Heather Highlands Inn, Alpine Village, Ross Cottages, Arthur Hills Townhomes, and more.
The 10-year expansion plan for Boyne Mountain and the Highlands are well underway at both resorts.
SkyBridge Michigan may have garnered the most publicity, but new technology for buying lift tickets will have more impact on skiers at both resorts. Instead of standing in a cold line at a ticket booth, visitors can now walk up to Go Card kiosks scattered around the resorts and purchase tickets or reload passes online.
In turn, an original feature at the Mountain, the 35-suite ski-in ski-out slope-side Chalet Edelweiss, has been renovated and transformed into a comfortable, European-inspired chalet with its own cozy living room and fireplace, along with a Nordic sauna.
Guests this year will be able to fly into Boyne Mountain day or night with the transformation of the resort’s landing strip into a modern airport facility. The runway is repaved, and new lighting and aeronautic technology to assist pilots have been installed.
The multi-million-dollar, eight-person chairlift for Disciples Ridge, meanwhile, will take more skiers more quickly to the top of the ski runs. Not far away, the Highlands has Camelot 6, a swift and quiet six-person lift that encloses riders in a tinted bubble while they sit on heated seats.
To help lower energy costs, in 2021 Boyne joined three of the country’s largest ski operators in signing on to the Climate Collaborative Charter, the industry’s first unified effort to combat climate change.
Evidence of that effort is a solar array field recently installed at Boyne Mountain. The field will supply power for more than 300 homes and condominiums.
Energy-saving measures were also included in a new wing of 80 European-style rooms and suites that were recently added at the Highlands, taking luxury to new levels with British fixtures and mirrors that light up to the touch, among other features.
“We like doing cool things. We like doing contrarian things. We like doing things that haven’t been done, or haven’t been done here in North America,” Kircher says. “We’re really trying to lead the transformation of the four-season resort industry in North America, and do it now at a pace and a breath that people take notice of.”
THE 2ND ANNUAL GOLDEN
Friday, January 20, 2023, 8 p.m. - 12 a.m.
Rochester Hills Banquet Center, 1919 Star-Batt Dr., Rochester Hills, MI 48309 eventbrite.com/e/the-golden-gala-tickets-458957021807
Golden Key Realty Group is proud to present our 2nd Annual Golden Gala for the benefit of the Shlama Foundation. A Casino Royale themed night full of fun, food, drinks, prizes, and more! This event will showcase vendors as well as many local businesses, all proceeds will go to the benefit of Shlama Foundation. The mission is to engage the diaspora to fund humanitarian aid and other projects to the the Chaldean/Assyrian/Syriac people of Iraq. Tickets are available for purchase now on Eventbrite.
Saturday, January 28, 2023, 7 p.m. - 12 a.m.
The Townsend Hotel, 100 Townsend St., Birmingham, MI 48009 kidsgala.org
Join KIDSgala, a David C. McKnight foundation, for its eighth annual fundraiser. This nonprofit organization, created in memory of Nicole Marie Burton, provides gifted celebrations for children who experience life-altering disabilities and illnesses. We are dedicated to bringing joy among children and their families in a unique way, tailored for their specific needs. Guests will enjoy the exquisite customized décor showcased by Emerald City Designs. There will be a hosted bar to accompany the gourmet cuisine. The evening’s emcee is Fox 2 News anchor Jay Towers, with entertainment by Jared Sykes. Please visit kidsgala.org for admission, donation, and sponsorship details.
Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
The Hub Stadium, 44325 W. 12 Mile Rd. H-160, Novi, MI 48377 awafoundation.org
Join Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation for a fun networking event that includes a chance to play Football Bowling, a spin on one of the newest sporting/entertainment concepts in Michigan that integrates the rules of horseshoes and cornhole while using the equipment of American football and bowling. Join us and meet other power players in the mobility sector! Please register by January 31, 2023.
FIFTH ANNUAL STATE BAR OF MICHIGAN BUSINESS LAW SYMPOSIUM – THE ART OF THE PRACTICE
Thursday, February 16, 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. Detroit Institute of Art, 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202 bizsymposium.com
The Privately Held Businesses Forum, a Committee of the State Bar of Michigan Business Law Section, is proud to present a series of short lectures by some of the business law field’s preeminent practitioners and academics for the 5th Annual State Bar of Michigan Business Law Symposium, “The Art of the Practice.”
January 11 - February 5, 2023, Various Times
378 Meadow Brook Rd., Rochester Hills, MI 48309 mbtheatre.com/birthday-club
Five women get together for their birthdays to drink, celebrate, commiserate and support each other as they negotiate through marriage, work, divorce, birth and kids, all while solving the problems of the world. One by one, they reveal their personal, work and family issues, and when one of them admits a surprising secret, the vodka hits the fan. The question is: Will Birthday Club survive, or will it end forever? *Michigan Premiere MBT Rating: High School & up.
MEADOWBROOK
February 15 - March 12, 2023, Various Times
378 Meadow Brook Rd., Rochester Hills, MI 48309 mbtheatre.com
Using music from great artists such as Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, this musical tells of the sweet, sexy and sorrowful experiences three women have with the lying, cheating, snake-of-a-man who wrongs them. The soul of the blues wails out full and strong with songs such as “I Gotta Right To Sing the Blues,” “When a Woman Loves a Man,” and “I’ve Got A Date With A Dream,” that are sure to bring down the house. *Michigan Premiere MBT Rating: High School & up.
JOSH
GAME DAY
Marvelous Marvin’s Mechanical Museum is tucked behind an arch bearing its name in Farmington Hills’ Orchard Lake Plaza shopping mall, but once one steps inside nothing is hiding.
It’s sensory overload for the visitor trying to take in the flashing lights and cacophony of several hundred pleasure machines, ranging from items popular at the turn of the 20th century to the most modern pinball games. On top of that, there are historic banners, signs, and other oddities on every wall, while an array of model airplanes are suspended from the ceiling.
Marvelous Marvin’s is the 5,500-square-foot brainchild of the late Marvin Yagoda, a University of Michigan-trained pharmacist who collected antique amusements for 60 years before his death in 2017. His son, Jeremy, has picked up the torch and carries it proudly.
The museum started in 1980 when the elder Yagoda’s five-car garage only had room for one vehicle due to his collection. His wife suggested he find space in the new Tally Hall food court, the precursor to Orchard Lake Plaza. Tally Hall closed in 1988 but when it reopened in 1990 as Orchard Lake Plaza, Yagoda moved his collection into its current rented location.
Jeremy Yagoda, proprietor of Marvelous Marvin’s Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills, oversees a vast assortment of amusement games that his late father, Marvin Yagoda, collected for 60 years.
“We do well,” says Jeremy Yagoda, who doesn’t make his annual revenue public. “We’re not making a fortune here. My overhead is very high. The insurance in this industry is definitely high, because of kids. I don’t own the building so my landlord gets a very nice chunk of things.”
Marvelous Marvin’s is definitely more museum than arcade, but at this museum all the exhibits come to life at the drop of a quarter or two.
The oldest piece is a 1903 Mutoscope flip card movie viewer that shows the Hindenburg Disaster, which caught the eye of magician David Copperfield. “That’s the most valuable to me,” Yagoda says. “When I was a little kid, my dad took me to the artist’s shop several times while it was being restored. I told David Copperfield that it wasn’t for sale.”
Other one-of-a-kind antique attractions include multiple fortune telling machines, an Old King Cole musical puppet show, and a life-size Dr. Ralph Bingenpurge “County Food Inspector” who vomits on cue for a quarter.
There are countless other automaton attractions that, for 25 or 50 cents, provide such scenes as a beheading via guillotine, an electric chair execution, a torture scene from the Spanish Inquisition, and a conjoined twin exposition.
Another attraction, called Mandrake the Illusionist, is from 1932 and uses illusion technology still used by magicians today, while the 3 Trials of Terror was a feature at the Tower of London in England in the 1930s.
“We have several pieces from Great Britain from the ’30s and ’40s,” Yagoda says. “Some of our pieces traveled far to get here and others have traveled far to find new homes.”
One custom-made Marvin’s carousel eventually made its way to England. Other items have landed in Germany and other countries.
Although he’s never had the contents of the museum appraised, he guesses that the 1930s automaton machines are the most valuable.
Marvelous Marvin’s Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills is part arcade, part museum, and all fun.“They’re all one-of-a-kind, handmade by artists, with incredible engineering behind them,” Yagoda says. “It’s hard (to put a value on) one-of-a-kind pieces that are only worth what someone is willing to pay.”
Marvelous Marvin’s also has multiple automated musical machines that are rigged to play, together, as many as 2,000 songs.
Marvin Yagoda was a pilot who flew a single-engine airplane, which explains the multitude of aircraft models hanging from the ceiling on a dry cleaners track so they can “fly” around the museum. One stationary model is an oversized, custom-made Ford Trimotor — the original all-aluminum plane traces its roots to Detroit Aircraft Corp. in 1925.
In addition, there are driving and flying simulators including a Star Wars Battle Pod and a Cedar Pointe roller coaster simulator, various antique test-ofstrength games, four Skee-Ball lanes, a few dance games, Guitar Hero, 10 classic video games including Space Invaders, Pan-Man, and Donkey Kong, and 14 mostly new pinball machines.
“Whatever the newest pinball machine is generates the most revenue,” Yagoda says. “The dance games are insanely popular, and the Chinese fortune teller and Dr. Bingenpurge do well because they’re so unique.”
Given admission to Marvelous Marvin’s is free, visitors can get their money’s worth without ever playing a game.
As for décor, the walls are filled with circus sideshow banners from the 1930s and 1940s, and magic show posters from the 1920s. There are signs from the long-closed chimpanzee show at the Detroit Zoo. Soon, the dedication plaque from the original Cass Tech High School in Detroit will hang in the museum.
“I saw the Cass Tech plaque for sale online,” Yagoda relates. “So many legends of Detroit walked by that every day. I just had to have it.”
One wall features a display titled Marvin’s Marvelous Balloon Race, which was made for Yagoda’s father by an original Disney imagineer.
The museum is filled with such original oddities as an Old King Cole musical puppet show, Mandrake the Illusionist, and a 1903 Mutoscope flip card movie viewer that shows the Hindenburg Disaster.
Other items available to gaze upon include a burger-holding Big Boy statue, a fun house mirror from Coney Island Amusement Park in New York, and an electric chair alleged to be in use at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility from the 1920s to the 1950s.
One of the oddest of oddities at Marvelous Marvin’s is P.T. Barnum’s replica of the Cardiff Giant statue. It’s one of the greatest archeological hoaxes of all time, and the legendary showman just had to get in on it.
“My dad always said Walt Disney and P.T. Barnum inspired him to create this place,” says Yagoda, who adds that in addition to carrying on his father’s legacy, he enjoys watching people just have fun.
“We get all kinds of people in here. You get to be a kid again,” he says of the attraction to Marvelous Marvin’s. “You get to smile and have fun. What I love is when I get three generations coming in — a grandfather, his son, and grandson. You can’t tell who’s having more fun.
“This was built out of passion. I get it. I love it and it’s part of me, too. I don’t think my level of passion is near my father’s, but I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than this.”
How Weldaloy Specialty Forgings in Warren left the auto market to help propel rockets into outer space.
BY R.J. KINGLow-volume orders aren’t often a recipe for success, but for Weldaloy Specialty Forgings in Warren, its business model of producing short-run yet critical parts that help power rockets into the cosmos works.
“Not much flies to space in North America without some of our parts,” says Andrew Smith, vice president and COO of Weldaloy. “We produce forged rocket nozzles, rings, discs, and engine parts. It’s a sense of pride for our forgers and machinists that they can build specialty parts at low volumes and at high tolerances.”
The company traces its roots to 1946, when it began purchasing extruded copper alloys and developed techniques to manufacture high-quality, precision-shaped welding caps, tips, sleeves, and shafts — mostly for the automotive industry.
Soon after, Weldaloy installed furnaces to melt copper billets and began to produce its own alloys after experiencing difficulties in finding reliable, quality suppliers. When more exotic alloys containing copper were developed and specified for the faster welding of rust-resistant steels, the company became one of the few sources of specialized, non-ferrous alloys.
Weldaloy works with copper, titanium, nickel, aluminum, and stainless steel. In addition to a 2,000-ton press, the company is building a 36,000-square-foot extension to house a 3,000-ton press, a larger ring roller of up to 120 inches, bigger forge furnaces, an automated heat-treating line, added lab and office space, and the ability to expand into the jet engine sector.
When the project is completed in the first quarter, the company will span 140,000 square feet across a handful of buildings on its campus along Hoover Road, north of Nine Mile Road. Weldaloy, which operates two shifts to keep up with demand, has around 100 employees and 16 open positions.
Working with copper may be the company’s greatest strength, given that the metal offers numerous benefits including electrical and thermal conductivity, ease of forming, nonmagnetic properties, and flexibility, among other advantages. The most advanced rocket engines depend on copper and copper alloys, according to NASA.
“Copper and copper alloys play an important role in all NASA space flights,” says R. Jeffrey Ding, project engineer at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. “During flight, the space shuttle’s main engines generate tremendous heat. Dissipating this heat is essential to maintaining the integrity of the engines. Copper is one of the most desirable metals for this requirement.”
“Our independent lab, which is directed by Ramachandra Canumalla, likes to work with light alloys and metals that reduce weight and increase strength,” Smith says. “We like to R&D the hard things and make alloys no one else wants to do. Overall, we produce more than 1,500 different parts — half are very low volume — for a range of industries.”
While the company saw most of its early orders come from the automotive industry, in the 1990s it left the sector to focus on superconductors and semiconductors, along with supplying forged non-ferrous products to the aerospace, oil and gas, power equipment, and material processing industries.
To get the word out about Weldaloy’s offerings, Smith and a small team visited the West Coast to tour a number of existing and potential customers. “It was a great trip. Many of the rocket companies didn’t know there was a small business in the Midwest that has the skilled trades to build parts, which can be small potatoes for big companies,” Smith says. “At the same time, the low volume of orders doesn’t interest larger companies looking to produce things on a mass scale.”
Weldaloy is adding a new building to its campus (orange roof) that will include a 3,000-ton press, lab and office space, bigger forge furnaces, and more.
Number of employees at Weldaloy Specialty Forgings in Warren
Total square feet once an addition is completed in the first quarter of 2023
Weldaloy’s 36,000-squarefoot addition incudes room for an automated heat-treating line.
The company also attended the Farnborough International Air Show in England last August, and this year will have an exhibit at the Paris Air Show.
The recent passage of the CHIPS and Science Act also will provide around $280 billion in new funding to boost domestic research and the production of semiconductors in the U.S.
Percentage of employees that are degreed engineers
Shifts per day
The good news for companies like Weldaloy is that more and more businesses are using copper over aluminum to produce powerful computer chips, which results in faster operating speeds, lower power usage, cooler operations, and greater circuit integration — 400 million transistors can be assembled on one chip.
“You’re seeing more production move back to the U.S. due to supply chain delays, labor challenges, and security reasons,” says Norm Fletcher, director of marketing and communications at Weldaloy. “The CHIPS act will help us.”
While many forgers purchase raw materials once they receive a specific order from a client, Weldaloy works with specialized suppliers to ensure it has alloys on hand, eliminating weeks of lead time. The company uses special saw blades optimized for non-ferrous metals (like copper and aluminum) that allow it to increase the speed and precision at which the material is cut.
“We bring a lot to the table,” says Fernando Lozano, vice president of sales and supply chain at Weldaloy. “Not many companies our size serve such diverse markets with an independent metallurgy lab that includes an electron microscope, testing for chemical and mechanical properties, and other activities. And since so many of our customers are based in the U.S., we take a patriotic approach to everything we do.”
Source: Weldaloy STAR CHAMBERHow Ryan Ososky launched a Detroit-style pizzeria in West Hollywood that charges $100 for a deep-dish pizza featuring Wagyu beef.
BY TOM MURRAYRyan Ososky is the founder and owner of Dtown Pizzeria in, of all places, West Hollywood, Calif., which is a very long way from his roots in Macomb County. Ask him how he ended up there, and his explanation is perfectly reasonable.
“My parents got divorced when I was super young,” he explains. “I was probably 2 or 3, so living with a single mom, we moved around quite a bit.”
And ate a lot of pizza. “We would always order Jet’s because they originated nearby, in Sterling Heights,” Ososky recalls. “That was the Detroit square pizza that I grew up with.”
Ososky says that when he turned 6 or 7, the family moved in with his grandparents and lived there for a few years. Both of his grandparents were good cooks, with a repertoire extending far beyond pizza. “I was always helping Grandma bake and make Christmas cookies and candies and that kind of stuff, and I was always around the grill or the barbecue, wanting to cook and helping Grandpa grill some food,” he recalls.
Which sounds like Ososky was one of those kids who knew he had a special gift at a very early age, and was drawn to the kitchen. “Uh, not really,” Ososky drolly responds when the question is asked. “I was probably always in there just because I was a hungry little fat kid, if we’re honest.”
Maybe, but this wasn’t just any hungry little fat kid. Take, for instance, his favorite TV show. “I was 8 or 9, and I would watch the ‘Wok With Yan’ cooking show,” he says.
The program, which ran in the late 1970s and early ’80s, was hosted by Chef Stephen Yan and focused on Chinese food.
“I got a wok when I was 9,” Ososky says. “I was trying to make Chinese food and stuff. And then in my last year of elementary school, I took a life skills class and our little group made the best pineapple upsidedown cake in the class. I took a lot of pride in that.”
Ososky’s father is a master mechanic, as well as a teacher at a vocational school, which explains why Ryan had an early infatuation with cars that matched his enthusiasm for food. Once he reached high school, a clash ensued between his conflicting passions.
“I was working in restaurants around town but I didn’t really like it,” he says. “I love food, but not restaurant work, and I thought I could shift into doing something revolving around cars — like working at an architecture firm or something like that.”
Which is when Ryan’s dad stepped in with some advice. “He would always tell me I was never really inclined to do those kind of things,” Ososky laughs. “I realized I wasn’t really smart enough to jump down that mechanical design rabbit hole, so I played my strong suit and decided, OK, I’m just going to do this culinary thing and go with the cooking.”
It turned out to be a smart decision. Ososky enrolled at Macomb Community College and enjoyed almost immediate success. “We did a couple of national and state-level cooking competitions through the Macomb culinary program,” he says. “I
won two state competitions and I got a bronze at the national level for the hot food competition in 2000.”
By the time Ososky graduated in 2001, he knew what he wanted to do next, and where: “I was moving to Maui to try and further my culinary career.”
In Maui? Ososky readily admits there was also an ulterior motive behind the decision — Michigan’s harsh winters.
“We didn’t grow up with money, so we didn’t vacation a ton, and I’d always hear about all the families that were going to go to Florida. And I felt I needed to get out of Michigan to get into some better weather, sure. But I also needed to learn my craft, and get away to a place that I couldn’t exactly come running back from very quickly.”
Ososky lined up a job in the kitchen of one of Roy Yamaguchi’s restaurants, in Lahaina, where the emphasis was on Hawaiian Fusion cuisine — a blending of exotic flavors, spices, and local ingredients emphasizing seafood and fruit.
“I was obviously really young and fired up and eager to learn more culinary stuff,” Ososky shares, “but ultimately Maui wasn’t the place for that. And then 9/11 happened, so I was only out there for six months.”
He moved back to Michigan, but only long enough to pick up the rest of his belongings. In early 2002, he headed to his next destination — Las Vegas. Ososky worked at several restaurants before setting his sights on a restaurant at Caesars Palace operated by Bradley Ogden, a native of Traverse City. “I found out Bradley was a Michigan guy,” Ososky says, “and
after some quick research, I staged for the job with him in Vegas.”
He was hired as a tournant — essentially a relief cook providing assistance wherever needed to other cooks in the kitchen. It took a year before he received a significant promotion.
He was the first tournant cook to be promoted to sous chef, making him second in command in the kitchen behind only the head chef. “I was there for seven years, honing my craft, and that had a big impact as far as the culinary things I wanted to do.”
Ososky figured he could accomplish the goals he had in mind in Los Angeles, which is where he headed in 2009. His first big break came at Michael Mina’s SBE XIV, where he was the head chef. But as he was creating unique, three-course meals for highend customers, he kept thinking about his earliest days with his mother, ordering those deep-dish, square-cut pizzas from Jet’s.
Following his time in Mina’s kitchen, Ososky became the chef at a modern American dim-sum restaurant called The Church Key. “My first renditions of Detroit pizza were served on our dim sum carts,” he says. “After four years there, I began wondering why nobody in LA was doing Detroit-style pizza. Then Mina’s SBE XIV and Church Key closed, and it became what would I do with my own money in LA, you know? And that was make Detroit-style pizza.”
At the beginning of 2020, Ososky created a limited liability company for Dtown Pizzeria and took an interim gig as a chef at a vegan restaurant. “They
Ryan Ososky, a graduate of the culinary program at Macomb Community College in Warren, eventually found his way to Los Angeles, where today he owns and operates Dtown Pizzeria inside Phorage restaurant in West Hollywood.
had this very unique, wood-burning bread oven, and it was suitable for making a wood-fired, Detroit-style pizza,” he says. “So I created the wood-fired vegan, Detroit-style pizza. I did a couple of pop-ups with Dtown Pizzeria at another pizzeria, just to get my brand out there.”
From there, a friend of Ososky’s who owned a Vietnamese restaurant called Phorage in West Hollywood made him an enticing offer. “He tells me they have an extra oven and hood at the end of the bar,” Ososky says, “and he says, Hey, I have this space. Why don’t you come and try to figure out this pizza thing? But it never happened. Phorage opened in February, then COVID-19 hit in March, and everybody shut down.”
Ososky was able to get back in business at Phorage by the end of 2020.
“We were doing pop-ups, just borrowing the kitchen for the weekend,” he says. “We began taking Instagram orders for a few hours a day — scheduling weekend orders and pickup times. And then we were able to get on the delivery services.”
Gradually, as the pandemic restrictions were lifted, business picked up. Now it’s thriving.
“It’s Dtown Pizzeria at Phorage,” Ososky says. “We’re now full-on seven days a week. We share the same service staff and the same hours, except on weekends. We’re actually open later than Phorage on Fridays and Saturdays because I want to get the extra pizza business. And we share the menu. One side is mine, one side is theirs. So you can get Vietnamese food and our Detroit pizzas, and Phorage likes that because they get a higher check average.”
Speaking of a higher check average, is it true that there’s a pizza that costs a hundred bucks?
“It’s our base cheese pizza with our proprietary cheese blend,” a nonplussed Ososky explains. “Then we take Japanese A5 Wagyu — the legit, expensive, real deal stuff from Japan — and we make a carpaccio out of it. And so this carpaccio just literally melts over the hot pizza. And then we add our house-made black truffle oil, pickled red onions, and scallions. So it’s like beef carpaccio on a Detroit-style pizza.”
Sounds great, but again, a hundred bucks?
“I figured why don’t I just charged $100 for it?” he reasoned. “It’s obnoxious, but it’s also a premium product, right? And it’s something that’s Instagram-able — the home of the $100 pizza.”
Rest assured, the other pizzas on his menu are traditionally priced.
While Ososky has his long-term sights set on his own, stand-alone space for Dtown Pizzeria, he’s very comfortable with the current sharing situation at Phorage. “I’m cool with what we have now, because it
In addition to overseeing Dtown Pizzeria, Ososky stays in shape by competing in marathons, triathlons, and Ironman races.
works,” he says. “There’s some coolness to the whole operation. The pandemic meant people and business owners had to make things happen to survive, right? This particular situation helps everybody out, and I definitely know Dtown has a long-term home there.”
That said, the 42-year-old Ososky is excited about a looming opportunity to expand his business and brand beyond Phorage and West Hollywood.
“We signed a license deal for one of the outlets in the food hall of a social mall,” he says. “It’s called Topanga Social at the Westfield Topanga and The Village shopping mall, and is launching in January. A lot of restaurants are going to be in there, with a massive delivery radius on that side of town (Canoga Park).”
As the chef grows his business in LA, he has no plans to add locations in his home state. “I did it in LA because no one else was doing it out here,” he says. “And it made the most sense, because I was investing my own money. Also, because I’m a Detroit guy selling Detroit deep-dish pizzas out here, that’s a novelty. Not so much back home.”
But whenever Ososky does get back, he makes
sure to make the obligatory rounds. “I do visit maybe once a year,” he says. “I scope out all the new hot pizza spots and make sure we’re staying on track. But we kind of do our own thing.”
Apart from his research trips, the self-described onetime “hungry little fat kid” is excited about the considerable shrinkage of his waistline.
“I started doing marathons 16 years ago, when I weighed about 215 pounds and felt like a tub. And then 10 years ago I started doing triathlons and have done 22 of the half-ironman races — 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles on the bike, and then a 13.1-mile half marathon. And for the full Ironman, you just double those numbers.”
Ososky already has one full Ironman under his belt, and is planning on more. He weighs in around 185 pounds these days. And while he made some significant adjustments to his diet and lifestyle, there’s one major exception. “If you’re going out for a four- or five-hour bike workout,” he says with another laugh, “nothing tastes better than pizza once you finish. So now I can work out longer and eat as much pizza as I want.”
IF YOU’RE GOING OUT FOR A FOUR- OR FIVEHOUR BIKE WORKOUT, NOTHING TASTES BETTER THAN PIZZA ONCE YOU FINISH.”
RYAN OSOSKY
After watching a crew paint bumper poles, Frank Venegas Jr., founder, chairman, and CEO of Ideal Group in southwest Detroit, came up with the idea for plastic cover sleeves. Today, the division, Ideal Shield, generates $75 million in annual revenue.
Frank Venegas Jr. has built a nearly $500-million business in southwest Detroit by developing ideas that generate revenue.
BY NORM SINCLAIRAs the holder of several dozen patents for inventions that helped the Ideal Group of companies reach nearly $500 million in revenue in 2022, Frank Venegas Jr. credits two simple rules for his success.
“I tell people around here (that) when we design or patent a product, make sure we’re not making a product people don’t want,” he says. “The other thing is fail fast, fail cheap.”
The blunt-talking, down-to-earth executive’s advice to would-be inventors is to make sure a market exists for whatever it is they’re designing.
“We’re idea people; it’s how you use our ideas,” says Venegas, founder, CEO, and chairman of Ideal Group in southwest Detroit. “A lot of people ask, How many patents do you have? Well, it doesn’t matter. If I sat here and decided to write a patent a week, I could write a patent a week. But how many patents do you have that make money?”
Developing ideas into commercial bonanzas has propelled Venegas’ career from sweeping floors at a Detroit steel plant to serving as the leader of eight companies. Today, Ideal Group has 600 employees working in construction, facilities management and protection equipment, manufacturing, indirect material management, and surplus sales.
The idea for the invention that propelled Venegas’ upward trajectory more than 20 years ago came to him while working at the steel plant. “I was out there for days doing siding and I watched three guys painting bumper poles in the parking lot, day after day,” he recalls. “I thought that was the dumbest thing in the world.”
So Venegas designed a hard plastic cover sleeve and made it available in various colors. The sleeve slides over the bollard poles, eliminating the need to paint them.
“I could put my bumper pole sleeves on (in a parking lot) in three hours rather than the 80 hours it took painters to paint them. I took it to my boss and he said, ‘Frank, what would I do with my painters?’ ”
Undeterred, Venegas went on to sell his invention elsewhere. “If I’d listened to him, I wouldn’t have shared my product. I believed enough in my product that I was willing to take money out of my own pocket
to make it work,” he says. “I started with banks and I would go around and install the sleeves on their bumper poles when they weren’t open, on Saturdays or Sundays,” he says.
Today, the bollard bumper cover sleeves generate $75 million in annual sales at Ideal Shield. The Ideal Group subsidiary also manufactures guard rails, handrail systems, and a plastic pyramid base for portable traffic or pedestrian signs.
“We manufacture 6 million covers a year. It’s difficult today not to find our sleeves around banks all around the country,” Venegas says. In addition to the patent for the bollard pole cover, Venegas says he holds 19 other patents for commercial inventions ranging from inventory control processes to guard rails that can stop a truck going 50 miles per hour.
Listening to his customers — another Venegas rule — added even more revenue for the company.
“Burger King was the first to ask us to put their logo on their sleeves, then Wendy’s wanted it. Some wanted ‘Keep Out’ on it,” he says. A vinyl sleeve that fits over the bollard cover also can provide Christmas décor, painted with red-and-white candy cane stripes, or promote auto dealer specials on $19.95 oil changes.
“What we did with the bumper post sleeve is something no one else had ever done, or even thought about,” he says. “I get more people come up to me and say, ‘You’re like the guy that came up with Kleenex or Q-tips’ — and we are.”
The story of how this self-made entrepreneur started his own business is a study in perseverance. In 1979, he spent $150 for a ticket to the Livingston County Builder’s Association Ball, where he hoped to meet new clients. Part of the ticket price went to a raffle on a new Cadillac Coup DeVille.
When the numbers were called, Venegas won the luxury car. He drove it home that night. Nine days later, the 27-year-old sold the car for $12,000 and put the cash toward starting his own business.
Today, the sprawling Ideal Group headquarters is located on the site of the old General Motors Cadillac plant where his life-changing Coupe DeVille was built.
Central to the Venegas story is his Mexican
heritage. His grandfather, Jesus, immigrated to the area for the $5-a-day jobs Ford Motor Co. began offering in 1914. He worked for Ford for 41 years, while Venegas’ father, Frank Sr., worked for Ford for 39 years.
As the young entrepreneur’s business prospered in Brighton, his friend, former Detroit Tigers pitcher Hank Aguirre, convinced him in 1995 to move to the Mexican-centric neighborhood in southwest Detroit where Venegas and his brother, Loren; daughter, Linzie; and son, Jesse; operate the family business.
Early on, the company became a force in quelling violence by hiring, training, and employing gang members. It also promoted the community, boosted youth education and opportunity, and became deeply involved in supporting Detroit’s Cristo Rey High School and Holy Redeemer Grade School by financing capital improvements and educational upgrades, mentoring students, and providing college scholarships.
“That goes back to being very fortunate to have the chance to make money, but more than anything else, be able to help the people in the community,” says Venegas, who sits on numerous advisory boards and is a 13-time winner of GM’s Global Supplier of the Year Award.
As part of its work in the region, Ideal Group is an important player in major development projects in Detroit. For Comerica Park, which opened in 2000, Ideal Group supplied hundreds of the standard galvanized hand-painted steel handrails for the project.
Two years later, while doing steel work on Ford Field’s construction, Venegas says he came up with a better handrail idea that he patented — stadium handrails and fittings made of aluminum, which eliminated the time-consuming welding required to install steel handrails.
Ford Field’s project manager initially balked at the higher price, but quickly relented when Venegas told him the aluminum rails would never need painting.
“So, we invented our rails, did our processes with
it, and we put a little Lion logo on the ends of it, and the Ford family just loved it,” Venegas says. “The cool thing about that brushed aluminum is it’s the same color as the Lions’ uniforms. Now you look at those handrails and they look like new, and they’re happy because they never had to paint them at all. (Today), we sell them all around the country.”
The COVID-19 pandemic created more opportunities for Venegas. When General Motors Co. needed to inventory and distribute more than 500 million facemasks, Ideal Group created a way to streamline the process — a solution Venegas also supplied to the state of Michigan.
With testing and vaccine clinics popping up everywhere, health care administrators needed portable signs to direct traffic. Venegas’ now-patented answer was a hollow plastic pyramid-shaped base into which a metal pole with a sign at the top could be inserted and kept in place with sand or gravel. The lightweight plastic bases made obsolete the sign industry’s concrete model, which could weigh as much as 300 pounds.
“We sold $1 million worth of signs to Lowe’s, sold to Home Depot, Target, McDonald’s, Whole Foods, airports, special events, hospitals, and stadiums,” Venegas says.
A stand for dispensers of antibacterial products in public areas was another pandemic-inspired invention. “We have some wild, crazy machines and we can design anything on steel,” he says. “My guys made a plate for a stand with half-inch steel and wrote Lowe’s name into the steel. Lowe’s ordered $400,000 worth.”
Another Venegas rule: “The best thing you can do is don’t act like you’re smart when you design and patent products,” he says. “If you act like you’re too smart, people will think you have everything figured out. But if you’re always looking for new ideas and solutions, people will be more apt to help you.”
What it takes to make powerful, lasting connections in a room full of business professionals.
BY DEREK DICKOWSome call it the chicken-dinner circuit, but it goes by many names. The cocktail hour. The meet-and-greet. The networking reception. The lunch and learn.
I’m talking about business events where people mingle over food and drinks. You attend hoping to meet new people and create some professional connections, and perhaps win some potential clients or investors.
Offer help. Instead of thinking about your deal and what’s important to you, think about what’s important to the new person you’re meeting. How can you help them close their big deal? When you ask engaging questions instead of trying to sell your product or service, you give people a window to share what’s important to them, who their ideal client is, and what pain points they might have.
in before the workday. When you meet, leave your phone in your pocket. Ask the person sitting across from you about their upcoming vacations, what projects they’re working on, and what they’re hoping to achieve over the next six months. Have a notepad ready and take notes on key points you’ll follow up on. At the conclusion of the meal, thank them for their time and then pay the bill.
Above all, show your authenticity and sincerity. Sending a handwritten thank-you note and making a few introductions to contacts important to them are a few ways to demonstrate your own relational deposits in this new relationship.
At too many business events, though, you walk away thinking you missed another opportunity and you’re unsure of what you got out of it. Sure, you handed out business cards. But did you make any lasting business connections?
Don’t despair.
I’ve built my career teaching people from all industries how to make business events not just enjoyable, but profitable. I know what it takes to make powerful, lasting connections, even in a crowd full of business professionals checking their watches and looking over your shoulder to see who’s coming up next.
Here are five ideas to implement at your next business event. They won’t make the food any better, but they could change the trajectory of your career forever.
Meet three people. Some events have 30 attendees. Others have 300, and large conferences might have 3,000 people in the crowd. Ignore the size. Just find three people. If you walk into an event without a plan but the notion of “meeting anybody, everybody, or somebody,” you’re setting yourself up for failure. Focus on meeting three people you can have a meaningful conversation with. Just three solid conversations is my definition of a successful business event.
Get their number. No one wants your card the second you meet them. If a conversation goes well, be in control of the relationship and, instead of hoping they’ll call you (trust me, they likely won’t), pull out your phone and ask for their email or cell. If they have an unusual name, politely hand them your phone and ask them to add it to your contacts.
When people are sharing what’s important, ideally you should think of someone else who can help them solve the issue. The greatest way to advance a relationship with a new contact is by making a quali fied introduction to someone you already know through which both parties can benefit.
Networking isn’t generally an overnight success. There’s no silver bullet, other than having an inten tional approach to helping others without expecting anything in return. Having a plan, executing it, and asking thoughtful and engaging questions will help separate you from the masses — and put you in posi tion to be successful.
Follow up. After the event, it’s time to follow up properly. Keith Ferrazi, author of “Never Eat Alone,” says this about following up: “Good follow-up alone elevates you above 95 percent of your peers. The fol low-up is the hammer and nails of your net working tool kit.”
Have breakfast. Don’t send your new contact an email with an attach ment of all the ways they can buy from you. Trust me, this new pros pect doesn’t care, and they don’t want to buy yet. Save that email for the fifth, sixth, or even seventh touch point after you’ve built rapport. Your job now is to invite them to breakfast and learn more about their goals, their family, and what else is important in their world. Why breakfast?
It’s cheap, quick, healthy, and easier for high-level professionals to squeeze
Networking is so much more than simply meeting and chatting with people at an event. It takes planning, consistency, and a proper follow-up. In business we often hear, “you get paid to prospect,” and this is an important reminder that the true fortune is made
egies, and soon you’ll be enjoying those business events and using them to supercharge your career. You’re one handshake away from the life you’ve
THE GREATEST WAY TO ADVANCE A RELATIONSHIP WITH A NEW CONTACT IS BY MAKING A QUALIFIED INTRODUCTION ...”
The Old Newsboys’ Goodfellow Fund of Detroit hosted its 32nd annual tribute breakfast honoring Tony Michaels, president and CEO of The Parade Co., on Oct. 21 at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit. Michaels was presented with the Edward H. McNamara Award, which recognizes individuals who have “significantly contributed to the community.” Funds raised at the event help provide holiday gift boxes to children ages 4 through 13 in Detroit, Highland Park, River Rouge, Hamtramck, Harper Woods, and Ecorse.
6. Carice and Tony Michaels, Beth Conely
7. Rhonda Fields, Alexis Brandl, Samantha Sugiyama, Pamela Good, Genna Young, Terry Rhadigan
8. Chief James White, Charles Simms 9. Hon. Dennis Archer, Rev. Wendell Anthony, Sheriff Raphael Washington 10. Pete Kowalski, Margaret Trimer
PATRICK GLORIA
PATRICK GLORIA
Reaching Higher, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Brighton, hosted its 25th anniversary gala on Nov. 12 at The Westin Book Cadillac in downtown Detroit. The event raised funds for the organization’s mission to impact the world and the future through personal leadership development and coaching youth. Guests enjoyed a seated dinner and drinks at the event, which honored Reaching Higher founder Susie Dahlman and celebrated the impact the organization has had on more than 10,000 students since its inception. 1. Jennie and Chris Schild, Doug and Jennifer Moffat
Julia DePorre, Jules DePorre, Paul Thielking
The National Kidney Foundation of Michigan in Ann Arbor hosted its 17th annual Kidney Ball on Nov. 19 at the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit. The event raised funds to support the organization’s mission of preventing kidney disease and improve the quality of life for those living with the condition. Guests enjoyed a cocktail reception and a seated dinner, a live and a silent auction, and live music performed by Your Generation In Concert.
Jason Carr, Natalie Blonski, Dana and Javier Cardenas
Rick Miller, Mercadez Kelly, Lyndi Miller, Dan Carney
Justin Fishaw, Laura Szrymomski
Geri and Dave Brown
Deborah and Loren Venegas
The Parade Co. in Detroit hosted its annual Hob Nobble Gobble event, presented by Ford Motor Co., on Nov. 18 at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Funds raised from the event support the Detroit nonprofit’s production of America’s Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner White, in addition to other community activities. Guests enjoyed a carnival midway, games, free prizes, a gourmet buffet dinner, and live entertainment. 6. Hon. David and Neran Viviano, Tracie and Mark Hackel 7. Tammy Carnrike, Guliana Granata, Terra Granata 8. Kelly Houseman, Christina Taylor, Alexandra Sheppard 9. Maurie and April Morton 10. Paul Huxley, Cindy Pasky
The Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Detroit Chapter hosted a celebration of National Philanthropy Day on Nov. 3 at the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit. The event raised funds to promote generosity and positive social good through fundraising best practices. Guests enjoyed a strolling dinner, networking, and the honoring of donors, volunteers, corporations, and foundations, as well as others committed to change and philanthropy.
Dave Meador, Mariam Noland
Vertrice Allen, Kierra and Paul Riser, Karl Bell
Michael and Sandy Hermanoff
Mallory Applewhite, Theresa Gray, Jen Merz
John and Joanne Carter
The Dynami Foundation in Birmingham hosted its seventh annual Uncork for a Cure fundraiser on Oct. 22 at M1 Concourse in Pontiac. Funds from the event bring breast cancer researchers, patients, and supporters together through funding research, survivorship programs, and ongoing education. Guests enjoyed a strolling dinner, a Moët Champagne lounge, rare wines, and rides around the M1 Concourse racetrack. 6. Karen Odierna, Mishawn Fosse, Julie Dee, Mary Cogan
Terrence and Versha Pleasant, Melissa Pilewskie, Monika Burness
Kellie and Mike Ferrantino
Ron and Jennifer Ruks
Tanya Clark, Robert Kaiser
The RIM Foundation, a Detroit-based nonprofit organization, hosted its annual Go Beyond Gala on Dec. 6 at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit. The event raised funds that help make a significant and lasting, positive effect on people who have had life-altering disabilities. Guests enjoyed a cocktail hour, a silent auction, a seated dinner, a tribute program, and live entertainment.
Leonard Corbin, Camille Jamerson, Jillian Nathan, Alan Hunt
Lisa and Chuck Sansone, Theresa Kittridge
Josh Ludwig, Betty Jane Blossfeld
Kevin and Emily Killian
Mark Davis, Frank Torre, Chad Howard
GRADUATE ANN ARBOR
615 East Huron St. Ann Arbor 734-769-2200 graduateannarbor.com Rooms: 204
Meeting Rooms: 4
Dining: The Allen Rumsey Supper Club, Poindexter Meeting Capacity: 7,700 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly; event planners; catering; fitness center; complimentary pass to nearby recreation building for racquetball, basketball, weight-lifting; complimentary Wi-Fi; Olympic-size pool; complimentary bicycle rental; valet; pet-friendly rooms
DAXTON HOTEL
298 S. Old Woodward Ave. Birmingham 248-283-4200 daxtonhotel.com Rooms: 151 Meeting Rooms: 6
Dining: Madam Meeting Capacity: 8,490 sq. ft.
Amenities: Lobby bar, more than 400 pieces of art curated by Saatchi Art, fitness center, bedside wireless charging pads, valet parking, free Wi-Fi, laundry and dry cleaning, pet-friendly
THE TOWNSEND HOTEL 100 Townsend St. Birmingham 248-642-7900 townsendhotel.com Rooms: 150
Meeting Rooms: 10
Dining: Rugby Grille, afternoon tea, 24-hour room service
Meeting Capacity: 17,590 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, iPod docking stations, ATM/banking, coffee in lobby, complimentary newspapers, event catering, fitness center, concierge services, multilingual staff, seasonal outdoor seating offered by Rugby Grille and The Corner, pet-friendly environment, wedding services
THE KINGSLEY BLOOMFIELD HILLS – A DOUBLETREE BY HILTON
39475 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills 248-644-1400
doubletreebloomfieldhills.com Rooms: 144
Meeting Rooms: 5
Dining: Zalman’s Delicatessen serves breakfast, lunch, and entrees; The
Duke Lounge
Meeting Capacity: 11,313 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly; plush pillow-top bedding; RFID card or smartphone door locks; in-room laptop safes; balcony suites; complimentary Wi-Fi; modern furnishings; luxuriously appointed guest rooms; serene courtyard; large, flat-screen HDTVs; premium cable; mini fridge; coffeemaker with Starbucks coffee refilled daily; 24-hour fitness facility; on-site business center; shuttle service; valet and self-park; indoor saltwater pool
DEARBORN INN, A MARRIOTT HOTEL
20301 Oakwood Blvd. Dearborn 313-271-2700 marriott.com Rooms: 229 Meeting Rooms: 12
Dining: Edison’s, Ten Eyck Tavern, room service Meeting Capacity: 17,000 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, messenger service, notary public, overnight delivery/pickup, seasonal outdoor pool, fitness center. Guest rooms have plug-in technology for iPods, cameras, game systems, etc.
THE HENRY, AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION
Fairlane Plaza 300 Town Center Dr. Dearborn 313-441-2000 behenry.com Rooms: 308 Meeting Rooms: 13
Dining: TRIA, 24-hour room service Meeting Capacity: 26,295 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, shoe-shine services, fitness center, indoor pool with whirlpool, concierge services, wedding accommodations, notary public, AV equipment, messaging services, overnight delivery/pickup, pet-friendly, post/ parcel service
ATHENEUM SUITE HOTEL
1000 Brush Ave. Detroit 313-962-2323 atheneumsuites.com Rooms: 173 Meeting Rooms: 8
Dining: Pegasus Taverna, Symposia, A-Bar, 24-hour room service Meeting Capacity: 31,000 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, wedding accommodations, hotel
shuttle service, health and fitness facilities, catering services
CAMBRIA HOTEL DOWNTOWN DETROIT 600 W. Lafayette Blvd. Detroit 313-733-0300 choicehotels.com Rooms: 158 Meeting Rooms: 4 Dining: Cibo Detroit, Detroit Taco Co. Meeting Capacity: 18,000 sq. ft. Amenities: Beve Detroit lobby bar, rooftop pool and Cielo poolside bar, Balla Nightclub, free Wi-Fi, fitness center and sauna, valet parking, sundry shop, business center
COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT DETROIT DOWNTOWN 333 E. Jefferson Ave. Detroit 313-222-7700 marriott.com Rooms: 260 Meeting Rooms: 7 Dining: Applebee’s, IHOP Express Meeting Capacity: 6,468 sq. ft. Amenities: Business center, fitness center, Wi-Fi, pool
DETROIT FOUNDATION HOTEL 250 W. Larned St. Detroit 313-800-5500 detroitfoundationhotel.com Rooms: 100
Meeting Rooms: 4 Dining: The Apparatus Room Meeting Capacity: 3,623 sq. ft. Amenities: Business-friendly, fifth-floor event space, complimentary Wi-Fi, 24-hour fitness center with complimentary workout classes, same-day laundry and dry cleaning, complimentary Detroit Bikes rental, pet-friendly
DETROIT MARRIOTT AT THE RENAISSANCE CENTER
Renaissance Center 400 Renaissance Dr. Detroit 313-568-8000 marriott.com Rooms: 1,298 Meeting Rooms: 38 Dining: Starbucks, Motor City Pantry, FUELL
Meeting Capacity: 96,104 sq. ft. Amenities: Business-friendly, overnight delivery/pickup, secretarial services, translator, on-site car rental, fitness center
DOUBLETREE SUITES BY HILTON HOTEL DETROIT DOWNTOWN –FORT SHELBY 525 W. Lafayette Blvd. Detroit
313-963-5600 doubletree.hilton.com Rooms: 203
Meeting Rooms: 19 Dining: Motor City Kitchen and Round Bar, room service
Meeting Capacity: 18,535 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, complimentary coffee or tea, audio/ visual equipment rental, 24-hour business center, complimentary printing service, express mail, secretarial services, video conferencing, catering menus, fitness center
ELEMENT DETROIT AT THE METROPOLITAN 33 John R St. Detroit 313-306-2400, ext. 0 marriott.com Rooms: 110 Meeting Rooms: 3 Dining: RISE Meeting Capacity: 2,817 sq. ft. Amenities: Fitness center, bike rentals, pet-friendly, in-room kitchens, complimentary Wi-Fi
FORT PONTCHARTRAIN, A WYNDHAM HOTEL 2 Washington Blvd. Detroit 313-965-0200 hotelpontchartrain.com Rooms: 367 Meeting Rooms: 20 Dining: Tabacchi Lounge Café, Urban Cellars
Meeting Capacity: 32,000 sq. ft. Amenities: Business-friendly; wedding accommodations; pool, spa, sauna, fitness center; catering services; business center; valet; short walk to Huntington Place HILTON GARDEN INN DETROIT/ DOWNTOWN 351 Gratiot Ave. Detroit 313-967-0900 hiltongardeninn.hilton.com Rooms: 198 Meeting Rooms: 6 Dining: The Chrome Bar and Grille, The Garden Grille and Bar, room service
Meeting Capacity: 3,456 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, audio/ visual equipment rental, complimentary printing service, gift shop, express mail services, ATM machine, wedding accommodations, multilingual staff, secretarial services, fitness center, pool
HOLLYWOOD CASINO AT GREEKTOWN 555 E. Lafayette Blvd. Detroit 313-223-2999 hollywoodgreektown.com Rooms: 400 Meeting Rooms: 11 Casino Tables: 61 Poker Tables: 13 Dining: 313 Burger Bar, Rock Bar, Prism, Urban Cocktail, Barstool Sportsbook Bar, Detroit Taco Co.
Meeting Capacity: 20,000 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business center, fitness center, valet, in-room dining, wireless internet, state-of-the-art meeting/audio/visual equipment, concierge services
MGM GRAND DETROIT 1777 Third Ave. Detroit 877-888-2121 mgmgranddetroit.com Rooms: 401 Meeting Rooms: 6 Casino Tables: 140 Slots: 3,500 Dining: Breeze Dining Court, Tap at MGM Grand Detroit, D.PRIME Steakhouse, Topgolf Swing Suite, Palette Dining Studio, The Roasted Bean, room service, complimentary food and nonalcoholic beverages on the concierge level
Meeting Capacity: 30,000 sq. ft. Amenities: Business-friendly, built-in video and teleconferencing services, fitness center, indoor pool, distinct lounges, meeting and event planning, concierge service, shoe-shine, hotel sundry store, IMMERSE Spa, AXIS Lounge, V Nightclub
MOTORCITY CASINO-HOTEL 2901 Grand River Ave. Detroit 866-782-9622 motorcitycasino.com
Rooms: 400
Meeting Rooms: 14 Casino Tables: 59 Dining: Assembly Line, Amnesia, Grand River Deli, Iridescence, Little Caesars, Lodge Diner, Sweet Ride, 24-hour room service
Meeting Capacity: 67,500 sq. ft., including 19,604 sq. ft. of pre-function space Amenities: Business-friendly, complimentary printing, 24-hour fitness center, concierge services, wedding accommodations. Smoking is only allowed on the casino gaming floor. The smoke-free gaming area is located at the main casino entrance (a 17-table smoke-free poker room is available).
ROBERTS RIVERWALK URBAN RESORT HOTEL 1000 River Place Dr. Detroit 313-699-1233 detroitriverwalkhotel.com Rooms: 108 Meeting Rooms: Yes Dining: Roberts Riverwalk Bistro & Bar
Meeting Capacity: 12,000 sq. ft. Amenities: River views, business center, fitness center, outdoor swimming pool, high-speed Wi-Fi, parking
SHINOLA HOTEL 1400 Woodward Ave. Detroit 313-356-1400 shinolahotel.com Rooms: 129 Meeting Rooms: 6 Dining: Penny Reds, San Morello, The Brakeman, Evening bar Meeting Capacity: 16,150 sq. ft. Amenities: Wi-Fi, Parker’s Alley shopping, HDTV, fitness center, pet-friendly, mini bars, Shinola turntables and record library in select rooms
THE INN @ 97 WINDER 97 Winder St. Detroit 313-832-4348 theinnat97winder.com Rooms: 10 Meeting Rooms: NA Dining: None on-site Meeting Capacity: NA
Amenities: Continental breakfast, antique furnishings, spa, private fenced parking, European-style garden and walkways, high-speed Wi-Fi
THE SIREN HOTEL 1509 Broadway St. Detroit
313-277-4736 thesirenhotel.com Rooms: 106 Meeting Rooms: NA Dining: The Siren Café, Karl’s, Candy Bar, Albena Meeting Capacity: NA
Amenities: Social Club Grooming, Sid Gold, Paramita, The Siren Shop, concierge, free newspaper, flower arrangement service, fitness center, bicycle rentals, pet-friendly rooms
THE WESTIN BOOK CADILLAC DETROIT (OPEN DURING SIX-MONTH RENOVATION) 1114 Washington Blvd. Detroit 313-442-1600 marriott.com Rooms: 453 Meeting Rooms: 20 Dining: 24 Grille, The Boulevard Room, The Motor Bar, Starbucks Reserve Café
Meeting Capacity: 36,658 sq. ft.
Amenities: Meeting and catering services, wedding specialist, audio/ visual and production services, video conferencing, Service Express, concierge desk, WestinWorkout Studio, heated pool and spa, Spa Book Cadillac, complimentary daily national newspaper, laundry/dry cleaning, shoe-shine, luggage storage, in-room iPod docking station, high-speed internet
THE DAVID WHITNEY, AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION (UNDER RENOVATION) 1 Park Ave. Detroit 313-237-1700 marriott.com Rooms: 160 Meeting Rooms: 5
Dining: None on-site Meeting Capacity: 10,262 sq. ft.
Amenities: WXYZ Bar, re:charge (SM) gym, pet-friendly, complimentary Wi-Fi, valet parking, beauty shop and barber shop, on-site laundry and dry cleaning
DELTA HOTELS BY MARRIOTT DETROIT NOVI 37529 Grand River Ave. Farmington Hills 248-653-6060 deltahotels.marriott.com Rooms: 139
Meeting Rooms: 3
Dining: Founders Tavern Meeting Capacity: 4,284 sq. ft.
Amenities: Indoor pool, fitness center, free Wi-Fi, coffee shop, hot tub, laundry LIVONIA
DETROIT MARRIOTT LIVONIA 17100 Laurel Park Dr. North Livonia 734-462-3100 marriott.com
Rooms: 224
Meeting Rooms: 5 Dining: FINS Kitchen and Bar Meeting Capacity: 5,769 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, coffee in the lobby, indoor pool and whirlpool, concierge services, 70+ retailers and restaurants (hotel is attached to Laurel Park Place Mall), fitness center, overnight delivery/ pickup, wedding accommodations, post/parcel services
NOVI
THE BARONETTE RENAISSANCE
DETROIT–NOVI HOTEL 27790 Novi Rd. Novi 248-349-7800 marriott.com Rooms: 155 Meeting Rooms: 7 Dining: Toasted Oak Grill & Market, room service Meeting Capacity: 8,213 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, data port in each room, concierge services, fitness center, ATM, outdoor garden terrace, wedding accommodations, near Twelve Oaks Mall, West Oaks, and Fountain Walk
PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP
SAINT JOHN’S RESORT 44045 Five Mile Rd. Plymouth 734-414-0600
saintjohnsresort.com Rooms: 118 Meeting Rooms: 22 Dining: Five Steakhouse Meeting Capacity: 38,912 sq. ft.
Amenities: 18-hole championship golf course under construction, heated driving range and retail outlet at Carl’s Golfland, fitness center, complimentary weekday newspaper, Jacuzzi, wedding accommodations, chapel, food and beverage services, indoor pool with waterfall and bubble lounge
AUBURN HILLS MARRIOTT PONTIAC AT CENTERPOINT 3600 Centerpoint Pkwy. Pontiac 248-253-9800 marriott.com Rooms: 290 Meeting Rooms: 13
Dining: Woodward’s, Starbucks, room service
Meeting Capacity: 23,283 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, messenger service, overnight delivery, translation services, wedding accommodations, indoor and outdoor pools, cocktail terrace, fitness center
ROYAL PARK HOTEL 600 East University Dr. Rochester 248-652-2600
royalparkhotel.net Rooms: 143
Meeting Rooms: 12
Dining: Park 600, Royalty Tea, 24-hour room service, seasonal outdoor seating on the terrace Meeting Capacity: 17,486 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, audio/ visual services, bicycle rental, wedding accommodations, seasonal fly-fishing equipment rental, putting green, 24-hour fitness center, spa services, outdoor bocce and croquet courts, concierge services, 21 miles of jogging trails
THE WESTIN DETROIT METROPOLITAN AIRPORT 2501 Worldgateway Pl. Detroit 734-942-6500
westindetroitmetroairport.com Rooms: 404 Meeting Rooms: 35
Dining: Reflections Restaurant & Lounge, 24-hour room service Meeting Capacity: 28,844 sq. ft.
Amenities: Lobby access to the McNamara Terminal’s 90 shops and services, perfect meeting location without leaving the airport, 24-hour shuttle service to the North Terminal, complimentary fitness center, indoor heated pool, hot tub
BEST WESTERN PREMIER EXECUTIVE RESIDENCY DETROIT
SOUTHFIELD HOTEL 26555 Telegraph Rd. Southfield 248-358-7600 bestwestern.com Rooms: 206 Meeting Rooms: 8 Dining: Telegraph Road BBQ Meeting Capacity: 20,057 sq. ft. Amenities: Complimentary full breakfast, hot tub, exercise facility, wedding services, free Wi-Fi, 24-hour business center
DETROIT MARRIOTT SOUTHFIELD 27033 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield 248-356-7400 marriott.com Rooms: 226 Meeting Rooms: 4
Dining: Fire Iron Grill, Lobby Lounge, room service Meeting Capacity: 4,283 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, overnight delivery/pickup, wedding accommodations, indoor pool, full-service bar, concierge services, fitness center
THE WESTIN SOUTHFIELD DETROIT 1500 Town Center Southfield 248-827-4000 westinsouthfielddetroit.com Rooms: 388
Meeting Rooms: 31
Dining: Jamocha’s Coffee Shop, Tango’s Restaurant, Level 1 Lounge, 24-hour room service
Meeting Capacity: 47,718 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, wedding accommodations, allergy-friendly rooms, concierge services, pet-friendly environment, indoor heated pool, whirlpool, hot tub, fitness center
DETROIT MARRIOTT TROY 200 W. Big Beaver Rd.
Troy 248-680-9797 marriott.com Rooms: 350 Meeting Rooms: 21 Dining: 200 West Restaurant and Lounge, room service Meeting Capacity: 16,881 sq. ft.
Amenities: Business-friendly, catering, concierge lounge, indoor
pool, safety deposit boxes, complimentary daily newspapers, shuttle within five-mile radius of hotel, post/parcel services, fitness center
EMBASSY SUITES BY HILTON
DETROIT TROY–AUBURN HILLS 850 Tower Dr. Troy 248-879-7500 hilton.com
Rooms: 251
Meeting Rooms: 9 Dining: Riparian Grille Meeting Capacity: 7,327 sq. ft. Amenities: Complimentary breakfast, digital key, EV charging on-site, indoor pool, fitness center, pet-friendly rooms, business center
Sources: DBusiness Research, AAA
MONICA M. BARBOUR
University of Detroit Mercy
STEPHANIE L. BARR
ITC Holdings
DAVID A. BARRIS
Seaver Title Agency and Greco Title Agency RACHEL G. BAXTER
North America Kongsberg Automotive
ERIN BEHLER Rock Central
DANTE BENEDETTINI Aisin Holdings of America
TIMOTHY J. BLANCH Visteon Corp.
PAUL D. BORJA
Flagstar Bank
DANIEL BYRNE Ford Motor Co.
ELIZABETH CALLAHAN-MORRIS
Henry Ford Health System
MARLA SCHWALLER CAREW Brose North America
JOANN CHAVEZ DTE Energy
MATT C. COHN Axiom At CDW
SARA CONN Corewell Health
KELSEY R. COOKE Oakland County Water Resources
WILLIAM COSNOWSKI JR. ZF Group
MICHAEL DAVID CUSHION Bissell Homecare
JESSICA L. DADAS-SCHULZE CAVU International
ERINN DEPORRE
General Motors
TIMOTHY A. DEVINE
Detroit Land Bank Authority
DANIEL J. DOMAN RouteOne
ERIC L. DOYLE BorgWarner
THOMAS DYSZEWSKI DYZE Walbridge
DAVID JAMES FORD Aptiv
DAVID J. GENTILE Axiom
GLORIA A. HAGE
University of Michigan
BRIGETTE L. HALSETH
Credit Acceptance
JOHN P. HAMAMEH
Class Valuation
ALAN N. HARRIS Atwell
BETH T. HILL FordDirect
WARREN HUNT Magna Exteriors
DAN ISRAEL
Goldfish Swim School Franchising
MICHELLE JOHNSON-TIDJANI
Henry Ford Health System
STEPHANIE JONES General Motors
MARYANN P. KANARY
Barton Malow Holdings
HARRY A. KEMP
Lear Corp.
HOWARD KLAUSMEIER Ameriprise Financial
KILEY LEPAGE Compuware
LANCE M. LIS Inteva Products
BERNIE LOURIM FANUC America
RAOUL MAITRA Altair Engineering
CHRIS MAZZOLI Lear Corp.
MARIA MELDRUM Harley Ellis Devereaux
PETER L. MENNA
Oakland County — Indigent Defense Services Office
LISA MIKALONIS Tenneco
JUSTIN “J.P.” MORGAN
Friedman Real Estate
MIYUKI OSHIMA BorgWarner
KEVIN M. PLUMSTEAD General Motors
AMANDA PONTES Lear Corp.
MICHAEL QAQISH IAC Group
JODI FAY ROBIN
TriMas Corp.
LAWRENCE D. ROSENSTOCK
Corewell Health
LINDA S. ROSS Trinity Health
ADAM RUBIN Shift Digital
PETER SCHRECK Rock Central
MAUREEN T. SHANNON Rivian Automotive
JOSH SHERBIN
The Shyft Group
KIRSTEN SILWANOWICZ
Great Lakes Water Authority
MICHAEL SOCHA Ally Financial
MICHAEL J. SOLO JR. DTE Energy
LAWRENCE A. SOMMERS
Comerica Bank
JAMI STATHAM Nexteer Automotive
ANTHONY SUKKAR Brose
MARIO A. TABONE Plastipak Packaging
SATYAM TALATI Mahindra Automotive North America
MARK S. TORIGIAN
Hyundai America Technical Center
GABRIEL B. VALLE
ITC Holdings
MARGARET VAN METER Trinity Health
SARA ENGLE VONBERNTHAL FCA US
MICHAEL J. VUKICH
Lear Corp.
EDWARD A. WALTON Ameriprise Financial
DANIEL URBACH WARSH
Garret Motion
ADAM WOLFE
United Wholesale Mortgage MARLA G. ZWAS Cabinetworks Group
*Selected by private attorneys in metro Detroit as part of DBusiness’ Top Lawyers annual peer-to-peer survey.
Harry Brooks was rushing to an engagement in Berkley, so the young test pilot showed his derring-do (and showed up on time) by landing the prototype Ford Flivver airplane on Woodward Avenue near the old Northwood Inn. For his punctuality and innovation, he received a $500 ticket. “I’ll pay it this time, Brooksie, but better not do it again,” Henry Ford said.
Hailed as a flying car, the Flivver was the next plane in development after Ford’s aviation division started building the Trimotor all-metal airliner in 1925. The Flivver — so called in honor of the Ford Model T, which was widely known by that nickname — was of a compact, twin-cylinder design.
Brooks, a former high school football star from Birmingham, flew the Flivver through the open hangar doors at the former Ford Airport in Dearborn, between high-rise buildings in downtown Detroit, and even in a race against one of Gar Wood’s boats on the Detroit River.
“The Cassell Dictionary of Slang” gives flivver — of unknown origin — a range of uses from the early 1900s to the 1960s, and a broader range of definitions starting with “a failure, disappointment, or something cheap and inferior.” Its application as a vehicle name came before 1910, when the United States Navy’s new torpedo-boat destroyers were dubbed flivvers because of their shaking and rattling. “The ‘Flivvers’ incorporated a number of significant advances in marine engineering,” writes historian George Stewart.
A single-seat aircraft, the Ford Flivver was intended to be the “Model T of the Air,” but the plane never caught on. Today, Model No. 1, built in 1926, is on display at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn.
Flivver also suggested a ramshackle automobile, and the word caught on in popular culture. “See America First” — Cole Porter’s first Broadway musical — included the ditty “Will You Love Me (When My Flivver Is a Wreck)?” It tells the story of a boy and a girl holding hands and smooching while “seated in a little Henry Ford … making love in a cow pasture, like boys and girls will do … when the price of gas went up to 42.” Then the mood shifts as the singer looks to an uncertain future and repeats the song’s title.
The poet King A. Woodburn took up his pen, too, and the verses of “That Dear Old Flivver” were published on an edition of postcards. Woodburn compared his flivver rather ungraciously to a “faded” woman with wrinkles, weak lungs, and a squeaking voice — although she “still holds a place in my heart.” He recalls hunting expeditions and a wedding trip before concluding: “I’ve enjoyed every ride, in that dear old flivver.”
The greatest literary contribution in the flivver’s name was Upton Sinclair’s 1937 novel “The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America.” Two decades earlier, Sinclair had written “The Jungle,” about the meat-packing industry, and earned himself a place in American literary history.
“The Flivver King” gauged the rise of Ford Motor Co. and Henry Ford against the experiences of a common employee. “Sixteen hours a day he (Ford) was rolling out lines of new flivvers, one of them every 25 seconds now,” Sinclair wrote of the Highland Park plant. The novel was published in an edition of 200,000 by the United Auto Workers and still manages to sting.
It was mostly downhill for flivver after the 1960 album “Flivvers, Flappers, and Fox Trots” by ragtime pianist Del Wood of the Grand Ole Opry. The RCA Victor release included “The Flivver Song,” but flivver was passing from the lingua franca.
Perhaps the lingering grief after Harry Brooks’ fatal accident was a factor. Completing the final leg of a Detroit-to-Miami journey on Feb. 25, 1928, Brooks’ Flivver prototype crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. When engineer Harold Hicks asked about further refinement of the twin-cylinder engine for the Flivver, Henry Ford mournfully replied, “What are they good for?” Ford continued building Trimotors, but the Flivver had met its end.
In the early 20th century, flivvers sailed the seas, swarmed the roads, and one even took to the air. How did flivvers become forgotten?
PENINSULA CAPITAL PARTNERS L.L.C. is a metro Detroit-based firm that has fought hard to make a name for itself in the global private equity industry. Since its founding in Detroit in 1995, Peninsula has raised seven investment partnerships totaling approximately $2.0 billion, each providing customized capital solutions to middle-market businesses seeking funding to complete acquisitions, support growth, buyback stock or address other special situations requiring junior capital. We pioneered the development of a new, more flexible investment approach in the private equity industry and are recognized as a leader in our market, earning us the patronage of major institutional investors both in the United States and Europe. Our unique investment approach combines elements of buyout, private debt and growth capital funds, allowing us the rare flexibility to craft tailored capital solutions for businesses, including both debt and equity, and either as a controlling or non-controlling investor. Since 1995, we have closed over 140 platform investments, about half of which have been in partnership with independent sponsor groups. Please keep us in mind the next time you require a junior capital provider; we’d love to bring some Detroit muscle to your transaction.
