40 UNDER 40 - Crain`s Detroit Business

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DETROIT BUSINESS MAIN 09-29-08 A 1 CDB
9/26/2008
6:18 PM
Page 1
®
www.crainsdetroit.com Vol. 24, No. 39
SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 5, 2008
$2 a copy; $59 a year
©Entire contents copyright 2008 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved
THIS JUST IN
Croce leaves NextEnergy
to be president of Lipten
Jim Croce, CEO of NextEnergy for almost five years,
has joined the private sector as president and COO
of
Wixombased
Lipten
Co., an
energyservices
firm.
Tomorrow
Croce
will be
his last day at the Detroitbased nonprofit, which
was founded in 2002 to
serve as a research catalyst, startup incubator and
business accelerator for
alternative-energy technologies.
Crock successor was expected to be announced
this week, but talks hit a
snag, although the search
is
progressing,
said
NextEnergy
Chairman
Chris Rizik.
Croce said he hopes to
grow Lipten’s business in
alternate and renewable
energy, and to take it from
revenue of about $30 million to $150 million by
2013.
The company specializes in what is referred to
as EPC, for engineering,
procurement and construction, with an emphasis on general contracting,
power generation, steam
generation, chilled-water
systems
and
watertreatment plants.
Croce said he also will
try to expand Lipten’s
Michigan presence. Despite its local headquarters, it has no projects
here.
Lipten added six employees this year for a total of 40, about 30 of whom
are in Wixom. Before taking the top spot at NextEnergy, Croce was vice
president of business development of DTE Energy
Co.’s Energy Technology
Group.
— Tom Henderson
NEWSPAPER
See This Just In, Page 2
Banking bailout: Boost or bust?
Economic insiders mixed on impact to state
BY AMY LANE
CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT
LANSING – A federal bailout
package for the U.S. financial industry could boost Michigan consumers’ psyche and banks’ willingness to extend credit, lifting
some clouds over an already-jittery and struggling state economy.
But it could also send a negative
message to businesses and resi-
dents who face financial challenges every day and don’t receive
government help.
Those were some of the differing assessments Friday as a Washington bailout package continued
to loom.
Economist Patrick Anderson,
principal and CEO of Anderson Economic Group L.L.C., said the bailout
sets “a terrible precedent” and
“destroys confidence in … the in-
40
40
2008
under
Meet this
year’s class.
Page 11.
stitution of private property and
individual investors taking responsibility for their own decisions.”
He said the uncertainty posed
by continuing turmoil on Wall
Street is bad for Michigan and other states, but “the big uncertainty
here is whether the government is
going to bail people out or not.
And I think we made a huge mis-
MORE ON THE BAILOUT
■ Federal fund helps innovative
small businesses. Page 42.
■ Bailout offers little help for
struggling community banks. Page 48.
■ Area bankers differ on impact of
investment banks’ shift to retail.
Page 48.
See Bailout, Page 49
‘Racino’ backers
have another try
Bill would change Constitution
BY BILL SHEA AND
DANIEL DUGGAN
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
The first direct attempt to permit
casino-style gambling at Michigan’s
seven horse tracks since 2004’s Proposal 1 effectively killed such efforts
has been launched amid a chorus of
skepticism from
opponents.
Rep.
Andy
Meisner, D-Ferndale, introduced a
bill (HB 6465) on
Sept.
17
that
would tweak the
state’s 1995 horse
racing law to pave
the way for an
Meisner
amendment to the
Michigan Constitution to allow casino wagering at tracks, called “racinos.”
A joint resolution by Meisner and
Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, calls for
the amendment and spells out how
to tax such gaming.
The bill and resolution are in the
hands of the House Committee on
Regulatory Reform, where no action
is yet scheduled.
A request for comment was left
Friday afternoon for Meisner, who
RV dealers try
different road
to revenue, Page 3
is term-limited and is a candidate
for Oakland County treasurer. His
district includes the Hazel Park Harness Raceway track.
Voters approved Proposal 1 in
2004, and it requires a statewide and
local referendum on any new gambling in the state, exempting the Detroit casinos and Indian casinos.
It’s unclear yet who would foot
the bills on what likely would be a
costly campaign to persuade voters
to approve racino legislation, which
the Detroit and Native American
casinos would oppose.
“There is plenty of gaming in
Michigan right now,” said Marvin
Beatty, co-owner of Greektown Casino. “Michiganders have more than
enough choices for gaming. I don’t
think there appears to be any need
or interest to expand gaming.”
That doesn’t mean the casinos
don’t have their eyes on the bills, especially because it’s coming during
a lame-duck session.
“During lame duck, anything can
happen. It’s a true silly season,” said
Tom Shields, president of Lansingbased Marketing Resource Group,
which does work for MotorCity Casino. “The race tracks are not going to
See Racino, Page 49
Macomb/OU incubator
opens early to snag state
funding, Page 47
9/26/2008
5:57 PM
Page 1
Page 2
THIS JUST IN
■ From Page 1
Corrections reforms sought
The Detroit Regional Chamber
plans to announce today it is calling on Lansing political leaders to
overhaul Michigan’s correctional
system to produce some $800 million in annual savings.
Reforms sought by the chamber
include updated sentencing and
parole guidelines for non-violent
criminals; replacement of political
appointees on the parole board
with civil servants; a merit system
for inmates who complete education and training; and, for low-risk
offenders, more effective use of
technology such as electronic tethers and reporting systems, and
community-based sentencing.
The group also seeks competitive bidding of prison food services and wants correctional administrative expenses lowered by
10 percent.
The chamber is calling for the
cost savings to be applied toward
reducing the nearly 22 percent surcharge that was added last year to
the Michigan Business Tax.
— Amy Lane
UM offers degree for fundraisers
The University of Michigan will
offer a specialized master’s degree to train development and
September 29, 2008
fundraising coordinators at major
colleges and universities, starting
in 2009. The Master’s in Higher Education degree, with a concentration in philanthropy, development
and advancement, is planned for
the UM School of Education next
fall.
The program could start conferring its first degrees by mid-2010,
said Deborah Carter, director of the
Center for the Study of Higher and
Postsecondary Education at the
UM School of Education.
— Chad Halcom
Jaffe Group opens in Jerusalem
Southfield-based Jaffe Raitt Heuer
& Weiss P.C. has opened a consulting firm in Israel. Called Jaffe
Group L.L.C., the
Jerusalem office is headed
by Jaffe partner Noam Raz,
who was born
in Israel and is
fluent in Hebrew.
“Our plan is
to assist Israeli
Raz
companies that want to do business in the U.S., especially in
Michigan,” Jaffe CEO Rick Zussman said.
Jaffe has represented American
clients doing business and buying
real estate in Israel for some years,
he said, assisted by Israeli attorneys. Also on Jaffe’s team is Lauren
Sobel, an Israeli attorney living in
Ann Arbor since 2001, who is
awaiting results of her July 2008
State Bar exam, Zussman said.
— Robert Ankeny
Art Van Furniture names CEO
Warren-based Art Van Furniture
Inc. has named Marshall Whaling as
company CEO, in an appointment
that takes effect today. He succeeds company founder Art Van Elslander as CEO.
Van Elslander, 77, will continue
as company chairman.
Whaling, 53, comes to Art Van
from Richmond, Va.-based Circuit
City Stores Inc., where has been as
senior vice president of retail operations since May 2006. Previously, Whaling was senior vice president of sales and operations in the
business-to-business division of
Best Buy Co. Inc. from 2003-06.
He spent 20 years at American of
Madison, a 15-store regional retailer of furniture, appliances and
consumer electronics based in
Wisconsin.
Art Van also named Dan Baran,
previously director of operations
and logistics, as vice president of
information systems, logistics and
operations. The company promoted Robert Cudd from director of
customer relationship marketing
to vice president of marketing
and e-commerce.
— Chad Halcom
CSG to hire for Auburn Hills plant
Rochester Hills-based CSG plans
on hiring 10 to 15 people for a plant
in Auburn Hills that will produce
a surface coating product that reduces air pollution and greenhouse gasses, said CEO Craig Andrews on Friday.
The manufacturing and chemical engineering workers are to be
hired by November. Another plant
is located in Saga, Japan.“We are
anticipating $20 million to $30 million in sales by the end of 2009 and
I expect that number to quadruple
in three to five years,” said Andrews. CSG could add another 200
jobs by 2013.
— Jay Greene
NSF teams up with Trucost
Ann Arbor-based NSF International Inc. has formed a partnership
and taken an equity stake with
England-based Trucost plc. to expand the sustainability services it
offers both in the U.S. and in Europe.
NSF and Trucost will work jointly to provide broader services both
in Europe and in the U.S.
NSF said it has invested $3.9 million in Trucost’s latest round of financing.
— Sherri Begin
Ficano to lead trade mission
Wayne
County
Executive
Robert Ficano will lead a 2008
trade delegation to four cities in
China Nov. 7-16.
The delegation is scheduled to
tour
the
following
cities:
Wuxi/Wuji,
Chongqing,
Changchun and Beijing, all leaders in automotive manufacturing
and economic centers for their regions.
The Southeast Michigan delegation, with support from the Detroit Regional Chamber, Detroit Chinese Business Association, U.S.
Department of Commerce, Comerica
Bank and law firms Warner Norcross & Judd, Butzel Long P.C., Miller
Canfield Paddock and Stone P.L.C.,
and Clayton & McKervey P.C., plan
meetings with government officials and companies, Ficano said.
— Robert Ankeny
New branding for United Way
United Way for Southeastern
Michigan has aligned its local
branding campaign with that of
its affiliates around the country.
The Detroit-based agency last
week rolled out a new tagline and
branding initiative, “Live United,” following its launch at other
U.S. affiliates this summer.
The brand represents United
Way’s plans to focus on volunteerism and advocacy as equally
important as giving money in
giving back to the community, it
said in a release.
— Sherri Begin
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9/26/2008
6:06 PM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 3
Departures due at airport board
Labor leader could land top spot
BY BILL SHEA
If tradition holds, the vice chairman of the Wayne County Airport Authority will become its chairman in
December, and it will mark the first
time a labor activist leads the board.
James Settles Jr. is vice chairman
of the authority and is a vice president of the United Auto Workers international executive board.
There doesn’t appear to be much
concern that his chairmanship will
mean a radical change for the panel
that oversees operations and management of Detroit
Metropolitan Airport
in Romulus and
Willow Run Airport
in nearby Van Buren Township.
“I don’t think
you’ll see an ideological shift. He’s
Settles
very pragmatic,”
said Wayne County Executive
Robert Ficano, who originally appointed Settles. “I know with Jimmy
Settles the number one thing is
creating jobs.”
Wise choices
Settles himself
needed for airport
says
much the
board. Page 8.
same thing: “I see
it no different with me as a chairman
than as a board member.” And he said
he plans no change in the philosophy
of the board in its dealing with its 10
unions.
The day-to-day operations of the
airport are overseen by the authority-appointed CEO, Lester Robinson.
Settles will take over amid a transition on the board. Three members,
including current Chairman David
Treadwell, president and CEO of
OPINION
Inkster-based EaglePicher Corp., see
their terms expire next month.
Ficano will make two appointments to the seven-member board,
and Gov. Jennifer Granholm will
make one.
The authority was created by the
Legislature in 2002 in the wake of a
two-year state probe into Wayne
County’s management of the airport
and questionable construction contracts for the $1.2 billion McNamara
Terminal.
Then-Wayne County Executive Ed
McNamara, worried about the state
taking control of the airport, which
See Airport, Page 45
CRAIN’S
INDEX
Space for rent: Mexican
companies to rent
temporary office space in
TechTown. Chinese are in
talks to do the same.
Page 36.
Small-biz spark: The
Small Business
Innovation Research
program can be a
valuable tool. Just ask
Heidi Jacobus.
Page 42.
On the road: New
legislation would nearly
double the mileage
deduction for volunteers
at nonprofits. Page 43.
These organizations appear in this
week’s Crain’s Detroit Business:
A different road
With profits falling, RV dealers
look for other ways to make cash
BY NANCY KAFFER
In 2004, business at Walt Michal’s RV
Superstore was booming.
The Belleville-based RV store was moving 2,000 vehicles a year and bringing in
close to $70 million in revenue in a steady
progression from the $1.2 million the
business grossed annually when Michal
bought the business from Dearbornbased Les Stanford Chevrolet in 1995.
The next year, gas prices rose and revenue fell, to $50 million. Then 2006 rolled
around, with a dismal $17 million in revenue.
“We held our own last year and ended
up around $18 million,” said owner Walt
Michal. “This year we’re struggling
mightily to get there. So we’re pulling
the plug on RVs. We’ve got to go in a different direction.”
In the face of plummeting profits,
Michal is taking a radical step, moving
out of new recreational vehicle sales,
the business’ mainstay for 13 years. On
Oct. 1, Michal will begin offering used
cars and trucks, snowmobiles and motorcycles on the 32-acre lot, capable of
holding roughly 1,500 RVs. He’ll still sell
used RVs, but will phase out the new inventory.
“With new RVs, you have to stock
way too much, you have to pay the insurance, pay for the floor plan (inventory), maintain the stock,” he said. “I’ve
got 53 motor homes on the lot. At one
time I used to sell 53 in a month. It’s not
See RVs, Page 45
NATHAN SKID/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Walt Michals will phase out new RVs at his Belleville dealership and offer
motorcycles, snowmobiles along with used RVs, cars and trucks.
Buyer’s bet on the Silverdome comes due
Critics question Parker’s ability to pull off deal
BY DANIEL DUGGAN
With a November closing set for
the sale of the Pontiac Silverdome,
civil rights attorney H. Wallace
Parker will embark on an ambitious
plan for the 35-year-old stadium.
Though it will be the first foray
into development for Parker, he’s
confident he can pull off his three-
phase plan and make the deal profitable.
“It’s not something that we’d get
done in two or three weeks,” he said.
“But it is doable, there’s no doubt
about that.”
But many close to the deal have
been quietly questioning Parker’s
ability to get the deal done.
Others have questioned not so quietly.
Pontiac Mayor Clarence Phillips
vetoed the City Council’s approval of
the Silverdome deal in July, prompted by his questions of Parker’s financing plans. His veto, however,
was overridden by the council.
“I’m not trying to be too picky,
since I want to see something done
with that property,” Phillips said in
July. “I need to make sure the city
has a sound business deal, and I have
a lot of problems with this.”
His main questions have revolved
around Parker’s ability to come
through with the money. Phillips
and other officials have seen a lot of
developers come through. First put
up for sale in 2002, the Silverdome
has had multiple developers propose
ideas to later fall through.
The first hurdle for Parker comes
at the closing table.
Under terms of the deal approved,
he must bring the entire $20 million
See Silverdome, Page 46
Adult Well Being Services . . . . . . . 43
Anderson Economic Group L.L.C.. . . . 1
Beaumont Grosse Pointe Hospital . 44
Karmanos Cancer Institute . . . . . . 44
Bon Secours Health System . . . . . . 44
Biotechnology Biz Consultants . . . . 42
Burkard Industries Inc. . . . . . . . . . 37
Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc. . . . 48
City of Royal Oak Michigan
Hospital Finance Authority . . . . . . 44
Community Central Bank . . . . . . . . 48
CTI and Associates Inc. . . . . . . . . . 38
Cybernet Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
DeMattia Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Detroit Medical Center . . . . . . . . . 44
Detroit Metropolitan Airport . . . . . . . 3
DTE Biomass Energy . . . . . . . . . . . 38
DTE Energy Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Forgotten Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Gleaners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Greektown Casino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Hazel Park Harness Raceway . . . . . . 1
Henry Ford Health System . . . . . . . 44
Macomb-OU Incubator . . . . . . . . . . 47
Macomb Community College . . . . . 37
Macomb County Planning and
Economic Development Dept. . . . . . 47
Main Street Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Michigan Nonprofit Association . . . 43
Mid-America Associates . . . . . . . . 46
National Defense Industrial Assoc . 37
Oakland University . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
OU Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Palace Sports and Entertainment . . 46
Peoples State Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Pinnacle Race Course . . . . . . . . . . 46
Plante & Moran P.L.L.C. . . . . . . . . 48
Rave Computer Association Inc. . . . 47
Satterlund Supply Co. . . . . . . . . . . 34
Schoolcraft College . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Silver Stallion Development Corp. . 46
St. John Health System . . . . . . . . . 44
Technology Ventures Inc. . . . . . . . . 37
TechTown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Macomb Group . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Private Bank-Michigan . . . . . . 48
Trinity Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
United Auto Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Walt Michal’s RV Superstore . . . . . . 3
Wayne County Airport Authority . . . . 3
Wayne State University . . . . . . . . . 37
William Beaumont Hospitals . . . . . 44
Willow Run Airport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
BANKRUPTCIES . . . . . . . . . 4
BUSINESS DIARY . . . . . . . 32
CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CAPITOL BRIEFINGS . . . . . . 6
CLASSIFIED ADS . . . . . . . . 42
KEITH CRAIN . . . . . . . . . . . 8
LETTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
OTHER VOICES . . . . . . . . . . 9
PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
RUMBLINGS . . . . . . . . . . . 50
WEEK IN REVIEW . . . . . . . 50
9/26/2008
5:11 PM
Page 1
Page 4
September 29, 2008
TAKING STOCK
NEWS ABOUT DETROIT AREA PUBLIC COMPANIES
Auto supplier stock battered
in wake of Wall Street woes
BY RYAN BEENE
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Shares of Michigan auto suppliers’ stock tumbled last week as
Wall Street’s malaise and a possible $700 billion taxpayer-financed
bailout dominated headlines
Seven out of 11 local publicly
traded auto suppliers covered by
Crain’s saw their stock lose more
than 12 percent of its value between Monday and Thursday last
week.
Van Buren Township-based Visteon Corp. (NYSE: VC) saw its
shares fall from $3.68 to $2.29 between Monday morning and Friday’s closing bell.
In the same time frame, Detroitbased American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAM)
shares dropped from $7.61 to $6.32,
and Livonia-based TRW Automotive
Holdings Corp. (NYSE: TRW) stock
fell from $19.47 to $16.71.
Southfield-based Federal-Mogul
Corp. (NASDAQ: FMDL) shares fell
from $14.88 to $13.25. Northvillebased Amerigon Inc. opened at $8.24
Monday and closed Friday at $7.33.
Southfield-based Lear Corp.
(NYSE: LEA) shares fell from
$14.10 when trading opened Monday to $11.75 at Friday’s close.
Auburn Hills-based BorgWarner
Inc. (NYSE: BWA) dropped from
$37.64 to $32.46. Both companies
hit their 52-week lows in trading
on Friday.
Michael Wall, director of North
American advisory services for
CSM Worldwide Inc., says typically a
swing in a company’s stock price
one way or another can be tied to a
company announcement, such as
an earnings report, or monthly
auto sales numbers.
But with the current volatility
of the market, all bets are off.
“There is literally chaos in the
market right now,” he said.
Uncertainty created by the failure of venerable Wall Street firms
Lehman Brothers., Merrill Lynch and,
most recently, Washington Mutual’s
federal seizure and subsequent
sale to JPMorgan Chase & Co. on
Thursday, as well as the hiccup in
drafting the $700 billion financial
industry bailout designed to save
troubled Wall Street firms, transcends any perceived stability,
Wall said.
But it’s even more troublesome
for the auto industry.
“This kind of uncertainty, it
wreaks havoc with everybody, but
when you’re talking about manufacturing stocks, entities that have
been under general distress already, an auto market that’s under
pressure right now, and the general housing market, it’s not surprising we’re seeing this kind of
volatility,” Wall said.
Kim Korth, president of Grand
Rapids-based auto industry analysis firm IRN Inc.,
agrees, but says
investors
are
looking beyond
the surface at
other sectors in
the
troubled
auto industry
impacted by the
recent economic
turmoil.
Korth
“The center
of it is certainly the financial credit implosion we’re having at the
moment, but where all the attention has been on the financial com-
panies and the OEMs. I think people are now beginning to look at,
‘So what are the secondary factors
that are affected by that kind of
change?’ ” she said.
Korth says the biggest concern
is a drawn-out shortage of credit.
Combine that with a housing market expected to improve little in
2009, and consumers are likely to
forego large durable goods purchases like cars and trucks.
Supplier stocks are being hit
now because they may be viewed
as overvalued by investors.
And while Korth does not agree
that suppliers are overvalued, she
did acknowledge that perception is
likely affecting the share price of
these companies.
Shelly Lombard, an analyst with
New York-based ratings firm
Gimme Credit Inc., says auto supplier stocks, along with automakers,
may have been run-up in value as
discussions of the government’s
$25 billion auto industry loan
guarantee program gained momentum, giving shares more room
to fall.
But more of a factor, she says, is
the pressure faced by many suppliers from nearly nonexistent credit
market, a down housing market,
high gas prices and slow vehicle
sales.
“It’s a troubled sector in a troubled market,” Lombard said.
“Auto hasn’t traded well for a
while, but if you look around the
market and think, ‘OK, what can I
buy that’s defensive?’… it’s not
auto.”
Ryan Beene: (313) 446-0315,
[email protected]
STREET TALK
THIS WEEK’S STOCK TOTALS: 14 GAINERS, 47 LOSERS, 9 UNCHANGED
BANKRUPTCIES
The following businesses filed for
Chapter 7 or 11 protection in U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in Detroit Sept. 1925. Under Chapter 11, a company files
for reorganization. Chapter 7 involves
total liquidation.
Executive Business Corp., 11791 Kenmoor St., Detroit, voluntary Chapter
7. Assets and liabilities not available.
Legacy Estates L.L.C., 16800 24 Mile
Road., Ste. 1, Macomb, voluntary
Chapter 11. Assets: $4,300,500; liabilities: $17,386,605.
Lighthouse Real Estate Holdings
L.L.C., 20570 W. Eight Mile Road,
Southfield, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets and liabilities not available.
Mays Printing Company Inc., 15800
Livernois, Detroit, voluntary Chapter
11. Assets and liabilities not available.
Michico Inc., 6536 Shadowlawn, Dearborn Heights, voluntary Chapter 7.
Assets and liabilities not available.
Small Plates L.L.C., 310 S. Main St.,
Royal Oak, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets: $657,116; liabilities: $1,409,238.
— Compiled by Julie Dawso
CDB’S TOP PERFORMERS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Oxford Bank Corp.
Agree Realty Corp.
Ramco-Gershenson.
Compuware Corp.
Valassis Communications Inc.
CMS Energy Corp.
Masco Corp.
TechTeam Global Inc.
Sun Communities Inc.
First Mercury Financial Corp.
CDB’S LOW PERFORMERS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
General Motors Corp.
Perceptron Inc.
Am. Axle & Man. Holdings Inc.
Comerica Inc.
Lear Corp.
Saga Communications Inc.
PSB Group Inc.
TRW Automotive Holdings Corp.
BorgWarner Inc.
Kaydon Corp.
9/26
CLOSE
9/19
CLOSE
PERCENT
CHANGE
$8.90
26.87
22.74
10.36
8.23
12.90
19.28
7.76
20.48
13.52
29.21
2.72
1.50
1.16
1.09
0.16
-1.56
-1.93
-2.39
-3.03
9/26
CLOSE
9/19
CLOSE
PERCENT
CHANGE
$9.76
5.66
6.32
34.30
11.75
5.05
5.05
16.71
32.46
48.42
$13.08
7.11
7.74
42.00
14.37
6.16
6.10
19.75
38.20
56.70
$11.50
27.60
23.08
10.48
8.32
12.92
18.98
7.61
19.99
13.11
-25.38
-20.39
-18.35
-18.33
-18.23
-18.02
-17.21
-15.39
-15.03
-14.60
Source: Bloomberg News. From a list of publicly owned companies with headquarters
in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw or Livingston counties. Note: Stocks trading
at less than $5 are not included.
DBpageAD.qxd
9/24/2008
12:05 PM
Page 1
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2008248
9/26/2008
5:57 PM
Page 1
Page 6
September 29, 2008
Utilities move on requirements
for new energy regulations
LANSING — The wheels are in
create and sell to them, up to 50
motion on Michigan’s broad new
percent of the renewable power
energy plan.
they need to meet the RPS. The reState regulators and utilities
maining 50 percent would come
are gearing up for requirements
through long-term power-purunder newly approved legislation
chase agreements.
that, among many things, would
To help meet the RPS, the utiliboost Michigan’s use of renewable
ties will assess customer surenergy and alter utility rate struccharges. The per-meter surtures.
charges, to be established by the
Regarding the latter, the MichiPSC, are capped at $3 per month
gan Public Service Commission last
for residential customers, $16.58
week issued orders directing the
per month for small and mediumAmy Lane
Detroit Edison Co. and Consumers
size commercial customers, and
Energy Co. to file information in
$187.50 for large commercial and inOctober on how they plan to end business’ dustrial customers.
current subsidy of residential rates, which
As part of the energy package, House Bill
will cause residential bills to rise and com- 1048 provides some $40 million in incomemercial and industrial bills to drop.
tax credits for residential customers to offThe utilities must phase in the cost-of-ser- set a portion of the renewables charge and to
vice rates over five years, beginning Jan. 1. purchase energy-efficient appliances.
Rates paid by residential and industrial
Utilities need to design energy-efficiency
metal-melting customers can rise no more programs that will be submitted to state reguthan 2.5 percent annually, under the legisla- lators, and the commission will establish a
tion approved Sept. 18.
“net metering” program in which utility cusAnother key aspect is the use of energy tomers that generate their own power can sell
from renewable resources, such as wind, some of their excess power back to the utility.
biomass, solar and hydroelectric plants.
The PSC is beefing up its staff to administer
Within five months, the
the new laws. House Bill
utilities will file plans with
5524, one of the main enerthe PSC on how they will
gy bills, includes a provimeet a mandate that 10 persion that appropriates $2.5
cent of their electricity
million for the additional
come
from
renewable
staff, paid for through assources by 2015. Interim
sessments on utilities.
targets for new renewable
Other elements include:
resources begin in 2012.
■ A 10 percent limit on
Some have criticized the
the amount of a utility’s
RPS law, Senate Bill 213, as
customer load that can go
too slow in moving Michito alternate suppliers. Curgan toward renewables derent choice customers
velopment. The American
would be exempt from havWind Energy Association said
ing any future business exin a letter to lawmakers
pansion count toward the
that it will “raise utility costs while failing statewide cap.
to create any meaningful market for renew■ The ability for utilities to enact proable energy production” and provides no in- posed rate increases if the PSC does not act
centive for renewables-related job creation on their filings within six months. The PSC
and development for several years.
must complete all general rate cases within
But Dan Brudzynski, vice president of regu- 12 months. If it finds the utilities’ interim
latory affairs for Detroit Edison parent DTE En- rates unjustified, the PSC can order refunds,
ergy Co., said the development and construc- with interest.
tion of wind farms requires significant lead
■ Utilities apply to the PSC for a certifitime. “It’s not like we’re going to go on autopi- cate of necessity to build a plant or enter
lot for the next few years,” he said.
into a long-term power purchase agreement.
Utilities can meet a small percent of their The PSC will review cost estimates and is10 percent requirement through new and ex- sue a certificate that includes approved cost
isting energy technologies, such as industri- amounts. Utilities can recoup, in rates, cost
al co-generation projects that capture and overruns of up to 10 percent, without seekreuse flue gasses, and coal plants that cap- ing additional PSC approval.
ture and store carbon dioxide emissions.
Amy
Lane:
(517)
371-5355,
The utilities can create, or have others [email protected]
Capitol
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Utilities can
create, or have
others create and
sell to them, up to
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renewable power
they need.
MEGA announces development grants
The Michigan Economic Growth Authority approved the following grants Tuesday:
䡲 A2 Media Corp., an Ann Arbor-based
software-development company, received a
state tax credit of $1.26 million to move to a
larger facility in the city, creating 128 new
jobs, 63 at the company.
䡲 Barracuda Networks Inc., a Campbell,
Calif.-based maker of e-mail, computer network and Web security systems, received a
state tax credit of $1.4 million to expand its
research and development center in Ann
Arbor. The project is expected to create 351
new jobs, 185 of them at the company.
䡲 Faurecia USA Holdings Inc., an automotive supplier, received a $2.7 million tax
credit to expand its interiors division technical center in Troy and its headquarters in
Auburn Hills. The projects will create up to
219 new jobs and 192 spin-off jobs.
䡲 Plexus Systems Inc., an Auburn Hillsbased software company, received a $7.98
million tax credit to expand its operations,
creating 298 jobs and 488 spin-off jobs.
䡲 NYX Inc., a Livonia-based, minorityowned auto supplier, received a $1.67 million tax credit to open a new office and technology center, which will create 390 new
jobs, 168 at the company.
䡲 Post It Stables, a Huron Township-based
horse-racing track owner, received a
$982,000 tax credit to develop a portion of the
Pinnacle Race Course. The project will create
71 jobs, and about 700 jobs during the racing
season.
DBpageAD.qxd
9/4/2008
12:28 PM
Page 1
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9/26/2008
5:01 PM
Page 1
Page 8
September 29, 2008
OPINION
Give graduation
rules time to work
T
he drumbeat is starting: Michigan’s new high school
graduation requirements are too tough.
Last week, the Democratic-led Michigan House passed
a bill to weaken the standards that now require students graduating in 2011 to have four years of math as well as other courses.
But employers, business groups and associations must make
it clear: Business supported those new standards to ensure the
state would have a competitive workforce for the future. Watering them down is a step back, not forward. The standards can be
a tool Michigan can use to make the case that the state is a good
place for companies looking for skilled workers.
The new pressure to change the standards that just became
law in April 2006 comes from looking at the early results from
students taking newly required algebra courses.
Rather than cry the sky is falling, the critics of the standards
should look realistically at the job market. Michigan already has
a high unemployment rate. The jobs that are disappearing are
primarily jobs that required a high school diploma — the oldstyle manufacturing jobs.
These standards need time to prove themselves. Many districts have created safety nets to help students meet the new
standards: after-school help, online homework hotlines, summer programs.
Critics should stop to consider this: Do you think schools
in Japan, China or India are having a similar debate?
Wise choices needed for airport
In 2002, Michigan lawmakers enacted laws to create a new
authority to run one of Southeast Michigan’s most valuable assets — Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The airport had been the turf of Wayne County Executive
Ed McNamara, and lawmakers were tired of criminal investigations of questionable contracts and accusations of cronyism
in the awarding of contracts tied to the airport.
The authority was set up to insulate the airport from politics and favoritism, and the first appointees included such
well-known business names as retired real estate executive
Wayne Doran, retired Chrysler Corp. executive Michael
Glusac, health-care executive Vernice Davis Anthony and
long-time business and civic leader Jim Nicholson.
Now, some terms of those early appointees are expiring.
Under the law, the Wayne County executive appoints four
members, the governor two and the Wayne County Board of
Commissioners one.
We hope they choose wisely. This is an important time for
the airport. The authority has a $3.6 billion, 20-year master
plan. And it likely will be heavily involved in the development
of the “aerotropolis” concept for developing adjacent land into
a logistics hub and commercial real-estate powerhouse.
LETTERS
Dan Gilbert responds to story
Editor:
The Sept. 15 edition of Crain’s included an attack on a Detroit-areabased company and by association
it’s several thousand employees.
This surprising and misleading
assault
on
Quicken Loans
flies in the face
of journalistic
integrity
and
the one thing
that all honest
writers and publications hold
close to their
heart: the truth.
Gilbert
In fact, the
manner in which the various headlines, the tone and implication of the
writing, along with the weaving together of unrelated and disconnected issues, could easily be construed
as the opposite of “the truth.”
When you combine all of this
with the omission of information
that was repeatedly provided to
Crain’s, the exposé becomes more
shocking and puzzling.
Quicken Loans was duped by
crooks who took $1.6 million in
loans back in 2001 by fraudulently
inducing our company to approve
their mortgage applications. They
submitted a large amount of false
information for these loans, which
were never repaid.
Yet, by including a barrage of
quotes from the defendants’ representatives, Crain’s leads the reader to believe that this scam was
primarily the result of Quicken
Loans “greed” and “rushed deals.”
So, scam artists ripped us off for
$1.6 million, and Crain’s implies it
is somehow our fault these thieves
pulled off their heist back at the
turn of the century?
We have little to gain from hiring
lawyers and chasing down scam
artists. Our $1.6 million dollars is
long gone. We filed the lawsuit anyway, because we have zero tolerance for fraud and believe it is our
duty to expose crooks and hold
them accountable. For this, Crain’s
decided to paint us as a company
that is an “easy money, greedy” and
sloppy institution who “rushes”
loans to the closing table.
Crain’s came to these intellectually impotent conclusions over 16
loans where we are the plaintiff suing for fraud. The other approximately 400,000 loans we closed in all
50 states over the past eight years
avoiding fraud, sub-prime and other short-sighted mortgage fads of
the last decade somehow went unaccounted for in the articles.
The article also provided a forum for the defendants’ attorneys
to discuss a subject they know absolutely nothing about — our culture and internal processes.
And it gets worse.
Because Quicken Loans is a national leader in developing fraud
detection techniques and quality
control systems, we have been recruited to conduct many training
and best-practice sessions with federal, state and local law enforcement officials who are engaged in
combating mortgage fraud.
How ironic that it was actually
Quicken Loans’ Fraud Prevention
Team that provided the training
for the new Michigan State Police
and FBI Mortgage Fraud Task
Forces that were discussed in one
of the articles. This year, Quicken
Loans has trained nearly 200 law
enforcement officials from the
FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Postal Inspector’s Office, Michigan State
Police, Michigan Attorney General and elsewhere. Crain’s was
made aware of this, by several
credible sources, yet chose to omit
mention of this in the article.
Alongside this article was a
piece about a lawsuit we are defending from Wells Fargo. While
Crain’s used large headlines to position this lawsuit as an allegation
of fraud, this matter boils down to
a contract dispute.
The case involves a small number
of loans we originated and sold to
Wells several years ago via a “no income verification” program that
Wells created and for which Wells
established the underwriting guidelines.
Under Wells Fargo’s guidelines,
loan officers were not required to
obtain documentation verifying the
income borrowers stated on the loan
application if they met certain requirements that included having a
good credit score. Wells Fargo knew
these loans carried a higher risk
and because of that charged a higher price and rate for them, and their
earnings reflected this.
Later, when Wells began to experience unexpected default rates, it
decided to verify the borrowers’
stated income on the subset of
these loans that had gone delinquent and found that not every
borrower made as much income as
claimed. Wells then demanded
that originators buy those loans
back, despite the fact that the
loans were written using Wells’
own guidelines.
Wells admitted in its 2007 annual report it had made a mistake in
not requiring full documentation.
(A report shared with Crain’s, but
also not mentioned.)
Wells has threatened dozens of
loan originators, demanding they
buy loans back because of its own
mistake. These threats essentially
amount to extortion: “Buy the
loans back or we’ll sue.” We could
settle the case and write them a
check, but doing so would only reward their behavior and encourage more. We won’t do it.
Smear job?
You tell me.
And the last point: A plaintiff law
firm based in Minnesota who specializes in recruiting former loan
officers to sue their former employers on the law firm’s predatory interpretation of a perceived loophole
in a 1930s overtime and wage law,
that was designed during the Depression to protect factory workers
from abusive management, sued
our company over four years ago.
Crain’s decided to mention the
on-going suit from this firm that is
attempting to extort money from
Quicken Loans.
Here’s the claim: Loan officers
at times work more than 40-hour
work weeks. They should be paid
overtime. Quicken Loans doesn’t
pay them overtime.
What they fail to mention is that
Quicken Loans instead pays commissions and bonuses! And the
amount of commission and bonuses we pay dwarfs the OT a loan officer may have otherwise received
by 700 percent or more.
The law firm, along with the exloan officers they’ve recruited,
want Quicken Loans to add all of
the commissions to their base pay
and then pay overtime on the total
number!
We will never cave to such an
abuse of the legal system so an outof-state law firm can extort money
from ethical Michigan-based companies.
See Letters, Page 9
KEITH CRAIN: We could have said no to Wall Street
OK, so the Wall Street folks have
been losing a lot of money, and the
Treasury secretary who came
from Wall Street gets the better
part of a trillion dollars to bail out
Wall Street.
To borrow a quote from a U.S.
general in World War II: “Nuts.”
I wonder what would have happened if the Treasury secretary
had come to Washington from
General Motors rather than Goldman Sachs. Our government
would be a lot more concerned
about saving the manufacturing
base of our nation, and we would
be more than happy to
have let a bunch of Wall
Street executives and
their firms pay for their
bad decisions by losing
some money.
The nation would be
OK without the Wall
Street bailout.
The auto industry
and the Detroit economy of suppliers, dealers
and automakers have more than a
million employees whose livelihoods would be threatened by failure. That’s a lot more than the em-
ployees of a few companies in New York, to say
nothing of the industrial might of this nation.
There is a bias toward Wall Street, especially among those who
made their millions
there. The idea that our
Treasury
secretary
owes his fortune to his
career as an investment
banker should have disqualified
him immediately from any discussion of using taxpayer dollars to
prop up Wall Street. He is compro-
mised. My guess is that most members of Congress are, too.
Those Wall Street companies
bought portfolios of bad home loans
to make money. The companies are
now at risk because of their bad
judgment, and they should take
their losses. After all, the mortgages
haven’t gone away. The homeowners still have the same mortgage regardless of who owns it.
Meanwhile, the Detroit auto industry had to jump through hoops
just to get $25 billion in low-interest
loans that will be paid back to help
finance technology that will help
meet new government mandates.
Once again, there has been some
screwy thinking in Congress.
We shouldn’t give Wall Street
hundreds of billions of dollars on a
whim. The mess on Wall Street is
only a distraction from a thorough
study of our national manufacturing base.
It’s time for us to call, write or email our congressional lawmakers
and tell them to take another look.
This problem is too important to
leap into a hasty response with insufficient information and deliberation.
9/26/2008
11:26 AM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 9
OTHER VOICES: End state income taxes for new grads
Many of Michigan’s colLet’s do what business
does to attract talent … pay
lege graduates leave the
for it.
state once they get their
Waive the state income
diplomas. Many in Lansing
tax on recent college gradsee an erosion of viable inuates. Ensure that only
come earners to support a
those with four-year diplospiraling state budget remas from qualified instituquirement.
tions would qualify. Make
We have infrastructure,
them earn this incentive.
we have “cool cities,” we
Matt Turnbull
Allow for out-of-state gradhave nightlife, changing
seasons, water and entertainment. uates to receive this break and enYet the young leave in droves. As courage them to come here.
politicians close another year of legI realize that the accountants
islating, we will see another senior will claim lost revenue opportuniclass enter the workplace some- ties; however, let’s remember that,
where else. Much will be made of as a whole, Americans do not save,
this; little will change.
and young adults save even less.
LETTERS CONTINUED
■ From Page 8
Another quote taken completely
out of context in Crain’s drive to
negatively slant the articles involved one piece of a long e-mail I’d
written the entire Quicken Loans
staff around Thanksgiving 2002.
In the e-mail, I thanked everyone
for their hard work over the past
year.
Because rates had moved down, I
suggested they might want to inform friends and family over the
holiday about the favorable market.
We had recently rolled out our
“Mortgage Insider” program,
which allows a team member to
arrange for discounted fees/points
for a friend or family member —
similar to plans the car companies
offer their workers.
I thought it might be timely for
team members to mention these factors so their friends and family
could take advantage of the new discount plan and favorable market.
A bad thing?
Here is how Crain’s wrote about
this e-mail, quoting some court
magistrate who is assisting on the
overtime case:
“In one e-mail, he (Dan Gilbert)
encouraged loan consultants to
sell loans at Thanksgiving dinner,
telling them ‘always be closing.’ ”
As a mortgage lender, we have
avoided the fate of other lenders
during the current storm, precisely because we have chosen not to
make a quick buck in the type of
schemes that have taken other
companies down the abyss.
The best days of Quicken Loans,
our sister companies and our thousands of hard-working, honest and
selfless team members are ahead.
We’ve created thousands of jobs in a
city and state that are in desperate
need of more companies like ours,
and we look forward to being a
leader in the comeback of Detroit
and Michigan’s business community. I have never been more excited
about the future than I am right
now!
It is shameful and curious that
Crain’s would launch such a horrendous “hack job” against our company and its extremely loyal, hardworking, and dedicated workforce.
Integrity and character are the price
of admission to walk through our
doors. I wish I could say the same
about Crain’s Detroit Business.
Dan Gilbert
Chairman
Quicken Loans Inc.
This 4.3 percent would be put back
into our local economies as quickly as they earn it and be more
rapidly deployed than the state’s
treasury could do so.
Keep the policy until they turn
30. This would get these young
earners rooted in our communities. By then they would probably
own a house and be beginning a
family. The likelihood of them
leaving then is greatly reduced.
By avoiding a state tax, we would
create a happy, motivated workforce that can help create motivated
new companies in our state.
News summaries about Michigan losing the VW plant to Ten-
nessee spoke of labor fears but overlooked that Tennessee has no income tax. As a business, you measure worker happiness and health,
and I will assure you that state tax
burdens were considered.
The Wall Street Journal reported
a Massachusetts ballot proposal
that would eliminate the state’s 5.3
percent income tax. Politicians are
now fearful that the rampant taxand-spend mentality may have finally been pushed too far. Massachusetts residents polled believed
that 41 percent of their taxes were
wasted, which, coincidentally, represented the state personal income
tax.
Expectations are that federal
taxes could rise as much as 30 percent to some taxpayers next year
(The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 4,
2008, “Obama-nomics” by Michael
Baskin), and there seems no restraint from those elected. State
budgets have risen 18 percent
since 2005, adjusted for inflation.
There comes a point where people vote with their feet and leave.
We’ve listened to the footsteps of
our graduating seniors leave the
state for too long, let’s try something revolutionary … give them a
break.
Matt Turnbull is a resident of
Grosse Pointe Park.
DBpageAD.qxd
9/23/2008
4:24 PM
Page 1
CM&D ISPROUDTO
ANNOUNCETHERECOGNITION
OF Charles M. Moore
ASAMEMBEROFTHE
Crain’s 40 Under 40
CLASSOF
c-m-d.com
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/PERATIONS#ONSULTING)NTERIM%XECUTIVE-ANAGEMENTs0ERFORMANCE)MPROVEMENT
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&ORENSIC!CCOUNTING&RAUD)NVESTIGATIONSs"USINESS6ALUATIONSs%CONOMIC$AMAGE#LAIM1UANTIlCATION
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DETROIT – CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS
3OUTH/LD7OODWARD!VE3UITE
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9/26/2008
10:20 AM
Page 1
40
40
2008
under
DETROIT BUSINESS MAIN 09-29-08 A 12,13 CDB
9/26/2008
10:54 AM
Page 12
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
F
or the past 18 years, in developing Web sites back
Crain’s Detroit Business when the Internet was in its infanhas honored the best and cy. Another rose from being a
brightest in Southeast Michigan homeless teenager to success as a
who have made their marks in leading health care human-resources executive. Others travel
business before age 40.
the world negotiCrain’s 40 Unating internationder 40 Class of
al business deals.
2008 includes a
More than 400
mix of rising Crain’s will host a reception to
honor this year’s class from 5-9
people were nomstars. Some have p.m. on Oct. 30 at The
started new com- Reserve/Big Rock Chophouse in inated for this
year’s 40 Under
panies and found Birmingham. Tickets are $75,
40. Crain’s evalusuccess. Others $40 for 40 Under 40 alumni.
ated candidates
have come up Visit www.crainsdetroit.com
/events by Oct. 24 to purchase
based on personthrough
the tickets.
al achievement
ranks at Detroit’s
and community
leading companies. Still others are working to impact.
A team of staff members evaluimprove the offerings and reach
ated candidates and checked refof area nonprofits.
One honoree was a trailblazer erences to develop our final list.
MEET THIS YEAR’S CLASS
Photos by Nathan Skid, Crain’s Detroit Business, unless otherwise noted.
Janis Acosta, 39
Vice president and general counsel
International Automotive Components
Group North America Inc.
Dearborn
Biggest accomplishment: Playing a
central role in the 2007 founding and
growth of auto supplier International Automotive Components Group
North America Inc.
Current goal: Helping the company
stay forward-thinking as it continues to grow in a volatile industry.
Janis Acosta majored in political
economy with a minor in biology before graduating from Hillsdale College in 1992.
But a summer internship with an Indiana senator
in Washington, D.C., persuaded her that the law was
to be her professional calling.
After earning her law degree from Wayne State University in 1997, Acosta rose through the ranks of corporate law to her current position, vice president and
general counsel of IAC North America Inc.
Acosta joined the company before its official found-
ing in April 2007 and played an integral role in the creation of the company out of Lear Corp.’s former interiors operations in North America.
As one of the company’s top three
executive officers, Acosta manages
all company merger and acquisition
activity and is the company’s chief
legal adviser.
Since the company’s founding,
Acosta has overseen all company acquisition activity, including operations from now-defunct Collins & Aikman Corp., which fueled the
company’s growth from 28 North
American locations and $2.5 billion
in revenue to 41 locations and $3.3
billion in revenue.
Acosta also oversees company marketing and public relations, and she works closely with other managers and the board of directors.
And even as IAC faces a challenging market in
North America, Acosta says the company plans continued growth.
— Ryan Beene
To see additional photos of all winners, go to www.crainsdetroit.com/40s
Utz-Jens Beister, 38
Class of 2008
Janis Acosta
Page 12
IAC Group North America Inc.
Amin Irving
Ginosko Development Co.
Utz-Jens Beister
Page 12
IAV Automotive Engineering Inc.
John Lesser
Page 21
Plante Moran Financial Advisors
Jesse Berger
Page 12
Eastern Michigan Kenworth Inc.
Jeff Luckoff
Clear Channel Radio Inc.
Page 22
Amal Berry-Brown
Comerica
Page 13
Christian Lupo
NSF-ISR
Page 22
Leanne Bowen
Jones Lang LaSalle
Page 13
James Maher
Page 23
Maher Restoration and Construction
Rick Brockhaus
Soave Enterprises L.L.C.
Page 13
Kristina Marshall
Mentoring Solutions
Ted Canaday
Elemental Detroit L.L.C.
Page 14
Charles Moore
Page 24
Conway Mackenzie & Dunleavy
Dawndenise Capers
Diageo North America
Page 14
Heidi Mucherie
Page 24
Community Legal Resources
Heather Carmona
Page 15
Woodward Avenue Action Association
Mary Margaret O’Donnell Page 25
Rader Fishman & Grauer P.L.L.C.
Francoise Colpron
Valeo
Stephen Potter
Patriot Services Corp.
Page 25
Laura Covintree
Page 16
Lighthouse of Oakland County
David Ripple
Wayne State University
Page 26
Antoine Dubeauclard
Media Genesis Inc.
Page 16
Steven Rybicki
Page 26
Infinity and Ovation Yacht Charters
Rita Fields
Henry Ford Health System
Page 17
Lauren Scarpace
CB Richard Ellis
Page 27
Saylor Frase
Nuspire Corp.
Page 17
Matt Schenk
Wayne County
Page 27
Scott French
Lear Corp.
Page 18
Matthew Sosin
Northern Equities Group
Page 28
Matt Friedman
Tanner Friedman
Page 18
Rich Stromback
Page 28
Ecology Coatings, Stromback Foundation
Marie Galindo
Butzel Long
Page 19
Janice Suchan
SHW Group
Page 29
Michael George II
George Enterprises
Page 19
Michael Tenbusch
United Way
Page 29
Lisa Grosso
Kinetic
Page 20
Terence Thomas Sr.
St. John Health
Page 29
Kelley Hamilton
Detroit Public Television
Page 21
William Wildern
Hydra Professionals L.L.C.
Page 30
Page 15
Page 21
Page 23
President
IAV Automotive Engineering Inc.
Northville
Biggest accomplishment: Leading
the development and implementation of a restructuring plan, expanding the product and service portfolio, increasing local jobs and
boosting revenue.
Current goal: Continuing to grow
IAV’s size and reach in North America, enabling it to become a leading
engineering service provider for
North America.
IAV is one of a handful of engineering firms in metro Detroit helping automakers and suppliers gear
up to build more fuel-efficient vehicles, but it may not
have gotten there without Utz-Jens Beister.
Beister spearheaded creation of the company’s case
to expand its product offerings and increase its German parent company’s investment in the North
American market.
He pitched the importance of investing in Detroit to
the parent company’s board of directors in Germany.
Even as the Detroit region has seen automotive jobs
dwindle, it is still the center of the North American
Jesse Berger, 37
President
Eastern Michigan Kenworth Inc.
Dearborn
Biggest achievement: Becoming the
youngest Kenworth Trucks dealership owner in the United States.
Current goal: To continue to build a
customer-focused, growth-oriented,
financially secure company.
Jesse Berger has been around
trucks for as long as he can recall.
Growing up, he went to work with
his dad, a diesel truck mechanic, in
the summers. As he got older, the
hobby turned into an apprenticeship of sorts, and then a summer job
that helped pay for college.
Finally, in 1997, Berger purchased Berger & Sons
Truck Service from his father, who had purchased the
shop from his father in 1980.
The company was small. There were 12 employees
and $2 million in annual sales. But Berger grew it. In
2005, after 30 months of negotiations, he added a second facility in Macomb County. The new location
more than doubled total staff and revenue.
“He (Berger) was extremely clever in negotiating
and purchasing the Sterling Heights and Dearborn lo-
automotive market, Beister said.
Beister’s efforts secured the investment it needed to grow in the region.
He began to restructure the company in 2005 and added powertrain
design and integration services to
the powertrain control and calibration capabilities that were the company’s core focus. The company has
powertrain testing capabilities,
which are needed by suppliers and
automakers to get new, fuel-efficient
products on the market quickly.
Under Beister’s leadership, the
private company boosted its gross
profits by 32 percent in 2006 and 44
percent in 2007, while increasing
staff by 38 percent in 2006 and 43 percent last year.
The company now employs more than 100 people
and has annual revenue of about $20 million.
IAV is also on the move.
Beister is focusing on IAV’s relocation to a new facility in Northville and expects to add more than 100 jobs.
Beister says he expects to double IAV’s employee
headcount over the next five years.
— Ryan Beene
cations,” said Dave Widlack of Community Central Bank, which has financed some of Berger’s operations.
“He’s a good operator, and a good
leader.”
Then in 2006, Berger went bigtime. He flew to Seattle to apply to
senior managers at Kenworth Trucks,
one of the leading manufacturers of
medium- and heavy-duty trucks, for
the rights to a Kenworth franchise.
The company gave Berger the green
light, and Berger became the
youngest Kenworth dealership owner in the United States.
His company now has a staff of 60,
and combined annual revenue of
more than $39 million.
Berger acquired the Eastern Michigan Kenworth of Dearborn truck dealership in April
2006 and renovated his first location in January 2007,
renaming it Eastern Michigan Kenworth of Clinton Township.
Now, Berger owns three truck service, parts, sales,
rental and leasing locations. He has also formed a subsidiary L.L.C. — Eastern Michigan Leasing, DBA Eastern
Michigan PacLease — operated within the three locations.
— Christiana Schmitz
9/26/2008
9:31 AM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 13
40 UNDER 40
Leanne Bowen, 35
Senior project manager
Jones Lang LaSalle
Detroit
Biggest achievement: Achieving
career success in a male-dominated construction industry.
Current goal: To eventually take
her boss’ job.
Amal Berry-Brown, 38
Vice president
National Arab and Chaldean
American business affairs
manager
Comerica Bank
Detroit
Biggest accomplishment: BerryBrown joined the bank in 1999
with the mission to grow the
bank’s business in the Arab and
Chaldean communities. Today,
the Warren-Calhoun branch in
Dearborn is Comerica’s top-performing branch of more than 400
nationwide, based on deposits.
Current goal: To develop a Shariacompliant line of products and services that can enable Muslims to
buy homes and fund businesses despite religious proscriptions against
borrowing and lending, and by doing so expand nationally Comerica’s
outreach in the Arab and Chaldean
communities.
Amal Berry-Brown has a particular understanding of her clients’
needs, many of them immigrants
or first-generation Americans. She
arrived as a Muslim immigrant in
the U.S. at age 5 with her parents
and siblings, who were fleeing civil war in Lebanon. Her older brothers and sisters had arrived first
and bought a home on Walwit
Street in Dearborn. A short time
after their arrival, her parents
bought their own house down the
street, where they still live.
“I learned that in order to succeed, one must have their family
close by,” said Berry-Brown. “My
entire family has been extremely
supportive. My mother in particular has played a significant role in
defining who I am and aspire to be.”
Berry-Brown was promoted in
2006 to her current title of business
affairs manager for the Arab and
Chaldean communities, with the
mission of dramatically growing
the bank’s presence nationally
while continuing to grow it locally.
What began as a 13-member
group based in Southeast Michigan
has grown to 80, with teams now
also in Houston and Los Angeles.
Berry-Brown hopes that Shariacompliant services and products
can continue that growth. She
heads the committee that will
make a request for approval to institutionalize Sharia practices and
is in the process of capturing data
regarding the Muslim communities in Comerica markets.
Berry-Brown recently was
named by Gov. Jennifer Granholm
to the Michigan Public Educational
Facilities Authority.
— Tom Henderson
Leanne Bowen’s career in real
estate started when she was a receptionist for Denn-Co Construction
Inc., a small Detroit-based drywall
contractor.
Once an aspiring journalist, the
idea of ascending in a real estate
career entered her mind late in
her college career. And she never
would have imagined that she’d
be advising companies with
household names such as MasterCard.
“If someone would have told me
Rick Brockhaus, 38
Treasurer and vice president of
finance
Soave Enterprises L.L.C.
Detroit
Biggest achievement: Rising
from accounting intern in the
1990s to become the youngest-ever
director to serve on the board of
Soave Enterprises.
Current goal: To continue to grow
the company and maintain or expand its financing relationships
with 15 different banks and lenders
in a very tight credit market.
Laws and rules of governance
may change, but successful businesses will always need people
with math and memory skills.
That may be a factor in the meteoric rise of Rick Brockhaus,
who started as an accounting in-
tern at Detroit-based Soave Enterprises while attending the University of Michigan as an undergraduate
in 1991. Brockhaus is now vice
I’d be in real estate, I would have
laughed,” she said.
The Denn-Co job helped Bowen
work her way through college,
and created her first post-college
job as the company’s purchasing
manager. Despite her family’s advice to be happy with the job she
had, Bowen put her résumé out
and landed a job at Detroit-based
Turner Construction Co.
And when a job opened in the
Detroit office of Chicago-based
Jones Lang LaSalle, she went for it
and got it within two days.
The lesson: Go for the big job.
“People sit around and wait for
something to fall in their lap, but
it won’t happen that way,” Bowen
said.
As a project manager, she has
had oversight of ground-up con-
struction projects such as the
Hilton Garden Inn and the Wayne
State University Fitness Center.
Particularly harried was the
time in 2006 when she moved Ernst
& Young out of the Comerica Tower and into One Kennedy Square
at the same time she was moving
London-based WPP’s local advertising houses out of Comerica
Tower and into Dearborn.
“It’s like moving from your own
house, and there are huge expectations,” she said. “But you have to
exceed expectations.”
Bowen takes over next year as
president of the Commercial Real
Estate Women and recently became
accredited under the LEED program through the U.S. Green Building Council.
— Dan Duggan
president of finance and treasurer, and became the youngest member of its board of directors in
2004.
“I’ve always been pretty good
with numbers and at analyzing
cause-and-effect relationships,”
he said.
Soave reports $1.77 billion in revenue across its more than 100 holdings for 2007 and is on pace to earn
more than $2 billion in 2008. It employs more than 2,200 people in real
estate development firms, beverage distributors, automotive dealerships, metal recycling companies and luxury transportation
services.
Though it is still sometimes historically associated with wastehauler services, Soave divested itself of waste by turning City
Management Corp. over to Hous-
ton-based Waste Management Inc. —
a transaction worth $750 million in
1998 when the sale closed, Brockhaus recalls.
“We’ve counseled Soave in several (merger-acquisition) transactions, and I’ve noticed when we
need to check certain facts or numbers, Rick always has them, or
knows them,” said Ira Jaffe, founding partner of Detroit-based Jaffe
Raitt Heuer & Weiss P.C. “He doesn’t
often have to send someone chasing that information for us.”
Brockhaus also said he works at
growing the company’s largest
banking relationships, and its customers have increased financing
more than 25 percent since early
2007. He is also watching closely
the national financial crisis for its
impact on the credit market.
—Chad Halcom
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Page 14
9/26/2008
9:45 AM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Ted Canaday, 35
CEO
Elemental Detroit L.L.C.
Troy
Biggest achievement: Turning experience as a musical artist into
launching a media marketing
business in 2003.
Current goal: Growing the company’s national presence.
Ted Canaday’s
credentials as a
Detroit musician
and producer —
eight Detroit Music Awards, performing on the
same stage as
Stevie Wonder
and Mos Def, and
mentions
in
Rolling Stone and
Vanity Fair —
are solid.
His bona fides
as a businessman
aren’t too far behind.
Canaday, who
plays guitar with
Detroit hip-hop
and soul group Black Bottom Collective, co-founded new-media marketing company Elemental Detroit
L.L.C. in 2003, and last year saw its
revenue grow to $1 million from
$490,000 in 2006. The Troy-based
company, whose clients include
Compuware Corp. and Delta Dental,
also went from five to 12 employees in that time.
Dawndenise Capers, 39
Wayne County congratulates
Assistant County Executive
Matthew Schenk on being
selected as a Crain’s
40 under 40 recipient.
Matt, we’re proud of the
fine work that you do.
Robert A. Ficano
Wayne County Executive
You’re simply the best!
Michigan marketing manager
Diageo North America
White Lake Township
Biggest achievement: Creating a
market for a brand that had no local market and was perceived as
unappealing to many customers.
Current goal: To be known for excellence and crushing the competition.
Dawndenise Capers — or “Didi”
as she’s often called — is a force to
be reckoned with.
She’s the kind
of
person
to
whom you can
give a budget and
a directive, sit
back and wait for
impeccable
results, said Troy
Mercer, a Chicago-based marketing manager with
London-based Diageo plc’s North
American division.
The self-determination Capers
brings to her
marketing clients
is the kind she
showed in building her own career.
After graduating from Michigan
State University with a journalism degree, Capers’ switched gears.
“I was delivering news rather
than making news and shaking
things up,” she said. “I wanted to
tap other skills and get into a different field, and that led me to marketing because my creative side was
Elemental specializes in helping
companies develop and launch
new-media strategies online, such
as a forthcoming interactive 3-D
timeline on the Charles H. Wright
Museum of African American History’s
Web site.
The company also launched in
April its own social network
geared toward Southeast Michigan’s creative class: deepcanvas.
com.
Doing
solid
work and picking up awards
along the way
have helped the
company continue to grow in a
crowded industry, and the creativity from his
musical side has
helped the slide
into
business,
Canaday said.
His co-founders
were
creative
people
with
whom he worked
closely in audio
and video production.
“It was a chance with my partners to take that (creative) thinking to the online environment.
CEO is a steep one.
“It’s been a huge transition. I’d
consider myself a self-taught businessman,” he said. “As a businessman, I’m responsible to my partners, clients and employees.”
— Bill Shea
just waiting to burst out.”
Capers started in an entry-level
position at a marketing firm, working on the operations and management side, and doing marketing
work when she could. When she
saw a chance to get in on the ground
floor of a marketing startup, she
took a chance.
Capers worked her way up the
marketing food chain to her current
position as Michigan marketing
manager for Diageo, a multinational spirits, wine and beer company.
Among Capers’ signal achievements is the success of a marketing campaign to
introduce liqueur
Baileys Irish Cream
to
Michigan’s
black population.
“My
first
thought
was,
‘Wow, Baileys?’
I’ve been in the
spirits industry
for a while, and
as an AfricanAmerican, it was
not something I’d
even
considered,” she said.
Among
the
challenges
CaWILLIAM PUGLIANO pers faced was
overcoming the
incorrect perception some customers had that Baileys would cause digestive problems for blacks, a demographic
group more likely to develop lactose
intolerance. Capers said she knew
she’d found the recipe for success
when one Baileys-sponsored event
had a line out the door before 9 p.m.
— Nancy Kaffer
9/26/2008
9:30 AM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 15
40 UNDER 40
Heather Carmona, 39
Executive director
Woodward Avenue Action
Association
Royal Oak
Biggest achievement: Bringing
new funding to the region and advocating for change efforts — like
mass transit.
Current goal: Creating and maintaining a regional welcome center
on Woodward Avenue and building the Woodward
Tribute
public art effort.
Heather Carmona is working
to promote regionalism along
the Woodward
corridor.
She took the
helm of the Woodward Avenue Action
Association
in
1999.
She’s
brought new resources to the association and diversified funding
with new foundation grants, including $35,000 each from the Community Foundation for Southeast
Michigan and the General Motors
Foundation, and $4 million in Federal National Scenic Byway funding since 2002 when the Woodward
corridor got National Scenic Byway designation.
With the funding, the association
Francoise Colpron, 38
National director, North America
Valeo
Troy
Biggest accomplishment: Leading
the North and South American legal departments of auto supplier
Valeo, in addition to being named
national director, the company’s
top post in North America.
Current goal: Increasing North
American sales.
When you’re working through
complex legal issues on
an international stage,
sometimes
things can
get lost in
translation.
But Francoise
Colpron comes
ready for the
communication
challenge:
She
speaks
French,
Spanish and
English.
Her language skills
carried her and Valeo through the
complex international negotiations surrounding various business deals.
Colpron’s 15 years of experience
as a commercial lawyer working
across the globe prepared her for
her current role as Valeo’s top executive in North America. She is
the first woman in her company to
be national director.
has been able to pursue increased
economic development, tourism development, heritage-historic programming, and physical improvements across the communities
bordering Woodward.
The association’s revenue has increased from $146,000 in 1999 to
$258,815 in 2007 and $692,000 this
year. She expanded the association’s staff and its board to include a
broader mix of businesses.
Carmona has
convened businesses, nonprofits, neighborhood
associations, and
municipal leaders at the same
table, and she’s
forged new partnerships between
with other organizations such as
the Michigan Department of Transportation, Detroit
Metro Convention
& Visitors Bureau,
Cultural Alliance of
Southeastern
Michigan and Detroit Renaissance.
Now Carmona is seeking to identify a location, partners and an estimated $2.5 million to open a Woodward Welcome Center.
To further put her advocacy talents to work, Carmona launched
purealternatives.net, an organic
wellness consulting and advocacy
company and Web site.
— Sherri Begin
Colpron joined the company in
1998, working in Paris as a legal director, where she oversaw details
of deals with customers and partners in Europe, Asia, North America and South America.
In 2005, Colpron was promoted
to deputy general counsel, where
she was responsible for legal affairs in North and South America,
which includes more than 11,000
employees and 38 locations.
The company is looking at
strengthening its presence in
North America, both through partnerships and organic
growth, even as the
market faces its
share of turbulence.
She said the goal is to
increase sales in
North America to 20
percent of the company’s global sales total, up from a current
15 percent. “We’re always interested in
any opportunities,”
she said.
For example, Colpron represented the
company in sorting
out the legal details
of a joint venture
between Valeo and
Chinese carmaker
FAWER. The venture, now called
FAW Valeo Climate Control, involved
Japanese, German and French
partners because of the different
controlling interests.
Her experiences have prepared
her for her current role — leading
Valeo’s North American business
unit, which posted an estimated
$1.8 billion in revenue in 2007.
— Ryan Beene
Saluting the
accomplishments
that make a healthier
community
Henry Ford Health System congratulates Rita Fields, our vice president of
Talent and Workforce Strategies at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, for
being named one of Crain’s Detroit Business’ 40 Under 40. We applaud your
professional achievements and honor your devotion to strengthening our
health system, as well as the community.
Rita Fields
Vice President,
Talent & Workforce Strategies
Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital
Congratulations
Marie Galindo!
We are very proud of your
Crain’s 40 under 40 recognition
Ann Arbor Bloomfield Hills Boca Raton Detroit Holland Lansing New York Palm Beach Washington D.C.
Alliance Offices Beijing Shanghai Mexico City Monterrey Member Lex Mundi 313 225 7000 www.butzel.com
Page 16
9/26/2008
9:28 AM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Laura Covintree, 39
Chief development officer
Lighthouse of Oakland County
Pontiac
Biggest achievement: Increasing the individual giving revenue stream at Lighthouse to
$700,000 this year from $200,000.
Current goal: To integrate
social networking into the
organization’s volunteer resource department.
Since joining Lighthouse
just over two years ago, Laura Covintree has worked to
make the nonprofit’s relationships with donors and
volunteers more personal
and more fruitful.
She’d had some experience in the endeavor, having worked at the St. Vincent
& Sarah Fisher Center as development director for five
years, and before that at St.
Joseph Mercy Hospital as major gifts coordinator.
At Lighthouse, Covintree
has changed business as usual.
She began by personalizing the agency’s direct mail brochures asking for support — to
show donors exactly what their dollars will
support.
By telling donors that their $100 donations,
for example, could help furnish a person’s
apartment, that donor feels a part of something, Covintree said.
She also pushed the nonprofit’s end-of-year
campaign back to October to give potential
donors more time to respond. People hang on
to the envelopes and requests for donations
and still are sending in donations from last
year’s campaign, Covintree said.
The effort has brought in more than
$125,000 in donations, up from $65,000 the
year before.
Cultivating a similar, personal relationship
with volunteers has helped bring in more and
increase the time they give
to Lighthouse of Oakland
County and its clients.
In fiscal 2006, before Covintree joined Lighthouse, it
valued its volunteer hours at
just over $26,000, but it did
not track how many volunteers it had.
Covintree counts each volunteer and can tell you that
last year Lighthouse had
1,255 people donating more
than 24,000 hours valued at
nearly $445,000.
Covintree has instituted
simple things such as
making sure the agency’s
volunteer application is online, posting opportunities
on volunteermatch.org — a
Web site that matches volunteer opportunities with potential volunteers — and beginning to build more personal relationships
with volunteers. For example, they are included in e-mailed newsletters, and receive e-mail
blasts and birthday cards.
At Covintree’s urging, volunteers and
donors now get thank you calls from the
agency’s CEO and board members.
“We’re not just contacting them when we
need something,” Covintree said.
— Sherri Begin
Antoine Dubeauclard, 35
President
Media Genesis Inc.
Troy
Biggest achievement: Overseeing a 50
percent, on average, growth rate in the
online and Detroit auto sectors.
Current goal: Growing the company’s national business.
The online universe
of the 1980s bore little
resemblance to the information superhighway of today.
No
spam.
No
Google. No MySpace.
Rather than a superhighway, it was akin
to a muddy cart path
traveled by online pioneers.
Antoine
Dubeauclard was one
of those trailblazers.
As a teenager 20 years
ago, he was programming code to develop rudimentary dialup text-based sites called multiuser dungeons, a sort of “World of Warcraft”
without graphics or millions of players.
He also oversaw a cadre of other young
programmers working on the same project.
He first began computer programming
at age 7.
“I was an early adopter, you could
say,” Dubeauclard said. “For me, it was
amazing I could be speaking and ex-
changing ideas with people all over the
world.”
Today, he’s co-owner of Media Genesis
Inc., a growing company that creates
Web sites in metro Detroit for a wide
spectrum of clients that ranges from
Chrysler L.L.C. to The Whitney.
“We have a range of clients that are
the usual automotive
manufacturing, a lot of
clients that are retailfocused or nonprofit, a
lot of law firms,” he
said. “We help businesses figure out how to
be more effective with
Web technology.
Dubeauclard,
who
was born in Canada and
raised in France before
moving to Michigan
and graduating with a
literature and creative
writing degree from the
University of Michigan,
began his career as a
salesman for Media
Genesis in 1997, a year
after the company was
founded.
By 2001, he owned half the company.
With a roster of high-profile clients
and a portfolio of cutting-edge work, the
company has seen growth in an age of
cutbacks. This year, the company, which
has 65 employees, expects to hit $8 million in revenue and has averaged 50 percent annual growth for several years,
Dubeauclard said.
“More and more people realize we are
See Dubeauclard, Page 17
9/25/2008
1:22 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 17
40 UNDER 40
Rita Fields, 35
Vice president of talent and
workforce strategies
Henry Ford West Bloomfield
Hospital
Henry Ford Health System
Detroit
Biggest accomplishment: Studying for a doctorate in management
while blending in 70-hour work
weeks.
Current goal: To hire 1,600 people
to open Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital by March 2009.
Rita Fields rose
through the ranks
with such titles as
headhunter, technical
recruiter,
and senior physician recruiter to
her current position of vice president of talent and
workforce strategies at Henry Ford
West
Bloomfield
Hospital.
She’s
always
brought a positive
and vibrant attitude to her work.
But success was
far from automatic
for Fields. She faced enormous
personal obstacles when she was
young.
“I was a high school dropout
when I was 17. I was homeless and
pregnant,” Fields said. “It has created a real passion for education
and community involvement.”
After a year on the streets,
Fields decided to pursue her childhood dream of finishing high
school and going to college. Her career took off, and she still makes
education a priority.
“What I love about my job now
is learning. I soak it up like a
sponge,” she said. “It is the key to
freedom in a lot of ways.”
Hired in March to oversee recruiting at Henry Ford’s newest
hospital, which is opening in
March, Fields has developed several innovative approaches to hiring
some 1,600 employees.
“We are developing a place
where patients and employees can
live out their
dream,” Fields
said. “We are
getting
the
fruits of our efforts returned
to us.”
One of the
paradigm shifts
Fields accomplished was to
overhaul the
system’s
recruiting and retention
process.
“We added a
lean
process
borrowed from
the auto industry to our recruiting and hiring that wrings
out the waste in the system and
helps us attract the very best candidates possible,” she said.
After candidates apply online, a
software program screens people
out who do not meet the minimum
requirements. People fitting the
bill are then selected for structured interviews, which range
from 30 minutes to two hours for
Saylor Frase, 33
President
Nuspire Corp.
Commerce Township
Biggest accomplishment: Growing
Nuspire, which provides managed
network security, from four employees and no revenue in 1999 to
nearly 40 employees and projected
revenue this year of more than $7
million, with clients including
General Motors Corp. and Fox Networks.
Current goal: To continue diversifying from the auto industry into
the retail and financial-services
industries, with a five-year plan to
grow Nuspire into a company with
revenue of $100 million.
Saylor Frase got the entrepreneurial bug in college at Central
Michigan University, where he majored in computer science and
WILLIAM PUGLIANO
earth science. Before graduating
in 1998, he founded a boutique
computer programming company,
selling it in 1999 after meeting his
See Frase, Page 18
Dubeauclard: Self-taught
■ From Page 16
the ones you go to for this kind of
work,” he said.
So how does a lit-writing major
get from The Iliad to the Internet?
“The medium really started developing when I got out of college
in the mid-1990s,” he said. “You
couldn’t major in what I was doing. They just didn’t teach it.”
So, he taught himself, and was
part of the technological surge
that changed the way mankind
communicated. And just as he began managing other programmers as a teenager, he does so today.
“I love (programming). I spent
hours a day doing it,” he said. “But
I liked the human element more.”
— Bill Shea
executives.
Fields found that the process
sometimes ground to a halt because scheduling a physical, waiting for tests to come back and
bringing candidates back in for additional information took up to
four weeks.
“We cross-trained (human-resources employees) and took out
some steps and we have it down to
seven to 10 days,” Fields said.
Overall, the entire time it takes
for a person from when they apply
to their first day at work is 30
days, although some positions
must be filled in less than 14 days,
she said.
Still pursuing her individual
dreams, Fields is back at school
again. A year ago, she started
work toward earning her doctorate of management in executive
leadership.
“I go to Walsh College (Novi). It is
incredibly demanding. I have so
much work to do. The only place I
don’t bring my BlackBerry is to
church,” she said.
— Jay Greene
Discover
the leader in you,
like Jesse Berger.
Congratulations to Jesse Berger,
President of
Eastern Michigan Kenworth, Inc.
on being named to
Crain’s 40 Under 40.
www.northwood.edu
9/25/2008
1:20 PM
Page 18
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Scott French, 39
Vice president of global metals
Lear Corp.
Southfield
Biggest accomplishment: Leading the financial turnaround of
Lear’s money-losing European interiors operations in 2004-2005, improving product quality and earning $175 million in new business.
Current goal: Profitably growing
Lear’s global metals business unit.
As vice president of Lear Corp.’s
$934 million global metals business, Scott French has to travel
the world to find the lowest-cost
metals available.
He’s used to working abroad.
In 2004, French was sent to Europe to lead the turnaround of
Lear’s interiors operations. The division lost about $38 million that
year and had about 10,000 quality
problems per million components
made — dreadful by industry standards.
French and his management
team put a plan in place that in 18
months swung the division into
the black. It posted net income of
more than $3 million, a $40 million
boost to operating income and dramatically improved quality to 19
problems per million. French said
that besides the tangible results,
the turnaround gave a chance for
individuals to shine.
“The most memorable aspect of
that experience was watching the
team grow and gain confidence as
the turnaround plan gained momentum and ultimately succeeded,” he said.
French’s track record ultimately led him to be one of the youngest
of Lear’s top leaders in the company’s automotive seat business
when he was promoted to his current position last February.
Lou Salvatore, Lear senior vice
president and president of the
company’s global seating systems,
promoted French to his current
role.
“He’s an up-and-comer; he’s going to be a very, very senior leader
in the industry,” he said.
— Ryan Beene
Matt Friedman, 37
© 2008 Northern Trust Corporation.
Partner
Tanner Friedman
Farmington Hills
Greatest achievement: Launching
own firm, netting a wide range of
contracts and building a successful business in just under two
years.
Current goal: To continue to grow
the business, with Tanner Friedman recognized as the most respected firm of its kind in the Midwest by 2012.
Matt Friedman thinks big.
Not content with a successful career in broadcast journalism,
Friedman joined a large metro Detroit public-relations firm. Not
See Friedman, Page 19
Frase: Was
inspired
■ From Page 17
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current partner, Steve Whitener.
They had talked about computer
networking and how in the coming
years the Internet would be used to
transport massive amounts of data
and to do so would require strongly managed, secure network services.
The company had $6 million in
revenue last year, and in the last
year has added 10 employees. If
plans to expand in Europe work
out — Frase spent a month there
this summer working on possible
deals — that employee total could
climb rapidly.
Another boon to employment?
The InkSpot Inc. shops, which
added 100 new locations in the last
year. Nuspire manages its store
network.
Frase says he took his inspiration from his grandfather, John
Humphrey, who is now 86. His
grandfather owned three H&O supermarkets: in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Detroit. Frase as a boy
would visit his grandfather at his
cabin up north, where he’d make
money doing odd jobs around the
property, such as helping plow the
garden or pulling out a stump.
“After receiving the money, I
would proclaim that I was rich,”
said Frase. “My grandfather would
always say, ‘You’ll never be rich
working for someone else.’ ”
— Tom Henderson
9/25/2008
2:05 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 19
40 UNDER 40
Friedman: Thinks big
■ From Page 18
content with a successful PR
career in someone else’s firm,
he founded his own.
Just two years later, Tanner Friedman has become a
household name in metro Detroit’s marketing-savvy circles.
“When (partner) Don Tanner and I started the firm, we
decided to take the advice
we’d been giving our own
clients — networking and visibility are important,” he
said. “It has proven to be good
advice. You hear stories in
the PR business all the time
about the cobbler’s kids who
have no shoes. We didn’t want
that to happen to us.”
Friedman wanted to strike
out on his own for many reasons, among them continuing
a four-generation family history of business ownership
and taking a more hands-on
role in his career. Both Friedman and Tanner left positions
at Marx Layne & Co., also in
Farmington Hills, to start
their firm.
“One of the reasons I was
really interested in having
my own firm, as opposed to
being a partner in a bigger
firm, was to be able to touch
all facets of the business,” he
said. “Being able to create a
culture from scratch has been
a very fulfilling experience.”
Not content simply to run
his own firm — Friedman projects $1.2 million in revenue
for 2008 — community service
is an important part of his
life.
Recently named the Detroit
Regional Chamber’s volunteer
of the year, Friedman dedicates time to such organizations as DMC-Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Yatooma’s
Foundation for the Kids and the
Hispanic Business Alliance, to
name a few.
“I wanted to help,” he said.
“It isn’t just all business.”
The value of community
services is something Friedman learned at home.
“There’s a long history in
my family in terms of service
to this community, and it’s
important to me,” he said. “I
was raised with that. It’s very
fulfilling to be able to contribute to an organization and
receive something other than
a paycheck in return.”
— Nancy Kaffer
Marie Galindo, 35
Special legal consultant
Butzel Long
Detroit
Biggest accomplishment: Developing the law firm’s Mexico practice
and helping to establish successful
businesses in South
America.
Current goal: To
develop in Detroit
the fifth North
American incubator funded by the
U.S.-Mexican Foundation for Science. This
helps certified tiertwo and tier-three
Mexican companies
establish and grow
businesses
in
Southeast Michigan.
As the only licensed-in-Mexico
attorney in Michigan certified by the
State Bar of Michigan to advise on
Mexican law, Marie Galindo and
her law firm have become key business liaisons here for the Mexican
government.
Galindo also helped established
Apromex, the largest association of
Mexican professionals outside of
her home country, and serves as administrative vice president and legal representative to this Association
of Mexican Professionals in Michigan.
It’s become a leading professional
organization for the members of the
automotive industry, the major
growth area in Mexico.
Fluency in German, French and
Italian — as well as English and
Spanish — has aided Galindo in interpreting and clarifying regulations, sophisticated
free
trade
agreements
and
other international transactions for
clients so they can
take part in global
trading.
Galindo also is
very active in Technology Business Acceleration-Michigan
(Tech-BA). It’s a
program that uses
seminars, workshops and a network of consultants, mentors and
experts who assist
companies understand the complexities of doing business in Michigan.
The mostly small automotive-related businesses get technical, managerial and financial assistance from
Tech-BA to help them find potential
partners and clients and to compete
internationally.
Galindo also seeks to expand Red
de Talentos, a worldwide network
linking Mexican professional talent
back to their homeland.
— Robert Ankeny
Michael George II, 36
President
George Enterprises
Farmington Hills
Biggest achievement: Diversifying the family business and successfully establishing Six Degrees
magazine in four U.S. cities.
Current goal: To place Six Degrees
in 10 cities and grow the magazine
to $12 million in advertising sales
annually in three years.
Michael George II, the youngest
of five brothers, is not overshadowed by the accomplishments of
his family. The namesake of one of
the area’s prominent families is
taking his turn at the reins.
See George, Page 20
9/25/2008
2:07 PM
Page 20
Page 1
September 29, 2008
FORTY UNDER FORTY
Lisa Grosso, 34
Foley congratulates Terence A. Thomas, Sr.,
Chief Advocacy Officer of St. John Health,
for being selected as one of Crain’s 40 Under 40.
For more information about Foley, please contact Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale in
our Detroit office at [email protected].
Foley.com
BOSTON • BRUSSELS • CENTURY CITY • CHICAGO • DETROIT • JACKSONVILLE • LOS ANGELES • MADISON • MIAMI •
MILWAUKEE • NEW YORK • ORLANDO • SACRAMENTO • SAN DIEGO • SAN DIEGO/DEL MAR • SAN FRANCISCO • SHANGHAI •
SILICON VALLEY • TALLAHASSEE • TAMPA • TOKYO • WASHINGTON, D.C.
©2008 Foley & Lardner LLP
Vice president and director of sales
and marketing
Kinetic
Southfield
Biggest achievement: Founding
Kinetic with her partners and
growing the business from five employees to 16.
Current goal: Become the creative
media resource for metro Detroit
and beyond, double annual
billings within
two years and
make Kinetic a
role model for
good business.
Lisa Grosso, the
vice president and
director of sales
and marketing for
Kinetic, a film,
video and audio
post-production
firm, graduated
from Wayne State
University with a
degree in criminal justice.
But before the
ink was dry on
her diploma, she’d discovered another love.
During college, Grosso worked as
an on-set production assistant. Her
first post-collegiate job was as a receptionist at Farmington Hillsbased production and post-production firm Grace & Wild Inc., the
largest full-service creative technical firm in the Midwest.
“I really enjoyed it from the very
beginning, all the aspects of the job,
from production to post-production,” she said. “I learned as much
as I possibly could, and I really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes postproduction aspect of advertising.”
In 2002, Grosso and four other
post-production professionals decided to start their own firm.
“We were working really, really
hard, and when you’re working
that hard, it’s the American dream
to do it for yourself,” she said. “So
we decided to take that leap of
faith.”
For the first three months,
Grosso and her partners worked
17-hour days, sans paycheck. “We
worked on sweat equity,” she said.
Grosso knew the business would
be a success seven months in,
when
Kinetic
landed a job for
post-production
of the Ford Motor
Co. centennial
materials.
“We won all of
it,” she said. “We
won the entire
job, and for such
a small company
to take on that
amount of nationally recognized work …”
Grosso’s
charge is creating a bridge between Kinetic’s
potential clients
and talented creative team — after all, she notes,
the most adept creative team isn’t
successful if the jobs don’t come in.
These days, Kinetic is certainly
bringing in work — annual revenue is about $3 million, and the
shop’s credits include a contract
with cable channel Nickelodeon’s
preschool hit, “The Wonder Pets!”
The company’s success is gratifying and bodes well for Detroit.
“A very strong goal is to have
the rest of the country recognize
Detroit as the creative mecca that
it is,” she said. “Once (a Detroit
firm) has their name roll in the
credits of a show that’s national,
that’s a big ‘atta boy’ for Detroit.”
— Nancy Kaffer
George: Publishing
■ From Page 19
CONGRATULATIONS
TO
JOHN LESSER!
PMFA salutes our colleague John Lesser and his fellow
“40 Under 40” designees. Your hard work and proven
leadership mean outstanding service for our clients
every day. We are all proud of your accomplishments!
—The PMFA Team
To learn more, visit pmfa.com.
THRIVE.
“My father provided me with
the tools and guidance to be able to
handle the tough decisions that I
have to make on the daily basis,”
said George. “My brothers have
given me the support, trust and
strength to guide their businesses
now and in the future.”
The George family is known for
ties to food products and brands
such as Melody Farms Dairy, Stroh’s
Ice Cream and Pioneer Snacks. The
family sold its food businesses to
Dallas-based Dean Food Co. in 2003.
George has taken George Enterprises into other industries to diversify.
George’s most recent project is
Six Degrees magazine, a pocketsized publication that provides entertainment information of life
and culture in various cities. In its
third year, the magazine is geared
toward young professionals “seeking the finer things in life.”
“The word ‘luxury’ has come a
long way,” said George. “Now luxury is more affordable and Six Degrees is bringing people to that
lifestyle.”
Six Degrees can be found in Miami, Atlanta, Detroit and Las Vegas.
Urth Tech, a company formed by
George, his family and partners, recently patented a cleaner that removes and kills black mold spores.
The food-based disinfectant, which
is healthier than bleach, can be
used to sanitize hospitals.
George still dabbles in the food
industry by using resources to develop Health Treat, a process that
removes cholesterol from food by
using separators to modify fat
found in dairy products. Another
business called Lifestyle Brand Management, a manufacturing representative company, was formed to
market and sell Motley Bird energy drink and other products.
George is also the president of
Michael J. George Charity, named after his father for his years of work
in the community. The charity targets terminal diseases, education
and poverty. The foundation gives
and raises money for other
501(c)(3) organizations.
George holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in finance from Wayne State
University.
— Bernadine Stallings
9/25/2008
2:08 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 21
40 UNDER 40
Kelley Hamilton, 37
Vice president of development
Detroit Public Television
Wixom
Biggest achievement: Creating
one of the most successful individual giving programs among PBS
stations around the U.S.
Current goal: To raise the final
$3.6 million needed to receive a
$1.25 million challenge grant from
the Kresge Foundation and close out
the station’s $22 million capital
campaign.
It took Kelley Hamilton only six
years to move from memberships
manager at Detroit Public Television
in 1996 to vice president of development.
As head of development, Hamilton today is in charge of raising
about 60 percent of the station’s
revenue, or $9 million annually,
through on-air and online pledge
drives, direct-mail campaigns and
grant proposals to foundations.
She’s headed efforts that have
brought in at least 60 percent of total revenue each of the past eight
years — and cut fundraising expenses to keep down the station’s
costs to raise money when revenue
declined.
Hamilton is tapping the Internet to bring in more money for
DPTV, through things such as a
“box office” on the station’s Web
site, www.dptv.org, which offers
tickets to local events donated to
the station for a set pledge amount.
Under her leadership, the station has been able to keep its membership consistent over the past
three years, at 68,000, bucking a
national trend of declining membership, she said.
Hamilton assumed responsibility for heading the station’s $22 million capital campaign a year ago
when it stalled after raising about
$12 million.
Since then, she has successfully
garnered a $1.25 million challenge
grant from the Kresge Foundation
and another $5 million by shifting
the focus of the campaign from the
station’s new Wixom building,
which had been paid off, to new
programming areas. Those include children and education, arts
and culture, energy and environment, health and safety and leadership.
Hamilton also helps run the station’s “Kids’ Club,” a membership
club for donors which produces
special activities and educational
projects aimed at children and
more general audience programming on issues related to them.
In that role, she became host of
a half-hour show on Detroit Public
Television, “Get Up, Get Out,” a
weekly series that encourages
children to engage in outdoor activities.
— Sherri Begin
Amin Irving, 31
John Lesser, 39
President
Ginosko Development Co.
Milford
Biggest achievement: Deciding to leave investment
banking in New York City at age 22 without job leads
in Michigan. Created a development company to own
and/or manage affordable housing.
Current goal: To create diversity in revenue streams
and increase efficiency of business processes to reach
50 percent revenue growth and retained earnings for
the next three years.
Partner
Plante Moran Financial Advisors
Auburn Hills
Biggest accomplishment: Growing a financial advisory business for Plante & Moran P.L.L.C’s wealthier tax
clients from a staff of five with $500,000 in revenue to a
staff of 22 with $7.3 million in revenue.
Current goal: To replicate the wealth management
model across Plante & Moran’s footprint. In the next
year, he will spend a lot of time in the firm’s offices in
Ohio and Illinois, and expects to add $1 million in revenue from those operations in 2009.
Amin Irving’s Milford-based Ginosko Development
Co. has grown revenue from just over $1.1 million after its founding in 2002 to more than $5.1 million last
year.
Among Ginosko’s deals has been New Center
Pavilion, a 71unit
Detroit
apartment
building
that
used $3.5 million in tax credits and also is
seeking a $1 million
Detroit
Home
Funds
grant.
Other
projects have include
Willow
Vista, a 52-unit
complex
in
Lansing;
Northville
Farms, with 525
units;
and
Spring Lake Village in Pontiac, a 250-unit project.
He also has done two 100-unit HUD Section 8 projects in Chicago, Springgrove Tower and Parkview
Tower, and Springview Tower in Battle Creek. He
currently works on Devon Square Apartments in Ferndale, a joint venture with Brighton-based Unified
Property Group L.L.C.
Irving holds a bachelor of business administration
in finance and real estate from the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. His work in
New York for Citigroup’s real estate equity division included financial analyses for sale-leaseback and synthetic lease deals of more than $450 million that included work for Huntington Bank and Samsung
properties.
Irving has served on the board of FLECS Inc. (Financially Liberated Extra Curricular Students).
— Robert Ankeny
John Lesser said he got good advice from a mentor
early in his career that what the CEO and COO want
from a CFO isn’t numbers — it’s what the numbers
mean. And he tries to apply that to his role overseeing
wealth management for clients.
He and his
team get to know
clients,
what
their goals are
and what investment models are
most appropriate.
When
he
joined Plante &
Moran P.L.L.C. in
1996, the firm
served the investment needs
of
its
ultrawealthy clients
with a staff of
five and was considered something of an afterthought. Lesser asked if
he could roll out what he called a CFO model, offering
a full range of financial advice and wealth management services. His bosses, he said, told him to go
ahead, that he’d either be very successful, or would
crash and burn in grand style.
The business takes a holistic approach, involving
investment consulting, estate planning, trust services,
insurance consulting, philanthropic advice and income tax planning. “I particularly enjoy educating second-, third- and fourth-generation family members
and watching them become financially responsible
business leaders,” he said.
Lesser has put his skill with numbers to good use in
other ways: He has been treasurer of the Macomb Symphony Orchestra for four years and chairman of the zoning appeals board in Sterling Heights for five years.
— Tom Henderson
The Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering
Program (DAPCEP) would like to recognize our
Sponsoring Organizations for their continuous
support of Metropolitan Detroit Youth and
Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics education.
Your support enables DAPCEP to excite
and motivate the next
For more
generation of technology
,
formation
in
workers.
ase visit
List of Corporate Sponsors at time of print:
Corporate Partners
• 3M Foundation
• Alcoa Foundation
• Automation Alley
• Bank One / JPMorgan Chase
• Black United Fund of Michigan
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of
• Dow Corning Corporation
• Exam Experts
• The Herbert H. & Grace A. Dow
Foundation
• DTE Energy Foundation
• Ford Motor Company
• General Motors Corporation
• Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation
Michigan
• Himmel Foundation
• City of Detroit Block Grant
• The John S. and James L. Knight
• Charles J. Strosacker
Foundation
Foundation
• Michigan Space Grant Consortium
• Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund
• National Science Foundation
• Chrysler Corporation
(NSF)
• Comerica Bank
• Nissan USA
• Compuware
• Denso International America, Inc. • Tabernacle Missionary Baptist
Church
• Detroit Public Schools
• The Skillman Foundation
• Detroit Regional Chamber
• State of Michigan
• Detroit Youth Foundation
• Tiger Woods Foundation
• Dow Chemical Company
• Dow Chemical Co. - Dow Promise • Visteon Corporation
ple
pcep.org
www.da
University Partners
• Lawrence Technological
University
• Michigan State University
• Michigan Technological University
• Oakland University
• University of Detroit Mercy
• University of Michigan - Ann
Arbor
• University of Michigan - Dearborn
• Wayne State University
9/25/2008
3:24 PM
Page 22
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Jeff Luckoff, 39
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po!cfjoh!obnfe!pof!pg!DsbjoÖt!51!Voefs!51/
Dpohsbuvmbujpot!up!bmm!pg!Nfusp!EfuspjuÖt!Mfbefst!boe!Cftu/
umd.umich.edu
General sales manager
WJLB 97.9 FM, WMXD 92.3 FM
Farmington Hills
Biggest achievement: Expanded
radio advertising share targeting
blacks at his stations by 30 percent.
Current
goal:
Further increase
the share of radio
advertising targeting blacks.
Radio and advertising
run
deep in Jeff Luckoff’s genes.
His father runs
a pair of stations
in San Francisco.
His late grandfather and late uncle ran an advertising agency in
Detroit, L.H. Luckoff and Co.
Today, Luckoff
is in charge of sales for Detroit’s
leading radio stations aimed at
black audiences, WJLB 97.9 FM and
WMXD 92.3 FM, both owned by
The stations ranked No. 6 and
No. 8 in the Detroit market by revenue in this year’s Crain’s Book of
Lists, and have a combined revenue of about $25 million. Luckoff
wants to improve not only those
rankings, but the amount of radio
advertising dollars spent targeting
the black audience in the entire
market — an audience he believes
is largely untapped by advertisers.
For his stations, he’s boosted
black-targeted ad sales from $33
million to about $43 million during
his three years as general sales
Christian Lupo, 39
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General manager
NSF International Strategic
Registrations
Ann Arbor
Biggest achievement: Increasing
NSF ISR’s revenue by 30 percent
since 2004 by improving operations and establishing a presence
in Europe, South America and
Asia.
Current goal:
To sustain the
growth by diversifying into highgrowth
areas
such as greenhouse gas verification while looking for other
acquisition opportunities.
Christian
Lupo is overseeing a budding
business for Ann
Arbor-based NSF
International Inc.
He joined NSF
in 1999 as a northeastern U.S. sales
representative based in Auburn,
N.Y.
Two years later, he moved to its
Ann Arbor office to become technical manager, overseeing internal
processes and international and
accreditation requirements for
staff. He also developed auditing
manager. And most of that is new
spending, not revenue drawn from
competing stations, he said.
“We’re not just trading dollars,”
he said.
His goal now is to boost the total
dollars in the 22-station market
from about 17 percent aimed at
black listeners to about 22 percent.
Total annual
spending on radio advertising
in Detroit is
about $200 million, he said.
While radio ad
spending
has
been in the decline here, about
10 percent a
year, he said, the
dollars targeted
to the black audience has potential to grow.
“It’s a viable
consumer (advertisers have)
been
ignoring
and not inviting
in their business. They were
spending in Detroit, but not on
African-American stations,” Luckoff said. “People need (radio) more
than ever. Businesses that just
used to open their doors now need
to advertise.”
A California native, but a thirdgeneration University of Michigan
graduate, Luckoff was eventually
lured back to the region because of
family ties, and he has thrived.
“When I had a chance to move to
Detroit, I jumped at it,” said Luckoff, the president-elect of the Detroit Radio Advertising Group. “I have
a lot of family history here. I love
the passion the listeners have for
the radio stations.”
— Bill Shea
processes for the aerospace, automotive, medical devices and
telecommunications industries.
In 2004, concurrent with entering the MBA program at the University of Michigan, Lupo was promoted to general manager of NSF
International Strategic Registrations.
The following year, he helped integrate the operations of Deloitte
Quality Registrations, following
NSF’s purchase
of the Windsorbased unit of Deloitte & Touche
L.L.P.
Today
Lupo
oversees the NSF
ISR’s sales, marketing and field
staff and revenue
of $21 million.
Last
year,
Lupo helped establish a joint
venture in China
before completing his MBA.
In addition to hunting for other
international acquisition opportunities, Lupo is overseeing development of the division’s greenhouse
verifications services. This would
accredit corporate claims of removal or reduction of gases so
clients can qualify for incentives.
— Sherri Begin
9/24/2008
1:21 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 23
40 UNDER 40
Kristina Marshall, 31
President and CEO
Mentoring Solutions, dba Winning
Futures
Warren
WILLIAM PUGLIANO
Biggest achievement: Increasing
the number of students served
last year to 500 from 75 in 2004 —
after funding cuts — by diversifying funding sources, expanding to
additional school districts and
implementing a consulting division.
Current goal: To market Winning Futures’ Five-Year Planning
Student Workbooks and training
manuals on a national scale
through an online store.
As a high school senior in 1994,
Marshall was among the first
group of high school seniors from
Warren Mott High School to go
through Winning Futures’ program to help students define and
achieve personal success.
She was awarded a scholarship from Winning Futures and
went to Michigan Technological University for environmental engineering, initially.
But during college, Marshall
realized what she really wanted
to do was lead Winning Futures
and help give other youths the life
skills they needed to be successful.
She switched majors to business administration and pro-
posed to the founder of Winning
Futures that she’d like to come
home and lead the program. She
took the reins of the nonprofit at
age 21 in 1998.
Since then, she’s expanded the
program beyond one high school
in Warren to offer those personal
growth services to 15,000 elementary through high school students
throughout metro Detroit.
When Marshall first started in
1998, the organization served 500
students. A year later, she increased the number of children
served by the agency to 1,000 kids
in mentoring programs and motivational assemblies.
See Marshall, Page 24
James Maher, 36
President
Maher Restoration and
Construction Co.
Walled Lake
Biggest achievement: Steadily
growing the business in a struggling economy.
Current goal: Maintaining a balance of work, community volunteering and family.
As a youngster growing up in a
family of small-business owners,
James Maher always dreamed
about opening up his own business.
So in 2003 he founded Maher
Restoration and Construction Co. in
Walled Lake. Maher Construction
has two primary business lines: remodeling and insurance restoration.
Maher said the company’s motto
is: “If anything happens, just call
Maher.” Moreover, each truck
sports a sign: “Maher Makes It
Happen.”
“We have a large passion for the
insurance restoration side of our
business. When people have an
emergency at their home (fire or
flood), we are first on the scene.
We are there to help individuals
out and let them know everything
is OK.”
For example, in February, a
family was vacationing when a water line broke in their 4,800-squarefoot, three-story house in White
Lake Township.
“It flooded from top to bottom,”
Maher said. “We had to remove
80,000 gallons of water, packed up
all the belongings and dried everything out.”
Maher said full restoration of
the house took two-and-a-half
months.
“They were very happy because
we put their house back together,”
Maher said. “This is what we do.”
Each year, Maher Construction
has grown in revenue from
$500,000 in 2003 to more than $2.2
million projected for 2008. The
company employs nine, including
sister Angie, who as marketing director helps build relationships
with municipal organizations and
clients.
Aside from working about 60
hours a week, Maher said he
serves on various civic and community groups. For example, he is
a member of the Walled Lake Urban
Design Committee, the Wixom Planning Commission, Rotary and the Fraternal Order of Police.
— Jay Greene
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2:49 PM
Page 24
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Congratulations, Utz!
Now the world knows what we have
always known and we are very proud
to be working with you.
From your IAV team
Charles Moore, 36
Senior managing director
Conway Mackenzie & Dunleavy
Birmingham
Biggest accomplishment: Being
named the youngest equity partner
and senior managing director in the
history of Conway Mackenzie at the
age of 35.
Current goal: As lead restructuring
adviser to Greektown Casino since
May, he is in charge of directing the
business operations while it operates under Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection. He hopes to develop a
plan that allows creditors to be paid
in full and lets existing equityholders retain ownership.
Charles Moore joined Conway
Mackenzie & Dunleavy, a crisismanagement and turnaround consulting firm, in October 2001 after a
stint as CFO of Taylor-based Horizon
Technology L.L.C., then a privately held $50 million diversified company with manufacturing, retail, real
estate and travel operations.
Marshall:
Mentoring
■ From Page 23
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In 2004, when the state cut higher education funding, Winning Futures’ funding from area schools fell and it was only
able to serve 75 students, Marshall said.
But last year, under her direction and
assistance in fundraising, the agency
served 1,700 Michigan children.
During her tenure, the organization
has given out $850,000 in scholarships,
backed in part by the fundraising Marshall does.
She’s raised $2.5 million over nine
years for the organization, mainly
through corporate donations and grant
writing. Part of that has gone into the
nonprofit’s endowment fund for scholarships and the rest to operations.
This year, the nonprofit has a $500,000
annual budget. She oversees four fulltime employees and 100 part-time volunteers.
Marshall also began forging relationships with other mentoring groups when
she established the Metro Detroit Mentor
Collaboration, a professional development and networking group for mentoring professionals, in 2003.
She was appointed as one of 20 members of the state’s Mentor Michigan
council in 2004 and has served on it since
then offering guidance on quality standards for mentoring and identifying innovative ways to bring funding to the
state for mentoring and to recruit more
mentors.
In January, Marshall began selling to
nonprofits across Michigan the workbooks and curriculums that Winning
Futures developed to teach life skills
through mentoring. In the past month,
that’s added up to about $3,000 in new
revenue. This coming January, she
plans to begin contacting national mentoring groups to promote and hopefully
sell the nonprofit’s materials nationwide.
— Sherri Begin
Moore heads the financial advisory practice at the
firm, the largest business unit with 16 employees and
$16.5 million in revenue.
Soon after beginning his engagement with Greektown, Moore secured $150 million in financing the
casino needed to finish its stalled
construction. The casino is the first
in Michigan to go into bankruptcy
and will be a landmark case, testing
several aspects of Michigan’s gaming law.
At Conway Mackenzie, one of
Moore’s major successes was with
Hastings Manufacturing Co. CMD won
the 2005-2006 Transaction of the
Year Award from the Detroit chapter of the Turnaround Management Association for overseeing its sale to
The Anderson Group.
Moore, who was appointed in December to the Legislative Commission on Government Efficiency to
help trim waste in state government, said his long-term goal is to
eventually assume the role of president at Conway
Mackenzie.
— Tom Henderson
Heidi Mucherie, 33
Executive director
Detroit
Biggest achievement: Doubled the staff and budget at
during her first 18 months as
executive
director
and
launched and led the Detroit
Vacant Property Campaign,
including
successfully advocating for the
Detroit Land
Bank.
Current
To
goal:
constantly
strive for
“our organization to
be relevant
and
sustainable, and
for it to be
an
effective, wellmanaged
operation
that can deliver real, measurable results.”
Heidi Mucherie has worked
as an urban planner, policy
analyst and program evaluator in community development in Detroit for more than
10 years.
She holds a master’s degree
in public administration from
Wayne State University, and she
coordinated an evaluation of
the city of Detroit’s Community Development Block
Grant program at WSU under
a research grant in 1997.
Community
Legal
Resources, aided by volunteer
lawyers, gives pro bono legal
representation to Michigan
nonprofit
organizations
working with disadvantaged
communities and individuals.
At Community Legal Resources, Mucherie helped created the Detroit Vacant Prop-
erty Campaign to respond to
the foreclosure crisis fallout.
She coordinates this multiyear partnership between her
organization and the University of Michigan Taubman College
of Architecture and Urban Planning
and
Community
Development
Advocates of
Detroit,
which
is
funded
by
Detroit LISC
and the Kresge
Foundation.
It seeks to
aid
neighbors hit by
vacant-property blight to
develop tools
and strategies to mitigate the negative effects
and put the vacant land and
buildings back to productive
uses.
Mucherie also is working to
get the city to create a more
up-to-date vacant-property
management system.
“I approach my work with
the hope at the end of every
day that I’ve helped to build
stronger neighborhoods, improve people’s opportunities
to succeed, strengthen my
clients and partners, and
make a noticeable, positive
difference,” she said.
Mucherie sets a high bar
for herself in her work.
“If it feels too comfortable,
it probably needs to be challenged, so a leader must ask
tough questions and push the
envelope through hard work
and service to leave communities better off than we find
them.”
— Robert Ankeny
9/24/2008
1:25 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 25
40 UNDER 40
Mary Margaret O’Donnnell, 36
Partner
Rader Fishman & Grauer P.L.L.C.
Bloomfield Hills
Biggest achievement: Managing
worldwide trademark portfolios in
a thriving intellectual-property
law practice.
Current
goal:
Continuing to expand Rader Fishman & Grauer’s
trademark practice, particularly
for
innovative
products and services, and continuing to recruit
new talent as the
practice expands.
Mary Margaret
O’Donnell is a sort
of international
police watchdog.
As co-manager
of the trademark
practice at Rader
Fishman, she shares responsibility with Mike Fishman for overseeing the work of more than a dozen
lawyers and six paralegals to protect trademarks around the world.
“She plays an important role, especially in our foreign trademark
practice,” said R. Terrance Rader,
a founding partner in the firm that
in the past 10 years has obtained
more than 11,000 patents and
14,000 trademarks for clients.
O’Donnell said her decision to
go into intellectual-property law
was cemented by a 1995 internship
at a Paris law firm which specialized in that area while she earned
an advanced degree in IP law at a
Bordeaux university.
Returning to the U.S., she completed her Juris Doctor degree at
Wayne State University School of Law,
graduating cum laude in May 1998,
and joined Rader Fishman two
years later.
O’Donnell
has moved on to
co-chair
the
trademark litigation subcommittee of the
American Bar Association Intellectual Property
Litigation
Committee and
is an immediate
past
board
member of the
Women’s Bar Association
of
Michigan, where
she was mentorship co-chair. She
also teaches an international
trademark class at the Thomas M.
Cooley School of Law.
On any given day, she may be
called on to deal with counterfeiting of clothing, auto or electronic
parts, in Turkey, China or Europe.
“It’s exciting and fun to be in a
job where you can use your foreign
language skills; eight years of conjugating verbs wasn’t a waste at
all,” she said.
On the personal side, she has
two sons and is on the board of the
Drayton Avenue Cooperative
Preschool.
— Robert Ankeny
“Individual commitment to a
group effort — that is what makes
a team work, a company work, a
society work, a civilization work.”
– Vince Lombardi
As we congratulate our colleague Matt Friedman on being
named to Crain’s “40 under 40,” we want to also acknowledge
and thank our clients, collaborators and partners.
We all share together in this recognition.
www.tannerfriedman.com
Stephen Potter, 38
Founder and president
Patriot Services Corp.
Walled Lake
Biggest achievement: Lining up
Patriot Services Corp. as a subcontractor to Science Applications International Corp. in a new contract
worth up to $500 million with the
U.S. Department of
Defense. Patriot
Services will likely handle a sevenfigure component
within the SAIC
deal.
Current goal: To
help with organization and identifying $5 million in
venture-capital
funds for the newly incorporated
Michigan
Homeland Security Resource
Fund,
where he serves
on the board of directors.
For someone who has built a career in safety and security,
Stephen Potter seems fairly comfortable taking on a venture with
an element of risk.
Potter, president of Patriot Services, said he wasn’t particularly
nervous about leaving his public
safety consultant position at Plante
& Moran P.L.L.C. in 2004 to head a
startup homeland security firm
that was headquartered in his
Clawson basement for its first year
or so.
“The timing was right,” he said
of the move.
“The Department
of Homeland Security had already
formed
and was getting
legs, and there
were starting to
be grants available under appropriations
(passed in late
2003) to aid local
agencies
and
schools in emergency preparedness.”
Potter founded the company
with
Thomas
Quisenberry,
formerly the Oakland County undersheriff and a fellow consultant
with Potter at Plante. Another of
the company’s co-owners, Scott
Hiipakka, served with him at the
Pentagon in 2002-03 as part of the
210th Military Police Battalion in
Operation Noble Eagle, handling
security support after Sept. 11.
See Potter, Page 27
The World’s Best
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and One of Detroit’s Best.
Congratulations to Jesse Berger
of Eastern Michigan Kenworth!
Kenworth not only makes the World’s Best trucks, it also has the World’s Best dealers. The
Kenworth Truck Company is thrilled to see Jesse Berger’s commitment to quality, reliability and
excellence at Eastern Michigan Kenworth recognized in Crain’s Detroit’s 2008 40 Under 40.
9/24/2008
3:02 PM
Page 1
Page 26
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
David Ripple, 36
Vice president of development
and alumni affairs
Wayne State University
Detroit
Biggest accomplishment: Helping
to reach and surpass the $500 million fundraising goal of WSU’s
Wayne First capital campaign.
Current
goal:
Launch new initiatives for giving by 2009.
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Sometimes the
reward for tackling a challenge is
to get a bigger
one.
Ripple in September
gained
permanent
appointment from
Wayne State University President
Jay Noren as vice
president of development and
alumni affairs at
Wayne State University. It’s a position Ripple has held on an interim
basis since late June.
He obtained the post after a recommendation from Noren to the
WSU Board of Governors, and replaces Susan Burns, who left the
position to become president of the
St. John Health Foundation.
“The promotion has meant going
Steven Rybicki, 32
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General manager
Infinity and Ovation Yacht Charters
St. Clair Shores
Greatest achievement: Hiring the
right people and building the right
team. “You feel as though when
you have the right team in place,
you can do anything.”
Current goal: Rybicki hopes to
continue to grow the business by
moving into new endeavors in other industries with the same business model.
Steven Rybicki’s story would
make
a
good
movie — as a
teenager, he started as a dishwasher on a charter
yacht called the
Infinity. Today,
he’s the general
manager of Infinity
and Ovation Yacht
Charters, owned
by
Sterling
Heights-based
Continental Dining
Services Inc.
Mom Sara Rybicki, a nurse, had
delivered the baby
of the Infinity’s then-owner. The
yacht’s staff lacked a dishwasher,
Sara Rybicki lobbied for her son,
and he got the job.
“I worked almost every position
and had been given greater responsibility over the years,” he said.
Rybicki became general manager at age 24, and used his knowledge of the charter business to redefine the brand.
“The previous company that
owned the boat had confused the
marketplace,” he said. “I was able
from a staff of 42 to staff of 100. It’s
also meant understanding and taking on more of the duties of the department, since I was previously
handling just one part of it,” he said.
Ripple joined the department in
mid-2006 as an associate vice president of development and was
largely responsible for coordinating fundraising efforts in the
school’s Wayne
First campaign.
When he took it
over, the campaign had raised
$329 million toward its $500 million goal. Now it
is at $870 million,
including a $407.8
million in-kind
gift to the school’s
College of Engineering from the
Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education last
year.
Before coming
WSU,
he
WILLIAM PUGLIANO to
worked for New
York-based CCS Fundraising, where
he handled a $30 million donor
campaign for the Michigan Opera
Theatre in Detroit.
David DiChiera, general director of the opera theater, said he
was impressed with Ripple’s professionalism and effectiveness.
— Chad Halcom
to see all the things that were
wrong, and being educated
through business school, I knew
what I would do if was in a position to make changes.”
When Continental bought the
company, and appointed Rybicki
general manager, he had the
chance to enact his plans.
“We made a change in our management team, rebranded ourselves, stopped doing public events
because our guests appreciated exclusivity, built a new yacht, started watching the
trends …” Rybicki said.
Revenue
would fall in the
first few years,
Rybicki knew,
because
rebranding
the
boat
initially
meant fewer engagements.
“But then we
began to build
our revenue in
another direction,” he said.
In 2005, the
business added
another vessel,
WILLIAM PUGLIANO the
Ovation,
doubling business overnight. It replaced the Infinity with a sleeker vessel in 2007.
The company now can attract new
kinds of business, like larger,
more traditional weddings. It has
the capacity for parties of 150-300
people. Rybicki oversees a budget
of $3.8 million.
The view from the water,
Rybicki said, is good.
“I believe we have one of the
best ways to showcase the city of
Detroit,” he said.
— Nancy Kaffer
‘
9/24/2008
3:02 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 27
40 UNDER 40
Lauren Scarpace, 30
Matt Schenk, 36
Senior associate
CB Richard Ellis
Southfield
Assistant county executive
Office of the Wayne County Executive
Detroit
Biggest achievement: Attracting the $600 million
Chrysler L.L.C. Phoenix to Trenton, because it was so meaningful to the local community.
Current goal: To see a renovated and expanded Cobo Center
plan approved by the end of the
year.
Biggest achievement: Two recent
deals that helped companies expand and create jobs in the area —
retaining Seco Tools Inc. and selling
a Macy’s distribution center, which
later brought new jobs to the region.
Current goal:
Expand
his
client
roster
through executing successful
real
estate
strategies within metro Detroit
and assisting in
projects outside
of Michigan.
Over
the
course of a commercial real estate broker’s career, they often
make a change
from being a
street broker to
a corporate real estate adviser, a
difference between getting dirty in
industrial buildings versus giving
presentations to C-suite executives.
At the age of 30, Lauren
Scarpace has filled both roles, said
Mike Gerard, senior managing director based at the CB Richard Ellis
office in Southfield.
“It’s a paradigm shift that he’s
been able to handle at a very
young age,” Gerard said.
Scarpace, a commercial real estate broker focusing on industrial
real estate, has not only been able
to find tenants for some of Detroit’s vacant buildings, but also to
find — and keep — businesses
here.
Since 2005, he has done more
than 3 million square feet of sales
and leasing.
Among his significant deals,
Scarpace was part of the team that
attracted Hino Motors Manufacturing
USA — of which Toyota Motor Corp.
owns a controlling interest — from
the East Coast to Farmington
Hills. He was also
part of the group
that kept Seco in
Michigan when it
relocated
its
headquarters to
Troy from Warren.
His résumé is
further padded by
a
1
millionsquare-foot sale of
an Ohio manufacturing plant by
L.G. Phillips.
CB Richard Ellis had put him on
some of its most
important multistate clients, such as Volkswagen of
America. Institutional property
owners including First Industrial Realty Trust, Liberty Property Trust and
Sears Holding Corp. have hired him
to lease their real estate.
In 2002, his former employer,
Cushman & Wakefield, named him
“Rookie of the Year,” and then
“Junior Broker of the Year” in
2003. The Bethesda, Md.-based real
estate research company CoStar
Group named Scarpace among the
top 20 brokers in the Detroit market in 2004.
In addition to real estate,
Scarpace has a passion for cars. He
and his family own a race car, and
he competes in the Sports Car Club
of America’s Great Lakes Division.
— Daniel Duggan
It often takes an army of people to make anything happen in
government.
While the big ideas come from
the top — where the credit goes
as well — it takes smart implementation people to make things
work.
Matt Schenk is one of those
people.
Out of law school, Schenk opted not to work at a corporate law
firm but rather to work in government. Since then, he’s been behind the scenes
drafting legislation and wrangling with legal issues on some of the region’s most significant topics.
Here’s a partial list: Legal issues with Detroit’s
casinos, the Super Bowl XL application, Chrysler
L.L.C.’s expanded engine plant in Trenton, planning
for the county’s aerotropolis concept, and crafting a
funding and governance structure for the expansion
of Cobo Center.
Schenk is the lawyer in the background at all the
meetings, advising the top elected officials and finding ways to make ideas come to fruition.
“He’s not one of those people
who says ‘we can’t do it,’ ” said
Wayne County Executive Robert
Ficano. “He says ‘let’s see how we
can get there,’ and then he gets you
there.”
Schenk was a legislative analyst
for Detroit City Councilwoman
Sheila Cockrel, a position where he
gave advice and was involved with
crafting such legislation as the
city’s ethics ordinance and the city’s
purchasing ordinance.
From 2000 to 2004, he was legislative assistant corporation counsel
in the city of Detroit’s law department. Schenk then took his current
job as part of Ficano’s inner circle of
five assistant county executives.
After 12 years of working in government, Schenk
still enjoys his work and looks for new challenges.
“The job is different every day,” he said. “And you
know at the end of the day that the work you’re doing really matters to a lot of people, people who you
see on a daily basis.”
— Daniel Duggan
Potter: Timing it right
■ From Page 25
Both men are officers in the Michigan National Guard.
Patriot Services soon relocated
to Walled Lake after landing one of
its first contracts, with Walled
Lake Consolidated Schools.
Now with 11 employees and 20
contractors, the company has seven school district clients in Michigan and one in Denver, and topped
$1.2 million in revenue for 2007
compared with $731,000 in 2006.
Those numbers will likely continue to climb, as Patriot Services
earlier this year became a subcontractor to Science Applications International Corp. on an extension of
the latter’s Guardian contract to
protect infrastructure and function within the Department of Defense.
Patriot Services provides training and consulting services to
clients, mostly in the public sector,
on emergency preparedness and
response to terror threats or to
chemical, biological, radiological
or nuclear attack. The company
also has several clients in public
health agencies, in Michigan and
other states, but Potter also sees
other areas of concern that need
response training, such as water
supply systems.
Several weeks ago, Potter also
became chairman of a newly elected board of directors for the Lansing-based nonprofit. Michigan
Homeland Security Consortium. He
also sits on the board of the Michigan Homeland Security Resource
Fund, a venture-capital fund formally incorporated in late July.
Potter said support from his
wife, Betsy, has been invaluable.
The family had no savings and
used a credit card for three months
until Patriot’s revenue started
coming in.
“She has always served as a
sounding board for ideas, a confidant, and someone who believed in
me.”
— Chad Halcom
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9/24/2008
2:59 PM
Page 28
Page 1
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
Matthew Sosin, 33
President
Northern Equities Group
Farmington Hills
Biggest achievement: Overseeing
the completion of the infrastructure for a 200-acre business park.
Current goal: To carry on the
company with the same mission
and philosophy
his father had
when the company was started.
Matthew
Sosin always
knew he’d be
taking over the
real estate business his father
started in 1979.
But he didn’t
want it to be a
given. And he
didn’t want it to
be merely handed over.
So after he
graduated from the University of
Michigan Law School in 1999, he
went to New York to work for the
corporate law firm Willkie Farr &
Gallagher L.L.P. As a real estate attorney, he learned about the nuances of leases and purchase
agreements along with high-level
financing scenarios such as conduit lending.
By 2001, he was ready to work
with his father.
Rich Stromback, 39
“At Leonard & Company, decisions are made right
here on site, not in a series of calls to New York.
This kind of rapid response helps me stay focused on
what’s most important — my clients.”
— David Aquilina, Leonard & Company, Troy
At
Leonard & Company…
…we listen to our brokers. And our brokers listen to their clients.
Leonard & Company is Michigan’s largest independent brokerage firm.
We are a regional investment firm with an entrepreneurial environment that very
successful brokers want and need — a comfortable, stress-free atmosphere where they can
experience independence, build their business, and best serve their clients.
We provide the finest amenities and the latest in research and technology, with securities
carried by one of North America’s largest financial institutions.
1450 West Long Lake RoaDsSuite 15sTroy, MI 4809s248-952-5858
www.leonardandcompany.com
Michigan: Corporate Headquarters — Troy. Birmingham. Grand Rapids. Grosse Pointe Farms. Sterling Heights.
Colorado & New York
Member FINRA, SIPC
CEO
Stromback Foundation
Bloomfield Hills
Biggest achievement: Being selected as one of only 200 Young
Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.
Current goal: To further establish
the Ecology Summit, a national forum for notable
“green”
advocates, co-hosted
with
former
British
Prime
Minister
Tony
Blair, as well as
Virgin
Group
Founder Richard
Branson.
Rich
Stromback had early
success with Web
Group, an IT consulting firm he
founded in 1997
when he was 28.
The company
grew to $10 million in revenue and
about 80 employees and was
ranked among Inc. Magazine’s 500
fastest-growing companies from
1997 through 2002. Stromback sold
it for an undisclosed amount in
2002 to Arrow Strategies.
A year later, he acquired the
Bloomfield Hills-based research
and development company Ecology
Coatings. He’s been working the
past few years to market the company’s energy-saving coatings
technologies and ensure patent
protection for them. Stromback is
chairman. That work gained the
“To be a developer, you have to
know a little about a lot,” he said.
“And you have to know about
some things more than others.”
But it wasn’t until August 2007
that Sosin’s father, Neil, named
him to the position
of president of the
company.
Matthew
was
eased into the position, he said.
Since
being
named president,
Matthew
Sosin
has handled most
of the leasing negotiations, strategic decisions for
the company and
day-to-day operations. Neil Sosin
still plays a role in
the company as
CEO, but Matt has become more of
the face of the company.
Occupying much of his time has
been working on the second phase
of the Haggerty Corridor Corporate Park in Novi. He handled the
200-acre project from its early
planning stage, took it through
city, county and state government
approvals and has overseen the
construction of roads and infraSee Sosin, Page 29
attention of Time, The New York
Times and the World Economic Forum.
Stromback went through a selective process and was one of 200
young leaders from around the
globe named to the power forum,
which is composed of the world’s
wealthiest individuals, heads of
the largest corporations and other
notables, three
years ago.
In March, he
joined former
British Prime
Minister Tony
Blair and Sir
Richard Branson, founder of
Virgin Group, in
co-hosting
a
meeting for notable green advocates, including
Google’s
Larry Page and
Paul Allen of Microsoft
Corp.,
who
founded
Vulcan Ventures,
a venture-capital firm funding green and clean
projects and technology.
One of the things that came from
the meeting, Stromback said, is
that Blair broke the deadlock on
climate change. The major countries are meeting in Bali to come
up with some sort of agreement on
how they can collectively address
climate change, Stromback said.
He also founded the Stromback
Foundation, established to fund
green initiatives and projects and
to raise awareness about environmental sustainability.
— Sherri Begin
9/24/2008
3:16 PM
Page 2
September 29, 2008
Page 29
40 UNDER 40
Sosin:
Apprentice
■ From Page 28
structure. He also handled most of
the negotiations for the park’s first
lease, 120,000 square feet built for
Ryder Corp., and is working on the
development of the speculative
buildings planned for the project.
The first phase of the corporate
park has had more activity than
most parks, attracting a diverse
range of tenants, such as 117,000
square feet in new space and lease
renewals for Harman Becker Automotive Systems Inc. after the company
received a $2.5 million tax credit
from the state to create 135 new jobs.
Detroit-based Henry Ford Health
System was signed to a 130,000square-foot lease, and Pennsylvania-based Art Institutes Inc. leased
37,000 square feet for a creative
and applied arts school called the
Art Institute of Michigan.
Matt Sosin also spearheaded a
corporate initiative, which is taking Northern Equities Group in a
new direction. Northern Equities
formed a joint venture with investors Ian Burnstein and David
Levenfeld under the name Storage
Opportunity Partners to acquire a
portfolio of storage properties. In
addition to the title of president,
Sosin also carries the title of apprentice, he said.
— Daniel Duggan
Michael Tenbusch, 39
Vice president
United Way for Southeastern
Michigan
Detroit
Biggest achievement: Giving Detroit youth an opportunity to play
in athletic leagues with welltrained coaches and to build character through his
co-founding of
Think Detroit (now
ThinkDetroit/PAL).
Current goal: To
create high-performing
K-12
schools through
the use of best
practices
for
every young person in the region,
regardless
of
what neighborhood or city they
live in.
Michael Tenbusch has spent
more than a
decade improving the lives of Detroit children. He started by founding a nonprofit and continues
through a key position he now
holds for United Way for Southeastern Michigan.
In 1996 when he was just 27, he
co-founded Think Detroit, a nonprofit organization to build character in Detroit children through
sports and leadership development.
Under Tenbusch and co-founder
Dan Varner, the organization
grew to a budget of $1.2 million, after many funding challenges, and
maintained that budget while in-
Janice Suchan, 37
Principal
SHW Group
Berkley
Biggest accomplishment: Becoming a partner at SHW at 33 in
the male-dominated world of architecture
where, according to industry
reports, only 16
percent of partners
are
women.
Current goal:
To continue her
company’s
building of better educational
facilities while
keeping a cap
on project costs
and at the same
time increasing
their sustainability.
Janice Suchan is one of two
principals in charge of the 62member SHW. She managed a
budget of $3.5 million in 2007 and
oversees half the employees and
entire teams on projects — all involving higher-education clients
— including project managers,
designers, engineers and architects.
Projects she is in charge of include several green buildings
built to Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design standards. Those include the Central
creasing the number of youth participants in its programs to 5,000
from 2,000.
In 2005, Think Detroit merged
with the Detroit Police Athletic
League Inc., and today it serves
13,000 youths each year.
Tenbusch left the nonprofit in
his friend Varner’s hands and
moved on to become COO of University Preparatory
High School in Detroit before doing consulting
work for the Skillman Foundation.
In January he
joined
United
Way as vice president of educational preparedness. In that role,
he’s
currently
overseeing initiatives to ensure
children
in
Wayne, Oakland
and
Macomb
counties
are
reading at grade
level by third grade and to decrease the dropout rates at 30 area
high schools.
Tenbusch led the establishment
in August of the Greater Detroit Education Venture Fund, a $10 million
fund to help those low-performing
high schools improve their graduation rates and secured a $1 million grant from the AT&T Foundation toward that end.
He recently helped organize a
dropout prevention summit in
conjunction with One D, the regional collaborative of civic organizations.
— Sherri Begin
Michigan University Education
Building, a $50 million gold
LEED-certified building; the
Wayne State University Medical Education Commons Building, a $30
million silver LEED building;
the Grand Valley State University library, a 130,000-square-foot
building in design phase; and
the
Jackson
Community College Center for
Health Professions, a $22 million
silver
LEED building
in its design
phase.
Projects include the Lansing Community
College University
Center,
which won the
2008 AIA Detroit
Design
Honor Award;
the Schoolcraft College Biomedical Technology Center; and the
Jackson Community College Information and Technology Center.
All of which involve working
far more than 40 hours a week.
Suchan credits her husband,
Kevin Finn, dean of students at
Lawrence Technological University,
for helping out on the home
front, and credits her daughter,
Jamie, 7, as well. She often accompanies her mom to the office
on weekends.
— Tom Henderson
Terence Thomas Sr., 39
Senior vice president
of advocacy
St. John Health
Warren
Biggest achievement: Working
to increase reimbursement for
doctors working in the medically underserved area of Detroit’s
east side.
Current goal: Bringing together people and organizations to
improve medical care in Southeast Michigan.
Terence Thomas Sr. sees his
job as senior vice president of
advocacy at St. John Health as
part of a mission to improve the
health of everyone in Southeast
Michigan — not just to lobby
for the interests of the sevenhospital Catholic system based
in Warren.
Hired in 2003 from Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone P.L.C. in
Detroit, Thomas did not have a
health care background before
being offered the advocacy job
by St. John’s former CEO Elliot
Joseph. Thomas specialized in
election laws, intellectual property and commercial litigation.
Thomas said he learned
about passion for your job
while studying history at Albion
College. He garnered a law degree in 1993 from the University
of Wisconsin.
Thomas also is chief advocacy officer of the Michigan market for Ascension Health in St.
Louis, the parent company of
St. John. He works regularly
with state and federal legislaSee Thomas, Page 30
Bridgeway
Congratulates
Jesse Berger of
for being selected in
Crain’s Detroit Business’
Class of 2008 forty
under
40
Leaders are many things. They are strong, but fair.
They are collaborators and independent thinkers.
They are fierce in their beliefs and never
compromise their ethics. The Woodward Avenue
Action Association Board of Directors would like
to congratulate our leader, Executive Director
Heather Carmona, on winning the Crain’s 40
under 40 award.
9/24/2008
1:27 PM
Page 1
Page 30
September 29, 2008
40 UNDER 40
William Wildern, 39
CEO and founder
Hydra Professionals L.L.C.
Novi
Biggest achievement: Assisting in
the turnaround of businesses in
need of capital, management
changes or strategic guidance.
Current goal: Helping more companies reinvigorate or grow
through the consulting work of
Hydra Professionals.
William Wildern’s vision is to be
the consulting firm of choice for
businesses facing a transition.
After working for several years
for other turnaround specialists
such as Novi-based Resilience Capi-
tal Partners and Southfield-based
BBK Ltd., Wildern started Hydra
Professionals L.L.C. He is working
on projects ranging from rejuvenating mature businesses to helping ailing businesses looking to
hire problem-solving leaders.
For example, a Georgia-based
floor mat manufacturer, Pretty
Products L.L.C., hired Wildern to assist in focusing the business on
mats made with the most efficient
manufacturing process, consolidating a plant, and negotiating an
agreement to resolve issues with a
customer that had unprofitable
products. Steel Parts Manufacturing
Inc., of Tipton, Ind., which has its
Detroit sales and engineering office
in Novi, is working with Hydra Pro-
fessionals on acquisition considerations to become a full-service transmission sub-system supplier.
Wildern said his business plan’s
guiding principles include integrity, understanding, innovation,
perseverance and simplicity. “Elegant and creative solutions to complex problems are based in simplicity,” he said.
While at Resilience Capital,
Wildern was on the board of directors and managed BBI Enterprises
and Penda Corp. With the new company started this summer, he’s on
track for 10 employees and more
than $3 million in revenue by late
next year.
Dan Ravid, director at BBK in
Southfield, said Wildern is “the
kind of guy who can do 15 things at
once, never comes unraveled. He’s
an incredibly ethical guy.”
He said Wildern’s work representing General Motors Corp. and
the then-DaimlerChrysler in the Venture Industries bankruptcy case
was impressive.
Prior to his foray into the turnaround world, Wildern was an executive at GM in the 1990s, holding
such titles as luxury vehicle planner, manager of strategic planning
for advanced technology vehicles,
and senior financial analyst.
He has an MBA from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s and master’s from GMI (now Kettering University).
— Christiana Schmitz
Eboalkqebpqobbq+
Thomas:
An advocate
■ From Page 29
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tors to increase or maintain funding to St. John.
For example, Thomas, along
with several other competing hospital lobbyists, helped to save up to
$400 million in Medicaid funding
that was targeted for cuts in the
state’s 2008 budget. One of the cuts
included reducing coverage to
adults aged 18 to 21, he said.
Thomas also helped to persuade
Medicare to designate Detroit’s
east side as a medically underserved area. The designation increased reimbursement to several
dozen primary-care doctors who
serve the poor and underprivileged.
“I went door-to-door with a
physician manager (in 2006) to interview doctors and confirm they
were working in the area,” he said.
Thomas serves on nearly a
dozen civic and community organization boards to provide feedback and guidance on health care
issues.
Some of the groups include: Detroit Wayne County Health Authority,
Greater Detroit Area Health Council,
The Center for Concern and the Detroit Regional Chamber.
“Being an advocate for St. John
is not just lobbying in Washington
and Lansing,” he said. “It is promoting the mission and values of
St. John Health and trying to find
the right partners to make sure the
work is done for people in the region.”
— Jay Greene
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11:15 AM
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MICHIGAN’S
SANDWICH
DELIVERY
EXPERTS
™
JIMMYJOHNS.COM
SUBS SO FAST YOU’LL FREAK! ™
©2008 JIMMY JOHN’S FRANCHISE, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
9/25/2008
3:23 PM
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Page 32
September 29, 2008
BUSINESS DIARY
ACQUISITIONS
Solid Concepts Inc., a rapid prototyping and manufacturing company in
Valencia, Calif., has finalized the acquisition of Composite Tooling Technologies Inc. in Troy to expand its existing CNC and cast urethane
products while adding Fiberglas-reinforced plastic to its offerings.
CONTRACTS
EWI Worldwide, Detroit, produced the
Coca-Cola Pavilion, known as the
Shuang Experience Center, at the 2008
Beijing Olympic Games. EWI provided creative development for several
interior spaces and led the production
and installation of all interior and exterior graphics, signs, exhibits, thematic elements and interiors.
3.7 Designs, Ann Arbor, helped
Brighton-based Hands on Mind and
Body redesign and relaunch its Web
site. Hands on Mind and Body is an independently owned massage therapy
and psychotherapy service. Its Web
site is at www.handsonmindand
body.com.
Western Creative, a Redford Township
advertising agency, was named the new
agency of record for Preferred Financial
Services, an Andover, Md.-based debtDr.
settlement
company.
Also,
Holmquist Healthcare L.L.C. of Mandeville, La., signed an agency-of-record
agreement with Western Creative to
help launch its Bruise Relief product. In
addition, Damand Promotions of Poway,
Calif., signed an agency-of-record agreement with Western Creative for advertisements and a new Web site for its
Parent’s Homework Dictionary; and Solos Footwear of Montreal has signed an
agency-of-record agreement with Western Creative to introduce its Canadian
footwear products to the U.S. market.
NLM, a Detroit logistics company, has
renewed an agreement with Allison
Transmission, an Indianapolis transmission company. NLM will remain a
provider for Allison Transmission’s
critical shipments and dynamic shipment procurement tool.
Millsap & Singer L.L.C., a Missouribased law firm that serves the mortgage-banking industry, has retained
Identity Marketing & Public Relations,
Bingham Farms.
Hile Design L.L.C., an Ann Arbor advertising and graphic-design company, has been selected to redesign the
Web site of Ann Arbor’s Ufer & Co. Insurance, at www.uferinsurance.com.
Strategic Energy Solutions Inc., a
Ferndale engineering-services company, has contracted with Next Energy,
Detroit, to provide marketing services
in the alternative-energy industry.
The focus will be on geothermal heating and cooling technology and services in Michigan.
FH Martin Constructors, Warren, is
the general contractor for the conversion of a Grosse Pointe Woods Kroger
store into a Kroger Fresh Fare store.
Also, FH Martin has been selected to
build a new bank branch for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. at Hall and Heydenreich roads in Macomb Township, and
to serve as the general contractor for
the construction of a new Menards
store in Sandusky, Ohio.
DesignHub Inc., Saline, designed and
developed the new Web site for industrial-fastener supplier Marshall Sales
Inc. of Detroit. The site is at www.
marshallsales.com.
Gail & Rice, a Southfield-based brand
communications and experiential
marketing agency, announced it has
been selected by Chrysler L.L.C.,
Auburn Hills, to provide auto show
staffing and other event services for
the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands.
Abney Advertising & Marketing Inc.,
Livonia, has been named agency of
record for Pliz Automation Safety L.P.,
a German-based manufacturer with
U.S. operations in Canton Township.
Cornerstone Building Group, Troy,
was the successful bidder for a new
bank branch for Comerica Bank at
Grand River Avenue and Beck Road
in Novi, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. It also
has completed a major renovation of
the Livonia operations center for
Comerica Bank in June.
Contracting Management Corp., a design/build construction-management
firm in Brighton, has been selected by
Oakland Hills Country Club to manage
construction of the new halfway
house at the country club in Bloomfield Hills. The project is scheduled for
completion this fall. Contracting Management Corp. also has been selected
by the Hills of Lone Pine Association
to design, contract and manage reconstruction of the roadway system for
the association in Bloomfield Township.
Vaughn Custom Sports, a hockey
goalie-equipment
manufacturing
company based in Oxford, has streamlined its order-entry, manufacturing,
accounting, shipping and customerrelationship management systems
with a new, custom software application designed by Iwerk of Royal Oak.
Auto-Lab Franchise Management
Corp., Plymouth, entered into a threeunit development agreement with NuMac Automotive Group. NuMac plans
to open three new Auto-Lab Complete
Car Care Centers in Oakland County,
starting in Waterford Township in October.
EXPANSIONS
Snap Fitness-Birmingham, 108 Willits
St., Birmingham, features state-of-the
art fitness equipment, cardio machines with individual plasma TVs
and training by former pro boxer Scotty Buck. The new fitness center is a
franchise of a Minnesota-based company. Telephone: (888) 388-5225. Web
site: www.snapfitness.com.
Peterson American Corp., a Southfield-based automotive supplier, announced it is completing a new Peterson Spring manufacturing plant in
Queretaro, Mexico, in October.
sional Association and the Michigan
Food and Beverage Association, Warren, and Identity Theft Loss Prevention, Ottawa Lake, have established
an identity-theft information program
for the association’s member companies. It includes a video about the
need for information-security policies
and a Webinar series about information security.
Becky Stevens Holistic Alternatives
L.L.C., a Mt. Clemens medical intuitive and energy healer, offers crainosacal therapy and therapeutic massage services in addition to her
current alternative therapies. Telephone: (586) 468-5723.
OTHER
MOVES
RCN Security Corp., from Center Line
to 615 Griswold St., Suite 820, Detroit.
Telephone: (313) 963-7922. Web site:
www.rcnsecuritycorp.com.
Harelik, Shapiro, Wolgin and Fine P.C.
Certified Public Accountants, to 30445
Northwestern Highway, Suite 200,
Farmington Hills. Telephone remains:
(248) 851-2211.
NEW PRODUCTS
Ideal Shield, Detroit, now offers the
Ideal Shield decorative bollard cover,
a polyethylene thermoplastic cover
for existing steel bumper posts. Covers are available in hundreds of colors
and multiple sizes and styles, and the
company says they eliminate the need
for painting bollards. Web site:
www.idealshield.com.
NEW SERVICES
The Michigan Business and Profes-
Stefek’s Auction House, Grosse Pointe
Farms, is a newly renovated auction
house specializing in property liquidations that involve antiques, fine furniture, fine art and paintings. Auctioneer Lori Stefek is the owner and
an accredited appraiser. Telephone:
(313) 881-1800. Web site: www.
stefeksltd.com.
DIARY GUIDELINES
Send news releases for Business
Diary to Joanne Scharich, Crain’s
Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot
Ave., Detroit, MI 48207-2997 or
send e-mail to jscharich@crain.
com. Use any Business Diary item
as a model for your release, and
look for the appropriate category.
Without complete information, your
item will not run. Photos are
welcome, but we cannot guarantee
they will be used.
For the 25th time, Northwestern Mutual
has been named FORTUNE magazine’s
“Most Admired” company. And for the
25th time, we’re extremely honored.
®
We are honored to be the only company named Fortune magazine’s “Most Admired” in its industry for the 25th time. And we are committed to
continuing to do what’s earned us such respect: helping families let their worries go. From our financial representatives who help clients achieve
financial security to the Northwestern Mutual Foundation whose charitable donations help society at large, we are thankful to all who make
everything we accomplish possible.
The Wilshire Financial Group
Brad P. Seitzinger, CLU,® ChFC,® CLTC
Managing Partner
901 Wilshire Drive, Suite 300, Troy, MI 48084
(248) 362-2220 • [email protected]
For Career Opportunities, please contact Marcy Tucker
at (248) 244-6023 or log on to www.nmfn.com/wfg
05-2779 ©2008 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (NM). Securities offered through Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC, a wholly-owned company of NM, broker dealer and member FINRA and SIPC. NM and The
Wilshire Financial Group are not broker-dealers. FORTUNE® magazine, March 17, 2008. 8032-559B
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10:07 AM
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Page 34
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September 29, 2008
The Macomb Group:
Bigger can be better
— and successful
In Detroit, there’s one
way to face down risk...
able markup, McGivern said. That
generated some new capital, and
since then the company has relied
upon both organic growth and acBill McGivern thinks that grow- quisitions.
ing from a small supThe Columbus office
plier to a mediumwas a Macomb Group
sized
regional
acquisition of IEP Inc.,
distributor of pipe,
finalized in January,
valves and fittings is On the Grow is a
and specializes in
feature
that
will
a great strategy —
equipping wastewater
appear in most issues
even if it didn’t end
highlighting growing
treatment plants and
well the last time companies, large and
public infrastructure.
someone tried it.
small. Know of a
Grand Rapids and
McGivern, CEO of company you think
Cincinnati are new ofSterling
Heights- Crain’s should write
fices built from scratch
based The Macomb about? Contact
and born of expansion.
Group, said the com- Managing Editor
That brings The MaAndrew
Chapelle
at
pany has seen accelcomb Group to 13 locaerated growth in the [email protected].
tions and 250 employaftermath of the 2003
ees, including 65 or so
bankruptcy dissolution of Grand
at the corporate headquarters, McRapids competitor U.S. Flow Corp.
Revenue was just under $110 Givern and Margolis said. By next
million for the fiscal year that end- year the company plans to open a
ed last March and is on pace to ap- new office in the Ann Arbor area.
proach $150 million this fiscal A 2006 growth strategy calls for the
year, according to McGivern and company to reach 21 locations, inCFO David Margolis. With three cluding three in Indiana, by 2012.
That will make it more or less a
new offices opened or acquired
this calendar year — Cincinnati, three-state operation, much like
Columbus and Grand Rapids earli- U.S. Flow was shortly after the
er this month — McGivern ac- 1999 merger.
Fred Satterlund, president of
knowledges the company bears an
increasing resemblance to the for- Warren-based pipe distributor Satterlund Supply Co., is a bit skeptical
mer U.S. Flow.
“But we’ll be different, because about The Macomb Group plan.
“Look at how well it went for
they were growing with visions of
grandeur and had a strategy to be- them (U.S. Flow) the first time,” he
come national, maybe even go pub- said. “For some reason, in this inlic,” McGivern said. “Our focus is dustry the large national outfits do
Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and really well, the small guy works at
maybe a little bit of movement in keeping his customers and does all
the Pittsburgh area and Kentucky right, and the medium in-between
markets. We want to protect the companies really struggle. We like
mitten (Michigan) and this (re- to stay smaller and closer to the
gional strategy) is as much as we marketplace.”
At $12 million in sales and 35
plan to grow.”
Although revenue has climbed employees at one location, Sattereach year since 1991, when Mc- lund Supply has occasionally held
Givern bought the $1 million-per- talks about acquisitions or expanyear operation from its founder, the sion but has never had a regional
growth began accelerating for The strategy like The Macomb Group,
Macomb Group at the end of 2003.
Satterlund said.
At that time, U.S. Flow was sellMcGivern and Margolis note
ing its remaining assets in U.S. that, even in struggling times for
Bankruptcy Court. That company construction businesses, the comhad formed in 1999 as a merger of pany has stayed on solid financial
Grand Rapids-based The Bertsch ground because it has no real resiCo., Cincinnati-based Mutual Manu- dential component to its business
facturing and Conyers, Ga.-based and has sought out pipe supplier
Piping & Equipment.
agreements for construction proAt that time, The Macomb jects at local university campuses
Group was a $46.1-million-a-year and school districts, which have
operation with six branch offices. weathered the economic downturn
It picked up two more locations, fairly well.
Midland and Lansing, out of the
The company also makes sure
U.S. Flow bankruptcy as well as a its branch locations are within a
considerable inventory of pipe and two-hour drive or so of each other,
steel products.
so they can make use of each oth“If you want to be entrepreneur- er’s inventory and also contain
ial as a company, times like that fuel costs while meeting customer
also become an opportunity to pick orders, McGivern said. He adds
up some of the right people,” Mar- that sustained, controlled growth
golis said. “We got a lot of good tal- has served the company and its
ent out of (U.S. Flow) that has also customers well over the years.
helped us grow.”
“Sometimes, if you reach for the
Then steel prices jumped consid- stars but land on the moon, everyerably in 2004, allowing The Ma- one is happy,” he said.
comb Group to sell much of the
Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796,
U.S. Flow inventory at a consider- [email protected]
BY CHAD HALCOM
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Page 36
September 29, 2008
Mexican companies to rent space in TechTown, Chinese negotiating
BY TOM HENDERSON
TechTown, the business incubator and research park associated
with Wayne State University, has
signed an agreement with the Mexican government that will provide
temporary office space to about 25
Mexican companies looking to establish partnerships or find customers in Michigan.
The first company is expected to
arrive in November. The first companies will be auto suppliers hoping to make inroads with the local
auto supply chain, with future
companies being in life sciences
and alternative energy, said
Robert Mishler, TechTown’s interim general manager. The companies are expected to arrive in the
next couple of years.
Randal Charlton, TechTown’s executive director, said negotiations
are under way with economic-development officials in the Chinese
city of Wuhan to
establish a similar relationship.
He hopes to have
the first Chinese
company here
by the end of the
year.
TechTown
has started a
China Business
Charlton
Club in conjunction with WSU and
hosted the club’s third meeting
last week.
To accommodate foreign visitors, TechTown is equipping nine
offices in 5,000 square feet of space
on the first floor with desks,
phones, computwill provide introductions to local
ers and other
company execuequipment
in
tives and economwhat is being
ic development ofcalled the Soft
ficials in counties
Landing Center.
around Southeast
Visitors will also
Michigan.
be able to avail
This will be the
themselves of othfifth such collaboer TechTown reration involving
sources, includMexican compaing office support
nies. Others alstaff, discounts
ready under way
on printing needs
are at Stanford Uniand such office
versity, the University of Austin and
equipment as faxuniversities
in
es and copiers.
Toronto
and
Four or five of
Madrid, Spain.
the offices will be
Robert Mishler,
Charlton said
dedicated to the
TechTown
translators evenMexican companies. Charlton said they will be es- tually will be available through
tablished, small companies, not ten- Wayne State in 100 languages as
ants in need of incubation services. TechTown expands the program.
He said companies can rent the For now, both receptionist Nitza
space for as little as a day, if, for ex- Ramirez and Mishler speak fluent
ample, officials are flying in for Spanish.
meetings, or for months while they
The Soft Landing Center had its
meet with prospective customers or first customer earlier this month,
look for permanent space to lease.
a professor from Hungary who
He said TechTown officials also wanted to show a fetal heart moni-
Until now,
“
NAFTA has been
primarily a oneway relationship
going south. This is
a way to get things
flowing in the
opposite
direction.
”
tor he designed to members of the
local medical community and
Wayne State researchers.
Mishler said the push to get
more Mexican companies to establish U.S. operations is a result of a
Mexican-based joint venture of the
U.S. and Mexican governments
called TechBA, short for technology
business accelerators.
“Until now, NAFTA has been
primarily a one-way relationship,
going south,” said Mishler. “This
is a way to get things flowing in
the opposite direction.”
“We’re going to make it easy to
bring new businesses here,” said
Charlton. “Another advantage
we’ll be selling is we’re right on
the border with Canada.”
Mishler said the official arrival
date in November of the first Mexican company will be based on the
availability of the Mexican secretary of commerce. He said TechTown will host a welcoming event
for the company and the secretary,
inviting 300 executives from the
auto supply chain, including
OEMs and tier-one suppliers.
Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337,
[email protected]
Forgotten Harvest to start mobile food
pantry for area’s poorest neighborhoods
BY SHERRI BEGIN
It may seem paradoxical that many areas of metro
Detroit don’t have access to fresh foods and even
shelf-stable foods, given the area’s predominantly urban landscape. But overlays of poverty-stricken areas
in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb
counties against pantry and emergency food providers in those counties show another picture, said Susan Ellis Goodell, executive
director of Oak Park-based food rescue Forgotten Harvest.
“In reality, when we start
drilling down ... we realize there
are whole areas of our community
that don’t have the services they Goodell
need,” she said, because there isn’t
a strong nonprofit agency or pantry in place to provide food.
“The agency partners we have are wonderful, but
we have to recognize there are neighborhoods that
don’t have them, and we still have an obligation to get
food to those,” Goodell said.
Forgotten Harvest distributes rescued fresh and
perishable foods to 147 soup kitchens, shelters and
pantries in the tri-county area. In October, it plans to
launch a mobile food pantry to take food into the poorest pockets of those counties starved for emergency
food providers. They’ve identified those areas
through U.S. Census data.
The three-year project will be funded by a $105,000
grant from the Jewish Fund.
Forgotten Harvest is benchmarking the Second Harvest Gleaners Food Bank of West Michigan Inc. in Comstock Park near Grand Rapids in developing its mobile food-pantry operation.
“We are … basically adapting the mobile pantry
concept that was developed largely to serve underserved rural areas … (for) underserved urban areas,”
Goodell said.
Forgotten Harvest’s mobile food pantry launch follows a pilot project — funded by Charter One Bank —
for distribution of food to the Osborn neighborhood in
northwest Detroit this summer with Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan.
Under that program, the two nonprofits prepacked
boxes in their own facilities and distributed them
from their own trucks, tapping community groups to
get the word out about the distribution. Over six
weeks, the program provided food for 1,055 families
and 2,738 children, said Monica Luoma, director of
communications and events, in an e-mail.
Of those families, 83 percent said they were unemployed.
There are countless areas that need the food, Goodell said, but Forgotten Harvest initially plans to return to Osborn and to distribute in the Brightmoor
and Northend neighborhoods, provided it can find
church or community groups to help get the word out
and to help distribute food.
The nonprofit agency has increased the amount of
food it rescues by 1 million pounds for each of the past
eight years, and it plans to do it again this year, Goodell said.
Forgotten Harvest rescued 9.5 million pounds of
food in fiscal 2008 ended June 30, with help from new
food donors including Great Northern Hydroponics in
Ontario, Sam’s Club and 15 new stores that Kroger
bought from Farmer Jack, Goodell said.
Still, “this is not a one-truck solution,” Goodell
said. “This community really needs to find ways to
get food into these neighborhoods.”
Forgotten Harvest and Gleaners are looking for
ways to continue collaborating on mobile food pantry
services, she said.
Getting food into impoverished areas of the three
counties is a goal of Gleaners’
strategic plan, DeWayne Wells,
president of Gleaners Community
Food Bank in Detroit said. The food
bank is looking at ways to integrate
the truck it acquired and retrofitted
for the pilot project into its regular
food distribution operations.
The model is a cost-effective way
to get food to residents in those areas, since it doesn’t require that anWells
other nonprofit have a building or
space with installed refrigeration, he said.
“I certainly think it (also) has applications as we
look at being a part of disaster (response) planning,”
Wells said.
Sherri Begin: (313) 446-1694, [email protected]
9/26/2008
10:21 AM
Page 1
More manufacturers
scout military contracts
as auto industry lags
finish a database of all businesses
in the state PTAC system before
the end of the year. The directory
Two years ago, many Michigan will be a reference tool for governmanufacturers and suppliers ment agencies seeking manufacseemed to think their automotive turing or production capabilities.
customers soon would recover
Lott also said his office is meeting
from the downturn, and many its 2008 fiscal year goal of doubling
missed or ignored signs of in- both the number of PTAC clients
creased defense industry activity and the contract dollars directed to
in the state.
Michigan client companies.
Now, the message is sinking in.
The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, and
About 300 people — many of in the third quarter ending June 30
them representing suppliers, fab- the center had already tallied $493
ricators and other manufacturers million in contracts to Michigan
in Southeast Michigan — attended companies, up from $312 million in
the second annual Fall Business fiscal 2007.
Event earlier this month in Troy,
That puts the center on pace to
“Building Your Toolkit for Gov- total between $600 million and $650
ernment Business,” held by the Na- million in contracts by the end of
tional Defense Industrial Association this month, Lott said.
Michigan Chapter.
He’s already set
That’s an inhis sights on a
crease from the
goal of doubling
225 or so who atthe aggregate valtended last year’s
ue of all Michigan
inaugural gathercontracts again,
ing, said event
to more than $1.2
chairwoman Conbillion in fiscal
stance Blair, pres2009.
ident of Warren“Adding that
based
defense
much more to the
contractor Techstate in just one
nology
Ventures
year is a bit of a
Inc. and a member
stretch goal,” he
of NDIA-Michisaid. “But I’ve set
gan’s board of dithe goal because I
Beth Cryderman-Moss,
rectors.
think we can
Blair estimated Macomb County and Thumb PTAC make it.”
office at MCC
that only 100 or so
Both Lott and
attendees were reBeth Crydermanpeat visitors.
Moss, director of the Macomb
“I’d say either they (new atten- County and Thumb regional PTAC
dees) had a small presence in the office at MCC, said the military
industry and are now looking to has an elevated demand for manugrow on that with new contracts, facturing, and the main challenge
or they (were) here to learn the has been finding the manufacturguidelines and get involved for the ers with the specific capability and
first time,” she said. “Defense is interest to meet it.
beginning to attract new business
“But we definitely see new interand land entirely new contract dol- est. More suppliers and other comlars with Michigan companies, panies are looking seriously at us
and that is encouraging.”
who weren’t a couple of years ago
Also on the increase is business when they still thought the autoparticipation in the state’s 11 Pro- motive (industry) was going to recurement Technical Assistance cover.”
Centers, nonprofit organizations
That seems to be part of the stoco-funded by the federal Defense ry for Clinton Township-based
Logistics Agency and the state’s De- Burkard Industries Inc., which profense Contract Coordination Center, vides coatings and paintings for
an agency of the Michigan Economic some automotive equipment and
began taking on military producDevelopment Corp.
Currently, the state’s PTACs tion work in 2006.
The company, an exhibitor at
have 2,192 active client companies
pursuing U.S. Department of Defense the NDIA event last month, becontracts. About 977 are new clients came a supplier for primary dewho have signed on since last Octo- fense contractor BAE Systems earliber, said Rosanne Oliver, capture er this year and recently began
team manager for the Defense Con- providing top coat paintings to
components of Mine Resistant Amtract Coordination Center.
The procurement centers assist bushed Protected vehicles, now in
businesses in landing contracts heavy production and deployed
with the Department of Defense into Iraq and Afghanistan, said
and some state and local govern- vice president Dona Burkard.
In two years, defense-related
ment contracts. Some 1,088 local
businesses have signed on as work has grown to nearly 20 percent
clients through the three local of the company’s $6 million to $7
PTAC offices at Macomb Community million annual revenue, and the
College, Schoolcraft College and company will likely add up to 10 jobs
Wayne State University.
to its nearly 100 employees for a secBradley Lott, director of the De- ond shift of production, she said.
fense Contract Coordination CenChad Halcom: (313) 446-6796,
ter, said his agency is working to [email protected]
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Page 1
September 29, 2008
Utilities look for gold
in garbage and gas
the company with anticipated sales
of $10 million in 2008, up from $9.5
in 2007, runs an environmental conMethane gas isn’t the easiest ma- sulting and construction business
terial to handle. Highly flammable, in several states and is a consultant
it is usually burned off at landfills to the landfill. St. Clair County built
rather than captured for use.
two, 3-acre trash disposal sites, inBut with soaring energy costs, jecting one with leachate and one
utilities are looking to make the with bacteria-laden septic waste
most of waste-to-energy initiatives.
that accelerates decomposition to
Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. sub- produce methane. The dual waste
sidiary DTE Biomass Energy has streams make it unique.
marked 20 years of methane harSt. Clair County generates 3 milvesting at a 120-acre site in the lion gallons of septic waste each
Riverview Land Preserve operated year, and nearby wastewater treatby the city of Riverview. It uses de- ment plants do not treat septic
composed waste, called leachate, for sludge, according to Subbarayan.
fuel. A celebration of continuous re- Until 2005, when his company lobbied the Michigan
newable
power
Department of Envigeneration took
ronmental Quality
place at the faciliand the state Senty, 20000 Grange
ate with commisRoad, on Sept. 15.
sioners from St.
“Technology for
Clair County to
turning methane
pass enabling leginto fuel was in its
islation,
septic
infancy
then,”
waste wasn’t alsaid Scott Simons,
lowed in landfills.
senior specialist,
The patented
external commuprocess hastens
nications, for DTE
decomposition by
Energy.
weaving pipes for
The Riverview
septic seasoning
project is part of
of
the
trash
the biomass subthrough the top,
sidiary with 28
Chuck Hersey,
middle and botmethane recovery
Southeast Michigan Council
tom of the landfill.
programs thrivof Governments
A similar network
ing in the United
States, including
of pipes collects
Orlando, Fla., and Montgomery, methane from the bioreactor.
Ala. Methane is one of the most virBy 2010, St. Clair County expects
ulent of greenhouse gases, 20 times to harvest methane, build a processas potent as carbon dioxide at trap- ing plant at the landfill and make
ping heat in the atmosphere. The biofuel for electrical generation,
DTE process traps methane into heating, and possibly vehicle fuel.
wells and pipes connected under“The difference between the St.
ground to a recovery facility.
Clair project and most landfills is
The gas-recovery project in that methane is a natural leachate
Riverview, constructed in 1987 for ... the pilot study is to make it hap$8 million, recoups more than 4.2 pen at a much faster rate, call it a
million cubic feet of gas per day, ac- brand new munching machine,”
cording to DTE. Two solar gas tur- said Chuck Hersey, environmental
bines operate 24 hours a day to use program manager at the Southeast
landfill gas and generate electricity Michigan Council of Governments. “If it
for sale to DTE Energy. The 6.6- works properly, it will create enermegawatt facility produces enough gy faster, create more trash space in
“clean” electricity to continuously the landfill and allow a green dispower more than 5,000 homes.
posal method for human waste.”
With Riverview as one of its
Beyond capturing landfill energy
templates, DTE Biomass generated sources, there are efforts to find or2007 revenue of $32 million. At the ganizations that can use waste
same time the cities control their products to produce other products
landfill-gas emissions, what DTE or generate energy.
Biomass Facility Manager Jeff
Michael Donahue, vice president
Macek calls “a good fit — a perfect for water resources and environmeeting of fuel and function.”
mental services for the Southfield
The company is the nation’s sec- office of San Francisco-based URS
ond-largest producer of recycled Corp., an engineering and planning
landfill gas and is looking for more service company, has been working
sites, said DTE Energy Chairman with SEMCOG and the U.S. Business
and CEO Anthony Earley Jr. in an Council for Sustainable Development to
interview earlier this year with find private-sector partners for a piCrain’s.
lot study for turning waste streams
“The trick is finding a site into fuel or manufacturing materiwhere the gas production is large al. The idea is to make Michigan a
enough to justify building the in- site for grants for demonstration
projects such as sewer line backfill,
frastructure,” Earley said.
DTE isn’t alone in its interest in landscape screening berms and construction foundations.
landfill gas.
Progress is slower than DonBrighton-based engineering firm
CTI and Associates Inc. developed a ahue had hoped. But he and SEMbioreactor at Smiths Creek Landfill COG are working toward generatin St. Clair County that is expected ing more financial support.
Staff writer Amy Lane conto produce methane for fuel by 2010.
Morgan Subbarayan, president of tributed to this story.
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Page 40
September 29, 2008
PEOPLE
ARCHITECTURE
Alan Cobb to director of sustainable
design,
Albert
Kahn Associates
Inc., Detroit, from
director of architectural and design services.
Tracy Koe Wick to
director of client
services,
Neu-
Cobb
mann/Smith Architecture, South-
field, from manager, The Kirkwood
Group, Ann Arbor.
CONSTRUCTION
Robert Stempien
to senior director
of business development, Barton
SouthMalow,
field, from director of business development.
EDUCATION
Marick Masters to
Stempien
director of the
Douglas A. Fraser
Center for Workplace Issues and
Labor@Wayne,
Sam Locricchio
has been
named
president of
Troy-based
John Bailey &
Associates
Public
Relations.
Locricchio, 43,
was hired as
vice president
Locricchio
in November
and replaces founder John Bailey,
who becomes the agency’s
chairman and will also be a senior
counselor to clients.
Before joining John Bailey &
Associates, Locricchio had been
communications manager for
Chrysler L.L.C. in Auburn Hills.
Locricchio earned a bachelor’s
degree in speech communications
and public relations from Wayne
State University. He’s also the lead
singer of the Exhaust Tones, a
local rock band made up of
automotive industry folks.
tor of equal opportunity,
from
deputy executive
director,
the
Hawaii
Civil
Rights Commission, Honolulu.
Wayne State University, Detroit,
from professor of
business administration and public
and international
affairs, the University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh,
Pa.
Jones
Also, Christopher Leon Jones Jr. to direc-
DMC-Children’s Hospital of Michigan,
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
HEALTH CARE
Yegappan Lakshmanan to chief of
Lakshmanan
pediatric urology,
Detroit, from assistant professor of pediatric urology and director of pediatric urology basic research, Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine and Medical Institutions, Baltimore.
Daniel Dwyer to
senior vice president, mission integration, Trinity
Health,
Novi,
from director of
mission and community
health,
Sisters of Mercy
Health System,
Chesterfield, Mo.
Dwyer
INFO/TECHNOLOGY
Robert Little to president, SolidThinking Inc., Troy, from president, Altair
Engineering Canada, Toronto.
David Brunet to
PeopleSoft practice
director,
MiPro Consulting,
Milford, from senior
principal
consultant.
LAW
Brunet
Michael Blum to
partner, Foster,
Swift, Collins and
Smith P.C., Farm-
ington Hills, from shareholder, Abbott
Nicholson P.C., Detroit.
Steven Enwright to member, Dickinson Wright P.L.L.C., Detroit, from
principal, Raymond, Enwright & Ulrich P.C., Farmington Hills. Also,
Robert Powell to member, Detroit,
from in-house attorney, Ford Motor
Co., Dearborn; and James Hughes to
member, Ann Arbor, from partner,
Butzel Long, Ann Arbor.
MANUFACTURING
Steve Tokarz to director, new product
development, BrassCraft Manufacturing Co., Novi, from senior director of
product engineering. Also, Patty Stinson to director, business development
gas products, from director of business planning; Mahesh Cheerla to director, business development water
products, from director of product development; and Tod Mapes to director,
packaging engineering with responsibility for green initiatives, from director of product engineering.
Joan Byrne to purchasing manager,
Stahls’ ID Direct,
St. Clair Shores,
from director of
purchasing
for
North America,
Plastic Omnium
Auto Exteriors,
Troy. Also, Brian
McLeod to general manager, from
Byrne
vice president of
corporate marketing, Roland DGA
Group, Irvine, Calif.
REAL ESTATE
Steve Kim to real estate transaction
manager, Plante Moran Cresa, Southfield, from corporate real estate consultant, Newmark Knight Frank-Detroit, Farmington Hills. Also, Lacy
Vandruska to real estate transaction
manager, from associate, Newmark
Knight Frank-Detroit, Farmington
Hills; Alicia Washeleski to senior project manager, from senior project
planner, General Motors Corp., Detroit; and Carolina D’Anna Furnari to
real estate analyst, from real estate
analyst and developer, Fairview
Builders, Rochester Hills; and David
Beneteau to vice president of project
management, from healthcare and
higher education business sectors,
Skanska USA Building-Midwest Region, Southfield.
Jeff Gourlie to president, Kramer-Triad
Management Group L.L.C., Ann Arbor, Farmington Hills and Troy, from
vice president and COO. Also, Craig
Koss to regional vice president, Associa, from president, Kramer-Triad
Management Group L.L.C.
SUPPLIERS
Jason Forcier to vice president and
general manager-global electronics,
Lear Corp., Southfield, from president
and CEO, Etas Inc., Ann Arbor.
PEOPLE GUIDELINES
Announcements are limited to
management positions. Nonprofit
and industry group board
appointments can be found at
www.crainsdetroit.com. Send
submissions for People to Joanne
Scharich, Crain’s Detroit Business,
1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI
48207-2997, or send e-mail to
[email protected]. Releases
must contain the person’s name,
new title, company, city in which
the person will work, former title,
former company (if not promoted
from within) and former city in
which the person worked. Photos
are welcome, but we cannot
guarantee they will be used.
9/26/2008
10:22 AM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 41
CALENDAR
TUESDAY
SEPT. 30
Detroit Economic Club. 11:30 a.m.-1:55
p.m. Matt Ferguson, president and CEO,
careerbuilder.com. Troy Marriott. $40
members, $50 guests of members, $75
nonmembers. Contact: (313) 963-8547.
WEDNESDAY
OCT. 1
Engineering Society of Detroit’s Regional Development Breakfast. 7 a.m.
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks
Patterson. Rock
Financial Showplace, Novi. $35
members, $50 others. Contact: (248)
353-0735, ext. 112.
Morial
1:30pm. Oct. 9. Detroit
Economic
Club. Marc Morial,
president
and
CEO, National Urban League. Masonic Temple, Detroit.
$40
members,
$50
guests, $75 others.
Contact: (313) 9638547.
Health Coverage in America: Understanding the Issues and Proposed Solutions. 6-8 p.m. Oct. 9. Michigan Cover the Uninsured Network. Henry
Aaron, senior fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. Nancy
Schlichting, chair, Michigan Health &
Hospital Association and president and
CEO, Henry Ford Health System; Marianne Udow-Phillips, director, Center for
Contact: Kalisha Gaines, (313) 5960392.
Future. Vladmir’s, Farmington Hills.
$30. Contact: (248) 353-0735, ext. 112.
Healthcare Research & Transformation, Ann Arbor; John Schwarz, former
U.S. Representative; and Ron Dzwonkowski, editorial page editor, Detroit Free Press. Detroit Marriott at the
Renaissance Center. Free. Reservations required. Contact: (313) 874-7178.
New Leadership for America-What
Does it Mean for U.S. Manufacturing?
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Oct. 13. Detroit
Economic Club. John Engler, presi-
Leadership Detroit Alumni Rockin’ on
the Rooftop. 5-7:30 p.m. Oct. 14. De-
Maverick Marketing Monday-“Become Relevant or I’ll Ignore You.”
Noon-1:30 p.m. Oct. 13. Detroit Regional Chamber. Peter DeLegge, publisher, “Marketing Today” blog and
online magazine. The Detroit Zoo,
Ford Education Center, Royal Oak.
$20 Detroit Regional Chamber members, $40 nonmembers, $65 for a Maverick Marketing season one pass
(available to chamber members only).
dent, National Association of Manufacturers and former Michigan governor. Cobo Center, Detroit. $40
members, $50 guests of members, $75
nonmembers. (313) 963-8547.
The Role of Professional Societies in
Re-Engineering Michigan’s Economy.
5:30-9:30 p.m. Oct. 13. Engineering Society of Detroit and the Detroit Chapter of ASM International. Keith
Cooley, director, Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth;
and Lou Glazer, president, Michigan
troit Regional Chamber. Join Leadership Detroit alumni for this informal
networking event. Zaccaro’s Market,
Detroit. $35 Leadership Detroit Alumni, $45 others. Contact: Beverly Maddox, (313) 596-0343.
Leadership Michigan: Driving Business Success. 7:30-10:30 a.m. Oct. 14.
Engineering Society of Detroit. Gerald
van Grinsen, CEO, Henry Ford Hospital West Bloomfield. ESD headquarters, Southfield. $95 members, $125
others. Contact: (248) 353-0735, ext. 155.
Town Hall: “Blueprint D p3.” 6-8
p.m. Fusion Detroit, the young
professionals orPatterson
ganization of the
Detroit Regional Chamber. Community forum for young professionals.
Taqueria El Nacimiento, Detroit.
Free. Contact: (313) 596-0488.
FRIDAY
OCT. 3
Business and Legislative Forum. 7
a.m.-noon. Michigan Business and
Professional Association. Dave Bing,
The Bing Group.
With a roundtable
discussion on the
Michigan Business Tax. Burton
Manor, Livonia.
$25 members, $40
others. Contact:
(888) 277-6464.
Bing
TechTown First
Friday. 4-6 p.m.
“I’m a better doctor than I am a CFO.
My patients should be reassured of that.”
Dr. Bodrogi came to us for a checking account. But when we listened to her plans, we found other ways we
could help her business, with a line of credit, and even a retirement plan while she focused on her practice.
We also introduced her to Key4Women, where she found networking opportunities that led to a new lawyer and a
business partner. Introduce yourself to Key4Women and get more of the story at
moneyneedsattention.com
Networking event
for meeting entrepreneurs and getting
to know the TechTown community.
TechTown,
Detroit.
Contact:
www.techtownwsu.org.
COMING EVENTS
Automation Alley’s Marketing Plan
Bootcamp. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 7. Seminar to build a 2009 marketing plan.
Automation Alley, Troy. $60 members, $120 others. Contact: www.
automationalley.com.
Entrepreneurship and Excellence. 8:30
a.m.-5:30 p.m. Oct. 8. Wayne State University. David Brandon, president and
CEO of Domino’s Pizza; and Mary Ellen
Sheets, founder and former CEO of Two
Dr. Anita Bodrogi
Key4Women Member
Men and A Truck. Wayne State University, Detroit. $150. Contact: Nicole Yelland, (248) 304-1442.
CEO Forum featuring Quicken’s Bill
Emerson and first gentleman Dan Mulhern. 8:30-10 a.m. Oct. 9. Quicken
Loans, Michigan Economic Development Corp., and the office of first gentleman Dan Mulhern. Quicken Loans,
Southfield. Free. Contact: Bob Metzger, (517) 241-4015.
The Need for a Plan to Confront America’s Jobs and Housing Crisis. 11:30 a.m.-
CALENDAR GUIDELINES
More Calendar items can be found
on the Web at www.crainsdetroit.
com. Please send news releases
for Calendar to Joanne Scharich,
Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155
Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI 482072997, or e-mail jscharich@
crain.com. You also may submit
Calendar items in the Calendar
section of crainsdetroit.com.
KeyBank is Member FDIC. All credit products are subject to credit approval. ©2008 KeyCorp.
9/26/2008
10:29 AM
Page 1
Page 42
September 29, 2008
Federal fund valuable tool for small-biz innovators
BY NANCY KAFFER
In 1989, Heidi Jacobus was a grad
student with a part-time job in the
University of Michigan library system.
Asked to index proposals to the federal government’s Small Business Innovation Research program, Jacobus,
whose academic work centered on a
field called ergonomic cognition,
saw an opportunity.
Jacobus’ own proposal was accepted and she received a $50,000,
six-month U.S. Department of Defense
contract to develop technology used
in airplane cockpits, followed by a
two-year, $500,000 contract.
Twenty years later, Jacobus is
the CEO of Ann Arbor-based Cybernet Systems, the company she built
around those early SBIR grants.
Her success, Jacobus said, could
be replicated by any company with
innovative work and the ability to
submit a SBIR proposal.
The SBIR program is a federal
fund, this year worth $2.5 billion,
set aside for 11 federal agencies to
allocate to tech-oriented smallbusiness owners. The program
publishes a list of solicitations for
which business owners may write
MARKET PLACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS &
SERVICES
FILE STORAGE
Large scale (MAXI) storage units. Great for RV’s,
boats, cars, warehousing. 14 x 14 door, heated, 24/7
entry, secured. Buy/Lease - I-94 & 26 Mile Area
800-945-5816/www.stclairstoragecondos.com
FINANCIAL SERVICES
FINANCING AVAILABLE
For Small to Upper Mid-sized firms, private or public,
in Tech, Med’l, Health & Service Ind.- confidentiality
maintained. Contact: [email protected]
Corporate Finance Professional
Available to assist with bank refinance, capital raise,
sale or acquisition assistance. 30 yrs exp. Transac tions $3 to $100 million. [email protected]
COMMERCIAL LENDING
100K-25M - No Income Verification
Hard / Soft Money / Many Sources
[email protected] or call Larry 248-474-8470
BUSINESSES FOR SALE
Franchise Bounce Party facility. Established customer base, strong repeat business. Below market
lease. New equipment. Perfect for hands-off or -on
owner. Owners’ transferring. Call 734-455-0323
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Newly formed Detroit area corporation engaged
in infrastructure repair and MDOT work is
SEEKING INVESTOR / PARTNER
Contact 248-941-3469
EQUIPMENT &
MERCHANDISE
INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT
Need More Space?
CAPITAL AVAILABLE
If you have an opportunity that requires
funding but does not fit traditional
banking parameters - contact us. We do
not fund senior/mezzanine debt or
working capital. We focus on special
situations with investment size ranging
$500K
to
$10
million.
Total
committed capital of $100 million. We
have an in-house legal team, can think
"outside the box" and act quickly.
Starting at $1,895.00
ARESCO, Inc.
Pontiac, MI
aresco.org
Toll Free 1-877-227-3726
Please refer to www.etccapital.com
or call 248-560-0203 ext. 101
for more information.
OFFICE FURNITURE
LEGAL SERVICES - IMMIGRATION
MUST SELL, OFFICE CLOSED
Desks $99, Chairs $39, Files $49, Partitions $50,
Lateral Files $99, Cubicles, Office Phone Systems
Call (248) 548-6404 or (248) 474-3375.
N. Peter Antone
AV-rated Immigration Attorney
Adjunct Professor Immigration Law at MSU
Antone, Casagrande & Adwers, P.C.
31555 W. 14 Mile Road, Suite 100
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
Phone (248) 406-4100, www.antone.com
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
WILL BUY
ALL OFFICE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT
Please Call: 877-RICHARD
Please Call: 877-742-4273
VIDEOCONFERENCE SERVICES
Complete Videoconference Services
Job Interviews, Legal Depositions, Business Meetings
Convenient Troy Location, 3 Rooms, 1-200 Capacity
Midwest Video 248-583-3632 www.midwestvideo.com
BUSINESS &
INVESTMENTS
FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITIES
A FRESH ALTERNATIVE TO FAST-FOOD!
GREAT LOCATIONS AVAILABLE
Contact Area Developer @ 248-207-6374
www.saladcreations.net
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
LUCENT . . . AVAYA. . . PARTNER. . .
MAGIX. . . VOIP. . .LEGEND . . .
MERLIN. . .SPIRIT Systems/Parts New/refurbished.
Omnicall Equipment Corp. (248) 848-9282
WE HAVE USED PHONES
Nortel, Lucent, phone systems. Almost any new or
used phone available. Expert installation available.
Call (248)548-6404
Call Us For Personalized
Service: (313) 446-6068
proposals.
“It’s a federal set-aside,” said
Lisa Kurek, managing partner of
Ann Arbor-based Biotechnology
Business Consultants. “It’s mandated to set aside the budget to fund
programs. The agencies don’t have
the discretion to not spend the
money in small business.”
Kurek’s firm helps small-business owners apply for SBIR funding, through grants or contracts,
under a contract with the Michigan
Economic Development Corp.
“We’ve been doing training
through the MEDC for almost
eight years,” Kurek said. “By no
means do we help everyone in
Michigan, but we get them funded
at about two times the national average.”
Many small-business owners
choose to do their own paperwork,
and others seek assistance from
companies like Kurek’s.
In 2007, 99 of 551 proposals were
funded, about 18 percent, according to the Ohio-based State Science
and Technology Institute, a nonprofit
that tracks such statistics. The national average is 17.2 percent,
Kurek said.
Neighboring states fared about
the same, with 19 percent of Illinois’ proposals receiving awards
and 17 percent of Ohio’s. Wisconsin has a 23.3 percent approval
rate, according to SSTI.
Kurek said some business owners are discouraged by the proposal process, about 25 pages long. Jacobus likens the level of difficulty
to an advanced term paper, noting
that it’s not a fill-in-the-blank style
form, but said most people should
be able to handle it.
“The problem for small businesses is, if you’re unfamiliar with
how to read the solicitation or how
to write a proposal, you may write
a proposal that is uncompetitive,”
Kurek said.
That’s where her company
comes in.
“You’re not going to get a hit if
you don’t get up to the plate,”
Kurek said. “You have to know the
baseball game is going on and that
you can get up to bat. Improving
those odds takes coaching just like
in baseball so you can get two,
three or four hits at a time.”
The biggest mistakes applicants
make, she said, is not reading instructions and not allowing
enough time to complete the proposal.
Jacobus said that resources are
there for innovative businesspeople who are interested in seeking
CLOSING TIMES: Monday 3 p.m.,
one week prior to publication date.
Please call us for holiday closing times.
FAX: (313) 446-1757
E-MAIL: [email protected]
INTERNET:
www.crainsdetroit.com/section/classifieds
Confidential Reply Boxes Available
PAYMENT: All classified ads must be
prepaid. Checks, money order or
Crain’s credit approval accepted.
Credit cards accepted.
See
Crainsdetroit.com/Section/Classifieds
for more classified advertisements
NATHAN SKID/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Heidi Jacobus is CEO of Cybernet Systems, the company she built from grants
she received through the Small Business innovation Research program.
the funding.
“The ‘I’ is for ‘innovation,’ so
you need to be doing something innovative,” she said. “But there are
a lot of topics that could be put out
there, and there are a lot of companies in Michigan that don’t even
know they’re doing something innovative that could give it a
whirl.”
The SBIR program can be a valuable tool to build the high-tech
business community, Jacobus
said.
“You have customer validation
in defense proposals, that this
company’s ideas are in fact marketable, and you have found a potential customer who has reviewed your proposal and is wiling
to put money behind to develop,”
she said. “See how it’s a perfect
new business situation for economic development?”
Ideally, she said, the state
should offer matching grants to
Ann Arbor Film Festival selling DVD
The Ann Arbor Film Festival has begun selling on DVD a collection of
films from this year’s 46th festival.
“We’re excited to extend the (festival’s) efforts into distributing
some of our filmmakers’ work and
sharing revenue with them,” Executive Director Donald Harrison,
said in an e-mail.
The collection includes 10
award-winning and favorite short
films from the festival, along with
experimental footage, commentary and auditions.
The festival is selling the DVD
collection for $25 by itself or as
part of memberships at the $125
level or higher through its Web
site at www.aafilmfest.org.
— Sherri Begin
SBIR awardees.
“Michigan has a small program
like this, they will match $15,000
of a $100,000 proposal,” she said.
“Some states have seen SBIR as a
huge
economic-development
tool.”
Nancy Kaffer: (313) 446-0412,
[email protected].
CAREER
MOVES
GENERAL
AUTO / MORTGAGE / REAL ESTATES DREAM!!
$500-$5,000 daily, simply returning phone calls!
Economy Protected, No Selling, Not MLM
www.ezbankroll.com / 800-931-1480
9/26/2008
10:32 AM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 43
Mileage bill could help put, keep nonprofit volunteers on the road
BY SHERRI BEGIN
Federal legislation that would nearly double the volunteer mileage deduction to 27
cents could help stave off volunteer losses if
it becomes law, nonprofits say.
While some nonprofits say volunteers are
cutting back because of rising gas costs, others have been able to maintain their volunteer numbers — for now.
“We have not lost any volunteers yet, but
we’ve had (some) say to us they don’t know
how much longer they’ll be able to do it,”
said Karen Schrock, president and CEO of
Adult Well Being Services, Detroit.
Current federal law — which hasn’t been
updated since 1997 — caps the tax exempt
mileage reimbursement for volunteers at 14
cents per mile, said Lisa Sommer, media relations manager for the Michigan Nonprofit
Association in Lansing. Reimbursement beyond that must be treated as income.
Senate Bill 3532, the Revised Giving Incentives to Volunteers Everywhere Act of
2008, or GIVE Act, was introduced last week
by U.S. Sens. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md.;
Olympia Snowe, R-Maine; Charles Schumer,
D-N.Y.; John Ensign, R-Nev.; and 30 other
co-sponsors, including Michigan Sens. Carl
Levin and Debbie Stabenow, as companion
legislation to House Bill 6854, which was introduced Sept. 10.
According to the Michigan Nonprofit Association, the legislation would do three things:
䡲 Exempt from a volunteer’s taxable income any reimbursement by a charity for
mileage up to the business rate of 58.5 cents
per mile.
䡲 Give the U.S. Treasury Department authority to change the volunteer mileage de-
REAL ESTATE
AUCTIONS
AUCTIONS
duction rate, which has been fixed at 14
cents per mile since 1997.
䡲 Raise the volunteer mileage deduction
immediately to 27 cents per mile and ensure
it doesn’t fall below the rate for medical
mileage expenses in the future.
Legislators hope to attach the GIVE Act
to any bill that is currently moving
through the Senate and House, such as the
economic stimulus bill or disaster relief
bill, said Sommer.
Sherri
Begin:
(313)
446-1694,
[email protected]
AUCTIONS
Real Estate Auction
Horse Lover’s Paradise!
Real Estate Auction
On-site Sunday October 12th at 1pm
Preview & Registration at 11am
Open Houses: Sun Sept. 28th & Oct. 5th Noon-4pm
On-Site Saturday Oct. 11th at 1pm
Preview & Registration at 11:30am
Opening Bid $350,000
Originally Listed at $1,950,000
2721 Metamora Rd., Lapeer Twp 48455
Open Houses: Sun. Sept. 28th & Oct. 5th Noon-3pm
Luxury Lot Auction
10 Lots - Mystic Cove at Stonewater
2 Lots will Sell to Highest Bidder!
Northville Schools
Luxury Walk-out Lake Lots
Surrounded by High End Homes
Paradise anytime of the year! Magnificent slice of mother nature. 38 miles north of Oakland
county sits 40 acres of serenity nestled between 2 lakes. Activities include swimming,
boating, fishing, golfing, snow mobile riding, hunting, & more. 3 hole golf course, many
accessible docks, trails for riding, 3 deer blinds, & beautiful views of all 4 seasons. Entertain
your guests at the lake-side Tiki bar located on your private beach. Pole barn w/ walk out
horse stall & plenty of room for your four wheelers, golf carts, snow mobiles, etc. Custom
built log cabin with panoramic views. Sensational property! www.40acres.org
Rose Auction Group, LLC
877-696-7653
RoseAuctionGroup.com
Unspoiled natural beauty surrounds this
38.49 acre parcel. Private lake and stocked
pond. 80x120 Indoor arena, 2 cement and
steel barns with 14 walk-out stalls and
stallion barn. An additional 40 acres are
available. Private artist’s studio with
incredible breath-taking views. Fabulous
3205 +/- sq ft colonial sporting all the
grandeur of barn wood, stained glass, lead
glass French doors, skylights and musicians
alcove in the grand living room. Offers 4
bedrooms and 3 full baths. Life's finer
moments can have no more appropriate
setting than this country estate!
Beth Rose
CAI Auctioneer
1978 N. Youngs Road
Attica, MI 48412
INVESTMENT PROPERTY
Horse
Facility Auction
Chelsea, MI
877-696-7653
Beth Rose, CAI Auctioneer
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
Premier Location
Northville, MI
Auction on-site Sun. Oct. 19th at 1pm
Preview and Registration at Noon
South Off 7 Mile between Beck & Ridge Road
Six Shimmering lakes, a boulder-strewn trout stream and a collection of distinctive
custom-built homes. At the heart of magnificent Stonewater stands Mystic Cove, the
newest and most beautiful neighborhood. An enchanting group of custom-built
homes embraced by the lovely Mystic Lake. Few neighborhoods offer the level of
rewards that are so easily accessible along Mystic Cove. Swim or sail its crystalline lakes.
Soak in breathtaking views of the water, winding, landscaped streets, boulevards, and
lovingly-tended parks and pathways. Call today for a brochure!
877-696-7653
Beth Rose
CAI Auctioneer
AVAILABLE NOW
4,000 to 100,000 sq. ft.
Also 10,000 & 25,000 sq. ft.
Free Standing Bldgs w/truckwells.
1 Mile from Metro Airport
REA CONSTRUCTION
(734) 946-8730
Also Heavy Industrial
Land Available
www.reaconstruction.net
80 acres located 15 minutes west of Ann Arbor. 80 x 200
indoor arena with 52 stalls, office, observation room, area for
tack store. Show barn with 40 stalls, 3 Olympic size outdoor
arenas, and 2 warm-up arenas. New roof and some electric.
Facility has been prime show and training facility since the
middle 1960’s. Sealed bids to attorney must be accompanied with
letter from bank regarding financial
financial qualification of purchaser and
no finance contingency, $50,000 EMD, hard upon acceptance.
Call Jim Chaconas for showings
(734) 995-1860
INVESTMENT PROPERTY
LENDER ORDERED AUCTION
Three Commercial Buildings
62 East Lee Street
12,000+/- sf with Offices & Warehouse with Four Drive
in Dock Doors
Selling Absolute Over $600,000
Auction Date:
Tuesday, Oct 14th,10:00 AM
Auction Location:
360 South Maple Street
62 East Lee Street &
360 South Maple Street
Grant, MI 49327
22,740+/- sf with Offices, Showroom & Warehouse with
15 Drive in Dock Doors
John Bippus, Auctioneer/Broker
26 Unit Self-Storage Building
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES
10% Buyer’s Premium, Other terms apply
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
CANTON: CONTRACTOR PROJECT
Booming rental business and new construction. You
build it and we’ll rent. 2.59 acres, next to Oakwood
Medical Center. 18-20,000 cars pass daily. Ready to
build, $630,000. Call 734-320-7500 or 248-380-6418
LYON TOWNSHIP/BANK OWNED
12-unit rental townhouse project available.
Get a great deal on this investment opportunity.
Contact Karen Shepherd at 248-290-5300 ext. 311
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
Now Leasing: 83,700 sq. ft.
Leasing 2 Adj. Units - 50,000 & 56,000 s.f.(106,000
comb) @ Burt Indust’l Pk. (I-96/Telegraph), Very
Clean, Dry, Well-Maint., Docks, Truck Pkg, EZ
Freeway Access. (248) 356 - 5466
Where Quality Tenants Find Exceptional Value
Catellus Group, LLC
810-695-7700
FOR SALE or LEASE
RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY
RAVINES OF NORTHVILLE
2,000 built, Cape Cod, 4,000 sq. ft.+ 3,000 walkout.
Multi-family ready, Imported upgrades, natural park
for backyard. Everything else you would expect
in this price home. $895,000.
Call 734-320-7500 or 248-380-6418
WATERFRONT PROPERTY
FEDERAL LEASED BUILDINGS/ AAA CREDIT
Ann Arbor, Port Huron, Flint
7 ½ % CAP $1.1M NOI
810-394-5522
OFFICE BUILDING
ON ORCHARD LAKE
4 bedroom ranch, 3 1/2 baths on
1.4 acres premium lot. 248-335-0104
www.5081commerce.com
200’ LAKEFRONT- 15 min. from Novi/Ann Arbor
on All sports Woodland Lake. 4100 sf new const.
You select interior finishes. The dock is in, enjoy the
lake now, move by Aug. 810-533-5014 or 18.
30701 W. Ten Mile Rd.
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9/26/2008
10:23 AM
Page 1
Page 44
September 29, 2008
Beaumont: Downgrade of planned bond issuance a glitch in plans
BY JAY GREENE
Dennis Herrick believes the
nearly $900 million in bonds
planned to be issued by William
Beaumont Hospitals over the next
year to fund the three-hospital system’s efforts to create a regional
delivery system in Southeast
Michigan will
be worthy investments.
But with investment comes
risk, and Fitch
Ratings, Moody’s
and Standard &
Poor’s have issued cautionary
financial
reHerrick
ports in the past
month that indicate continued
drops in Beaumont’s operating
profit margins and a planned $1.1
billion spending plan through 2013
could lead to bond downgrades.
While Beaumont’s bond-rating
outlook remains stable, the agencies downgraded a planned $757
million bond issuance, noting a
weak balance sheet for its still
above-average rating. The agencies also suggest that competitors
are growing stronger and could
threaten Beaumont’s dominant 26
percent market share.
But Herrick believes the downgrades are a temporary glitch in the
master plan and that Beaumont’s
long-range strategic plan — which
includes developing a larger outpatient footprint in Wayne, Oakland
and Macomb counties — ultimately
will generate higher margins.
“We were not surprised (about
BEAUMONT HOSPITAL PROJECTS
Royal Oak campus
䡲 Renovations to the central and
north tower include a 50-bed
medical progressive-care unit,
support space for respiratory care,
acute dialysis, pediatrics and
neonatal intensive care, an
expansion of the rehabilitation
program from 26 to 33 beds and
upgrades to 14 operating rooms.
Projected cost: $127 million, to be
completed by December.
䡲 A four-story, 346,300-squarefoot North Pavilion project that
includes replacing the emergency
center, building a new 36-bed
intensive care unit, expanding
critical care space and replacing
four operating rooms.
Projected cost: $177.6 million, to
be completed by December 2011.
䡲 A two-story, 65,000-square-foot
proton-beam therapy cancer center
with five treatment rooms in a forprofit joint venture with ProCure
Treatment Centers, Bloomington,
Ind.
Projected cost: $158.7 million,
with shared financing under review
by Beaumont and ProCure, to be
completed by 2010.
Troy campus
䡲 Three-story, 131,015-squarefoot ambulatory center on the east
campus that includes outpatient
services for radiology, laboratory,
cardiology, nuclear medicine and
vascular services.
Projected cost: $47.3 million, to
be completed by May.
䡲 A two-story, 126,782-squarefoot expansion to the emergency
center and a 3,000-square-foot
auditorium with additional space
for pharmacy and other services. In
addition, a 104,000-square-foot
critical care tower and a west bed
tower expansion.
Projected cost: $122 million, to be
completed by August 2010.
䡲 A two-story atrium project that
includes a bridge from the east
campus to the main hospital.
Projected cost: $7.2 million, with
expected completion date of July.
Source: City of Royal Oak Hospital Finance Authority,
Michigan Department of Community Health
the bond downgrades),” said Herrick, Beaumont’s CFO. “We had
been preparing our board about
the potential risk with a number of
the strategies we have been implementing to reposition the system
for the long term.”
Since early August, Fitch downgraded $655 million in Beaumont
bonds to A+ from AA-, Moody’s
downgraded Beaumont’s upcoming bond issue to A1 from Aa3, and
Standard & Poor’s downgraded the
pending bonds to A from AA-.
Fitch also assigned an A+ rating
to the expected issuance later this
month of $757.3 million of hospital
revenue bonds through the City of
Royal Oak Michigan Hospital Finance
Authority.
The rating agencies downgraded
the bonds for three main reasons:
Beaumont’s five-year $1.1 billion
capital expenditure plan, competition from two new hospitals slated
to open in western Oakland Coun-
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ÌÜÊi>`ÃÊ
>ÀiÊLiÌÌiÀÊÌ>Êi
ty and multimillion-dollar losses
at Beaumont Grosse Pointe Hospital.
Henry Ford Health System and St.
John Health System in Warren plan to
open two hospitals in West Bloomfield Township and Novi, respectively. In October 2007, Beaumont
acquired Beaumont Grosse Pointe
from Bon Secours Health System.
During the first six months of
2008, Beaumont Grosse Pointe lost
$3.6 million, compared with a budgeted $7.6 million loss from operations and a $10.7 million loss in the
same period in 2007. The losses declined because of a 17 percent increase in admissions, Fitch said.
Herrick said Grosse Pointe is expected to lose money this year,
break even in 2009 and turn a profit in 2010.
The three agencies also noted
additional downgrades could be
forthcoming if operating margins
continue to drop below the 0.51
percent recorded for the first six
months of 2008 from 0.9 percent for
both 2006 and 2007. Total operating
revenue was $1.85 billion in fiscal
2007, Fitch said.
From 2000 to 2005, Beaumont’s
average operating margin was 2.6
percent, Herrick said. But that still
was lower than the 3.5 percent
margin average from 1995 to 2000.
While Beaumont’s admissions
rose 7 percent in 2007 to 85,829
from 80,115 the prior year, 40 percent of the increase came by
adding Grosse Pointe.
But declining profit margins led
Standard & Poor’s to conclude that
the AA rating is too high, said Brian Williamson, S&P’s associate director in Chicago.
“When you look at Beaumont
from a historical context, their balance sheet from days’ cash on
hand (92 days) never really
Karmanos seeking grant to expand
hospital network for cancer research
BY JAY GREENE
As a CEO, you can’t always turn to colleagues and friends for opinions and
advice. When you become a TEC member, you tap into unbiased insight from
someone who shares your experience, or who has been there before. It’s like
having a team of your own professional advisors to help guide the way.
You don’t have to go it alone. Start the right conversation today.
www.tecdetroit.com
586.443.5880
; / , > 6 9 3 + » : 3 , ( + 0 5 . * , 6 4 , 4 ) , 9 : / 0 7 6 9 . ( 5 0 A (; 0 6 5
(U(MÄSPH[LVM=PZ[HNL0U[LYUH[PVUHS^^^]PZ[HNLJVT
stacked up with their rating level,”
Williamson said. “... They have
solid operations, but they put a lot
of money into their plant.”
Williamson said Beaumont’s aggressive cost-cutting plan could
help improve its financial picture.
Over the next two years, Beaumont plans to cut $60 million in expenses by improving employee
and physician productivity, reducing supply and malpractice expenses, and controlling employee
and retiree medical costs.
In 2010, Beaumont and Oakland
University plan to open a medical
school. More than $25 million already has been raised through
philanthropy.
“There was some concern to rating agencies about it, and there are
some costs to add to execute this,”
Herrick said. “On the short term,
this can be a little drag on our operations, but long-term, this can
really help to differentiate ourselves with our competitors.”
Overall, Herrick said the downgrades will increase financing
costs by about $1.5 million a year.
Herrick said the hospital system
is delaying its planned $765 million bond issuance because of the
fallout from Wall Street turmoil.
Beaumont also could pay more
in 2009, when it plans to issue another $175 million in bonds to finance a number of ongoing and
new capital projects at its Royal
Oak and Troy hospitals.
“The rating agencies get concerned when they see declining operating margins,” he said. “We
still generate a lot of cash flow.
Historically, it has been 12 percent. It has fallen to 10 percent. We
are still generating lots of cash.”
Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325,
[email protected]
The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer
Institute is developing a grant proposal to fund an expansion of its
cancer research program to multiple hospitals in Southeast Michigan, said Dr. Patricia LoRusso,
Karmanos’ chief researcher and
director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program.
LoRusso said the first hospital
to partner with Karmanos could be
St. Joseph Hospital in Ann Arbor. St.
Joseph is part of Trinity Health, a 44hospital system based in Novi,
with 13 hospitals in Michigan.
LoRusso made the announcement Sept. 4 in an acceptance
speech she gave at Crain’s Detroit
Business’ Health Care Heroes luncheon at Michigan State University’s
Management Education Center in
Troy. LoRusso declined further
comment.
Patricia Ellis, Karmanos’ mediarelations manager, said the grant
application was several months
away from being completed. She
declined further comment.
Steve Paulus, vice president for
planning and network development for Saint Joseph Mercy Health
System in Ann Arbor, confirmed
that the system is developing a
statewide cancer treatment network among its Michigan hospitals.
Paulus said the network, intended to offer integrated care for cancer patients, will be expanded to
research and include additional
hospitals outside Trinity.
However, Paulus said he was
not aware of Karmanos’ research
network plans, but that he also did
not know what medical researchers within Trinity might be
discussing with Karmanos.
Karmanos is one of two comprehensive cancer centers in Michigan. The other is at the University of
Michigan Hospitals & Health Centers
in Ann Arbor. Nationwide, there
are 41 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute.
Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325,
[email protected]
9/26/2008
5:03 PM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 45
Gateway Park principal says project on track despite setbacks
BY NANCY KAFFER
Minus a developer and its sole anchor tenant, the proposed Shoppes
at Gateway Park is moving forward,
says a principal in the project.
In the wake of Chicago-based real
estate investment trust General
Growth Properties Inc.’s departure
from the project, the owners aren’t
looking for another development
partner, said Gateway Park investor and part-owner Bernard
Schrott.
“We’re hiring two major companies that do retail brokerage,” he
said. “We don’t want to take on another partner, there are too many issues.”
The project has been in the
works since 2000. Plans to develop
the site, at Eight Mile Road and
Woodward Avenue near the State
Fairgrounds, were announced in
2006. They call for a 330,000-square-
It’s going to take a
“
national player with
national clout to
bring players
to the table.
”
Ken Nisch, JGA Inc.
foot retail development with about
40 stores and restaurants, at an estimated cost of $90 million.
Plano, Tex.-based J.C. Penney
signed a letter of intent last year to
build a 100,000-square-foot store at
Gateway Park, with an estimated
opening date of March 2009, but it
is no longer part of the project,
Schrott said.
“J.C. Penney wanted to delay
the starting of their store,” he said.
“Their scenario is still on the
table, but we replaced them with
another large anchor.”
Schrott said his team is negotiating with three retail anchor tenants and should be able to announce leases within a month.
The site is the recipient of taxincrement financing through a
Corridor Improvement Authority
created in 2007.
Schrott said he hopes to have infrastructure work at the site done
in time for anchor tenants to begin
construction in May or June.
The owners of the property ended their relationship with General
Growth in July, said Schrott, alleging that General Growth failed to
make a payment on an option to
develop the site.
“They defaulted on making that
payment and we would not give
them an extension,” Schrott said.
Jim Graham, senior director of
public affairs for General Growth,
wouldn’t say if his organization
had missed a payment.
“We had an option on the property, and we fully compensated
our local partners for that option,
and we no longer owe them anything,” he said. “We’re paid in full,
and I don’t think it would be appropriate to go into (the question of a
late payment).”
General Growth, the nation’s
second-largest real estate investment trust, joined the project in
2006. General Growth’s local properties include Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights and Taylor’s Southland Center. At the time, Schrott
told Crain’s that the REIT would
add clout to the effort to attract national retailers to the project.
Local developers may find it difficult to draw national retailers in
the current economic climate, said
Ken Nisch, chairman of Southfieldbased retail consultants JGA Inc.
“National tenants really trust
national developers, and local de-
velopers may be an untried entity,” he said. “It’s not that it’s in Detroit, it’s that we’re in difficult
times. The tenant would ask, ‘is
this a person we know will get the
job done and get the job done right
with the right tenants?’ It’s a confidence issue.”
The capital market for projects
that haven’t broken ground has
turned off, Nisch said.
“Retail companies have cut back
on growth, and they’re going to
pick locations where there’s significant landlord allowance (on
rents), or where there’s no risk involved,” he said. “And if a developer can’t get tenants, they can’t get
money.”
Nisch also said, “It’s going to
take a national player with national clout to bring players to the
table.”
Nancy Kaffer: (313) 446-0412,
[email protected].
RVs: Dealers rethink plans
Airport: New leader for board
■ From Page 3
■ From Page 3
like that any more.”
Michal’s troubles mirror the woes of
the RV industry nationwide.
Sales nationally are down about 20
percent from last year, said Phil Ingrassia, director of communications at the
Fairfax, Va.-based National Recreational
Vehicle Dealers Association.
“RVs are discretionary purchases,”
Ingrassia said. “If people don’t feel as
comfortable with their economic situation, they’re not going to make discretionary purchases like boats and RVs.”
Smaller models known as travel
trailers can cost as little as $10,000,
Michal said, but a high-end motor
home starts at around $60,000 and tops
out around $500,000.
And fueling an RV isn’t cheap —
diesel and standard gasoline RVs get
from six to 10 miles per gallon, Michal
said. With tank sizes ranging from 55 to
150 gallons, that means hundreds of
dollars spent with every trip to the
pump.
Sales at Warren-based Eastside RV
have dropped between 15 percent and
20 percent, said President Kim Kinnie.
Eastside sells new RVs, but it also offers maintenance and storage, and sells
propane, parts and accessories.
Those sales help, he said.
“It stabilizes the pinch,” Kinnie said.
He has had to cut inventory, with
only 12 models currently on the lot. It’s
not been a popular move with customers, but Kinnie said he has no
choice.
“Why should I have RVs here to collect dust?” he said.
He’s also had to cut staff, eliminating
all three part-time employees and one
of two full-time workers.
“With gas prices up, anybody who
says they’re doing great doesn’t live in
metropolitan Detroit,” he said.
“It’s not just new RV sales that are
down, but parts sales are down, because people aren’t taking them out.
Storage is down, because they can’t afford to do that. And since propane is an
oil product, that’s up. Every aspect is
up”
The cost of RVs has increased by 3
percent to 6 percent, said Kinnie, who
predicts that things will worsen before
sales improve.
At Wixom-based General RV, things
aren’t so bad — sales are down 5 percent to 10 percent, said co-owner Loren
Baidas. General RV stocks between
1,400 and 2,000 RVs at six stores in
Michigan and one in Ohio.
“Michigan as a whole, whether it’s
in the Saginaw-Flint area or the Detroit
market, I think we’re all sort of in that
same economic crunch,” he said. “With
us, Michigan has felt a lot of what the
country’s now feeling.”
Ingrassia said he believes the decline
in RV sales isn’t based on a lack of interest in the product.
“We think there’s a lot of pent-up demand and our long-term prognosis remains very good,” he said.
That’s what John Buday, president
of Clawson-based American Recreational
Vehicles, is hoping.
Buday is preparing to launch a new
product, the Way Cool Hauler, that allows RV owners to transport two trailers with additional recreational vehicles simultaneously.
“We’re launching a product in a
down market, so we’ve got negatives to
that,” he said. “But we have a product
nobody else has, so that’s going to help
us launch and be successful.”
The hauler and the travel trailer necessary for its use retail for between
$40,000 and $50,000.
Finding financing for customers has
become difficult in the tightening credit market.
“Like any financing market, that is a
little bit of a tougher thing for a lot of
dealers,” he said. “You can sell a lot of
products, but if you can’t get the financing for the retail customer …”
He hopes to reach $20 million in revenue during the first year of sales.
Ingrassia said about 300,000 motor
homes are sold each year. About 86 percent are of the towable variety.
At Walt Michal’s, work is progressing on the conversion of the lot. A new
sign was installed last week, and a slew
of used vehicles were set to arrive.
“Our United Auto Workers people who
live in Wayne County, half are unemployed right now,” he said. “This is the
only way to stay alive.”
Nancy Kaffer: (313) 446-0412, [email protected].
has been one of his pet projects, dropped objections to an authority and brokered a deal with
then-Gov. John Engler.
The law setting up the authority gives the
Wayne County executive four appointments, the
governor two, and one to the Wayne County
Board of Commissioners. The terms are for six
years, but the initial appointments varied in
length so that the whole slate of commissioners
wouldn’t leave at the same time. A board member
can be reappointed just once.
Ficano, who said creativity is one of his criteria for his appointments and has a candidate pool
he’s narrowing, said his choices will be “business-oriented.”
“What I’m looking for is vision, looking down
the road 10 years,” he said.
He also said he’s considering the outgoing
members in his pool, but declined to say who else
he might consider.
The airport is a front-burner issue for Ficano because he’s led the effort to attract new jobs in aviation-dependent industries on land between the two
airports, the so-called aerotropolis project.
Liz Boyd, Granholm’s press secretary, would
say only that the governor will announce her
selections next month.
The business community is keeping an eye on
the authority’s makeup.
“We certainly would encourage the executive
and governor to tap other strong businesspeople
in the region,” said Sarah Hubbard, vice president of government relations for the Detroit Regional Chamber.
And having a labor-friendly chairman isn’t a
problem, she added.
“The UAW, and everyone, recognizes our need
to diversify our economy and new business coming to our area,” she said.
Of the airport’s 699 employees, 617 are members of 10 different unions that have contracts
with the airport, according to the authority. Not
one is UAW affiliated.
Several major issues face the incoming board,
including questions about its $3.6 billion, 20-year
master improvement plan that had drawn objections from local communities because it included
a 10,000-foot landing strip, the airport’s seventh
runway.
A deal was brokered earlier this year that basically pushed the runway question years into the
future. However, the plan also includes a monorail
proposal that airlines, most notably primary airport tenant Northwest Airlines Corp., have objected to
because the carriers foot much of the bill.
The monorail, which would connect the terminals to parking garages and off-site parking lots,
also was pushed into the future with the new run-
OUTGOING?
Wayne County Airport Authority
board members whose terms
end this year are:
■ Authority Chairman David
Treadwell. He’s president and
CEO of Inkster-based
EaglePicher Corp. Appointed by
Gov. John Engler in 2002. He’s
filling out the term of appointee
William McCormack, who left
the board after resigning as CEO
of CMS Energy in May 2002
amid an accounting scandal.
■ Wayne Doran, former
chairman of Ford Motor Land
Development Corp. Appointed by
Wayne County Executive Ed
McNamara. Best known for
leading the 2,400-acre Fairlane
master-planned area in
Dearborn and the development
of the Renaissance Center in
1977.
■ Michael Glusac, former senior
adviser and chairman of Detroit
Renaissance Inc., former vice
president of government affairs
for Chrysler Corp., and former
executive director of the
Southeast Michigan Council of
Governments. Appointed by McNamara.
way.
The authority contracts its shuttle services,
which potentially could be replaced to some degree
by the monorail, with Taylor-based Metro Cars Inc.,
which operates 51 Teamster-driven shuttles and
other vehicles at the airport.
Labor leaders don’t see Settles’ pending chairmanship marking significant change for the airport and labor issues.
“I don’t know if it will make any difference,”
said Mike Finnegan, vice president of Wyandotte-based Teamsters Local 283, which has members running some of the parking lot booths at
the airport. “He’s got the fiduciary responsibility
of that board in mind first. They’re like everyone
else with budget concerns and budget problems.”
The airlines also have asked the board to trim
additional costs from its $274.5 million budget approved Sept. 23 because it contains a nearly $40
million increase for carriers to use the airport.
The board agreed to consider an amended budget by Oct. 31, but the issue could linger as the
airline industry faces spiraling fuel costs and
fewer passengers.
Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626, [email protected]
9/26/2008
4:02 PM
Page 1
Page 46
September 29, 2008
Silverdome: Critics question Parker’s ability to pull off the deal
■ From Page 3
to the city before Nov. 1. Parker
will supply some of the money and
some will come from his business
partner, Richard Mazur, chairman
of Madison Heights-based Mid-America Associates.
The rest will be coming from private investors. Parker declined to
name them, citing their request to
remain anonymous.
Following the closing, Parker
will start the heavy lifting.
Silver Stallion Development Corp.,
of which Parker is president and
CEO, will sign a contract with a
booking company to start signing
acts at the Silverdome.
The first phase includes bring-
THE THREE-PHASE PLAN
Bloomfield Hills lawyer H. Wallace Parker is set to close on the purchase of
the Pontiac Silverdome by Nov. 1, kicking off a three-phase plan for the 35year-old stadium and surrounding 127 acres.
䡲 Phase 1: Bring the stadium back to life as an entertainment venue. Hire
a booking company to find concerts and shows, and revive the retail space
and restaurants.
䡲 Phase 2: Petition the Michigan Legislature to allow an additional
thoroughbred horse racing track and build a structure for races. Also, he
plans a joint venture with a college to build an equine research facility.
䡲 Phase 3: Pursue an expansion of casino gambling to have gaming at the
track in addition to racing. Also build a luxury hotel on the site.
ing the facility back to operation
with concert bookings and other
events, Parker said. He said the
booking company is lined up, but
he would not say who it is because
the contract won’t be signed until
after the closing.
He also plans to revive the
restaurant operations in the facility and lease the retail space.
A second phase of Parker’s plan
would start a new $250 million development. It will include an equestrian research facility as a joint venture with a college. He has not
started negotiations with any college. He also hopes to bring polo and
dressage events to the Silverdome.
Also in the plans is the creation
of a thoroughbred horse racing
track on the 127-acre parcel of land
surrounding the Silverdome.
Parker has applied for 110 racing dates in 2009 for the planned
track, even though the three available licenses are all being used. An
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Oct. 9 hearing on his application
has been scheduled with the Michigan Office of Racing Commissioner.
“You have to apply for the racing dates so far in advance, I had to
do it now for 2009,” he said. “Otherwise, if we had something going
next year, we couldn’t do a race
until 2010.”
As for attaining a license, Parker plans to lobby the Legislature to
approve a change in the horse-racing statutes to allow an additional
track in the region.
His third phase for the site takes
the gaming concept even further.
With an operational track, Parker plans to pursue a statewide ballot referendum to expand gaming.
The Pontiac track would become a
“racino,” a combination of a horseracing track and a casino. A hotel
also would be built on the site.
The complex plans are full of potential pitfalls, experts say.
It is very difficult to operate a
venue, for example, without a major tenant, said Alan Ostfield, COO
of Palace Sports and Entertainment.
“A primary tenant enables you to
have a mainstay of revenue to cover
the fixed costs,” he said. “Without
that, it’s a lot harder to be profitable, especially in this economy
and at a time when artists are taking more and more of the revenue.”
Parker said he has been in negotiations with the fledgling football operation United National Gridiron
League, but nothing has been signed.
Also in question is demand for
the new horse racing track.
Thoroughbred racing began in
July at the $142 million Pinnacle
Race Course in Romulus. Tracks
also exist in Hazel Park and
Northville.
Parker said the market is big
enough for both.
However, expanding the number of track licenses in the area
would draw resistance from Pinnacle and likely the other tracks
said Michael McInerney, president
of Pinnacle.
“We’d all be taking the position
that another track would dilute
the revenue of the other three and
jeopardize the ability for everyone
to operate,” he said.
Experience is also an issue.
While not familiar with Parker
or his Silverdome plan, Gary
Roberts, CEO of the Plymouthbased real estate development
company DeMattia Group, said
large, complex projects aren’t as
easy to complete as they might
seem and require a large organization of professionals.
“It takes a diversity of expertise
and a number of individuals involved,” he said. “It’s not something
that you can just pick up and do.”
Financing has been challenging
for most Michigan developments
recently, and Parker said he will
look at unconventional financing
programs.
He acknowledges the project is
ambitious, and it is clear that the
phased approach is needed so plans
can progress incrementally. The
overall goal is about horses though.
“This is something that will promote the equestrian industry,”
Parker said. “It needs it because
its an area that’s lost some momentum in recent years.”
Daniel Duggan: (313) 446-0414,
[email protected]
9/26/2008
5:03 PM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Page 47
Incubator moves up opening to get funds
Macomb County-OU center
out to get $250,000 from state
BY CHAD HALCOM
A new incubator to nurture defense and homeland security businesses will open its doors Tuesday
to qualify for new state budget
funding on Wednesday, after
working out a few prelaunch details.
The new Macomb-Oakland University Incubator will open with a small
staff at the former Venture Industries manufacturing site on 15 Mile
Road in Sterling Heights.
A staff of training and business
assistance experts will be provided
by Macomb County and Oakland
University. Tenant businesses will
come later.
“We thought when we got started that we were going to have a
year or so to get this ready, so we
went through a
process that included (applying for) a SmartZone
designation,”
said
Stephen
Cassin, executive director of
the
Macomb
Cassin
County Planning
and Economic Development Department.
“But because of the state funding, we had to move quickly, even
though there is at least another 45
days or more to go on the SmartZone decision.”
The driving motivation to open
the center quickly is a budget appropriation for $1.25 million in operating funds for business incubators in five counties, including
$250,000 for the Macomb proposal,
for the new state fiscal year, which
begins Oct. 1.
“There is a designation within
that (funding) legislation that indicates the funding in fiscal 2009
is for incubators
that are in operation at the end
of fiscal 2008,”
said
David
Spencer, executive director of
SmartZone development at OU
Spencer
Inc., the university’s on-campus business incubator. “It’s a ripe opportunity, and
it’s giving us the impetus to move
forward.”
Spencer and Cassin said much
of the preparatory work was already done to open the incubator
site. Sterling Heights is working to
expedite a certificate of occupancy
for the incubator, and should have
it complete before Tuesday’s opening, said Luke Bonner, economic
development manager for the city.
Talks are ongoing with eight to
10 local startups and entrepreneurs looking to launch a business
that fits with the incubator and its
location, Spencer said, but the duediligence process of reviewing po-
tential tenants will take at least another couple of months.
Macomb County, OU and Sterling Heights prepared an application to the state to create Michigan
SmartZone business accelerator
district in the city, which would
include the incubator. A decision
is expected by early November.
The county obtained a $282,000
federal budget appropriation earlier this year with assistance from
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.,
for an accelerator.
The incubator also stands to receive another $250,000 from the
state appropriation for operating
costs, proposed funding up to
$400,000 in a current federal budget
proposal and funds from corporate
sponsors like a recent $10,000 contribution by Sterling Heights-based
Rave Computer Association Inc.
Rick Darter, president and CEO
of Rave Computer, said getting involved in the incubator is a potential benefit to his own company as
well as the local defense industry.
Rave generates about $30 million in yearly revenue making information-technology and computer hardware systems, and Darter
said military contracts have
grown from roughly 20 percent of
revenue 10 years ago to more than
50 percent this year.
“We’re a 20-year-old company at
this point, and these are going to
be mainly startups in the incubator program,” he said.
“But there is an opportunity for
us as well as the economy of the region, because some of these new
companies may be able to work
with us as suppliers or customers
of our products.”
For more information, see (586)
463-2542.
Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796,
[email protected]
Detroit
Pittsburgh
September 2008
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Page 48
5:44 PM
Page 1
September 29, 2008
Struggling community banks find little help in Wall Street bailout
BY TOM HENDERSON
There are limits to what even $700 billion can do.
The plan to bail out Wall Street for buying and selling convoluted mortgage-backed securities apparently will do little
to ease the pain for conventional bankers who actually issued the mortgages.
Michigan’s banks, both public and private, have been hit
hard by poorly performing loan portfolios.
Their pain wasn’t caused by exotic and
complicated high-risk securities, said
Dennis Koons, president and CEO of the
Lansing-based Michigan Bankers Association, but by the double whammy of a longtime statewide recession and a housing
slump that led to defaults and foreclosures by business customers who did residential and commercial developments
and by homeowners who lost their jobs.
Koons and others in the local banking
Koons
community are frustrated that the bailout
attention seems focused on those tumbling from the collapse
of their high-wire financial acts and not on the struggling
conventional banking community that didn’t get in trouble
wheeling and dealing for big returns.
Any substantial relief state banks get from the national
bailout likely will be of the trickle-down variety.
“If the bailout plan is successful, it will provide liquidity
to large institutions, but for smaller institutions, there
won’t be any direct bailout or purchase of portfolios,” said
Todd Sprang, leader of the Midwest financial institutions
practice at Grant Thornton L.L.P.
“Community banks get their liquidity by borrowing from
large institutions, and that’s been cramped,” he said. “As
the plan provides liquidity to large institutions, that should
trickle down.”
Koons and a contingent of about 25 state bankers spent
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week in Washington calling on all state members of the House and Senate and
on federal regulators to try to convince them that a bailout
of such enormous size should have at least some relief for
the nation’s struggling retail banks.
The timing of the trip was fortuitous. Koons said it
had been set for about a year, and just coincidentally
ended up being timed to one of the most tumultuous
weeks in the history of the banking industry.
“The operative word is ‘some hope,’ ” said Koons,
when asked if his delegation’s visit to Sens. Debbie
Stabenow and Carl Levin might end up with some
financial assistance for traditional banks.
“No commitments were made. I’m not sure if
anyone knows what will happen in the next few
days,” he said.
He said he had three questions about the proposed bailout: “Just what do they intend to
purchase? Who do they intend to shore up?
How does that benefit Main Street, Michigan?”
Requests for comment from Stabenow’s and
Levin’s offices went unanswered.
While Koons held out “some hope” that retail banks would be included in a bailout, analysts didn’t.
Terry McEvoy, an analyst with New Yorkbased Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. who follows Midwest and community banks, issued a report
on Monday titled “Wall Street Bailout and the
Impact on Main Street Banks.” The subhead
was “Tough to See the Direct Benefit.”
In an interview with Crain’s, McEvoy said:
“I can understand why traditional banks who
didn’t create these problems are wondering
why they’re not getting any benefit, but there
will be very little benefit to community banks
or regional banks. They just haven’t had the
enormous losses that the big investment
banks have had.”
“It looks like the primary target of the
bailout plan will be mortgage-backed securities and those who made a major market in
them. Main Street banks have not been major
Audrey Mistor,
players in that,” said William Hartman, presiMain Street Bank
dent, CEO and chairman of Flint-based Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc.
“It would be helpful if a plan benefited all financial institutions instead of a few big ones. I still
view it as a positive initiative, but I would prefer
regional banks be able to participate in a large
way,” he said. “A bailout plan is important, and
it’s important to be done quickly. A quick resolution will calm markets.”
Patrick McQueen, chairman and CEO of Bloomfield Hills-based The Private Bank-Michigan, thinks
the package that eventually gets passed will include some relief for all banks, not just those
holding collateralized securities.
“There will be something in there for all
banks,” he said. “What it is, I don’t know.”
Audrey Mistor, president of Northvillebased Main Street Bank, said small banks have
been hurt by the ripple effect of Wall Street’s
now discredited mortgage-backed securities,
“but no one seems to be talking about that.”
Main Street was particularly hard hit by
residential and commercial developers who
went into default, had to write off millions in
poorly performing loans and is now under a
decree by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to
shore up its balance sheet.
Its capital-to-asset ratio is 2 percent and
must get to 6 percent. A federal bailout applied
to conventional banks could help that along.
“We’ve already written down portfolios by
90 percent. If our loans were backstopped (by
the government) at 50 percent, could we add
the difference to our balance sheet?” Mistor
asked.
“The bailout seems to be just for the socalled significant financial institutions,” she
said. “They say, ‘They’re too big to fail.’ But
the problem with community banks is we’re
not too big to fail. I don’t know how this will
play out, but I don’t think anyone’s worrying
about community banks.”
Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337, [email protected]
The bailout
“
seems to be just
for the so-called
significant
institutions. ... I
don’t know how
this will play
out, but I don’t
think anyone’s
worrying about
community
banks.
”
Local views mixed on Wall Street banks’ entry into retail banking
BY TOM HENDERSON
In the wake of the demise of Wall Street giants Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and the
purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America,
the last two remaining giants of American investment banking, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are reinventing themselves as retail banks.
They will compete for deposits with banks
and thrifts, and come under the regulatory
auspices of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.,
which was good news to some investors.
On Tuesday, Warren Buffett said his Omaha-based conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway,
would buy $5 billion in preferred stock in
Goldman Sachs, which would also grant it
warrants to buy $5 billion of common stock.
Last Monday, Japan’s largest banking
group by market capitalization, Mitsubishi
UFJ Financial Group Inc., announced it would
acquire 20 percent of Morgan Stanley for between $8 billion and $9 billion.
Wednesday, New York-based RBC Capital
Markets, a unit of Royal Bank of Canada, issued
a report predicting Goldman Sachs would
launch retail operations with $175 billion in
assets and buy deposits from troubled banks
or FDIC receiverships, and that Morgan Stanley would convert a Utah-based industrial
loan firm with $36 billion in assets into a retail bank and use its wealth-management offices as commercial banking branches.
The report said difficulties in valuing potential targets would keep both companies on
the sideline for now, but with some 300 bank
failures expected nationwide in the current
credit cycle — on Thursday, Seattle-based
Washington Mutual was taken over by regulators and its assets sold to J.P. Morgan Chase for
$1.9 billion, the biggest bank failure in U.S.
history — there would be plenty of opportunities for both to grow at discount prices.
Here’s what local bankers and analysts say
about possible impacts on regional and community banks by the entry of Goldman Sachs
and Morgan Stanley into retail banking:
Todd Sprang, leader of Grant Thornton
L.L.P.’s Midwest financial institutions practice: “They’ll compete against large national
banks and larger regional banks, but they
won’t have that great of an impact on small
banks. They’ll probably grow their business
through acquisitions, but I don’t think that
will happen until the second or third quarter of 2009.
“It takes capital to do acquisitions, and the
regional players who can help you grow your
footprint likely wouldn’t be accepting of your
stock as currency. They’ll want cash.”
He said any impact on community banks
would be short term. Customers might leave
for offers of better rates on deposits, he said,
but community bank customers are used to a
higher level of service and access to executives and likely will return to their old banks.
Michael Tierney, president and CEO of
Madison Heights-based Peoples State Bank:
“They won’t be marketing to all of Main
Street America. They will create more massmarket vehicles trying to raise capital, so
they’ll go heavy after CDs and insured money-market accounts. But I don’t see them as
being direct competitors for us. They’ll be going after the higher end
banks, like The PrivateBank.”
Patrick McQueen,
chairman and CEO of
Bloomfield Hills-based The
PrivateBank-Michigan,
which targets high-networth individuals: “To the
extent this in the short
term helps stabilize credit
Tierney
markets, it’s a great thing.
Long term? The jury’s out. But I don’t see
them as direct competitors. What they know
best is investment banking. I don’t see them
shedding that to move into retail banking.
They’ll continue to focus on what they know.
“What it does is it forces them to leverage
at a higher standard. They were leveraging at
40 times their capital. Banks leverage at 10
times their capital. So that puts them on the
same standard.”
William Hartman, chairman, president
and CEO of Flint-based Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc.: “Investment banks becoming retail
banks is a good thing for the economy and
puts them on an equal footing. The investment banks weren’t subject to necessary levels of scrutiny. Frankly, we have so many
competitors for deposits now, I don’t see it
having an impact. I do think it is likely they’ll
look for a regional-bank acquisition to accelerate the deposit-gathering process.”
Brian Pollice, partner and head of the financial institutions practice at Southfieldbased Plante & Moran P.L.L.C.: “Now you’ve got
another competitor coming to town who may
offer higher rates. And
they’ll be looking for regional banks to bolster
their deposits.”
David Widlak, president and CEO of Mt.
Clemens-based Community
Central Bank: “When you
see the two remaining big
investment bankers getting into the retail bankPollice
ing business, it’s going to
put more stress on the local banking community, in Michigan in particular.
“We’ve seen every new entry into the local
market — for example, the Royal Bank of Scotland when it bought Charter One — come in and
try to buy business with higher interest on
deposits. They’ll be doing the same. It’s the
continued Wal-Mart-izing of the banking industry. Every deposit they successfully get
out of the area will put more stress on the local banking community.”
Dennis Koons, president and CEO of the
Lansing-based Michigan Bankers Association:
“The regulators are now telling us the investment banking community is gone, that
they’re now retail banks. We find that ironic.
But it’s just too early to speculate on how it
will play out. There are a lot of issues.”
Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337, [email protected]
9/26/2008
September 29, 2008
Bailout: Boost or
bust for Michigan?
■ From Page 1
take when we started down that road.”
Others say a bailout could help Michigan’s economic picture, loosening credit
and enabling stalled economic-development projects to obtain financing and
move forward, and causing consumers
to feel more confident about spending
money.
To some industries, timing is no small
matter. Michigan retailers, for example,
are approaching their biggest sales periAnderson
od of the year amid national forecasts of
a challenging holiday season and the lowest holiday sales
growth since 2002.
A bailout is “certainly not going to hurt, and it’s probably
going to help,” said Tom Scott, senior vice president with the
Michigan Retailers Association.
“The best scenario would be for some type of package to
be passed, and some level of confidence restored in the financial system. Just like the markets, consumers don’t like uncertainty,” Scott said. “If people are concerned about the
economy having a meltdown, they’re certainly going to be
more reluctant to spend.”
The national picture also could have bearing on Michigan tourism, at a time when the state is pushing ahead
with its biggest-ever promotional budget.
Travel Michigan, the state’s tourism-marketing agency, is
full-tilt into fall advertising, preparing its first significant
winter advertising in 15 years and heading toward an inaugural Michigan national campaign next spring — a $10
million national promotion out of the $30 million the state
will spend in 2009.
Travel Michigan Director George
Zimmermann said that “if people are
not feeling secure, then travel is something they might well cut back on, or
hold off on. Things like consumer confidence play into the picture.”
But he also said a Michigan trip could
be viewed as a closer and more affordable
alternative than a trip out of the country.
While conditions aren’t ideal, Zimmermann said, “like everything else in the Zimmermann
economy, you play the cards you’re dealt.
“What are the options … not to be out there selling?”
Areas like tourism, retail and auto sales — and jobs —
mean tax revenue for the state budget. Analysts expect
state revenue for the current fiscal year, which ends Tuesday, to be at or slightly above projections. But they’re not
so certain about the new fiscal 2009 budget year.
Jay Wortley, senior economist at the Senate Fiscal Agency,
said the impact of financial sector turmoil on state budget
projections is “hard to quantify at this point in time.”
He said if a bailout plan “is successful in at least stabilizing
things, then that would be good for the economy” and could
help in areas like sales-tax collections. And “to the degree
that it prevents credit from getting even tighter, that might
have a positive boost on motor vehicle sales,” Wortley said.
“The timing of it, how’s it going to play out in the economy a month from now, two months from now, a year from
now, we’ve got to figure all that out.”
House Fiscal Agency Director Mitch Bean said businesses
need to have access to capital at reasonable rates. “For
firms, even very successful, secure firms, if your cost of
capital goes up, it cramps your ability to expand and hire
and so forth, and that’s what has an impact on Main Street,
through the job market,” Bean said.
“When you start having increased job loss, that’s really
where the rubber hits the road. And the tight credit markets could certainly affect that.”
Jeff Williams, senior vice president at nonpartisan think
tank Public Sector Consultants Inc., said that in terms of helping
to strengthen Michigan, the $25 billion in government loans
proposed for the auto industry will have a more direct immediate effect than a financial-sector bailout.
But a bailout could make banks less conservative in
lending, helping economic development projects, Williams
said. And it could also provide a psychological boost to
Michigan residents, he said.
“I don’t think it’s the terms of the bailout,” Williams
said. “I think it’s whether there is or is not a bailout.”
Amy Lane: (517) 371-5355, [email protected]
6:17 PM
Page 2
Page 49
Cockrel closes crime lab,
announces appointments
BY ROBERT ANKENY
Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. continued careful restructuring of the city administration last week, announcing
new appointments and reappointments.
Cockrel also acted quickly to keep the
Detroit City Council in
the loop in connection with his shutdown last Thursday
of the Detroit Police
Department crime lab
after a Michigan State
Police report showed
a 10 percent error
rate in ballistic evidence, unrestricted
Cockrel
access to firearms
and other shortcomings.
“His liaison to the council was giving
us a summary of the report as the press
conference was going on,” Councilmember Sheila Cockrel said. “That’s unprecedented with any of the previous
mayors.”
Cockrel and Police Chief James Barren said all ballistics, fingerprint, DNA
and drug testing will be handled by the
Michigan State Police crime lab for the
time being.
Cockrel and his former council colleagues also are reviewing recommendations from Loren Monroe, Detroit auditor general, on best practices for the
mayor’s office.
Included are suggestions that the city
tighten monitoring on the use of credit
cards, petty cash, vehicles and gasoline
cards by the mayor’s staff and develop a
detailed budget for operating the
Manoogian Mansion.
Monroe’s recommendations came after the auditor general’s office reported
to council that it was not given full and
complete information with which to
properly audit operations of the outgoing administration.
Among key transition team advisers
for Cockrel are former city of Detroit auditor Joseph Harris; former Wayne
County Deputy Executive Charles
Williams, a one-time top aide and department head for Mayor Coleman
Young; Detroit attorney Curtis Blessing,
who advised on the transition team for
Mayor Dennis Archer; and Detroit CPA
Ric Geyer, who served on the Kilpatrick
transition team.
Cockrel continued selective appointments and reappoints last week.
Among department heads retained or
appointed by Cockrel were:
䡲 Cathy Square, who continues as
COO. Square is a former director of the
city’s Department of Public Works and of
the Greater Detroit Resources Recovery Authority, which operates the city’s recycling and incinerator systems.
䡲 Norman White, CFO, a former director of the Detroit Department of Transportation.
䡲 Pamela Scales, budget director.
䡲 Douglass Diggs, director, Planning
and Development Department, a former director of community and economic development for Detroit Renaissance Inc.
䡲 Amru Meah, director, Buildings and
Safety Engineering Department.
䡲 Al Jordan, director, Public Works Department.
䡲 Charles Beckham, director of the
Public Lighting Department. Beckham had
been director of the Service and Recreation departments under Kilpatrick and
was head of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department in the Coleman Young
administration.
䡲 Attorney Beth DunCombe, who was
president of the Detroit Economic Growth
Corp., has been named director of the Detroit Building Authority.
䡲 Tom Tuskey, director of the Civic
Center/Cobo Center.
䡲 Sreenivas Cherukuri, director of
the Information Technology and Services
Department.
䡲 Pamela Turner was elevated to director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department from an assistant directorship.
䡲 Cockrel also has named Darchelle
Love, a former aide in the Dennis
Archer administration, his chief of staff.
Aides to Cockrel said reviews of key
mayoral-appointed posts will continue.
Robert Ankeny: (313) 446-0404,
[email protected]
Racino: Backers offer bill
■ From Page 1
give up their efforts to expand casinos,
through racinos, throughout of the
state.”
Robert Russell, a gaming analyst with
East Lansing-based Regulatory Management Counselors P.C., has grave doubts
about the viability of the racino effort.
“It’s not going anywhere, from what
I’ve heard from people,” he said. “Does
(Meisner) have the political wherewithal to push this, and who’s going to get
behind it? It’s a challenging piece of legislation because of the high hurdles the
parties need to achieve due to the
statewide vote.”
Supporters acknowledge looming obstacles.
“We think the racinos have a long
way to go, and it’s an uphill battle as
well,” said Michael McInerney, president of the new $142 million Pinnacle
Race Course thoroughbred track in
Wayne County’s Huron Township.
“Anything that enhances existing
revenues or creates new revenues is
something that we’re in favor of. These
are things that ought to happen at the
existing tracks. We’re not involved in
the bills, but we’re supportive of them.”
Meisner consulted with the Michigan
Racing Association when drafting his bill,
said Joe Garcia, general counsel for
Lansing-based lobbying firm Karoub Associates, which represents the association of four harness tracks.
Proposal 1 also faces a legal challenge:
Northville Downs harness track has a
pending lawsuit, filed in May against
the state in U.S. District Court in Detroit,
claiming Proposal 1 is unconstitutional.
Bill
Shea:
(313)
446-1626,
[email protected]
Daniel Duggan: (313) 446-0414,
[email protected]
www.crainsdetroit.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Keith E. Crain
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Entire contents copyright 2008 by Crain
Communications Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or use of editorial content in any
manner without permission is strictly prohibited.
9/26/2008
6:05 PM
Page 1
Page 50
RUMBLINGS
Drivers win
in spat over
bridge study
he winner of last
week’s squabble over
the $3.4 billion Michigan Department of Transportation budget for 2009 may
have been, of all people, drivers.
Depending on whom you
ask, the skirmish was either a GOP-led fight,
bankrolled by Ambassador
Bridge owner Manuel Moroun to
kill a proposed
new
bridge between Detroit and
Windsor,
or it was
a Democratic efMoroun
fort to
force a needless new crossing on taxpayers.
Unless the budget was approved, with or without language about the ongoing Detroit River International
Crossing study, MDOT was
threatening to halt work on
road projects all over the
state. Both parties reached
a compromise and rushed
to issue breathless press releases praising themselves
as saviors of the taxpayers
and accusing the other side
of not playing nice.
The Republicans, led by
DeWitt’s Alan Cropsey, got
additional language in the
budget bill that puts more
oversight on MDOT during
the study process, especially for land purchases related to a potential new
bridge.
The Democrats, led by
Detroit’s Steve Tobocman,
whose 12th District would
be home to a new bridge,
T
September 29, 2008
cal-parody troupe A
(Habeas) Chorus Line has a
new show, “LOL,” that lampoons everything from
Kwame Kilpatrick’s predicament to the recent banking
bailout and Sarah Palin.
“It has been a target-rich
environment,” said Justin
Klimko,
the
group’s
lyricist
and a corporate
transaction attorney
with Detroit law
About 100 people gathered
Klimko
firm
at the Motor City Casino
Thursday night for Crain’s
Butzel Long.
Family-Owned
A sample of
Business Forum.
Klimko’s
lyrics
Keynote speaker
spoofing
Paul Bernhard,
Of what is generated
director of the
Hizzoner,
by family-owned
business
sung to
businesses?
transition planning
the tune
See boxed item for
group at Plante &
of “I Can’t
answer.
Moran P.L.L.C.,
Get Next To
opened with a quiz
You”:
designed to gauge
I can bulldoze
respondents’ knowledge of
run-down slums
family businesses. One
I can give employment to
telling tidbit: Did you know
all my high school chums
that 64 percent of our
nation’s gross domestic
Oh, I can hire an army
profit is generated by familyjust to be my bodyguards
owned businesses? To read
I pay my expenses with
more about the event, visit
city credit cards
www.crainsdetroit.com.
But my life is incomplete
and I’m so blue
claimed victory because the
’Cause I can’t get text to
bridge study survived, periyou
od. Estimates have ranged
The group is set to perfrom $1 billion to more than
form at 7 p.m. Oct. 4 at
$3 billion for a new DetroitBerkley High School.
Windsor link, which would
Tickets are $15 and availtake several years to build.
able at the door or in adAnd in the meantime,
vance by calling (313) 435MDOT’s orange barrels and
2425 or e-mailing
concrete barriers will [email protected].
tinue to infest Michigan’s
Shows are about 85 minutes
highways in the forlorn
long and include about 25
hope of a smooth drive.
songs.
The group first began
performing in 1992 for the
Detroit chapter of the FederInstead of lawyers
al Bar Association, and
singing the praises of their
makes itself available for
clients or cases, several loevents such as fundraisers
cal barristers are comedand parties.
ically crooning about a
Information about the
docket of issues — includtroupe, and songs from its
ing Detroit’s favorite textaCDs, is available at
holic ex-mayor.
habeaschorus.com.
The Detroit-based musi-
FACTS ABOUT
FAMILY BUSINESSES
64%
Lawyers to ‘voice’ parodies
See ‘40 Under 40’ photos, then bridge 96
Funny thing about our photo
shoots — we always wind up with
a lot more pictures than we could
ever fit in the paper.
That’s why we’re using the power
and unlimited capacity of the Web.
Our newly created “40 Under 40”
section allows you to meet all our
winners, and see extra photos of
each.
Go to www.crainsdetroit.com/40s
for a look.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check
out a new collaboration between
Crain’s Detroit Business and the
Grand Rapids Business Journal.
Bridging 96 is a Web page and a
biweekly e-mail newsletter looking
at the ideas, initiatives and
interests that tie the east and
west coasts of Michigan together.
A print special report covering
east and west also will run in our
Oct. 6 issue. But you can get a
WEB WORLD
Alan Baker
head start and sign up for the eWeb General Manager mail at www.bridging96.com.
WEEK IN REVIEW
FROM WWW.CRAINSDETROIT.COM, WEEK OF SEPT. 20-26
Detroit
Renaissance
has plan to save
state $800M
After a thorough
cleaning, the
“Spirit of Detroit”
shows off its
patina (left),
which had been
covered by years
of dirt (below).
D
etroit Renaissance Inc.
has submitted to the
governor and state
legislative leaders options it
said in 10 years would produce $800 million in annual
savings by focusing on
changes in corrections, Medicaid, teacher retirement
benefits and state employee
health benefits.
The CEO group says the
state needs to, among other
things: change incarceration
policies and sentencing
guidelines; restrict Medicaid
eligibility; change benefit
policies for new teachers;
and reduce state employees’
benefits.
MEGA board OKs tax
incentives for Volt projects
The Michigan Economic
Growth Authority board granted General Motors Corp. more
than $130 million in tax
credits Tuesday in a move to
persuade the automaker to
invest in the state for projects related to production of
its upcoming Chevrolet Volt
plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. GM is considering an
$838 million investment in
manufacturing plants and
facilities in Michigan to
build the Volt.
Patterson touts Oakland
hospital consortium
An Oakland County consortium of hospital systems,
medical equipment suppliers, higher education and research firms, tentatively
called Oakland Medical, could
generate up to 45,000 new
jobs in life sciences by 2018,
said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who
announced the initiative
with health care leaders.
If successful, organizers
believe the project could put
the county in a league with
the Mayo Clinic, or the Cleveland Clinic.
A report completed by
East Lansing-based Anderson
Economic Group L.L.C. indicates health and life science
professions account for
93,584 jobs or 12.8 percent of
all private sector wage and
salary employment in Oakland for 2006. The number
will grow by 2.2 percent annually through 2018.
Aerotropolis tax-incentive
bills introduced in House
New state bills would
GREEN, NEWLY CLEAN
The city celebrated the restoration of 50-year-old landmark
“Spirit of Detroit” Tuesday. The cleaning and repair of the bronze
statue, sculpted by Marshall Fredericks, cost $152,000.
provide tax incentives to
attract industry to the
“aerotropolis” between Detroit Metro Airport and Willow Run Airport.
The 10-bill state House
package would allow for taxfree renaissance zones, tax
credits through the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, personal property
tax exemptions, real property tax abatements, and the
formation of districts in
which tax revenue can be
captured to support development.
House Bills 6502-6511
came up Thursday before
the House New Economy
and Quality of Life Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed
Clemente, D-Lincoln Park.
Identical bills are to be introduced in the Senate.
ON THE MOVE
䡲 The Detroit Lions fired
President Matt Millen on
Wednesday. Tom Lewand,
executive vice president
and COO; Martin Mayhew,
senior vice president and
new general manager; and
Cedric Saunders, new vice
president of football operations, will share his duties
for the rest of the season.
OTHER NEWS
䡲 The Wayne County Commission approved the county’s 2008-09 budget Thursday, setting the spending
plan at $2.25 billion.
䡲 Health care costs for
Detroit-area companies
and workers will increase
by 6.8 percent in 2009, the
third-lowest increase in
nine years, according to a
report by Hewitt Associates.
䡲 U.S. Bankruptcy Court
in Detroit has given Greektown Casino L.L.C. an extension until Dec. 15 for filing
its reorganization plan.
䡲 AT&T Internet Services
is hiring 300 people for a
new call center it plans to
open in Detroit this year.
䡲 Glenn Blanton, former
director of Cobo Center,
has been charged in U.S.
District Court in Detroit
with obstruction of justice
for attempting to cover up
a bribe he received, the Detroit Free Press reported.
䡲 William Coleman III,
former superintendent of
Detroit Public Schools, was
sentenced to a year of probation and fined $5,000 after pleading guilty to a
misdemeanor charge of attempting to influence a
grand jury during a federal Dallas schools corruption case.
䡲 Sharon McPhail, former in-house attorney for
ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick, will run in Detroit’s Feb. 24 mayoral primary, the AP reported.
䡲 Four Detroit Medical
Center hospitals — DMC-Detroit Receiving, DMC-HarperHutzel, DMC-Sinai-Grace and
DMC-Children’s Hospital of
Michigan — have been
named to the Leapfrog
Group’s 2008 Top Hospital
list for patient quality and
safety. Also named were
Henry Ford Macomb Hospitals in Clinton Township
and the University of Michigan Hospitals & Health Centers in Ann Arbor.
䡲 Owners of Rock Financial Showplace in Novi plan
to start construction next
spring on a 132-room hotel
to be adjacent to the existing convention center.
䡲 Delta Air Lines Inc. and
Northwest Airlines Corp.
shareholders on Thursday
approved an agreement
combining the companies
into the world’s biggest
carrier, the AP reported.
The stock-swap deal still
requires Justice Department approval.
OBITUARIES
䡲 Culver McCoy, who
founded McCoy Sauna and
Steam in Novi, died of respiratory failure Sept. 11, his
87th birthday.
䡲 Chesley Odom, who
founded Chesley Odom Design
Associates in Belleville and
later owned Chesley’s Bar &
Grille in Lincoln Park, died
Sept. 9. He was 65.
DBpageAD.qxd
9/23/2008
2:17 PM
Page 1
Celebrating your centennial,
and knowing the best is yet to come.
www.soave.com
anpagead2.qxd
9/16/2008
10:53 AM
Page 1
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40 UNDER 40 - Crain`s Detroit Business

Transcription

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