Crain's Detroit Business, January 23, 2023, issue

Lawsuits grow over local marijuana ordinances

Companies, communities clash over process

BY DUSTIN WALSH

For many marijuana operations seeking to open locations in communities across Southeast Michigan, the plans are dying on the vines.

Dozens of companies remain at loggerheads with city councils over the licensing selection process, and

the disputes have been playing out in Michigan’s court system for years.

e cities of Royal Oak, Warren, Pontiac and others remain tangled in lawsuits, keeping marijuana operations sidelined while the judges cultivate a ruling.

Meet the group of people who made the biggest headlines in 2022 — led by our top Newsmaker of the Year, mortgage mogul Mat Ishbia.

WHITECAPS

Tigers’ affiliate eyes stadium facelift, return to heyday.

Skillman gets real about youth push

BY SHERRI WELCH

Focusing on e orts to lift children and youth is nothing new for the Skillman Foundation. at’s been core to its work since its founding in 1960.

But after a yearlong listening tour, the Detroit foundation has identi ed a new “north star” and

brought its youngest ever trustee to its own board room at 21 years old.

“ ere are many systems at work and they overlap in many ways. We are not a health foundation (or) a housing foundation. Our north star is equitable education systems,” President and CEO Angelique Power said.

REAL ESTATE

With Bed Bath and Beyond and Party City in trouble, how bad is it for malls?

 L&L PRODUCTS PLANS TO CREATE 65 JOBS IN ROMEO

THE NEWS: Materials science and applied engineering rm L&L Products Inc. plans to invest $25 million and create 65 jobs in Romeo to support production for the automotive industry. e family-owned company will expand with help from a $450,000 performance-based grant from the state, according to a ursday news release from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s o ce. e 140,000-square-foot addition will include expansive warehousing and space for two-shot molding production for the company, which specializes in composite components, static stealing, acoustics, vibration reduction and structural reinforcements for auto, aerospace and commercial vehicles.

WHY IT MATTERS: e incentives are needed to lure L&L away from South Carolina, where it operates a plant and has been o ered a $6 million incentives package including workforce training, business tax incentives, a land grant and property tax incentives.

 KUM & GO ENTERS

MICHIGAN MARKET

THE NEWS: e rst Michigan Kum & Go opened ursday at 2134 Alpine Ave. NW in Grand Rapids. e family-owned retail chain based in Des

Moines, Iowa, plans to expand throughout Michigan in the coming years, including later this month with another location at 5437 S. Division Ave. in Grand Rapids. ere are also two locations under development in suburban Grandville, and Detroit is on the agenda for 2024.

WHY IT MATTERS: e opening comes a month after Pennsylvania-based Sheetz announced its own expansion into Michigan beginning in 2025.

in the 2400 block of Michigan Avenue between 16th and 17th streets, is owned by Jordan’s father, Joe Mifsud. Joe Mifsud is co-owner of Cork & Gabel and will serve as a partner at Six Spoke. e concept will be part microbrewery and part brewpub, with plans to open this summer.

WHY IT MATTERS: It’s yet another brewery for Corktown, which already is home to Batch Brewing Co. and Brew Detroit, both of which opened in 2015.

 CONSUMERS ENERGY RAISING ELECTRIC RATES

THE NEWS: Michigan regulators on ursday approved a $155 million rate increase for electric customers of Consumers Energy under a settlement that also requires the state’s second-largest power utility to double its cap on electricity supplied by rooftop solar owners. e rate hike is smaller than the $293.5 million the company requested.

e Whitney freshens up with new chef, menu, kitchen

 Guests at Detroit staple e Whitney will notice a variety of changes during their next visit to the upscale restaurant in Midtown Detroit. e Whitney, which closed temporarily on Jan. 9, made upgrades in kitchen equipment and performed some “early spring cleaning,” according to owner Bud Liebler. e kitchen upgrades, which came at a cost of about $200,000, include a new design and layout along with ooring and prep area upgrades. New dishes and atware have also been purchased, which guests will see come February, Liebler said. e Whitney, at 4421 Woodward Ave., has also made some big changes to its sta .

New Executive Chef Mark Donovan joins e Whitney after more than 18 years with Walt Disney properties in Florida. Donovan, a Troy native and graduate of the Schoolcraft College culinary arts program, said in the release that he’s happy to be back home and proud to be a part of e Whitney team.

Danny Hochrein, a Saline native, joins e Whitney as its new certi ed sommelier and Whitney sous chef Gary Jones will now lead the culinary team of e Ghostbar at e Whitney, which makes its home on the historic building’s third oor. e Ghostbar will also o er a happy hour 5-6:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 4-8 p.m. Sunday, which will feature food and drinks at reduced prices.

 NEW BREWERY FOR CORKTOWN

THE NEWS: Six Spoke Brewery will open later this year in a space inside the same building as Two James Spirits and Cork & Gabel, according to founder Jordan Mifsud. e building,

WHY IT MATTERS: A typical residential customer’s monthly bill will rise $2.10, or about 2 percent, according to the Michigan Public Service Commission. Homes and businesses will get a total of $15 million in bill credits over the next year. e Jackson-based utility also will contribute $10 million from shareholder funds toward assistance for low-income customers.

The Whitney has added a new executive chef and made upgrades to its kitchen, according to owner Bud Liebler. THE WHITNEY VIA FACEBOOK

GreenPath Financial Wellness looks to sell Farmington Hills HQ

GreenPath Financial Wellness is looking to sell o its large Farmington Hills headquarters building.

e nonpro t national credit counseling agency is seeking about $28.1 million for the 125,200-squarefoot property at 36500 Corporate Drive south of 12 Mile Road between Halsted and Drake roads.

South eld-based brokerage rm Signature Associates Inc. has the listing.

GreenPath is the sole tenant in the four-story building, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.based real estate information service.

In a statement, GreenPath President and CEO Kristen Holt said the

MANUFACTURING

nonpro t is “exploring options for more e cient use of space in metro Detroit and across the country for our hybrid, national workforce” of nearly 500 people across 20 o ces in 16 states, including Michigan ofces in Farmington Hills, Detroit, South eld and East Lansing.

Holt said hybrid and remote work has reduced occupancy and there are 60-100 sta members in the ofce two-three days a week.

e Farmington Hills building was developed in 2010 by Bloomeld Hills-based developer and landlord Kojaian Management Corp., according to Farmington Hills property records. It sits immediately north of where Dallas-based Comerica Inc. is consolidating 2,000

employees into about 340,000 square feet of o ce space as it sheds hundreds of thousands of square feet in other Oakland County communities, streamlining the bank’s footprint.

Several of Comerica’s buildings have been put on the market in the last month, and South eld-based Credit Acceptance Corp. is also looking to sell and vacate much of its South eld o ce footprint as the o ce market continues to reel from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended how companies use space and where employees work.

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

Tigers’ High-A a liate eyes stadium facelift

Projects a bid to return to 1990s heyday

RACHEL WATSON

GRAND RAPIDS — e Detroit Tigers’ High-A a liate is launching a major stadium renovation in a bid to return to its peak attendance numbers of the 1990s and meet new Major League-imposed standards.

e West Michigan Whitecaps last week announced a ve-year, twophase plan to renovate its home stadium, LMCU Ballpark, at 4500 W. River Drive NE in Plain eld Township, just north of Grand Rapids.

Detroit-based Rossetti is the architect, Ada-based Erhardt Construction is the general contractor, and Plain eld Township-based Progressive AE is assisting with several aspects of the project.

e rst phase will include player-facing upgrades and group hospitality improvements and is expected to wrap before opening day in April 2024.

BRINGING INVENTIONS TO LIFE

Manufacturing accelerator helps entrepreneurs take ideas into reality

KURT NAGL

One of the nation’s largest hardware incubators is working to bring ideas to life, and in metro Detroit, where engineers and entrepreneurs abound, big ideas are in plentiful supply.

Demand has never been greater at the Centropolis Accelerator, said Dan Radomski, executive director of the manufacturing incubator housed on Lawrence Technological University’s campus in Southeld.

e number of inquiries for support from the accelerator reached more than 260 in 2021, a ninefold

increase since its launch in 2016. e number of companies and entrepreneurs receiving support has seen similar growth.

e accelerator has also caught the eye of high-pro le investors, including Bill Gates.

Radomski said that growth is

being fueled by a renewed desire to manufacture in Michigan as well as an increase in engineers and entrepreneurs looking to grow their ideas outside of a corporate setting. Job cuts in the automotive sector are also a contributor.

“Recently, with all the Ford layo s, we’ve had a surge in Ford engineers that have come to us because now they have time to work on the idea they’ve always had,” Radomski said.

e accelerator’s clients span from former automotive engineers and health care workers to entrepreneurs at all stages of idea development. Products range from cold plasma batteries and water purication systems, to a modular homebuilding startup, AptumBuild Solutions, started by a former Rivian employee.

e second phase — targeted for completion in 2028 — will redo the stadium, entrance, grounds and ticketing experience, expand the concourse entirely around the 9,000-seat ballpark, relocate some of the cheap lawn seats for families, and add event space for gameday use and non-sporting uses like weddings and conferences.

e project is expected to cost “tens of millions” of dollars, said Whitecaps CEO and managing partner Joe Chamberlin, the second-generation executive of the team co-founded in 1993 by his father, Lew Chamberlin, and Denny Baxter, both of whom still hold controlling stakes.

He declined to disclose an exact budget.

e Whitecaps are one of a small number of privately held minor league teams in the country.

The Centrepolis Accelerator at Lawrence Technological University includes a 6,300-square-foot lab and machine shop.| LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

WEST MICHIGAN

KIRK PINHO

GreenPath Financial Wellness is looking to sell its Farmington Hills headquarters with a listing price of $28.1 million. COSTAR GROUP INC.

“I NOTICED MORE AND MORE OF OUR CONTENT WAS COMING FROM OFFSHORE, PARTICULARLY CHINA, AND I WAS REALLY CONCERNED.”

—Dan Radomski, executive director, manufacturing incubator, Lawrence Technological University

CFP®,

e nancial woes of two large New Jersey-based retailers could pose some challenges for landlords.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBY) is closing ve Michigan stores as it looks to save $80 million to $100 million in costs and Party City Holdco Inc. (NYSE: PRTY) is de ating as, among other things, a helium shortage has put the company’s nances in a pinch as a bankruptcy ling could be imminent.

Others — Rite Aid, for example — are also struggling, with some analysts also projecting bankruptcy. A report from Retail Dive, citing Credit Risk Monitor’s scores calculating the potential of a retailer’s bankruptcy, also says at lower risk are brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Lands End and discount goods retailer Big Lots. is all comes as the economy dampens, with in ation causing consumers to pinch their wallets and retailers to deal with high inventories.

Depending on how the nancial troubles facing some of these retailers shake out, we could be looking at new dark spaces in strip centers and power centers around the region.

Yet, we’re not in 2020, local retail experts said, calling back to the rst year of the COVID-19 pandemic when dozens of major retailers entered bankruptcy court: J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor, GNC, Neiman Marcus, J.Crew, Pier 1 Imports, to name just a few. is year is not expected to be as bad and, experts said, there are plenty of other junior-box type retailers who could easily swoop in to take over any of the shuttered footprints of the likes of Bed Bath & Beyond, Party City or Rite Aid, for example.

TJX Cos., the parent company of T.J. Maxx, has been performing well, as have the likes of retailers like Ross Dress For Less, although the latter has yet to penetrate the Michigan market.

“ ey’re in expansion mode still, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they take advantage,” said Steven Silverman, senior vice president of investment advisory services for Farming-

ton Hills-based Friedman Real Estate.

He noted that Bed Bath & Beyond’s struggles in particular weren’t surprising to him given that federal stimulus checks from early in the pandemic have long dried up and the wave of home improvement projects has slowed down.

Jim Bieri, principal of Detroit-based Stokas Bieri Real Estate, said “generally things are brighter than they were before” three years ago.

“ ere continues to be new businesses popping up in Michigan, and I think there’s a continued increase in companies coming to the state,” Bieri said.

e landscape is not, of course, bleak across the board.

Marcus & Millichap Investment Advisory Services Inc., which has a South eld o ce, says that the third quarter — the most recent for which data is available — was the sixth consecutive quarter with positive absorption, meaning that more retail space became occupied than was vacated.

“ is consistent retailer demand, paired with a small construction pipeline by historical standards, has enabled vacancy to fall below 6 percent,” the Calabasas, Calif.-based rm’s Q3 report reads. “Detroit- e Pointes, Downriver, Macomb and the Northern Outlying submarkets accounted for nearly 70 percent of space absorbed on a net basis in the trailing 12-month period ended in June.”

Companies like Agree Realty Corp., a Bloom eld Hills-based retail retail estate investment trust, has been expanding rapidly, growing its portfolio and balance sheet, as I noted earlier

this month. e company’s enterprise value is north of $8 billion these days, up more than $1 billion from just a year ago.

If a retailer successfully makes its experience “omni-channel” for the customer — they can browse the store, shop online and have an item delivered to their home, or buy online and pick up in the store — they are more likely to perform well.

LiftBuild nishes lifting

e new residential building in Detroit that has drawn attention for its unique construction has hit a signicant milestone.

South eld-based Barton Malow Co., parent company of the LiftBuild technology, said Monday that it has successfully hoisted the third andnal oor of the Exchange building and will begin constructing the rst and second oors conventionally. When complete, it will have 16 oors in total.

e LiftBuild technology allows builders to assemble entire oors at grade level and then raise them to their appropriate position.

e Exchange, which a project cost of nearly $65 million, is considered a “proof of concept;” the technology is expected to be deployed elsewhere.

In the big picture, LiftBuild seeks to reduce construction times by increasing worker e ciency, therefore decreasing construction costs and hopefully easing some of the pressure on the skilled trade.

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412;

South eld-based Barton Malow Co., parent company of the LiftBuild technology, said Monday that it has successfully hoisted the third oor of the Exchange building — the last oor to be raised — and will begin constructing the rst and second oors conventionally.

Kirk PINHO

Charles

Michigan’s chief mobility o cer to step down — for a year of travel

KURT NAGL

e state’s rst chief mobility ocer is on the move.

Trevor Pawl, 40, will depart his job heading up the state's O ce of Future Mobility and Electri cation at the end of the month to pursue a year of travel with his family.

“ is has been a dream job with a dream team,” Pawl told Crain’s. “I love Michigan and mobility, but we’ve all been reminded the last few years that life is short and time is precious.”

e O ce of Future Mobility and Electri cation developed a transition plan, Pawl said, and details on the future of the chief mobility o cer role will be released in the next week.

“It was a decision that me and my family did not take lightly,” Pawl said. “It was months of going back and forth knowing this job is something that I have cared about and loved every minute of for almost a decade.”

Pawl was appointed to the role in 2020 to help prepare the state for a future of autonomous and electric vehicles. He had previously been senior vice president of business innovation at the Michigan Economic Development Corp., where he oversaw its mobility arm PlanetM.

Among his proudest accomplish-

ments are launching the MI Future Mobility Plan, launching the rst smart parking lab, developing a signature EV route around Lake Michigan, attracting tech workers to the Michigan Central Innovation District in Detroit, and helping develop the nation’s rst road for AVs and rst road that charges EVs while driving.

While there was no timeline in place, Pawl said he and his wife, Jessica, have been planning and saving

for the trip for eight years. ey are set to depart next month with two young kids in tow.

“ at’ll be a full-time job in and of itself,” he said. “We’ve done our best to prepare, and we’re really excited about the adventure but also the opportunity to have a new perspective, live in the moment.”

e rough itinerary is to start in California, then go to Hawaii before exploring Asia and Europe and heading back home to Michigan late in the year.

Pawl said he is approaching the trip as an opportunity to learn more about other cities and countries in the context of mobility and beyond.

“Just because I’m leaving this job, I’m not leaving mobility, and I’m not leaving my passion for mobility or the state behind,” he said.

Pawl, a 2012 Crain's 40 Under 40 honoree, said he is departing the role at an ideal time as the mobility sector accelerates and the mobility o ce hits its stride.

“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to work for Governor Whitmer, Lieutenant Governor Gilchrist, and their team,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl

Meijer Gardens taps Grosse Pointe War Memorial head as CEO

e Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park board of directors has appointed Charles Burke as incoming president and CEO of the 28-year-old arts and cultural organization founded by Fred and Lena Meijer. He succeeds David Hooker, who announced plans to retire last August.

Burke has served for the past nine years as president and CEO of e War Memorial Association, a nonpro t founded in 1949 and located at the historic Alger Estate, a Renaissance-style mansion built in 1910 on Lake Saint Clair in Grosse Pointe Farms.

Burke will start his new role Feb. 13 and plans to move his family from Grosse Pointe to Grand Rapids this summer, after his son graduates from high school.

Previously, Burke was senior director of education, artistic director and orchestral conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Youth Ensembles.

He also helped develop the Pincus Education Center in Midtown Detroit and the African American Fellowship program for graduate-level classical musicians.

War Memorial CFO Maria Miller will serve as interim president and CEO, moving into the new role e ective Feb. 1. She’ll continue serving as CFO of the organization during the nonpro t’s search for a permanent leader.

— Senior nonpro ts reporter Sherri Welch contributed.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Manufacturing’s challenge: Creating and nurturing a robust workforce

By Ajai Vasudevan Global Smart Factory Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Michigan’s manufacturing workforce, which stood at 622,800 at the end of 2019, plummeted to 402,500 in April of 2020, just a month after pandemic-related lockdowns began, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has since rebounded to 610,400.

That’s close to, but not yet, full strength. Though unemployment can be driven by demand shortages on the manufacturers’ side, many are unemployed because they don’t have the necessary skills. Manufacturing needs not only a workforce, but a pipeline of talent for that workforce.

Nationwide, the sector will have 2.1 million un lled jobs by 2030, according to the 2021 Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute Manufacturing Talent report. To meet this future need and to create a robust workforce, manufacturers can take three approaches: reskilling and upskilling; supporting STEM education; and attracting, nurturing and retaining talent.

With reskilling and upskilling, the key is powering human impact with technology. As stated in the 2023 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Report, more than 90% of surveyed business leaders believe that using technology to improve work outcomes and

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team performance important to their organization’s success. While headlines have been written about the idea of technology replacing workers, we’re now seeing new emerging technologies augment work done by humans, enhancing human and team performance.

Deloitte’s The Smart Factory @ Wichita, which opened in June at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas, is a good example of not only building the ways of working between human and machines, but also building future manufacturing talent. The first of its kind, the facility hosts more than 20 leading technology companies, innovators, futurists and solution providers who solve manufacturing’s biggest challenges, including labor.

In addition to the experiential elements for businesses, the factory is also helping support STEM education via its applied learning program with Wichita State University where students work in the factory, and also manufactures components of a STEM education kit called The Smart Rover, which is fully assembled at the factory and shipped to students in underserved communities. To date, the donations have impacted more than 1,000

students in Wichita, Metro Detroit and Philadelphia, with plans to reach 800,000 students over the next four years.

Supporting STEM education is one avenue to help ll the employment pipeline for manufacturing — nurturing and retaining talent is also critical. Deloitte’s 2023 Manufacturing Industry Outlook points to raising wages, traditionally high in manufacturing, to compete with warehouse and retail jobs; doubling down on DEI initiatives to attract women, who comprise less than a third of manufacturing’s workforce, as well as Black, Asian, and Latinx employees, who comprise

less than a third of the workforce; and offering exible work arrangements to appeal to a broader base of potential employees.

This won’t happen overnight. Yet, while 2030 seems ages away, it’s just around the corner. Establishing the initiatives outlined above, starting today, will help ensure that manufacturing has the workforce it needs for years to come.

com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Copyright © 2022

Vasudevan

and Deloitte is not, by means of this post, rendering accounting, business, nancial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This post is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a quali ed professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this post. As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.

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“I LOVE MICHIGAN AND MOBILITY, BUT WE’VE ALL BEEN REMINDED THE LAST FEW YEARS THAT LIFE IS SHORT AND TIME IS PRECIOUS.”

—Trevor Paul, chief mobility o cer, Michigan

RACHEL WATSON

Burke

Meijer Gardens’ Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory is shown at the venue in Grand Rapids Township. | FREDERIK MEIJER GARDENS & SCULPTURE PARK

It’s time to call a halt to Flint water prosecutions

The criminal prosecutions of state ocials including former Gov. Rick Snyder for their role in the Flint water crisis have been a long and expensive exercise in futility.

It’s past time to call a halt to them.

Prosecutors appointed by Attorney General Dana Nessel last week asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to revive criminal charges against Snyder that were dismissed by a lower court late last year.

is request came even after the appeals court has rejected out of hand similar efforts to restore charges against other state o cials tied to the water-system switch that led to Flint’s water being tainted with lead leached from pipes.

In refusing to reinstate charges against former Flint emergency manager Darnell Early and former state chief medical o cer Eden Wells, the appeals court said it didn’t even need to hear arguments because the “questions to be reviewed are so unsubstantial.”

In other words, prosecutors are grasping at straws.

Prosecutors have said they’ll take the effort to revive the charges to the state Supreme Court.

But it was that court that said the “one-person grand jury” process that

brought the charges in the rst place was unconstitutional. Unless the court’s changed composition results in it reversing a ruling it just made, these appeals are just playing out the string toward a foregone conclusion.

e cost of these prosecutions — and taxpayers’ bill to defend the state o cials who have been targeted — has been enormous.

e Detroit News put the costs as of last July for both civil and criminal cases at $53 million, and it’s only increased since then.

Civil servants deserve some protection from criminal prosecution for their executive decision-making. Luring executive talent into the public sector — when they could make far more money in private business — is hard enough. Making choices that are literally life-and-death is part of the job.

e bar for criminalizing those decisions, even when they turn out to be horribly wrong, needs to be high, or else government will be paralyzed and nobody will want to do the job.

And it’s hard to see the continued e ort to prosecute in these cases as anything but political theater by Nessel.

at the Flint water crisis was a tragedy and a bureaucratic buck-passing nightmare is not in dispute. Even after the $600 million-plus settlement, the state will always owe the city’s residents a debt that can never be made good.

But the resources that have gone into the yearslong campaign to criminalize the decisions that led to the crisis aren’t helping the people of Flint. It’s time to stop running that tab higher.

Right-to-Work got job done, brought jobs to Michigan

When I introduced Michigan’s “Rightto-Work” Bill to the State House in 2012, I did it to bring economic opportunity to the state of Michigan and to allow workers to choose whether to pay dues to a union.

With the help of my fellow legislators and right-to-work supporters across the state, we succeeded both in passing the bill and in bringing jobs to our state.

Site selection experts have consistently told me that right-to-work was a key factor when businesses decided whether to relocate or expand into a new state.

People want to work and invest in states where they and their employees cannot be forced to give money to a labor union they do not support.

When businesses fear that their operations will be disrupted by union organizers who are emboldened by the promise of forced union dues, they want to locate elsewhere.

ere’s no telling how much economic opportunity our state missed out on by allowing forced union dues for as long as it did, but we do know exactly how successful right-to-work has been for Michigan’s workers since it went into law.

Since passing, when other states saw manufacturing jobs heading overseas or disappearing altogether, Michigan created them.

e average forced-unionism state has seen a 1.1 percent decline in manufacturing jobs in the years since Michigan passed

right-to-work, while our state experienced a 6.4 percent increase.

Big Labor’s apologists make absurd claims that right-to-work drives down wages, but their statistics never account for cost of living.

e fact is, when you perform the crucial step of adjusting for the cost of living, the average annual pay in Michigan is over $5,500 higher than in forced-unionism states.

It’s a shame we didn’t pass right-to-work sooner to enjoy these bene ts.

But instead of rejoicing at right-to-work’s success, the Democrats who now control the state Legislature want to end it.

is is an especially bad time to be repealing good economic policies. Michigan’s families are su ering from higher prices caused by Washington’s reckless spending, and the threat of another recession continues to loom.

In an environment like this, it is critically important that state governments pursue policies that will bring in good jobs.

Instead, Democrat legislators in Lansing want to do the opposite, repealing a right-towork law that’s protected and grown Michigan’s economy. ey’d rather reward their union boss campaign backers than help out Michigan families.

Workers who don’t want to be unionized — who don’t think their union bene ts them, or feel that the union bosses who control their workplaces are corrupt — should not be forced to pay for so-called “representation” they do not want.

Right-to-work, aka Labor Freedom, is the perfect balance where unions are free to make their case while workers are equally free to make their choice.

is freedom attracts good new jobs to our state, and has been a success for Michigan’s economy. Seeing the bene ts right-to-work has brought to our state, I’m proud of the role I played in getting it passed. Repealing it would be a big mistake.

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited for length or clarity. Send letters to Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48207, or email crainsdetroit@crain.com Please include your complete name, city from which you are writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes.

Sound o : Crain’s considers longer opinion pieces from guest writers on issues of interest to business readers. Email ideas to Managing Editor Michael Lee at malee@crain.com.

IT’S

MIKE SHIRKEY

Mike Shirkey was a member of the Michigan Senate from 2015-2023, and served as the Senate majority leader from 2019-2023.

In this Dec. 11, 2012, le photo, protesters sit in the rotunda of the State Capitol in Lansing in an unsuccessful e ort to block passage of right-to-work legislation that banned labor agreements that require employees to pay fees to the unions that represent them.

PAUL SANCYA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Buckle up for more supply chain hardships, partnerships

BY MARK BARROTT

Pundits everywhere are prognosticating how a potential recession could a ect supply chains in 2023. If a downturn materializes, many feel that current supply chain woes will ease.

Automakers and suppliers would be wise to look beyond these simple predictions.

e truth is that demand exceeds supply in the automotive industry right now, and in ation, while slowing, remains above in ationary targets. Furthermore, no massive new suppliers are on the immediate horizon for hard-to-procure components such as semiconductors, rare earth metals or other battery elements.

erefore, most indicators point to 2023 being another year of supply chain problems. e most noteworthy aspect of the situation is how automakers and suppliers plan to address the ongoing challenge. Namely, by accelerating the establishment of their own production and supply chains — but only for certain elements.

Immediate rami cations

We expect automakers and suppliers to pursue partnerships and acquisitions this year, aiming to take production and supply chain matters into their own hands instead of relying on traditional supply contracts. Announcements such as General Motors’ Ultium or Ford Motor Co.’s BlueOval City investments promise to be just the tip of the iceberg.

ere is an important caveat, however. We will likely see this activity only for a limited, but critical, set of automotive components.

It is doubtful that companies will upend traditional supply chains for interiors, body panels or crash management systems. On the other hand, many will want greater control over elements already experiencing stress or at risk of commodity pricing, such as semiconductors or wiring harnesses.

is shift means that companies may quickly nd it necessary to bifurcate their procurement strategies — one for volatile components and another for more stable components. More “specialists” may need to be retained for their expertise in procuring relevant volatile materials such as lithium or cobalt. Separate procurement o ces and contracts may become the norm, making it harder to develop essential relationships and contracts.

Make no mistake: e risk here is a rise in internal silos. Unfortunately, silos always bring complexity, as different objectives and targets within di erent procurement groups must be managed individually.

Industry lessons

 Establishing internal supply chains and mastering bifurcated procurement strategies will require stakeholders to:

 Stay focused on innovation — keep abreast of innovations coming out of

academic incubators and understand how they might t into the future ecosystem.

 Remain proactive — evaluate partnership and acquisition decisions.

 Engage meaningfully with one another.

In all these endeavors, automakers and suppliers will bene t from a more nuanced approach to their relationships. While it’s true that price rules the supply chain roost, the impact of relationships on pro tability can’t be overlooked. Time and again, surveys such as the Working Relations Index indicate a positive correlation between pro tability and a close working relationship. Amid industry dis-

ruptions, survival often depends on how quickly new relationships are developed and existing ones are strengthened.

Suppliers should also take time to reevaluate their value through the lens of the impending electric vehicle landscape. Discussions with potential partners need to focus less on the supplier’s current output and more on what that output reveals about the company’s core competency.

For example, say that 80 percent of a company’s revenue historically comes from components designed for internal combustion engines. e question the company now faces is, “How do our capabilities address the

growing EV sector?”

Although this type of evaluation is not novel, now is a good time for a deeper exploration of suppliers’ ability to address automakers’ evolving needs, which include three primary options:

 Organically develop a new product set, which could involve substantial changes in engineering/production.

 Acquire relevant companies, which could entail record-high valuations given today’s market.

 Produce integrated solutions, which typically require a blend of organically developed, acquired and purchased products.

Regardless of the approach, com-

panies will need to continue investing in product development/acquisition and their marketing strategy. Automakers must believe suppliers will be reliable, credible and long-term providers as they evolve their product portfolios.

e convergence of disruptive forces in the industry makes 2023 the year for supply chain investment. e industry must be prepared for economic conditions to prolong existing supply chain challenges. In addition, the federal government promises to continue promoting EV adoption through the In ation Reduction Act and infrastructure bill — obligating new supply chains in the transition.

Mark Barrott is leader of Plante Moran’s Mobility Intelligence Center.

Each year, Crain’s recognizes the year’s top Newsmakers — the people who made the biggest impact on business and life in metro Detroit and Michigan. This year’s Newsmakers made big deals and transformational investments. And our Newsmaker of the Year, Mat Ishbia — well, he was busy, as you’ll see.

Having your company become the largest lender during a challenging year for the mortgage sector.

Dealing with the death of a top executive Agreeing to buy an NBA team. ose are just a few events that were part of 2022 for Mat Ishbia, the 43-year-old CEO of Pontiac-based wholesale mortgage lender United Wholesale Mortgage.

“I think (it) really will stand out as a year that a lot of things went di erently than people expected in our mortgage world,” Ishbia said. “And I think it was a year that let UWM and the great people I have here at our company really shine. When the going gets tough, the tough get going and in a positive way and we did really great this year, had a great year on all metrics.”

Leading UWM to new highs

2022, by most accounts, was a challenging year for the mortgage sector. e overall market for originations fell by half from 2021 to 2022, to about $2.2 trillion, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

e MBA forecasts that number to decline further this year, hitting about $1.9 trillion before bumping up to about $2.3 trillion and $2.5 trillion in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

While UWM has yet to release its fourth

quarter and full year earnings for 2022, the company’s bottom line pro t remained steady year-over-year in the third quarter, while many competitors were reporting steep declines.

e current market, one that’s vastly di erent from the peak years when interest rates were at record lows, sets up well for how UWM has been built, according to Ishbia.

“What happened in 2020 and 2021 ... mortgage companies weren’t as good as they looked. In 2022, they probably weren’t as bad as they looked,” he said. “Mortgage is very cyclical. UWM is less cyclical. We don’t have as high of highs and as low of lows.”

Still, Ishbia touts that his company’s increasing dominance in the wholesale sector, and the broader mortgage industry, is nothing but positive for the industry as a whole.

e company’s technology, which it makes available to independent broker clients, and the pricing it o ers on mortgage products, has a “rising tide” e ect for brokers and their consumer clients, he said.

“We’re making everyone better and we’re not going to relent at all,” Ishbia said. “We’re going to continue to do that and help brokers continue to succeed. And so anyone who thinks that’s a negative is a loser. And you can let them know that.”

While Ishbia touts 2022 as a positive year for

UWM’s business, it also stands as a year that brought sadness to the company. Tim Forrester, UWM’s CFO, died of cancer in July at 55. Forrester was “a great man,” Ishbia said, and “a winner” who cared deeply about the company.

MSU support

In the wake of taking UWM public two years ago, Ishbia has used his status as a billionaire to become a signi cant booster for athletics at his alma mater, Michigan State University, where he was a walk-on basketball player under coach Tom Izzo in the early 2000s.

Ishbia’s role as a booster for MSU athletics increased substantially over the last two years as he gave $32 million — the school’s largest gift — for various athletic purposes. He then revealed in November that he gave another $14 million to help with a contract extension for MSU football coach Mel Tucker.

More details on that contract contribution — Birmingham marketing executive Steve St. Andre also donated $10 million — were disclosed late last year after MSU was sued by the Detroit Free Press in a Freedom of Information Act case.

e lawsuit and the resulting release of the documents showed “nothing,” Ishbia said.

“ at’s just people trying to paint negativity when it’s all positive,” he added.

Sports team ownership

Late last year also brought about a “dream” for the mortgage executive, as Ishbia embarked on a journey to become the owner of a professional sports team. In late December it was announced that Ishbia and his brother Justin had agreed to acquire the majority stake of the Phoenix Suns NBA franchise. e Ishbia brothers are reportedly acquiring about 60 percent of the team, as well as the Mercury in the WNBA, from embattled owner Robert Sarver.

Ishbia declined to comment on the pending deal to acquire the Suns, as it still requires NBA approval. But Ishbia, who had made previous overtures into sports ownership, said he learned about what’s needed in a previous failed bid to acquire the Denver Broncos, which were bought by members of the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune. “I learned in Denver, if you want it, you better go get it. Because other people are going to be really aggressive,” Ishbia said. “So in Denver, I took more of an approach of trying to gure out how I could buy the team and what the price was. In Phoenix, I took a di erent approach, we’ll say. And one worked out really well and one didn’t work out as I hoped.”

Hear from Newsmaker of the Year Mat Ishbia: Crain's will salute the top Newsmakers of 2022 — and hear from our top Newsmaker, United Wholesale Mortgage President and CEO Mat Ishbia — at our annual luncheon. Ishbia will speak at the event in a one-on-one interview with Crain Communications President and CEO KC Crain. The luncheon is set for 11 a.m. March 7 at MGM Grand Casino. Tickets are available at crainsdetroit.com/newsmakersevent

NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Nick Manes

Mat Ishbia, CEO, United Wholesale Mortgage

THE NEW PARTNERS

Stephen Ross, Related Cos., and Christopher Ilitch, Ilitch Holdings Inc.

A mainstay in the Detroit business community and a city native who made his fortune in New York City development teamed up in a big way in 2022.

Christopher Ilitch and Stephen Ross forged a new vision for the former’s District Detroit development area, pitching some $1.5 billion in new construction and redevelopment across 10 projects that are seeking hundreds of millions in public nancing to get across the nish line.

Detroiters and metro Detroit residents have been promised ambitious e orts to remake the largely Ilitch-controlled real estate empire north of Grand Circus Park and south of Midtown along Woodward Avenue for years, most recently in July 2014 in the leadup to construction of Little Caesars Arena.

Nine years later, Ilitch, the president and CEO of Ilitch Holdings Inc., brought Detroit native Ross — chairman of New York Citybased development giant Related Cos. — into the equation, and all the experience and repower that come with his rm, which spearheaded Hudson Yards, the massive NYC development.

“Our jointly proposed package of real estate development projects with partner Related Cos. would have a transformative impact on the city and builds on the steady progress happening in e District Detroit,” Ilitch said in a statement to Crain’s. “Under the leadership of Keith Bradford, president

of Olympia Development, we look forward to working with the community and our local and state partners to increase access to opportunity for Detroiters, help nurture and retain talent, and drive positive social and economic impacts.”

And Ross said:

“ e future of Detroit is incredibly bright. I am thrilled with the progress of the Detroit Center for Innovation under the new leadership of President (Santa) Ono at the University of Michigan,” Ross said. “We’re excited for this catalytic, philanthropic investment to spur inclusive growth for the people of this city and state. Led by Andrew Cantor, our development team and our partners at Olympia Development are deeply engaged with the community as we work together to realize the vision of a vibrant downtown Detroit that serves everyone.”

It started with the Detroit Center for Innovation, a proposed $250 million graduate school campus for UM — Ross is its largest private donor.

at would be coupled with a tech incubator and residential space in a project that had been planned for the former Wayne County Consolidated Jail site but moved west of the Fox eatre.

Beyond that, the two billionaires are hoping to build 695 residential units, 1.2 million square feet of o ce space, 100,000 square feet of retail and 467 hotel rooms across 10

properties in the Ilitch family’s District Detroit area downtown.

e vision faces numerous hurdles ahead, and some, all or none of it could ultimately end up being built.

Big questions remain about the appetite for o ce space not just in Detroit but around the country as companies have generally been downsizing their footprints as hybrid work — a mix of work-from-home and inthe-o ce schedules — remains common.

In addition, the projects rely heavily on large public incentives. For example, Ross and others last year lobbied the state to earmark $100 million toward the Detroit Center for Innovation project, which also is being funded with $100 million from Ross himself.

But the biggest of all is a request for $616 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s so-called “transformational brown eld” program, which allows a developer to capture a host of primarily state taxes to o set the costs of large-scale projects in Michigan cities.

But also, local incentives are on the line, including nearly $50 million that the Downtown Development Authority awarded to support deeply a ordable housing in three residential projects, plus millions for infrastructure improvements.

Another $133 million in residential and commercial tax breaks are sought.

For the 10 projects — not including the

Detroit Center for Innovation’s $100 million state earmark — the total ask is $797 million. How much local o cials, including at the Detroit City Council and Michigan Strategic Fund, are willing to pony up those dollars for those e orts remains to be seen, and doling out additional public funding for the Ilitch family’s real estate arm, Olympia Development of Michigan, could prove controversial for some in the city given Olympia’s spotty progress on District Detroit dating back nearly a decade, particularly with regard to delivery of residential projects.

Still, Ross’ reengagement with the city and the District Detroit area gives an added punch to e orts to remake a portion of the downtown area that has been largely surface parking lots and boarded-up buildings.

– Tina Freese Decker

Tina, your ability to cast a vision for the future and bring others to the table to make it happen is improving the future of health.

Thank you for your collaborative leadership and tireless advocacy to make care and coverage more simple, affordable, equitable and exceptional.

Congratulations for this outstanding recognition as a Crain’s Newsmaker of the Year.

Improve health. Instill humanity. Inspire hope. corewellhealth.org

“Health care’s moment to transform is now.”

— Kirk Pinho

Ilitch LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Ross | ANDREW JOWETT FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

THE BANKER

Alessandro DiNello, non-executive chairman, New York Community Bancorp Inc.

Expanding the scope of a languishing bank merger deal helped get the deal over the nish line.

So says Alessandro DiNello, now the non-executive chairman of New York Community Bancorp Inc., which late last year completed its acquisition of Troy-based Flagstar Bancorp., where DiNello had been president and CEO for nearly a decade, retiring once the deal was complete.

While the $2.6 billion deal did eventually go through, there were serious questions about whether that would happen, as nearly 18 months passed with the proposed transaction held up by regulators.

However, DiNello said what ultimately moved regulators was revising the structure of the merged bank, changing from a state charter to a national charter — essentially, whether the new bank complies with multiple state laws or one federal law. Given his career at Flagstar and long-standing relationships with federal regulators, particularly at the O ce of the Comptroller of the Currency, changing to the national charter ultimately helped move the needle, the 68-year-old executive said.

“I was con dent because of my long-standing relationship with the OCC that if we ipped and went (to a national charter), not only do I believe that was a better charter for the company ... but I felt like the relationships that I had established in my 40-plus year career with regulators would enhance the likelihood that we could get (the merger) over the nish line,” DiNello said. “And as it turned out, in basically ve months we got the OCC approval. And that’s pretty quick.”

While no longer a bank executive, DiNello said that in his new role as board chair “oversight” is the name of the game.

“I want to help management be successful,” he said. “And then if they’re not getting it done, then I’ve got to have the courage to shape it di erently if that’s what needs to be done.”

While the board chair position certainly comes with responsibilities, DiNello said his recent retirement from being a bank CEO a ords him the opportunity to take advantage of things that often were challenging to do when constantly working.

“I have a nice boat, but I do ever use it? No. I belong to a nice golf club but rarely play,” DiNello said of his life as a chief executive. “It’s the little things.”

THE EV LEADER

Early last year, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced a $7 billion investment — the largest in GM’s history — to seed the company’s electric vehicle future in Michigan.

e GM Orion Township assembly plant will be converted to build full-size EV pickup trucks at a cost of $4 billion; a $2.5 billion battery cell plant will be built by Ultium in Lansing, its third in the U.S. with more to come; and GM will keep 1,000 jobs and add 4,000 more through its e orts.

It’s all part of a plan that Barra, the chairman and CEO, has for GM to make Michigan “the epicenter of the electric vehicle industry,” as she told the Associated Press last January.

e announcement came on the heels of Ford Motor Co.’s decision to locate its electric vehicle manufacturing in Kentucky and Tennessee, underscoring the importance of Barra’s focus on Michigan. She also emphasized that the company will keep its headquarters in the Renaissance Center in Detroit.

With “Factory Zero” already building new electric Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierra pickups, the company could produce as many as 600,000 electric pickup trucks a year when operating at full capacity, Barra, 61, said.

Beyond that, she’s continued to highlight the importance of GM’s electric investment. In February, she told nancial analysts GM had a target to deliver 400,000 electric vehicles in North America between 2022 and 2023, Forbes reported.

GM will continue to convert internal combustion engine plants to electric, she said.

And the company is prioritizing the creation of a resilient battery supply chain, expanding its supplier network.

In a shareholder letter in October, Barra said record sales of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV led to GM taking more than 8 percent of the American electric vehicle market in the third quarter. Other electric vehicles have been “incredibly well received by customers and industry experts,” she wrote, while Bolt production will be increased from 44,000 units in 2022 to 70,000 units in 2023.

“We’re delivering on our commitments and a rming our full-year guidance despite a challenging environment because de-

mand continues to be strong for GM products and we are actively managing the headwinds we face,” she wrote in the shareholder letter.

It follows the earlier announcement, in which Barra said the company was “taking the next step in our continuous work to establish GM’s EV leadership by making investments in” battery and EV production.

“ ese investments also create opportunities in Michigan for us to bring our employees along on our transition to an all-electric future,” she said in the January announcement.

Arielle Kass

Mary Barra, Chairman and CEO, General Motors Co.

— Nick Manes

General Motors Factory ZERO. | PHOTOS BY GENERAL MOTORS

Congratulations MAT ISHBIA

on being named Crain’s Newsmaker of the Year.

Your fellow Spartans were proud of you then, and we are proud of you now. Thank you for all you do in support of Michigan State University.

SPARTANS WILL.

THE BOOSTER

Messer, Chief Executive & Economic Competitiveness O cer, Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Just two months into his job leading Michigan’s economic development e orts, Quentin Messer Jr. saw Ford Motor Co. announce massive spending on electric vehicle and battery production in Tennessee and Kentucky — not its home state.

It was a big wakeup call. Michigan responded, quickly, with the creation of a $1 billion incentives fund entering 2022. e state has used the money to help land several EV-related factories from General Motors Co., Ford and less-familiar players and is in the hunt for more in 2023.

“We just have to keep getting better,” Messer, CEO and president of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and chair of the Michigan Strategic Fund, told Crain’s. “It’s going to be much more intense competition.”

He pointed to “unprecedented” interest from companies and site selectors and a “signi cant” number of unspeci ed potential projects in the pipeline, each totaling more than $1 billion in capital expenditures.

“ is is a window of time and once the window is closed, you will continue to see investment, but you won’t see it at the current levels,” Messer said. “You won’t see chip manufacturers invest $20, $30, $40, $50 billion because those fab facilities are 20- to 30-year investments with the associated supply chain. at’s why it’s so critical for us to win.”

e EV boom is an opportunity in part because heavy EV batteries are expensive to ship, prompting automakers and their partners to locate battery factories near assembly plants. New federal tax incentives for domestic battery production, materials mining and processing, semiconductors and clean energy are spurring investment — and erce competition among states.

e 54-year-old Messer, who lives in Royal Oak, moved in 2021 from Louisiana, where he led the New Orleans Business Alliance. He wants to do more to market Michigan’s weather to companies as climate change brings more frequent or intense extreme weather events.

“For a generation or two, people looked at weather in Michigan as negative. But the relative stability of our weather, the plentifulness of water, the strength of our electric grid and transmission are going to be things that are going to give companies, particularly in energy-intensive industries and advanced manufacturing, some comfort. I’m very bullish.”

THE TEAM LEADER

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer started 2022 clear-eyed about re-election, prepping for a challenging political environment amid pandemic fatigue, high in ation and midterm headwinds that typically face the party in the White House.

She won in a rout.

She also helped Democrats retake legislative control for the rst time in almost 40 years. Whitmer enters 2023 without a divided government after Republicans had the Senate majority since she was 12 years old.

“It’s an a rmation of the agenda we’ve been working on,” Whitmer, 51, told Crain’s. “It’s important that we continue to strive to nd common value and be true to our values but deliver — get things done.”

e fact that her double-digit victory was larger than her rst race is gratifying, she said, but also noted that a big chunk of people did not vote for her.

“We’re going to stay focused on the things that really matter, the dinner-table issues.”

She pointed to rst-term strides funding public education, including closing gaps in state aid among districts. But Michigan

must get to the “next level,” she said, and make sure the spending is “smart and getting us to better outcomes for our students.” It is unclear the extent to which Whitmer may try to overhaul the way funding is targeted to higher-poverty kids.

An early second-term priority, she said, will be to take steps to ensure the state can compete to land electric vehicle, battery and microchip factories. at includes nding a permanent revenue source for the nascent Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund, which is used to give incentives for large-scale business expansions and site development. To date, the governor and lawmakers have allocated funding to the account “project by project, appropriation by appropriation,” she said.

“We’ve made great strides here. We are capable of even bigger strides, and it’s going to be important that the business community is at the table, and we’re all on team Michigan.”

She also wants to create a research-and-development tax credit, which Michigan once had under a former business tax structure.

It is no secret that Whitmer and Democrats plan to reinstate tax exemptions for pensioners and boost a tax credit for lower-wage workers amid multibillion-dollar budget surpluses, repeal “right-to-work” laws and enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.

Asked to name some issues she wants to tackle that maybe are not getting as much attention, she mentioned reducing obstacles to voting and addressing climate change. She wants to codify her MI Healthy Climate Plan, which was released in April and seeks carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 52 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. One recommendation is to increase the renewable energy standard to 50 percent, from 15 percent, by 2030 via legislation or formal commitments from electric utilities to regulators.

“ ese are long-term issues, and we’ve got to have a change in mindset where we really enact things that are going to transcend one administration.”

Quentin

Gretchen Whitmer, governor, state of Michigan

David Eggert — David Eggert

THE UNIFIER

Tina Freese Decker, President and CEO, Corewell Health

Tina Freese Decker led the state’s largest health system through a tumultuous year.

e newly merged Spectrum and Beaumont health systems got a new name, Corewell Health, and began truly merging the system’s 22 hospitals and a massive outpatient network. But merging isn’t without a cost, especially during an industrywide recession.

Corewell East, formerly Beaumont, reported a $100 million loss, or a negative 5 percent margin, through the rst half of 2022. In response, the health system announced layo s of 400 employees.

But, in October, Freese Decker told Crain’s that margins were stabilizing and integration was advancing.

“Our nancials are already improving,” Freese Decker, 45, said. “Frankly, it takes time to move this forward and navigate the headwinds all hospitals are facing moving for

the Southeast Michigan division — to correct company culture.

“Specifically in Southeast Michigan, it was really necessary to recruit a talented leader,” Freese Decker told Crain’s in October. “I’m very proud that we recruited Dr. Ben Schwartz. He’s been in meetings to address issues and those conversations are going very well. We strive to be the best place to work and be the place physicians want to practice at and want to return to practice at. I think in three-to-five years, we will look at this as a moment in time where we began making it positive for people to practice in Southeast Michigan.”

The challenges aren’t stopping Corewell from investing. The system is investing in a new headquarters in Grand Rapids, a laggard effort from prior to the pandemic. The investment in the Center for Transforma

seven-story parking structures with about 680 spaces.

e system also created the state’s rst registered nurse apprenticeship program at its Ludington hospital. e program will reduce the time it takes to become a registered nurse to just one year, where a traditional program takes anywhere from two to four years to complete.

It also spent much of the year rounding out its executive ranks, hiring a systemwide chief nursing o cer and several hospital presidents.

However, Freese Decker’s job won’t be any easier in 2023 as employee turnover, burnout and in ation remain consistent problems for health systems. She’ll have to manage those rising costs without much help from payers and face increasing competition — University of Michigan Health announced late last year it

Mujeeb Ijaz, founder and CEO of Our Next Energy Inc.

For Mujeeb Ijaz and Our Next Energy Inc., 2022 was a breakout year.

e Novi-based company, founded and led by Ijaz, closed a $250 million Series B fundraising round, announced a new $1.7 billion factory in Van Buren Township and hosted U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who lauded the electric vehicle battery startup.

Ijaz, 55, also moved the company headquarters to a new 80,000-square-foot o ce and R&D center in Novi, where employee count has quadrupled to more than 200.

Last year was about laying out vision; 2023 is the year of execution, Ijaz said.

“We‘re on the right track,” he said. “What we need to do now is keep innovating — innovating past where the market is.” e company, whose credo is doubling EV range while eliminating nickel and cobalt from its battery packs, made a major stride toward that end in November. It completed a 413-mile test drive on a single charge with a lithium iron phosphate battery without those minerals, Ijaz said.

e feat follows a 752-mile test drive a year ago in a Tesla on a single charge, but that battery used nickel and cobalt, which are costly and unsustainable, Ijaz said.

ONE is gearing up to move past just prototypes. Production of commercial vehicle batteries for Bollinger Motors and Motiv is scheduled to launch at the end of January on a line at a Piston Group plant in Van Buren.

“We will have revenue, we will have margin and we can demonstrate that our factories are running,” Ijaz said. “And at the end of this year and beginning of next, we will start into Series C fundraising.”

Ijaz projects annual revenue to be $60 million this year, $310 million next year and $894 million by 2025.

Production for passenger cars at its battery plant in Van Buren Township, being nanced in part with a $237 million state grant, is expected to start in 2024, with 25,000 packs annually. Full production of 100,000 packs is projected by the end of 2026.

Ijaz said one of the company’s most important accomplishments in 2022 was ipping the conventional wisdom of the auto industry on its head and proving that a 350mile range with restrictive battery chemistry doesn’t have to be the gold standard.

“ at set our brand apart from most other battery companies,” he said. “I think we broke down that barrier.”

THE QUIET PHILANTHROPIST

Dug Song, co-founder, Song Foundation

Duo Security Co-founder Dug Song, who, with his partners, sold the Ann Arbor-based company to Cisco Systems Inc. in 2018 for $2.35 million, is generally a quiet gure.

But last year the entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist made news on several fronts.

Chief among them was his departure in the fall from Cisco where he’d served as chief strategy o cer for the California-based company’s security division following the sale of Duo.

Giving back is clearly something Song is focused on currently.

He emerged early in the year as co-chair of the Michigan Founders Fund, a nonpro t networking and support group for founders and venture capitalists.

Khalilah Burt Gaston to lead the foundation.

She is helping them formalize the foundation and hone their passion areas of emergency relief, criminal justice reform and small business development into areas of funding.

During an October interview in his Ann Arbor backyard — not far from a half-pipe he had built to give him more time for skateboarding — Song, 47, told Crain’s he is taking whatever comes next slowly and trying to be very intentional about it.

He had no formal plans for a second act at that point. But entrepreneurial experts said Song’s knowledge of how to turn an idea into a successful startup is something in demand both here in the region and nationally.

e nascent nonpro t fund evolved from the Ann Arbor Entrepreneurs Fund which launched at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation in 2019 and drew support from Song. Its founders, some of the area’s bestknown tech executives and investors, have set a goal to raise millions of dollars to provide startup founders and investors statewide with business support including networking, industry data and culture-building best practices.

Song and his wife, Ann Arbor Council member Linh Song, also publicly introduced their namesake foundation last year.

After quietly granting more than $2 million since 2020, half of it to provide COVID relief for hundreds of small health care, small business and community service organizations in Washtenaw County, and spending time studying philanthropic models, the couple hired nonpro t veteran

Technology support for nonpro ts was another area the foundation planned to look at, Gaston said last summer as Crain’s reported on the threat the lack of technology upgrades is posing for nonpro t client and donor security

Working with Gaston, the Songs are formalizing a “trust-based philanthropy” approach that seeks to balance the power between the foundation and nonpro ts it grants and to build mutually accountable relationships between them.

“We’re here to serve as much as any of the organizations...we would fund,” Dug Song said last year.

“We exist on behalf of supporting... (those) organizations and folks that are actually doing all this work... we should be held accountable in the way that I think a business is to the needs of its customers.”

Kurt Nagl

“WE’RE HERE TO SERVE AS MUCH AS ANY OF THE ORGANIZATIONS...WE WOULD FUND.”

Sherri Welch

NICK MANES FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

LOUIS

JENNIFER

SHERRI

THE TRANSFORMER

Ray Scott, CEO, Lear Corp.

After navigating nearly three years of market volatility, CEO Ray Scott has a plan to guide Lear Corp. through the automotive industry’s largest transformation — and Michigan will play a key role.

e South eld-based supplier (NYSE: LEA) capped 2022 by announcing a new electric vehicle parts plant in Independence Township and opening a new seating plant in Detroit.

Look for plenty more investment in Michigan this year, said the 57-year-old Scott, who joined Lear in 1988 and took the helm in 2018.

Growth is a good sign, especially after the impact of the microchip shortage, supply chain woes and in ation, which hit suppliers especially hard. Under Scott’s watch, the company became nimbler and emerged with a robust backlog and healthy balance sheet.

“At the end of the day, we were able to grow our business,” Scott said. “ e best thank you we get from our customers is the ability to be awarded new business.”

Flexing manufacturing capabilities, working more closely with customers and limiting production shutdowns have been staples of the CEO’s strategy. Localizing supply chain is also pivotal.

Last year, Lear announced $100 million of investment in Michigan — in Independence Township, Sterling Heights and Traverse City

— for programs that will net the company more than $2.5 billion in revenue through 2030.

e investment was spurred by securing a key contract from General Motors Co. to exclusively supply the battery disconnect unit on all full-size SUVs and trucks built on the Ultium EV platform. e platform, which will support a variety of programs, presents more opportunity than winning a contract to supply just one speci c model.

e company isn’t looking to onshore production of just EV components, either. e company is planning to expand its core business — manufacturing seats — in Michigan. All cars need seats whether they are powered by batteries or gas, but EVs present the chance to capture more content per vehicle because more thermal and comfort features are being incorporated into seats.

“Being here in the state of Michigan, we recognize the advantage of producing parts here,” Scott said.

If he had to attribute a successful 2022 to one thing, Scott said it would be the company’s more than 160,000 global employees, each of whom worked through a unique set of personal and professional challenges to strengthen the business.

“I think we did a nice job operationally, and we performed well nancially,” he said.

Crain’s is looking to recognize accomplished leaders in commercial banking for their success during the last 18 months. Chosen honorees will be featured in a special section online and in the March 20 print issue.

NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

— Kurt Nagl

A LIGHT FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD

New Detroit yoga and wellness studio aims to be a home for all

It’s no exaggeration to say that yoga has changed Robyn Childers’ life.

Following a car crash 18 years ago in which she su ered signi cant injuries, she said yoga healed her.

“I almost didn’t walk away from that accident,” Childers said. “I went through multiple surgeries. ( e accident) completely took me out of my work life and social life. Yoga is what brought me back. It can be a very strict practice that requires a lot of discipline, but it’s so good for you.”

Over the last two decades, Childers has learned in great detail the bene ts of yoga. e 43-year-old Oak Park resident, along with her wife, Melissa, are now sharing that knowledge through their new yoga and wellness center.

Welcome Home Yoga & Wellness opened Oct. 1 at 6375 W. Seven Mile Road on the ground oor of the redeveloped B. Siegel Building at Livernois Road in northwest Detroit.

Robyn works as an E-RYT 500 certi-

ed yoga instructor while Melissa is a licensed massage therapist. Welcome Home has ve additional sta ers, including four yoga instructors and a practitioner of the Japanese healing technique Reiki.

e 2,500-square-foot space has the serene vibe you’d expect from a yoga studio. Patrons come from a variety of neighborhoods of Detroit, including the University District, Bagley and Green Acres, as well as nearby communities such as Hazel

Welcome Home Yoga & Wellness provides yoga and meditation classes, massage therapy, trauma recovery and wellness amenities including crystals and incense for patrons.

e center o ers more than 10 membership packages, ranging from $29 a month for a three-month package to a $1,199 one-year unlimited yoga package that includes discounts on wellness services. In-studio and livestreamed yoga class

WELCOME HOME

Community-focused Welcome Home Yoga & Wellness in Detroit provides yoga and meditation classes, massage therapy, trauma recovery and wellness amenities including crystals and incense.

Following are some of the outside programs and events it o ers:

“Be the Light” scholarship

The program o ers a year of unlimited yoga to one applicant in need who meets certain criteria, including nancial challenges, disability or recovery from addiction and/or trauma.

5K Run & Walk

Pride-themed event at Palmer Park to support the People of Palmer Park nonpro t.

packages are also available, along with private yoga sessions.

Robyn and Melissa Childers set their roots in Detroit in an e ort to offer yoga and wellness services to underserved people and communities.

Welcome Home bills itself as a place people from all backgrounds can feel at home. Robyn Childers said that as a woman who identi es as LBGTQIA+, she knows what it feels like to be unwelcome in some places.

“I’ve gone into yoga studios and

not felt welcome. at’s happened,” said Childers, who previously operated Recovery Yoga in Ferndale. “As somebody who identi es as LBGTQ, there weren’t a lot of places for me to go as a teenager in the ’90s. I feel welcome in Detroit. Melissa and I had our rst date at Palmer Park. We love the park and the city. I kind of felt a calling to come back to the neighborhood to be a light.”

Park and Ferndale.

Robyn and Melissa Childers opened Welcome Home Yoga & Wellness in Detroit in an e ort to o er their services to underserved people and communities.

Jay DAVIS

Robyn Childers (right) with wife and business partner Melissa Childers. | CANDICE LAMARAND PHOTOGRAPHY

From

‘I was underserved’

Robyn Childers, who was born in Flint and graduated from Wayne State University, isn’t o ering her services as an outsider. She was a child in foster care and lived in 18 different homes before her 18th birthday, in places as far away as California and Arizona. She said opening Welcome Home gives her a chance to o er something to others that she would have valued as a child.

“I’ve experienced feeling almost

like a second-class citizen — like I didn’t t in or belong anywhere,” Childers said. “ at feeling of being welcomed home is about one of the greatest senses of connection anyone can experience. rough our studio, we can extend ourselves to a community of people who don’t feel they’ve had direct access to health and wellness.”

Access to yoga and wellness is improving in Detroit. e city is home to about a dozen yoga studios now, but most are downtown or along the riverfront. Welcome Home joins nearby Essential Hot Yoga on Livernois Avenue in bringing yoga to another section of Detroit.

To take it a step further, Welcome Home Yoga & Wellness is o ering a year of unlimited yoga through its “Be a Light” scholarship program. Applicants must live in a District 2 neighborhood and identify as BIPOC or LGBTGQ+ or be a veteran, person with disability, have nancial challenges or seeking recovery from addiction and/or trauma.

“When Melissa and I got together, we wanted to open a place in Detroit to bring our elds together,” Robyn Childers said. “ e area isn’t oversaturated with yoga and wellness. We want people to understand there are ways to treat injury and illness in a pathway that’s a more holistic ap-

proach. We’re trying every way possible to make this accessible for as many people as possible because the bene ts are so strong.”

Help along the way

e couple may not have been able to share those bene ts without the help of some Detroit-based groups.

Robyn Childers set her sights on the B. Siegel building in 2018, touring it with real estate developer Matt Hessler. She planned to move into the building in summer 2020 but didn’t have enough funds to meet the more than $100,000 needed to get the business up and running there.

“At that point we had no collateral,” Childers said. “We just had a story and a dream, a great credit score and a track record of success.”

Childers then earned a $105,000 collaborative grant from Michigan Women Forward, but the COVID-19 pandemic impact caused supply chain issues and an increase in the price of goods and services. at pushed Welcome Home’s startup costs to about $170,000. en came a $40,000 grant in round 18 of Motor City Match.

During an Oct. 11 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new business, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called Robyn and Melissa Childers a shining example of how passion can fuel business success. “Together, they have created something abundantly beautiful and a tremendous resource for the community,” the mayor said in a news release.

CONSULTING

Dion Leadership

Dion Leadership welcomes Christie Banners. As Account Executive, Christie provides strategic and operational support for Dion’s diverse and growing client base. With over 25 years of experience, she brings expertise in supplier relationship management and wellness and a passion for supporting clients. Christie is thrilled for the opportunity to contribute to the Dion mission of creating workplaces where employees start every day excited and end every day accomplished.

INSURANCE

AAA - The Auto Club Group

AAA – The Auto Club Group has promoted Roger Odle to Executive Vice President, Head of Insurance and Distribution. In this new role, Odle’s responsibilities will oversee all insurance, eld distribution and automotive retail operations across the company’s 14-state territory.

“This elevated leadership position recognizes the importance of our insurance operations,” said Joseph J. Richardson Jr., ACG President & CEO. “Under Roger’s leadership, we will continue modernizing our insurance business to best meet our members’ needs.”

Odle joined ACG in February 2021 as Senior Vice President, Insurance Operations. His extensive 30 years of insurance industry experience positions him well for this expanded role.

LEGAL

Wolfson Bolton Kochis PLLC, a business law rm in metropolitan Detroit, is pleased to announce that Kenton Bednarz has joined the rm as a Member and Practice Lead for the rm’s M&A, Corporate, and Emerging Growth practices. Bednarz has a diverse and deep practice from which he provides counsel on mergers and acquisitions, nance transactions, emerging company formation, development and growth, and commercial transaction structuring, negotiation and guidance.

STAFFING / SERVICES

Epitec, Inc.

Rebecca Bray has been appointed president of Epitec, Inc., one of the largest women-owned IT, engineering, and professional staf ng companies in the United States. Bray has been at Epitec for 25 years and brings a wealth of experience, industry knowledge, and client relationships to the role. She previously served as the company’s chief sales of cer. As president, Bray will continue to prioritize Epitec’s client portfolio while also setting organizational priorities and driving growth.

After all that e ort, the couple want to stick around for a while; they signed a ve-year lease with three, three-year renewal options.

Robyn Childers declined to share revenue projections for the business, saying that’s constantly changing. e business co-owners are in search of grant opportunities and other sources of funding, she said.

“ is isn’t a transient business. We want to grow, lay our roots and hopefully expand,” Childers said. “We’ll look at opening a second location when the time comes. ere are some di erent services and programming we’d like to o er that would require additional space and di erent capabilities.”

Inclusivity is paramount

e seeds are planted for Welcome Home to grow in the area.

One of the users of the space, Hazel Park resident Mike Flores, said the yoga classes are secondary to his main reason for joining the club.

NONPROFIT

The Vella Group

DEVELOPMENT / LANDLORD

Boji Group

Boji Group is pleased to announce that John Hindo has been promoted to President.

As a private practice attorney for over a decade, Hindo brings his expertise in private-public partnerships, real estate, and all facets of business to help bridge private and public entities to deliver positive outcomes for communities across Michigan.

INSURANCE / BROKERAGE

Kapnick Insurance Group

Brian Pilarski recently joined Kapnick Insurance in their Troy of ce as a Senior Vice President and Client Executive with impressive experience as a top risk advisor to businesses from a variety of industries. “Brian is a superstar. He’s received many accolades for his sales acumen throughout his career, but what really drew us to him was his dedication to his clients,” said Don Engle, partner and president of business insurance at Kapnick.

The Vella Group announced it is adding Pamela Moore as partner. Pamela was president/CEO, Detroit Public Schools Foundation, where she oversaw fundraising and grant-making in support of early childhood education, literacy, STEAM, career pathways and workforce development. She also worked with Detroit’s last three mayors, with her last role as founding president/CEO of Detroit Employment Solutions Corp.

“It’s the priority to make everyone feel welcome regardless of skill level, body type or identity,” said Flores, who has practiced yoga since 2018. “I’ve found a new community and inclusive network to connect with. I love having the opportunity to practice yoga with a diverse and inclusive group after a long day at the o ce, or as a way for my partner and I to start our weekend.”

Being inclusive also calls for Welcome Home to work with other Detroit businesses. Childers over the summer o ered outdoor yoga sessions at specialty sandwich shop Breadless. e Childerses, who plan to live closer to their business, in 2022 established a pride-themed 5K run/walk and yoga event at Palmer Park to support the People for Palmer Park nonpro t. is year’s run is set for June 11.

Vella

Jim Vella started The Vella Group in January 2020 after a 31-year career at Ford that included serving as president of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Both Pamela and Jim are native Detroiters dedicated to community service. The Vella Group brings together strategic guidance, fundraising and storytelling to help clients achieve their mission.

“ e run, the scholarship — that’s what we want this business to be. Sure, we want it to make money, but we want it to be more than that,” Robyn Childers said. “Yoga has helped me so much. We want people to have a chance to learn something that can help them in so many ways. Practicing yoga sooner or later reveals everything to you about your health — even the breathing exercises can tell you if something’s wrong.

“Everything about this has a lot of meaning to me. I feel like when you run a business, it should be re ective of what you’re passionate about. at’s without a doubt one of the driving forces of our lives — to have deep connection. at’s the root of all healing and I think that starts with community.”

Contact: jason.davis@crain.com (313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981

Moore

Wolfson Bolton Kochis PLLC

e budget of the accelerator, which is a 501c3 nonpro t, has increased from $100,000 in its rst year to more than $10 million, putting it on par with other major accelerators based in Michigan, such as Ann Arbor Spark. What di erentiates Centrepolis is its focus on hardware manufacturing over software development.

Radomski, who grew up in his dad’s machine shop and has nearly 20 years of startup experience, said the o shoring of jobs and manufacturing to China over the years inspired him to try to stem the job loss.

“I noticed more and more of our content was coming from o shore, particularly China, and I was really concerned,” he said.

e accelerator is funded through grants from a variety of sources including the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, DeVos Family Foundation, Ralph Wilson Foundation and William Davidson Foundation.

In December, the accelerator announced a $125,000 grant for operational support from Bill Gates’ Kirkland, Wash.-based Breakthrough Energy Foundation.

It also generates some revenue by doing contract work. Livonia-based automotive interiors supplier Sigma International hired it to do 3D printing, for example.

e accelerator’s mission is bringing the products of entrepreneurs to market. Its 6,300-square-foot workshop at LTU is equipped with 3D printers and machining equipment for prototyping, research and development.

It is sta ed by a handful of fulltime employees and 40 part-time or contract employees with a diverse range of experience in business and manufacturing. It also hires LTU students for research projects and leverages the school’s resources and institutional know-how, Radomski said. e accelerator’s lease at the school is subsidized by grants from the state.

In the past ve years, it has helped create 58 companies, commercialize 38 products, create 387 jobs and gen-

DEALS & DETAILS

 CONTRACTS

 Altair, Troy, a software company, has an agreement for Soltec, Murcia, Spain, a solar equipment manufacturer, to use Altair technology in its research and development division. Website: altair.com

 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

 Inszone Insurance Services, Sacramento, Calif.,: an insurance company, acquired Brinch Agency Insurance, Roseville, an insurance agency. Clients of Brinch Agency will continue to be serviced by the team in the Roseville o ce, now working under Inszone Insurance brand. Website: inszoneinsurance. com

 Freudenberg, Weinheim, Germany, is acquiring 49.9 percent of the outstanding membership units of the joint venture from partner MBP Investors and will become the sole owner of XALT Energy LLC, Midland, a battery manufacturer.

Freudenberg had already acquired a majority stake in XALT Energy in

erate $89 million in new capital.

Everyone has an idea for an invention, Radomski said, and the accelerator’s function is to bring it to life.

“You may have had an idea for a consumer product or something along the way in your lifetime, most people have, and if you have no engineering experience, we can do everything,” Radomski said. “We can design it. We can do all the nite element analysis and make sure we get the right material selection.”

at’s what the accelerator did for Gina Adams, founder of Wareologie, who sought help to commercialize her idea for a magnetic button shirt inspired by her stepfather’s battle with Parkinson’s disease and his difculties with hand dexterity.

e accelerator helped drive costs down by pairing her with a manufacturer that could produce the shirts at

a reasonable cost. e product is still being sold online, but launching during the COVID-19 pandemic stymied sales, Adams said.

So, she decided to pursue another idea to help those with disabilities — portable parallel bars for rehab patients.

e accelerator provided a $100,000 interest- and equity-free loan to the company and helped design and engineer the product. As part of the agreements the accelerator enters with startups, clients must pay the loan back after two years, plus a “success fee,” which is a percentage of the company’s gross revenue with a maximum aggregate payment over ve years of $50,000.

When Adams went shopping for a manufacturer to make the rst two prototypes, she was initially quoted by Kalamazoo-based Tekna Inc. at

$250,000. e accelerator helped drive the costs down by eliminating loose parts and connected Adams with Farmington Hills-based Global Tech Ventures, which charged $80,000 to make the prototypes.

“(We) work with our clients to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes as we did all those years,” Radomski said of the engineering process.

Adams said the company was to deliver last week the rst commercialized FDA Class 1 mobile rehab devices ordered by the Veterans Health Administration Innovators Network, which she hopes will bring

larger purchase orders in the future. e company is bootstrapped after Adams quit her job at a medical device company in Ann Arbor to pursue her own dream.

“ ere’s no way to juggle a fulltime job and have this as a side gig,” she said. “I had to leave my full-time job with insurance to come work for nothing on hopes and dreams. We are helping millions of Americans access physical therapy sooner to improve recovery outcomes and well-being.”

Still, Adams said she has no qualms about following her “life’s purpose,” and she wouldn’t have the chance without help.

“ ere is no way I would be here without the accelerator,” she said.

Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl

2019. e parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. XALT Energy employs around 550 people in Midland and Auburn Hills. Websites: freudenberg.com, xaltenergy. com

 Verità Telecommunications Corp., Plymouth, a telecommunications contractor, acquired Taylor Telecommunications Inc., Akron, Ohio, an outside plant services provider.

Taylor Telecommunications has 130 employees, trucks, tools and equipment, with in Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, and Columbus, Ohio.

e expansion is expected to create an additional 100 jobs in the Great Lakes Region as well. Website: veritacorp.com

Nominate a leader in commercial banking

Crain’s is accepting nominations for Notable Leaders in Commercial Banking.

Digital Analytics Manager



e Care Team, Farmington Hills, a hospice and home health provider operating in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Massachusetts, acquired 1st Care Home Health and Care Hospice, Carmel, Ind., a regional home health and hospice provider. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Website: tctcares.com

Notable Leaders in Commercial Banking are market executives, directors, strategists, chief nancial ofcers, and others who make signicant contributions to their companies, industries and/or communities. Your nominee must be based in Michigan, hold a leadership position and be active in the community and/or industry. Nominate yourself or another exceptional commercial banker at crainsdetroit.com/ notablenoms by Jan. 27. Winners will be honored in a March 20 Crain’s special section.

Visit crain.com/careers/ for more information and available positions.

The Centreopolis Accelerator at Lawrence Technological University | CENTREOPOLIS ACCELERATOR

Adams

CRAIN’S AWARDS

As such, the project will primarily be nanced through its own operations budget rather than relying on a millage, a convention authority or other public funding, Chamberlin said.

e team generates most of its annual revenue through ticket sales, sponsorships, food and beverage sales, and events, he said.

e expansion project will satisfy two major needs for the Whitecaps, Chamberlin said.

e rst is boosting attendance, which last year was about 337,000, down from 380,000 before the pandemic and a peak of over 547,000 in 1996.

“Our job running this franchise at this point is guring out how do we unlock that again, and one of the big ways to do it is to address this facility and get it to a point where it’s like new and everybody is really excited to come out here and check it out.”

Although the new stadium won’t technically be larger, Chamberlin said the experience will be better.

“(We’ll) have the new center eld club and special events center that’s much larger than what we have today, and then also, frankly, just creating spaces where we can get into the ballpark and spread out a little bit,” he said. “Right now, we don’t have a ton of concourse room to meander around. Sure, you’ve got a seat, but maybe you want to hang out at that bar in the out eld and watch the game from there for a while, and we just don’t have those spaces right now.”

e second reason for the renovation is new MLB standards imposed when it took over the minor league system in 2021 and morphed it into a professional development feeder for the majors.

e new standards will require an upgraded playing surface and stadium lights, increased clubhouse square footage, more lockers and training space, and batting tunnels attached to the building. e deadline to make those upgrades is the 2025 season, but the Whitecaps plan to wrap that phase a year early.

MLB also shortened the minor league season by about four games to allow for more time o and to build in a bu er for players transitioning between leagues.

Chamberlin said he gets “an awful lot” of questions about why the Whitecaps don’t move to the center of Grand Rapids. Apart from the limited available real estate and parking — not to mention the estimated $80 million-plus price tag of a new ballpark — he said he feels the 47-acre LMCU Ballpark already has an “incredible foundation” to build on that will cost “pennies on the dollar” compared to starting from scratch. It also is only about a 10-minute drive to downtown for folks looking for post-game nightlife.

“For us, it’s incredibly economical that we build on what we have out here,” he said. “… We’re really doing the kind of work that gets this place ready to go for the next 30 years. It’s going to have a price tag to go along with it, but it’s an investment that we feel really good about making.”

Economic impact

e Whitecaps are working with the University of Michigan to complete the rst formal economic impact study on the ballpark, Plaineld Township, and Comstock Park, the unincorporated community where it resides.

Plain eld Township Superintendent Cameron Van Wyngarden said while he doesn’t have solid numbers, the ballpark gives the township a signi cant year-round lift, especially in downtown Comstock Park and along the crowded West River Drive business corridor that surrounds the stadium.

“It’s one of those things that everyone can see, but no one really has a good set of numbers to put to it,” he said.

West River Drive is home to entertainment establishments, industrial facilities, retail, hotels, housing, restaurants, bars, a brewery and a distillery. In fact, there’s little undeveloped land left, Van Wyngarden said.

“In the last 30 years, anyone who’s been around or who’s even been around in the last 10 years, like I have, can see the support that the ballpark has provided to neigh-

boring businesses, whether it’s restaurants in Comstock Park, hotels, AJ’s (Family Fun Center across the street) — it really is a nice supplement for those businesses.”

e stadium was built just after the Comstock Park Downtown Development Authority was established, and most of the tax increment nancing capture from the ballpark goes toward funding the DDA. ( e Whitecaps Vice President and General Manager Jim Jarecki also sits on the DDA board.)

According to Plain eld property tax records, the township collected an average of $439,000 in property taxes per year from the Whitecaps over the past ve years. With the coming improvements to the stadium, its taxable value would theoretically rise.

e tax capture so far has funded streetscape improvements in Comstock Park, upgrades to the section of the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail that runs parallel to West River Drive, and an overhaul of Dwight Lydell Park in downtown Comstock Park, to name a few things, Van Wyngarden said.

“ ere’s a lot of reinvestment right around the ballpark coming from the tax growth on the stadium.”

He said it’s impossible to attribute the growth of West River Drive solely to the Whitecaps’ presence there. e season runs from April to September, and the team only plays about 60 home games during that time.

“ at makes it a little challenging for a hotel to say, ‘Yeah, we denitely need to open up by the stadium.’ Sixty nights a year is just not enough to sustain a hotel or a restaurant, but it’s enough supplemental tra c if there’s already good fundamentals there for that type of business,” Van Wyngarden said.

Chamberlin said the team’s biggest goal is to ensure that it remains a “generational” force in the community.

“We’ve got a great ballpark right now, and certainly, I think you could say, ‘Hey, you don’t need to go this big. You’re going above and beyond what MLB says you need to do, and why go there?’ Truly for me, and for us, it’s because we think this is what the West Michigan community needs and frankly what we deserve. We’re an incredible minor league sports market.”

Contact: rachel.watson@crain.com (989) 533-9685; @RachelWatson86

Detroit apparel brand sews up deal with Meijer

JAY DAVIS

An apparel business focused on boosting Detroit has made the leap from e-commerce sales to selling its items inside one of Michigan’s largest retailers.

Farmington Hills-based Born in Detroit LLC has launched its rst retail product line in a handful of Meijer stores. Prior to the Meijer Inc. deal, all Born in Detroit apparel was sold online, according to a news release.

e items — Born in Detroit Champion-brand hoodies and T-shirts and exclusive Detroit “Kronk Gym” shirts — will be o ered in Meijer stores in Warren, Madison Heights, Roseville, and at the 1301 W. Eight Mile Road and 21431 Grand River locations in Detroit.

“We are thrilled to partner with Meijer for our brand’s launch into retail,” Born in Detroit co-owner Anthony Tomey said in the release.

e possibility exists for wider distribution with Meijer, he told Crain’s.

“With the name recognition that Meijer can help bring to us, it can also drive tra c to our site,” Tomey said. “We project that we will sell out of these initial ve stores and at least get into 40-50 additional Meijer locations this year.”

e deal includes an inde nite timeline with a progression of ordering based on sales volume, according to a Meijer spokesperson.

e owners of Born in Detroit plan to expand to other retailers, too. Tomey said they’re looking into placement in boutiques in and around Detroit. A storefront of their own is also in the plans, he said.

Born in Detroit’s apparel line was launched in 2021 by two sets of brothers — Detroit natives Anthony and Michael Tomey (a 2021 Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree), and George and Alex Bourkoulas — as well as friend Michael Shumaker. e company saw a 40 percent increase in sales from 2021 to 2022, according to Tomey.

e Tomeys are also the principals of the Farmington Hills-based Tomey Group, which owns and operates more than 50 Jimmy John’s locations in metro Detroit.

Contact: jason.davis@crain.com (313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981

Can a fresh stadium lure fans to the minor leagues?

Tax capture from LMCU Ballpark has funded several projects in Comstock Park over the years, including the restoration and overhaul of Dwight Lydell Park, shown here in the unincorporated community’s downtown. CPREIN & NEWHOF

Construction will begin in a few months on a ve-year modernization project of LMCU Ballpark, home of the West Michigan Whitecaps, in Plain eld Township.| ROSSETTI

Apparel line Born In Detroit and Meijer have partnered for the company’s maiden voyage into retail.

Under the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act of 2018, passed overwhelmingly by Michigan voters, the state o ers unlimited licensure to marijuana operations; it’s up to local municipalities to create a competitive formula to decide who is allowed to sell or grow marijuana in their community.

“ e driver of all of this is from probably the worst decision that the drafters of the adult use statute made — requiring that competitive selection process,” said Lance Boldrey, partner and cannabis attorney at Detroit-based law rm Dykema Gossett PLLC. “It all sounds well and good from a policy standpoint, trying to eliminate picking favorites, but it is the longest process and most expensive process for applicants to follow, and you end up with these lawsuits that can tie applicants up in court for three or four years.”

But a December ruling by a Court of Appeals panel in a lawsuit against the city of Berkley may have cleared the way for the suits to be dropped, as local municipalities tighten their grip on de ning the competitive licensing process.

A broken process?

In Pontiac, the city continues to languish over its medical marijuana ordinances that were approved by voters nearly ve years ago. Not a single dispensary has opened in Pontiac, and a proposed adult-use recreational ordinance that was introduced last year is further complicating matters.

Earlier this month, the Pontiac City Council continued to make changes to its medical marijuana scoring system. e city planned to give medical marijuana licenses to ve companies, but a Dec. 9 ruling by an Oakland County Circuit judge found the city’s scoring system was unfair to Marshall-based vertically integrated marijuana company Common Citizen.

Common Citizen’s suit alleged that the city’s process for awarding medical marijuana licenses was arbitrary and rife with con icts of interest. e judge’s ruling e ectively awarded Common Citizen points in the scoring system it hadn’t received before the lawsuit. is pushed Common Citizen into the top ve of scoring eligible for a medical marijuana license, thus muscling out the former fth place holder Nature’s Remedy — which already invested $1.5 million into its dispensary location in Pontiac after being approved by the city’s planning commission, said James Allen, partner at Detroit-based law rm Schenk & Bruetsch PLC.

And adding insult to injury, the city council recently changed the zoning for its future recreational marijuana ordinance, eliminating the zone where Nature’s Remedy’s renovated building is located.

Allen said he is preparing a lawsuit against the city council over the issue in hopes of receiving an injunction to prevent the city from handing out the licenses.

“We’re looking to stop the process from moving forward without my clients,” Allen said. “Cities across the region understand that when they issue approval letters, businesses must be able to rely upon them when committing funds. In an apparent e ort to play favorites, Pontiac seems to be an exception to this

rule. Sadly, the residents will get stuck paying for the unwise decisions their elected o cials make.”

A costly way to do business

e rash of lawsuits is likely keeping municipalities from opting in to allow marijuana grows and sales in their communities, said Doug Mains, partner at Honigman LLP, co-author of the MRTMA ballot language and attorney for major operators, including Troy-based Lume Cannabis Co., in which Crain’s CEO KC Crain has a stake.

“We’ve heard of a lot of municipalities are hesitant to opt in because they don’t want to get sued,” Mains said. “ e medical system was always rst-come, rst-serve or a lottery, and the suspicion was always that the township president’s brother-in-law got all the licenses.

e intention of MRTMA was to get away from the system based on luck and connections and one based on merit, but the language could have de nitely been tighter.”

Creating an ordinance to allow in marijuana is likely more costly for many of these communities than opting out entirely, Boldrey said.

“If a city attorney is paying attention at all, they’ll understand almost any ordinance they put forward will result in a lawsuit against the city,” Boldrey said. “ ey should also know they pay more for ghting the lawsuit than they could possibly earn in licensing fees or revenue sharing.”

Berkley, for instance, has been

wrapped up in lawsuits over its marijuana ordinances since November 2020.

e legal battle started when companies not in the approved top three led two lawsuits in Oakland County Circuit Court against the city, city council and several ocials including City Manager Matthew Baumgarten. at led to a preliminary injunction halting Berkley’s cannabis retail licensing in December 2020.

ey argued the city needed to choose based on which applicants comply with state cannabis regulations, not who would do certain speci c things aimed at improving the city. ose include using green infrastructure, reusing existing buildings and demonstrating “bene ts to the community.”

In April 2022, the city council expanded licenses to ve or fewer in hopes of eliminating some of its grievances, but the lawsuits continued. e Appeals Court ruled in its favor last month, allowing the city to move forward with awarding licenses.

“To date, the city has licensed ve separate retail/medical facilities,” Baumgarten said in an email to Crain’s. “Each facility has also received building and trade permits, and each is at various stages of construction. We anticipate all ve facilities to be operational by summer 2023.”

But the three-judge appeals pan-

el did return portions of the case back to circuit court, so the case is ongoing, and costly.

Baumgarten declined to speak to Crain’s about the cases or the city’s costs for litigating the cases.

A new trellis

Boldrey said to avoid lawsuits, communities can push an unlimited license ordinance, not picking winners and losers through a competitive scoring system, and instead use zoning to limit entrants into the market.

Limiting where marijuana can be grown or sold in a community creates a barrier based on available real estate.

Boldrey said, however, that method of limiting licenses is not popular among the political class.

“What happens in most of those cases, city council sees that it makes sense but a member says ‘I am not going to vote for an ordinance that doesn’t have a cap and get beat up by constituents that are against unlimited marijuana’ in their city.”

Mains and David Morrow, founder and CEO of Lume Cannabis and founder of Warrior Sports, said that system can be abused as well.

“ ere’s always a Boss Hogg,” Morrow said. “A family or two that basically runs these small towns and owns all the real estate. e zoning can get so nite that it points to a single address. Usually it’s a site that isn’t worth more than $200,000 but can now sell for $3 million because it’s zoned for a dispensary.”

MSHDA nally has new director

Appointment comes after 15-month delay

NICK MANES

After a 15-month delay, and amid questions about possible con icts of interest that stakeholders say have been addressed, Michigan has a new executive director running its housing agency.

e Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) said ursday that Amy Hovey has ocially been named executive director of the state agency that oversees myriad programs around statewide housing matters. e news of Hovey o cially moving into the top role at the agency — the rst woman to do so in a non-acting capacity — comes about four months after Crain’s reported on the delay in her doing so.

O cials at MSHDA told Crain’s on ursday that questions pertaining to Hovey’s husband and father-inlaw working on housing projects that use federal funding, administered by MSHDA, had been addressed.

“She and her family have been committed to resolving the potential con icts since the MSHDA Board placed their con dence in her in fall 2021,” MSHDA spokesperson Katie Bach wrote in an email to Crain’s. “ e fact that it’s taken more than a year to bring Amy on board shows the commitment and due diligence by all parties and their attorneys.”

Before this, Hovey has worked in nonpro t philanthropy, politics and housing nance.

“Amy’s unique private, public and nonpro t experience and extensive understanding of the housing industry make her an ideal t,” MSHDA Board Chair Susan Corbin said in a news release on ursday.

Meanwhile, Allen has prepared his lawsuits against Pontiac, and legal battles continue to work their way through courts all over the state, even in places like Traverse City and communities in the Upper Peninsula.

“So many of these frameworks are simply unworkable and all the applicants will continue to jockey for position,” Boldrey said. “Until all of these suits are settled, we’ll have no idea what any given city’s landscape will look like.”

Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh

Hovey, who succeeds longtime Acting Director Gary Heidel, was rst appointed to the role in October 2021 and has been working as a special adviser to MSHDA and other Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity agencies on housing and community development related matters.

Questions had lingered for months, however, over whether Hovey would be able to move into the position for which she had been selected.

at’s because Hovey’s husband, Timothy Hovey, and her father-inlaw, James Hovey, have development interests in properties that have received federal loans and housing vouchers through MSHDA.

To address those potential conicts, the state agency has taken a handful of steps, Bach said.

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

Common Citizen grows more than 60 unique strains of cannabis in its greenhouse farm facility in Marshall, Michigan. | COMMON CITIZEN

Inside the Nature’s Remedy store in Ferndale. NATURE’S REMEDY/FACEBOOK

Amy Hovey

“WE’VE HEARD OF A LOT OF MUNICIPALITIES ARE HESITANT TO OPT IN BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO GET SUED.”

— Doug Mains, partner, Honigman LLP

“What (that) means is those who are most impacted by those systems actually have the power to design and change them.”

ose Detroit youth, residents and educators “are the visionaries who, frankly, are not at policymaking tables often enough,” Power said. at’s about to change.

Skillman recently named 21-yearold Jeremiah Steen, a University of Detroit Mercy student who is pursuing a degree in communications, to its board of trustees. He is also a development associate of institutional giving for the National Audubon Society and the founder and executive director of the Steen Foundation, which is working to positively impact the socialization of youth, promoting strong inquisitive thinking and helping teens to advance their view of community through a creative perspective.

Steen, an inaugural member of Skillman’s youth council, joins the board along with Linh Song, co-founder of the Song Foundation and a member of the Ann Arbor City Council, and Derrick Roman, retired partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

“Young people live every day in neighborhoods that surround their schools, watch parents work several jobs, struggle with language barriers ... and know what the support structures in schools are,” Power said.

Members of the Gen Z generation naturally think about what funding looks like for their school, schools across the city and in the suburbs and which o er di erent types of sports and arts programs, she said. ey are already thinking at a high level about how resources are allocated and how they should be over time to help struggling schools.

e young people bring new perspective without the institutional memory of failed past attempts to x the schools, Power said.

“Detroiters have very long memories of things that didn’t work … young people step into the room, they have hope and optimism, lived experience and big ideas. ey have the ability to sway all of us to try again, to try harder and to be bold and to believe that we can make a difference,” she said.

Steen said it’s important for organizations to create pathways for youth to be actively involved programmatically and through systems

change. It gives youth an opportunity to develop and gives the board a new pulse on what the needs of the community are.

“I’m just really excited to be able to work with so many phenomenal changemakers across di erent industries and sectors. is is going to be a very formative experience for me,” he said.

At the same time, youth bring new perspective and help ensure nonpro ts are continuing to innovate, Steen said.

“Our role at Skillman and our role in the philanthropic ecosystem is to

be ready to pivot... having as many voices at the table as possible can only create the best impact.”

Steen said he hopes more youth are encouraged and invited to serve on nonpro t boards.

“Gen Z has some really powerful insights and they’re ready to contribute them,” he said.

A new ‘north star’

e foundation’s work going forward will combine and build on its educational policy and systems efforts the past ve years and earlier

“Good Neighborhoods Initiative,” which focused for a decade on improving academic outcomes and conditions for kids and families in six Detroit neighborhoods. Skillman’s track record of working in the neighborhoods and on systemic change makes the nonpro t perfectly suited to serve as the conduit to build relationships between residents and grassroots groups and policymakers and business leaders, Power said.

e foundation will take a twopronged approach to building equitable education systems. Its “Ground Building” will listen to the concerns of Detroit youth, educators and residents, build trust and coalitions and develop policy agendas based on that feedback, while supporting efforts that strengthen the ability of Detroiters and educators to e ect change.

ose e orts will then cross over into policy and systems work. Skillman’s policy and systems team is working closely with local, state and national o cials to understand which policy windows are opening in the next few years, Power said.

“ ere’s an increased opportunity to make policy change in education in Michigan,” Power said. “At Skillman, we want to make sure the right people who are closest to those systems are there to help design those changes.”

Skillman will tap Gen Z youth, those born in 1997 and beyond, to lead design of systems, along with others impacted including educators and residents.

Skillman over the past two years has invited youth to participate in its President’s Youth Council, directing grants from a dedicated pot of money. In 2022, the 13-member council directed just more than $300,000 in grants to Detroit-based youth organizations.

Representatives of the youth council also spoke at the Mackinac Policy Conference and Detroit Homecoming last year to bring their perspectives to policy conversations around education and other issues that e ect youth.

During its listening tour, Skillman also heard from educators, principals and afterschool providers who said they are often told to implement policy change before they have a chance to weigh in, Power said.

“We heard directly from educators that they want to be involved in this moment where we need to retain and attract fantastic educators (and) have clear accountability across schools,” Power said “If teachers aren’t designing these changes, then can how can we attract and retain the best and brightest?”

While Skillman’s new work begins to take shape and it gures out what it will fund under the new framework, the nonpro t will provide longtime grantees with continued funding at some level, Power said.

Skillman is operating on a $31 million budget this year. Some $24 million of that will be grants, marking the largest grantmaking budget in its history, Vice President of Communications Natalie Fotias said.

In tandem with the shift in its work, the foundation has realigned its sta along the two pillars of its work and is hiring a new director of policy and systems and vice president of learning and impact to oversee research, benchmarking of best practices and evaluation of the new approach.

As Skillman begins work under the revised framework, its tour with youth, residents and educators over the past year has turned from listening to co-designing, Power said.

“We’re going back out,” she said. “One of the things we heard was ‘don’t make big decisions and changes without coming back to talk with us.’”

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

Detroit Police and Fire pension fund sues to stop WWE sale

“achieve maximum value for shareholders” of the $2.8 billion fund.

Detroit’s Police and Fire Retirement System led suit earlier this month to stop the potential sale of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., saying that former CEO Vince McMahon’s return to leadership devalued the company.

e PFRS has about 350 shares of WWE, worth about $100,000, said Bruce Babiarz, a spokesperson for the retirement system. He said the fund’s leadership became aware of McMahon’s return to power at the WWE after a security rm it employs brought his role to the attention of the PFRS’ general counsel. A suit seeking to remove him from the WWE board was led in Delaware’s Chancery Court Jan. 12. It seeks class action status.

Babiarz said the Detroit board’s holdings are small, but it wants to

“It’s about duciary duty in this case,” he said. “We do not want a sale under these circumstances.”

e WWE did not respond to messages Wednesday seeking comment about the ling.

In its suit, the PFRS laid out a number of reported allegations of sexual impropriety against McMahon, saying the suit “arises out of McMahon’s serial abuses of power as Chief Executive O cer of WWE, his subsequent banishment from the board room, to which he acquiesced by resigning his positions, and his current e ort to impose his personal will on WWE and its board of directors ... by purporting to adopt a package of invalid and inequitable bylaw amendments that would hamstring the Board from

making critical business decisions.”

e suit claims that McMahon, who agreed in July to leave the board after $12 million in settlements dating back to 2006 came to light, demanded in December that he be invited back as the executive chairman of WWE.

e lawsuit claims that McMahon, who is the company’s controlling shareholder, threatened to withhold his support of any media rights agreements that expire in 2024 and were slated to be renegotiated this year unless he was returned to power. e media rights are the company’s “lifeblood,” the suit claims, and were responsible for 85 percent of WWE’s net revenues in 2021.

McMahon’s machinations allowed him to return to the board and change its makeup, the suit said,

though the previous board unanimously agreed he should not be allowed to do so.

On Jan. 10, the suit said, the reconditioned board announced that McMahon had been elected executive chairman. His daughter, Stephanie McMahon, who had taken over WWE’s leadership, resigned. Hours later, the lawsuit said, there were reports — later denied — that the WWE had agreed to be sold to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

“McMahon has a personal motive to sell the Company promptly even if a sale is not a value-maximizing strategic alternative for the Company and all of its stockholders,” the lawsuit said. “A prompt sale would forestall the assertion of any corporate claims against McMahon related to the ongoing investigations into sexu-

al harassment and hush money payments. In light of these dynamics, it is critical that the Board be provided with clarity about the authority of a Board majority to evaluate, recommend, and execute on the best available value-enhancing strategic alternative.”

Babiarz said the PFRS wants to ensure McMahon doesn’t hasten the WWE’s sale for his own bene t. e suit seeks his removal from the board and the creation of a new board.

e PFRS’ fund serves about 8,000 retired police and re personnel and about 3,000 active duty rst responders. It is being represented by attorneys from Labaton Sucharow, Friedlander & Gorris and Kaskela Law.

Contact: arielle.kass@crain.com; (313) 446-6774; @ArielleKassCDB

Skillman Foundation is looking to youth to lead design of equitable education systems in Detroit. SKILLMAN FOUNDATION

Skillman president and CEO Angelique Power (left) and Jeremiah Steen, a 21-year-old student at the University of Detroit Mercy. Steen is the youngest trustee ever to be named to the Skillman Foundation’s board.

ARIELLE KASS

LaJuan Counts on learning what kind of manager she didn’t want to be

LaJuan Counts, the director of Detroit’s demolition department, didn’t have a lot of ambition to rise through the ranks at the city, despite a 25-year career there. But after nearly three years in her latest role, she’s becoming more comfortable being uncomfortable — and outspoken. She’s made e orts to hire demolition workers who served prison time in the past and is expanding her portfolio to include facilities and capital improvements — she called it the “cradle to grave” of city buildings. And Counts is working to demolish about 5,000 more Detroit homes. Here, she talks about mentorship, why she values demolition and how she learned about the kind of manager she didn’t want to be.

BY | ARIELLE KASS

 I’ve read that you’re the only Black woman to lead a demolition department in the country. I wanted to ask what that means to you.

It’s a little overwhelming at times to know that you’re the rst in any particular industry, but for me, I never gave it really much thought in the very beginning. When I was initially asked to lead the department, I came over with the intent solely of providing some exposure to women, especially Black women in the business. Because I had worked for a very long time in the construction industry, and pretty much people didn’t know that I was out there. I quietly just did my job. I got projects completed, and a lot of people have

thought never crossed my mind. I was happy with just being a builder. Had I probably seen someone who looked like me very early in my career, I’d have been shooting really high. The thought just wasn’t really there. And so for that very same reason, that’s why I know you can’t continue to just be in your shell and be comfortable. You’ve got to be uncomfortable so that other people see that those opportunities exist for them as well.

 The department just nished its 3,000th demolition a month or so ago. Can you talk about the importance of demolition?

walked through a lot of work that I’ve done and just never knew that a Black woman had done it. And I realized, too, that while that was easiest for me, I had done my community a disservice by not letting them know that it was it was an option for them.

 What di erence would it have made if you had a mentor who looked like you?

I feel like it would have probably been more a lot sooner. I think I underestimated where I could be. I always said that I just want to build stu . And so the thought of being more of a construction executive, or even manning an entire department, that

So, when you’re out in the community and you talk to the residents and you nd out that they’ve been living next to this vacant structure for 10, 15 years, and you have the opportunity to take it down and to give that resident just a little bit of relief from having to worry about that structure, that for me is what it’s all about. The fact that we are at 3,000, while it’s a milestone that we’re pleased about, we still have a lot of work to do.

 What have you done to deal with issues of bid rigging and environmental concerns that have been challenges for the department in the past?

It’s all been based on understanding what exactly happened before and making sure that we created a process that eliminated those challenges. We try and engineer out all of those

past problems. The main thing is we operate completely separate from the procurement process. We provide subject matter expert input, but the actual process of procurement goes through our o ce of contracting and procurement. So we don’t have those direct relationships with actually providing contracts … Our amount of transparency is 100 percent di erent than what it was when we rst created the department … And so we made sure that we were educating the community throughout the whole process. And we said, “hey, if it doesn’t look like what I just said that’s how we’re supposed to look, then call us.”

 Did your experience testifying in federal court (against former city contractor Bobby Ferguson, who was convicted) a ect the way you look at the importance of these standards?

I always operated from a place of integrity, that’s been consistent throughout my entire career. What testifying did for me … it really impacted how I became as a manager. Prior to then, I had never really had sta and I was just a sta member. But how my boss handled that entire situation … I never wanted any of my team members to feel like they didn’t have any support … It completely molded how I became as a manager, because to me, I felt like that was like the worst manager I ever had. And I never wanted anybody who worked under me to feel that way.

RUMBLINGS

Gores, Tellem throw party for Pistons at Paris Opera House

PARIS — THE DETROIT PISTONS and Chicago Bulls faced o in Paris on ursday night, though the journey — across six time zones for the Pistons, seven for the Bulls — was about much more than basketball.

It’s been a midseason immersion into French cuisine, wine and culture, a bit of nightlife, a bit of fashion, even a bit of business. Both teams decided they couldn’t come to Paris and not make every e ort to enjoy the opportunity and make good memories.

So, owner Tom Gores and vice chairman Arn Tellem led the plans for a night at the Paris Opera House they hoped the 200 or so members of the Pistons' travel party won’t forget.

“I think in general, whether it’s business or basketball, bringing families together is most important to

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us,” Gores said. “For us as a culture, that’s what means the most.” ere were sounds of a violin and a cello, an opera singer appearing on the grand marble staircase with her sound lling the entire space shortly after the event started, ballet dancers inside the gold-covered foyer with artwork dating back to the 1800s, more opera singers there and then nally a closing tribute to “ e Phantom of the Opera” — written more than 100 years ago.

“It’s a really special evening,” Tellem said. “When we came here, the whole idea was to create some good will in the world. So, we did it to provide a memorable evening, one that hopefully the players and their families will take with them forever.”

Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem welcomes the NBA basketball team and their families to a private party at the Paris Opera House Tuesday night. At top left is Pistons’ Killian Hayes. TIM REYNOLDS, AP

LaJuan Counts is demolition director for the city of Detroit

“I

BLACK WOMAN HAD DONE IT.”

—LaJuan Counts, director, Detroit’s demolition department

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