Crain's Detroit Business, Sept. 12, 2022, issue by Crain's Detroit Business

Halloween stores provide boost for landlords, for a little while. PAGE 4 high achievers you ought to know.

See CAR WASH on Page 31 CONVERSATION: Gentherm CEO Phil Eyler on ght for EV business. PAGE 34It’s freenot rules.spaceparkingminimumrethinkCities PAGE 3 UNDER FORTY HOUSEOPERADETROITATPHOTOGRAPHEDBUSINESS.DETROITCRAIN’SFORANTAYANIC

Karissma Yve, founder and CEO, Gildform on Page 19.

lion in federal COVID-19 relief dollars funneled through the Michigan Economic Development Corp., downtown’s key advocacy group is envisioning ways to help it pivot to a future less reliant on o ce workers. July saw the highest daily

A growing car wash chain is looking to clean up in Southeast Michigan with dozens of new locations planned in the region.

BURGER EXPANSION

But beyond the addition of a new chain to the region, El Car Wash’s entry to the market also is another marker in a growing trend of big investors such as private equity companies rolling up a traditionally mom-and-pop industry into large chains.at follows similar patterns in industries like self-storage, manufactured housing and marinas, where real estate investment trusts have muscled their way in. And in the case of car washes, that’s because of a relatively new revenue model not unlike that of Net ix.

Drumroll, please! Meet 40

Private equity backs car wash boom

BY KIRK PINHO

Gas-station based food operation

Visitors return, but residential shift, o ce work are keys Foot tra c is still light on weekdays on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit. | KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS See DOWNTOWN on Page 30

REAL ESTATE INSIDER

But in other ways, especially the return of daily o ce workers, downtown’s tra c rebound has a long way to Now,go.armed with nearly $14 mil-

Taystee’s Burgers aims to franchise. PAGE 5

Plotting rebounddowntowna

In some ways, downtown Detroit has rebounded since the bleak early days of the pandemic, when downtown became a ghost town. is summer saw a surge in visitors, and

Dozens of properties eyed by companynewcomertoarea

El Car Wash, based in Miami, through a local developer has tied up around 50 sites for new car washes from Detroit to Flint to Lansing by either placing them under contract or having already purchased them, its founders said.

more will be on the way this month with the return of events including the auto show and Detroit Homecoming (see box, Page 30).

Tuesday marks two and a half years since the rst COVID-19 cases were con rmed in Michigan.

STARTING ON PAGE 8

THE NEWS: Henry Ford Health has named its interim President and CEO Robert Riney to the job on a perma nent basis, the Detroit-based health system said ursday. Riney, 63, has decades of experience with the $6.6 billion organization, starting in 1978 and working in almost every operating unit at Henry Ford. He has been chief operating o cer since 2003 and suc ceeds Wright Lassiter III.

2 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

GILBERTS COMMIT $10M TOWARD ENTREPRENEURSHIP

BOLLINGER MOTORS SELLS 60 PERCENT STAKE

Magna International Inc. is building a eet of cooler-size robots for Cartken, an autonomous delivery technology startup.

Although Cartken announced the contract Wednesday, Magna started building the robots last month.

WHY IT MATTERS: e deal marks Mul len’s rst foray into the electric truck market, with Bollinger Motors intro ducing both electric SUVs and chas sis cabs in the past half-decade.

Two Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers had de clined to certify the initiative last week, pointing to a lack of adequate spacing between roughly 60 words in the amendment’s text.

WHY IT MATTERS: Among items on Riney’s agenda will be executing on a major 30-year partnership with Michigan State University that will bring a medical school and a $150 million research institute to down town Detroit.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT CLOSES LAFAYETTE CONEY ISLAND

THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE

NEED TO KNOW

NEWS ABOUT ROBOTS

WHY IT MATTERS: e restaurant is one of Detroit’s best-known. It was un clear at press time when a reinspec tion might happen. ON WHAT’S NEXT

THE NEWS: Michigan voters will weigh in on abortion this fall, months after Roe v. Wade was overturned. e state Supreme Court on ursday or dered election o cials to place a pro-abortion rights constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

Magna to build autonomous robots

COURT ORDERS ABORTION ISSUE TO BALLOT

It made an initial order of 50 Cartken Model C robots at its plant in Troy and is increasing capacity, Matteo Del Sorbo, executive vice president at Magna, told Crain’s sibling publication Automotive News.e agreement calls for Magna to build thousands of the sixwheel robots, but the companies did not provide an exact number or a dollar value for the contract.

THE NEWS: Lafayette Coney Island closed temporarily after Detroit Health Department o cials hit the popular hot dog spot with a ceaseand-desist notice after nding evi dence of rodents inside the restau rant. C e health department became aware of a possible rodent problem at the popular diner on Tuesday through social media posts that appeared to show rodents.

WHY IT MATTERS: Michigan has had a near-total abortion ban on the books for 176 years, but it is not being en forced after Roe’s reversal due to in junctions issued this year by two dif ferent state judges.

Magna will build autonomous robots at its plant in Troy | MAGNA INTERNATIONAL

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Cartken sees a market for robots for autonomous deliveries at ho tels, universities, warehouses and other locations. e Oakland, Ca lif.-based company is the developer and won’t be providing the ser vice. Other companies will use the robots to do the actual deliveries.

ticipate in the innovation economy,” according to a news release.

THE NEWS: In its latest philanthropic push in Detroit, the billionaire Gil bert family has committed $10 mil lion over three years to help fund the ongoing activities of three organiza tions pushing to grow the area’s start up sector: Invest Detroit, TechTown Detroit and Detroit Development Fund. e Gilbert Family Founda tion, founded by Rocket Mortgage founder Dan Gilbert and his wife Jen nifer, call the initiative Venture 313.

RINEY NAMED TO PERMANENT CEO JOB AT HENRY FORD

WHY IT MATTERS: e initiative aims to devote a variety of resources — nan cial and other forms, along with three partner organizations familiar to many in Detroit’s startup community — to “provide Detroit-based founders with meaningful opportunities to par

THE NEWS: Mullen Automotive Inc. ac quired a controlling interest in fellow electric vehicle manufacturer Bollinger Motors, based in Oak Park. Mullen, headquartered in Brea, Calif., bought a 60 percent stake in Bollinger for $148.2 million, the company said ursday.

DETROIT BUSINESS See PARKING on Page 32 See UKRAINE on Page 31 See TEMO on Page 33

Despite being in the business of luxury and leisure, Vitale isn’t one to relax. Since immigrating to metro Detroit from Italy in 1968 and launching his business two years later, his primary focus has been keeping the company stable.

So, TEMO is standing up a new direct-to-consumer vertical inspired by the do-it-yourself trend of the

Bradley Walker (left), president of TEMO Sunrooms, and Nino Vitale, founder, owner and CEO, in the showroom at TEMO Sunrooms in Clinton Township NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S

Home improvement is a $250.6 billion industry in the U.S., according to data rm IBISWorld. It’s a stat that Vitale has in his back pocket when questioned about growth potential for the company.

For some, complying with Detroit’s parking requirements constitutes a major headache and poses an impediment to business growth.

e 77-year-old founder, owner and CEO of Clinton Township-based TEMO Sunrooms doesn’t understand the concept of working from home, but he doesn’t have to. All he needs to gure out is how it impacts his business, which after 50 years, needs some reinventing.

Walawender

BY KURT NAGL

Surface parking for a recently built building at Gratiot Avenue and Holcomb.

But Vitale has more on his mind than just business trajectory. He’s

| KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS MANUFACTURING EXPANSIONSREAL ESTATE

Vitale grew TEMO (Trust, Enthusiasm, Motivation, Opportunity) to $50 million in annual revenue before sales took a $40 million nosedive during the Great Recession of 2007-09. Sales have since increased steadily to a projected $25 million this year, but Vitale is hungry for more.

“LESS SERVICE.”COVERDEVELOPERORDERAFFORDABILITYANDMARKET-RATEMEANAPARTMENTSRESIDENTIALOVERALLCOULDMOREUNITSLESSINFORTHETOTHEIRDEBT

Cities rethink their requirements ‘to build vibrant neighborhoods’

However, the potential for work for American companies and nonpro ts likely goes well beyond just rebuilding of traditional infrastructure, he said.

—Edward Carrington, Flux City LLC

HOW MUCH PARKING IS ENOUGH?

COVID-19 pandemic and workfrom-home era. e idea is to cut costs and complexity, appeal to more consumers and reduce reliance on contractors.evision is to be the Ikea of sunrooms, or the new “TEMO Depot,” as Vitale explains it.

“ e consumers got the answers,” he said with a cheerful Italian accent during a tour last week of his 120,000-square-foot plant on Hall Road. “I learn from the consumer.”

After 50 years in business, TEMO aims to be Ikea of sunrooms

BY KIRK PINHO

Miller Can eld allianceUkrainianforges

E ort aims to rebuild war-torn country

Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine waged by Russian forces, one Detroit law rm is expanding in the region, hoping to gain a foothold for future work reconstructing the war-ravaged country.Miller Can eld Paddock and Stone PLC, an international law rm with its base of operations in Detroit, withformalhasWednesdaynouncedan-thatitlaunchedaaliationtheDictioLaw

potential for future work in Ukraine, such as rebuilding infrastructure and homes, as well as broader nancial sector needs, harks back to the end of the Cold War when many American companies gained a foothold in formerly Soviet countries, according to Richard Walawender, a principal at Miller Can eld.

also thinking about legacy and what will become of the business if no one in his family wants to carry the torch.

“Bane of my existence,” chuckled Sue Mosey, executive director of

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS 3

All Nino Vitale knows is waking up and going to work.

“As (the war in Ukraine) has been going on, we’ve been getting calls from organizations and even companies who are looking at the next step,” said Walawender, who works in Miller Can eld’s corporate practice, as well on the autonomous and connected vehicles practice team, and is active in the rm’s international practice.

While material prices for TEMO’s outdoor structures have tripled in the past three years and cut margins in half, the labor shortage has left the company and its dealer network struggling to meet demand.

vibrant neighborhoods.”

Midtown Detroit Inc., rattling o varying ways her nonpro t development organization has used things like parking credits, waivers from the Board of Zoning Appeals and even working to get all of the New Center area exempted from parking minimums to ease the burden and comply with city requirements.For example, none of the new restaurants on Woodward — such as Baobob Fare, Supino’s and Joe Louis Kitchen, — “would have been able to open had we (had to have parking),” Mosey said. “Now we have all those businesses there.”She called parking minimums “completely antiquated thinking” that has to be recalibrated “to build

Firm, headquartered in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. e a liation aims to better assist Miller Can eld clients in the present humanitarian e orts in the country, as well as aiding in Ukrainian recovery and reconstruction further down the road.e

Cities around Michigan and the country are rethinking their parking rules.Inrecent weeks, the city of Ann Arbor voted to remove all minimum o -street parking requirements. Detroit is also in the middle of a major review of its zoning code, meaning that new rules regarding how many parking spaces are needed in various parts of the city could be coming for di erent uses like housing, retail and industrial.

“Less overall residential apartments could mean more market-rate units and less a ordability in order for the developer to cover their debt service,” said Carrington, who is working on a project called e Ribbon in Detroit’s East English Village neighborhood.

And Edward Carrington, with Detroit-based developer Flux City LLC, said parking minimums “have the potential to a ect a development’s potential” by forcing di erent building designs, impacting retail tenant selection and even playing a role in how many residential units can be in a project. at, in turn, can impact a ordability.

BY NICK MANES

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e annual sure- re sign that summer is about to be over has begun.I’m not talking about Labor Day now behind us, or the school year starting. Around town, signs for Spirit Halloween and Halloween City stores have been springing up, such as the one I spotted in Oakland Mall in Troy about a weekWhatago.the National Retail Federation says is now a $10 billion spending blitz on costumes and candy is upon us. e average per-person spending has more than doubled since 2005 ($48.48 per person) to last yearCashing($102.74).inon

with the CHIPS Act passage, the semiconductor is certainly one of those,” MEDC CEO Quentin Messer Jr., chair of the Michigan Strategic Fund, told reporters. “Also, we’re seeing the movement to alternative energy sources. Hemlock’s investment and ability to sort of catalyze what they have been doing in their solar operations we viewed, based upon the legislation, as bei ng transformative.”About 30 percent of global electronics requiring a semiconductor chip contain Hemlock polysilicon made in Saginaw County.

Spirit Halloween said in an email that it tries to plop its stores into

Spooky season has arrived in metro Detroit commercial real estate

Contact: david.eggert@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @DavidEggert00

Michigan awards $27M grant to facilitate Hemlock Semiconductor expansion

Halloween City, whose parent company is Party City Holdco Inc. (NYSE: PRTY), said in its 2021 annual report that it had about 90 stores across the country last year operating on four- to six-month leases, typically ranging from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet.

Demand for semiconductors is expected to skyrocket as electric vehicles gain market share, with Michigan well-positioned to take advantage of the demand for a domestic EV supply chain, the MEDC memoHemlock,said. which has about 1,350 employees at its headquarters, anticipates nishing the expansion in 2024, said Jeremy Webb, the MEDC’s interim managing director for business development projects.

Hemlock, west of Saginaw, is the world’s longest-operating manufacturer of polysilicon, which is necessary to make semiconductors and photovoltaic solar panels. e process requires a lot of water, and omas Township — in coordination with Saginaw Township — needs to “profoundly and rapidly” expand sanitary sewer capacity to support the company’s plans, according to a Michigan Economic Development Corp.ememo.$27million for omas Township will come from the Strategic Site Readiness Program in the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund, Michigan’s new incentives account that was created in late 2021. e transfer will require legislative approval.“Ifyougo back to the SOAR legislation, it’s really for industries that will help continue to transform the Michigan economy. Given all the recent spate of activities at the federal level

MANUFACTURING

4 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

all that, Spirit Halloween and Halloween City ood the market, temporarily taking over vacant retail spaces for a couple of months and then leaving.

Troy; Waterford Township; Wyandotte; and HalloweenYpsilanti.City’s footprint in Michigan is ve stores, in Ann Arbor, Brighton, Flint, Rochester Hills and Troy. e company declined to make a representative available for an interview or to answer questions about its real estate strategy via email.

BY DAVID EGGERT

Spirit Halloween said it looks for spaces between 5,000 and 50,000 square feet — which is to say, however big, they’ll take it.

Even if the leases are extremely short term, for landlords whose space those stores occupy, some cash is better than no cash. is year, Spirit Halloween says on its website that it has metro Detroit stores in Allen Park; Ann Arbor; Auburn Hills; Brighton; Canton Township; Center Line; Chester eld Township; Clinton Township; Farmington Hills; Howell; Madison Heights; Novi; Roseville; Shelby Township; Sterling Heights; Taylor;

“power centers, strip centers, free-standing stores, major downtown retail locations and in major malls surrounded by a national retaileremix.”locations are typically open for eight to 10 weeks.

The Spirit Halloween store at Oakland Mall in Troy. | KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Operations at Hemlock Semiconductor Thomas Township, in 2019. | HEMLOCK SEMICONDUCTOR

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

LANSING — Michigan’s economic development board on Wednesday awarded a $27 million grant to upgrade wastewater treatment infrastructure near Hemlock Semiconductor, a move o cials said will help the company spend up to $375 million expanding its facilities and adding up to 170 jobs.

Spirit Halloween is based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., and Halloween City is based about two hours north in East Hanover, N.J.

REAL ESTATE INSIDER

Detroit Pistons forward/center Isaiah Stewart is one of the three prelaunch franchisees. Stewart will open a Taystee’s at a still-to-be-determined location in metro Detroit. Stewart told Crain’s that he became interested in Taystee’s after sampling what it had to o

Jawad, 28, owns and operates Taystee’s Burgers, with three locations operating out of neighborhood gas stations. He is ready to branch out by o ering franchising opportunities. Jawad, who said his company this year will bring in more than $3 million in sales, projects each franchise could see about $2 million in annual sales.

FOOD & DRINK

Taystee’s Burgers o ers 17 menu items including hamburgers, and chicken and sh sandwiches. | FACEBOOK/TAYSTEE’S BURGERS

Dan’s Excavating DENSO DEVCOM DTE Dynatrace EarthLink Elnic GmbH Fairway Engineering LLC Faurecia Federal-Mogul Motorparts Ford Motor Co. Gage Products General Motors Co. GM Student Corps Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Great Lakes Engineering Group LLC Ground Vehicle Systems Center Harman International Hazen and Sawyer Healthmark Industries HELLA Electronics Corp. Hemlock Semiconductor Henkel Horizon Global Ideal Contracting IndustryStar Solutions Intertek IPS Assembly ITC Holdings iTexico ITW Global Automotive Kautex KIRCHHOFF Automotive KUKA Robotics Little Caesars MAHLE MDOT Meritor Michigan Paving and Materials Co. Molex Transportation and Industrial Solutions Mubea NASA NEFCO NREL NS International Oakland University OHM OneMagnify Pilz Plastipak Packaging Inc. Pratt and Miller Precision Control Systems Quicken Loans Rocket Mortgage Roll-Rite Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Siemens AG SME Softura Stellantis Stenco Construction Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems Synergy Prototype Stamping LLC Tesla TI Fluid Systems Trillium Technologies University of Florida University of Michigan

Students who are as prepared for the real world as they are for the classroom. That’s Warrior Strong.

Taystee’s menu includes 17 di erent hamburger options, chicken and sh sandwiches, hot dogs, chicken wings, salads and sides.

Gas station burger business Taystee’s to expand with franchises

Taystee’s Burgers founder and owner Ali Jawad is now o ering franchising opportunities to prospective entrepreneurs. |TAYSTEE’S BURGERS

OUR ENGINEERING STUDENTS LOVE TO NAME-DROP.

College of Engineering

Adient AJAX Paving Amazon American Axle and Manufacturing Aristeo Construction Asahi Kasei Plastics Asset Health BASF Blue Cross Blue Shield BMT Aerospace BorgWarner Bosch Brose CDM Smith City of Detroit Clark Construction Clean Tech Cooper Standard Credera

“Ier. chose Taystee’s (to start a franchise) because I actually like the food,” Stewart said in a text message. “It was the smell of it that attracted me. I was just stopping to get gas one day, then I was ordering food.

Entrepreneur Ali Jawad believes prosperity for aspiring business owners is only 800 square feet away.

“After meeting (Jawad) and taking a deep dive into how the business works, it was a really easy decision. Financially, it t my long-term approach to my future.”Franchising is open to gas station property owners and others who would act as operators of a Taystee’s location. Taystee’s does not pay a fee to the gas station owner to set up shop, which typically take about 800 square feet previously occupied by restaurants such as Subway and Tim Horton’s. e cost of build-out, which is the responsibility of the franchisee, varies depending on the space. A complete build-out runs about $250,000, according to Jawad. Each location has 12-15 employees.

Wayne State University’s College of Engineering would like to thank these industry partners for opening your doors and welcoming our students as interns. Your continued partnership in Detroit and around the globe ensures that together we’re preparing Wayne State students to be ready for the real world even before they earn a degree. Thanks to you, eight out of 10 of our students complete at least one internship before they graduate, providing them with career opportunities as soon as they leave college.

Jawad was 21 years old when he dropped out of Oakland University to start his business and has worked on the franchise model for the past year.

“Going back to the rst store, people wanted us to open more locations,” Jawad said. “I’ve learned a lot on the road to today. I’ve worked with a franchise team, consultants and a legal team to ensure we’re doing this the right way.”

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

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS 5

Jawad opened the rst Taystee’s in 2014 with $20,000 of his own money. He now owns Taystee’s Burgers restaurants in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and another that is to open soon in Ann Arbor. He said he has three franchisees lined up to open stores in St. Clair Shores, Southgate and Detroit — all of whom own gas stations in those areas. ose new locations are expected to open by the second quarter of 2023. Between Jawad’s locations and the three franchises, Jawad projects Taystee’s to cash in with between $13 million and $14 million in sales in 2023.It’s part of Jawad’s plan is to have 20 new franchise sites in metro Detroit ready to go next year. en what? More locations in Ohio and Chicago.

BY JAY DAVIS

Urban Science Vibracoustic Visteon Walbridge Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Waltonen Engineering Wayne State University Weiss Construction Whiting-Turner Xidian University

Franchisees pay a $20,000 fee that includes sta training. Each franchisee pays an 8 percent royalty fee based on gross sales, but no fees for marketing, Jawad“Whensaid.Icreated the model, I wanted to put myself in a franchisee’s shoes,” said Jawad, who opened the rst Taystee’s in an east Dearborn BP gas station owned by his grandfather. “You see other businesses o ering franchising opportunities that aren’t really open to everyone. I wanted to make this opportunity more appealing to a broader audience.”at broader audience even includes Detroit athletes.

simple agenda item at a special meet ing of the Michigan Strategic Fund last week might be telling a bigger story. e board voted to direct $27 million to omas Township near Saginaw for sewer work critical toward a business expansion by Hemlock Semiconductor, which makes ma terials used in microchip manufacturing. Hemlock plans a $375 million expansion that it says will create 170 jobs.

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

Are lawmakers listening?

IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTOGETTY THE INDUSTRY.SEMICONDUCTORPROJECTSWINHELPUPTHATAPPEARSSTRATEGYTOBEBEEFINGHEMLOCKCANMICHIGANNEWINTHE

Are lawmakers listening?

Does Hemlock grant signal end of big swings?

Whatever your opinion of government economic development support, such mon ey is considered table stakes by companies looking for sites. And SOAR so far proved that it can be a tool that can help Michigan up its game when it comes to preparation of the gi gantic sites needed for major projects.

Hemlock’s project, though an expansion in an industry Michigan economic develop ment o cials would like to target for growth, doesn’t really strike the same chord and rais es questions about whether there are any more big swings in the works.

Are lawmakers listening?

Tom Judd is the directorexecutiveof the Michigan Brain Injury Council.Provider

ith the recent Court of Ap peals decision declaring a draconian fee schedule and invasive family care limits to crash victims injured prior to auto reform to be uncon stitutional, now is a good time to re ect on the voices of this debate and ask the question: Who are lawmakers listening to as they continue refusing to x the Michigan cata strophic care crisis that they started?

University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions called the fee caps “unnecessarily stringent and out of line with national peers, causing a crisis in access to care for victims of cata strophic accidents.” e Michigan Public Health Institute published a study on the im pact of arbitrary fee caps, documenting nearly 7,000 discharges and over 4,000 jobs lost.

tion.When the Court of Appeals recently deemed it unconstitutional to apply the fee schedule to crash victims that entered into contracts prior to the law, IAM declared this would impact future premiums. is spin is an example of their e ort to twist facts to strike fear. e truth is this judgment has no bearing on future rates because it only ap plies to people whose care is already paid for and reserved in the Michigan Catastrophic Claims

Over a dozen state and national disability advocates have written letters to legislative leadership urging action. National organiza tions like the Christopher & Dana Reeves Foundation and state organizations like Dis ability Rights Michigan and the Michigan League for Public Policy have made public pleas to restore a system that adequately cares for people with brain and spinal cord injuries.Arelawmakers listening?

e strategy appears to be that bee ng up Hemlock can help Michigan win new proj ects in the semiconductor industry, a focus for Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO Quentin Messer.

But the source of that state grant might be the real news. It’s coming from the state’s rel atively new $1 billion Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve fund, better known as SOAR.SOAR was created to help Michigan pay for site preparation to take “big swings” at luring major develop ments like General Motors’ $7 billion in EV investments near Lansing and Ford’s $2 billion expansion in Michigan, the only other two develop ments to net SOAR money.efund was creat ed in urgency late last year by the Legislature after word of Ford’s massive $11 billion invest ment in EV and battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee sparked worries that Michigan’s signature industry is looking elsewhere as it transforms itself for an electric future.

Legislature isn’t listening on crisis for car-wreck victims

It’s clear what IAM — and its legislative enablers — want. IAM exists to protect the already exorbitant pro ts of their members. We need brave lawmakers to stand up to leadership and say it’s time to stop listening to the insurance industry. e need for a x is overdue. It is time for urgent action that re ects the needs of our most vulnerable cit izens and the will of the people.

COMMENTARY

irty-six counties across the state, repre senting over 62 percent of Michigan’s popu lation, have passed resolutions calling for the Legislature to make amendments to the law in order to protect the care their citizens need and paid for.

TOM JUDD

“If you go back to the SOAR legislation, it’s really for industries that will help continue to transform the Michigan economy. Given all the recent spate of activities at the federal level with the CHIPS Act passage, the semi conductor is certainly one of those,” Messer toldWereporters.hopethat pans out — diversifying Michigan’s economy is critical. But we also have to wonder what it means that we’re nickel-and-diming a limited fund with an uncertain future that’s intended to lure big ger sh. After the Hemlock grant, the SOAR fund will have $206 million left in the tank.

BUSINESSDETROITCRAIN’S EDITORIAL

A steady stream of crash victims has trekked virtually weekly to the Capitol for over a year. ousands more have sent emails and letters calling for urgent action.

If they are not listening to families, re searchers, small business owners — who are they listening to? ey’re listening to the deep-pocketed Insurance Alliance of Michi gan, the powerful lobbying organization for the auto insurance industry.

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.

Small businesses have opened up their books to their legislators and shown the math behind how they cannot survive a gov ernment-imposed revenue cut of nearly 50 percent.Arelawmakers listening?

6 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

Please include your complete name, city from which you are writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes.

But it seems likely that in order to get that next $500 million, the governor and MEDC had better have a big sh already on the hook.

IAM ghts against public hearings on bills that could solve our care crisis even as rates for Michigan drivers are demonstrably not decreasing; in fact, rates are on the rise — you can check yourself in state lings. In a statewide poll, two-thirds of Michigan driv ers stated that their rates have not gone down and over one-third stated their rates have actually gone up. Meanwhile, in De troit, which impacts overall state averages, average premiums remain highest in the na

Meanwhile,Association.IAM continues to falsely im pugn an entire industry devoted to the reha bilitation and care of crash victims. ey have done so with broad statements about “rampant fraud” or “overcharging” without an iota of evidence to support it.

now, we have three years of gradu ates learning remotely looking for places.”CoStar data put rents near the Uni versity of Michigan at $1,732 a month, among the highest in the re gion. ose rents are almost 4 per cent higher than they were the year prior.Unless market forces change, Ehn said she doesn’t anticipate much easing.“Idon’t see rents coming down,” she said. “ e demand is de nitely going up.”

“People can forgo a lot of things, but food and shelter, you have to pay,” he said. “ ere’s less service for high er rates. ere’s a lot of friction now.”

Still, average rent growth in metro Detroit is 5.14 percent annually; it’s 7.14 percent in metro Ann Arbor. Be tween both regions, the largest annu al increase was in Saline, where rents are up 26.56 percent to $1,311 month ly. Rents in the Birmingham and Bloom eld areas average $1,815 a month, the priciest in the area, though they’re down from a high of $1,857 a month earlier this year. e west side of Detroit, where rents aver age $726 monthly, is the most a ord able.Brian Fineran, CoStar’s director of market analytics, said a rush of rent ers hoping to lock in rates, rising in terest rates and home sales prices and higher costs, including for mainte nance workers, helped drive up rents. He said in ation also played a role.

BCB144885_MSG_CrainsDetBus_JDP_9-12-22_Ins_F1.indd 1 8/30/22 5:16 PM

REAL ESTATE IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTOGETTY

At Real Property Management in Troy, Leasing Manager Debbie Frye said maintenance costs have gone up “tremendously” since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Her company manages more than 400 properties, most in Detroit. Frye said over the past two or three weeks, rents and demand have slowed down. at usually doesn’t happen until later in the fall, she said.

Metro Detroit rents near all-time highs but starting to soften

Nelson blamed some of the in creases on government fees and re quirements, saying inspections that are supposed to check rental homes for health and safety reasons are now looking at aesthetics, and charging fees for reinspections and to get rent al licenses.“eywant these homes repaired to a higher standard than reason able,” he said. “We’re really feeling huge regulatory pressures.”

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Asking rents are $1,214 a month in the metro area, according to CoStar Group Inc., a third-quarter gure that averages out the costs of rental units regardless of size. It’s a slight dip from asking rents of $1,219 a month in the previous quarter. In metro Ann Arbor, average asking rents are up to $1,443 a month; they were $1,427 monthly for the preceding quarter.

e metro Detroit rental market is just starting to soften, even as market rents remain close to all-time highs.

Nelson also said maintenance costs have risen, and those costs are getting passed on to tenants. He said investors are holding back on buying new property for fear of a recession.

Ehn said student housing prices were locked in last fall, keeping rents from skyrocketing. But supply re mains tight and demand is high, and she said there’s a need for more housing in the area. e city recently rezoned land near Briarwood Mall to include more housing.

Alice Ehn, the executive o cer of the Washtenaw Area Apartment Associa

“We have to watch this weekly,” she said. “We don’t want to overprice property. It’s not to the owner’s ad vantage.”RoyalOak, in particular, has seen a decrease in demand, she said. CoStar data puts average rents in Royal Oak, Clawson and Ferndale at $1,226 monthly, a 5.4 percent annual in crease but just $3 higher than the pre viousStill,quarter.rentsare showing strength in Macomb County, said Daniel Nelson, CEO of Nelson Property Manage ment. He manages about 400 sin gle-family rental homes in Macomb County and eastern Oakland County and said rents are up about 10 per cent on those properties. Even so, he’s seeing more renewals as people con sider the cost to move, and high pric es elsewhere, and decide to stay put.

ARIELLE KASS

“It’s increasingly out of whack,” Ehn said of those who want to live in Ann Arbor vs. what’s available. “Right

tion, said sales typically lead to higher rents.InAnn Arbor, Ehn said, high utility prices and delayed upgrades because landlords couldn’t get into apart ments during the pandemic are lead ing to some of the cost increases.

Proudest achieve ment: “I can’t pin point to one speci c moment, but my memories of serving people in the city are de nitely some thing I look back fondly on,” Kung said. “Just people who enjoy the food I make for them, and being able to do that … I would say that’s a proud achievement of mine.”

McBradyKaty

Fun fact: “I have a massively overpowered sound system in my bathroom because I like to sing in the shower but don’t want anyone to hear me,” Kung said.

Proudest achievement: Getting the job. “I’ve done a lot of work in the background (establishing) the building blocks to get to this point, and I’m truly humbled to be able to do what I love in my hometown.”

8 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS 2022 UNDER FORTY

What’s next: In 2023, she wants to make the Atwater brand known as “Detroit’s beer” by putting new twists on old favorites and ac celerating innovation to pull more consum ers into the craft beer space.

—Jon Kung

President | Atwater Brewery

Career trajectory: After graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a bache lor’s in theater arts and creative writing in 2007, and earning a law degree from Uni versity of Detroit Mercy a few years later, Jon Kung spent a lot of time working in restaurants, and even founded their own in Eastern Market, Kung Food Market Stu dio. e pandemic struck, and the restau rant closed.enKung’s TikTok took o . It’s now the chef’s full-time job.

Words of wisdom: “ ere’s no such thing as a stupid question. You’ll nd that the more you ask, the more people who know are willing to mentor you and bring you along for the trip.” Rachel Watson

Career trajectory: An English major at Cen tral Michigan University, McBrady intended to go to law school after graduating college in 2009, but the recession and increasing cost of tuition at the time caused her to rethink that plan. She worked as a server at Detroit bars before getting connected with a local Anheus er-Busch distributor, which was her entry into the beer industry. “It gave me a really great vantage point on all the di erent routes that you can take in your career with beverage, and ultimately, I made the decision after being ro manticized by the industry, that I wanted to stick (with) beer for the bulk of my career.”

“I consider myself more of a content cre ator than an in uencer,” Kung said. “On the content creation side of things, I’m essential ly a one-man lm crew — videogra pher, editor, produc er — and in my case, also a chef … I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I always wonder how long it will take me to realize that this is my life now.”

Advice: Be open-minded about opportu nities. “I had no idea that my whole life was essentially preparing me to do this for a career, to create content, rst with writ ing, and then professional life as a cook,” Kung said. “My profession didn’t exist when I was in college and the platform that launched my career (TikTok) didn’t exist before 2016.”

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Over the next dozen years, she worked at West Side Beer Distributing, North Ameri can Breweries (now FIFCO), e Boston Beer Company, Red Bull and Classic Bever age of Southern California, where she most recently was vice president of sales and marketing before taking a leap to apply for the role of president at Atwater.

What’s next: Kung is working on a cook book, which is in the editing and revisions stage.

Content Creator, Kung Food Media

—

Don’t call them rising stars: ese 40 luminaries have already ascended. CEOs, presidents, founders, mayors and other top execs make up this constellation. ey were nominated by their colleagues and peers and selected through a rigorous review process by Crain’s Detroit Business reporters and editors. Keep your eyes on the sky: We expect they’ll be shining for years to come.

Photography by Nic Antaya

Photographed at Detroit Opera House and e Fillmore Detroit

Anna Fifelski

“I HAD NO IDEA THAT MY CAREER.”THISMEPREPARINGESSENTIALLYLIFEWHOLEWASTODOFORA

Jon Kung | 38

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She eld’s career began at the Wayne County Community College District, where she worked as international program coor dinator and nancial aid adviser. She also performed disciplinary hearings at the Wayne County Sheri ’s o ce and served as a member of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations Inc.

SheMary eld | 35

Career trajectory: In 2013, Mary She eld made history when she became the young est person ever elected to Detroit City Coun cil.Now, she serves as the city’s youngest council president.

Horace She eld Jr. founded the Detroit Trade Union Labor Council, which sought to break down racial barriers for workers of color in the city. Her father, Horace L. Shef eld III, serves as a pastor and executive di rector of DABO.

Proudest achievement: “Making history as the youngest was de nitely something that I was proud of, but I was more proud of the work and the impact that I’ve been able to accomplish.”Sheeldhas helped pass historic legisla tion, including the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that mandates some housing is allocated to low-income Detroiters; the Right to Council Ordinance, which provides free legal counsel for low-income residents facing eviction; and the establishment of a reparations task force.

“I stand on the shoulders of giants like my grandfather, who was instrumental in the progress of really creating the middle class in Detroit,” she said.

She eld said running for other o ces is a possibility, but her biggest motivator is to serve, whether that’s on council or in anoth er “I’mcapacity.very big on purpose and being aligned with what God has in store for me … Wherev er the residents choose to put me, I will serve.”

President, Detroit City Council

Words of wisdom: “I am a walking testimo ny that if there’s a vision or a purpose over your life, the provisions are there for you. I believe that oftentimes, we count ourselves out, or we second-guess ourselves, especial ly women in leadership … You may not see the full picture or understand how it is all going to come together, but if the vision is there, and it is aligned with your purpose, the provisions are there, too. You just have to trust the process.”

What’s next: “I always want to be chal lenged, and I always want to go where I feel that I can be of value.”

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | C R AIN’S D ETROI T B USIN E SS 9

Minnah Arshad

| 37

Proudest achievement: Buskard, a past Crain’s Notable LGBTQ honoree, said his greatest achievement as an entrepreneur has nothing to do with Bobcat Bonnie’s bottom“...line.We have created a restaurant group that really values people and puts them rst in our decisions,” Buskard said. “It feels great seeing us be ourselves and be accepted.”

Sherri Welch

Proudest achievement: Being part of the team that formally launched the Detroit Parks Coalition.

Meza joined Wayne County’s economic development department as a research manager, and quickly became a key person managing the distribution of federal funding in the coronavirus pandemic, starting a loan program and supporting small businesses. It was the “most exhausting and challenging thing I’ve ever done,” she said. Meza became the department’s deputy director last fall and was named to the top role in February.

“I nished my degree and moved into management,” Buskard said. “ en nally moved into ownership after spending years making money for other people.”

10 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Luz Viviana Meza | 31

What’s next: A lot of businesses didn’t have what they needed to access government funds during the pandemic, and Meza expects to spend a good portion of the next ve years instructing businesses on how to legitimize themselves by getting appropriate licensing so they can be eligible for federal dollars that continue to be distributed.

Career trajectory: “My career trajectory is a little bit — I don’t want to say unintentional, but I let the wind carry me to the next place and I just nd it,” Luz Viviana Meza said. A Mexican immigrant, Meza has spent a lot of time working for immigrant rights, including for in-state tuition for undocumented residents. She became a business liaison for the city of Detroit after graduating from the University of Michigan with an economics degree and did a lot of work creating programming for small businesses, particularly those in the Latin-American community.

What she does for fun: e New York Times Sunday crossword, baking, gardening and walks in the park, especially with her 8-month-old son.

More broadly, she’s looking at an in ux of federal money that will be used to support workforce development and other county goals to improve sustainability and accessibility and make the county a desirable place to do business.

Career trajectory: Sigal Hemy, who grew up in Pittsburgh, came to Michigan for college and never left. After earning her undergraduate degree in music performance at Michigan State University in 2010, she went on to earn her MBA and a master’s of music performance at the University of Michigan. She helped administer arts programs for ve years, through roles in the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Kresge Foundation’s arts program where she did community outreach, branding and website development and the UM School of Music, eater and Dance as arts education program coordinator. In 2016, while pursuing her MBA, she joined the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation as a fellow and stayed on as a program o cer for nearly ve years.

Career trajectory: Matthew Buskard has a long history in the restaurant business. e Bobcat Bonnie’s owner, who started the business in May 2015, started as a server and bartender in college before managing a Bar Louie location. ere are now seven Bobcat Bonnie’s locations — six in Michigan and one in Toledo.

Sigal Hemy | 34

“Keep pushing forward,” she said. “For people who are feeling a little bit lost, it’ll come. It isn’t always the opportunity you had in mind, but it’ll come to you.”

Director of Economic Development, Wayne County

Executive Director, Detroit Parks Coalition

Proudest achievement: While government aid was available for many struggling businesses and individuals at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, that wasn’t the case for undocumented residents. Meza and some others started a GoFundMe to try to

Lesson learned: To be yourself and do something you are passionate about. “I think people succeed when they play to their personal strengths instead of trying to be something they are not,” Hemy said.

Owner, Bobcat Bonnie’s

Words of wisdom: Meza said it’s important to nd leadership you believe in and trust.

BuskardMatthew

them with each other to share best practices and with external groups for programming.

What’s next: Buskard said the plan is to open more Bobcat Bonnie’s in the future. e entrepreneur said he’s looking to create

help those that were shut out of the system. She said more than 200 families were helped with the $60,000 that was raised. She knew those dollars were making an impact over the six months or so that the program was operational. “My community needs a lot more than what I can do 9 to 5,” she said.

What’s next: Securing 501(c)3 nonpro t status and putting operational policies in place around human resources, nance and operation, while securing new funding for the coalition’s park members and helping connect

Separately, she joined the People for Palmer Park board, one of the groups that came together in 2018 to found the Detroit Parks Coalition to collaborate on programs, fundraising and advocacy. After three years on the board and a year and a half of volunteering for the coalition, the group hired her as interim executive director in August 2021. She led efforts to secure grants to formalize the ad hoc

coalition and doubled its membership to 10 neighborhood groups and major downtown park conservancies. e coalition hired Hemy as its inaugural executive director in January.

Arielle Kass

Words of wisdom: His uncle used to say, “You

Surprising fact: He’s a helicopter pilot in his free time.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | C R AIN’S D ETROI T B USIN E SS | 11

show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.” Jbara said although it might be harsh, he believes it’s true. “If you’re willing to work hard for some thing, and you’re willing to put in the e ort, if you don’t want to lose and you’re not OK with losing, then I think that helps make everybody better.”

“I WANT TO BE ON AN EPISODE ‘HOARDERS.’OFILOVECLEANINGSOIWANTTOHELPCLEANONEOFTHOSEHOUSES.”

Steve Jbara | 34

He said his other great achievement is helping to found Air Company, which converts carbon di oxide into alcohol-based products and fuels. “It’s really cool to be involved with a company that’s actually doing something to help combat climate change … but then doing it in a way where the product and the output is a usable, or consum able, in some cases.”

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—Matthew Buskard

Jay Davis

Proudest achievement: He has two: In 2020, the Pistons dropped the Drive just as all sporting events were shutting down due to COVID, and Jbara set out to nd a new NBA team to a liate with. He convinced the Denver Nuggets to sign an agreement that allowed him to keep the team in Grand Rapids and rename it the Gold.

Jbara had no capital when he set out to buy the team, and so he gathered 428 investors to fund the venture. Some of these investors later tasked him with spearheading their other startups, which is how he got involved with the four additional com panies on this list.

Career trajectory: Steve Jbara, a Kalamazoo na tive, earned degrees in marketing and computer science from Trine University in 2010. He started his career at the Detroit-based global information rm R.L. Polk, which supplied insights to the auto motive industry until its 2013 acquisition by IHS. He went on to work for Ford Motor Co. for two years while launching his entrepreneurial journey in the sports business. He said a chance meeting at a bar with retired Detroit Pistons player and thenNBA executive Joe Dumars gave him the idea to acquire a development league team called the Spring eld Armor in Spring eld, Mass., and move it to Grand Rapids. e Armor was renamed the Grand Rapids Drive and began to play the 2014-15 season as an a liate of the Pistons.

Reality star?: Almost everyone at some point hopes to be on TV. e show Buskard would like to be featured in is an interesting one. “I want to be on an episode of ‘Hoarders’,” Buskard said. “I love cleaning so I want to help clean one of those houses.”

Rachel Watson

and acquire spaces that make sense for the company and the communities it chooses to call Buskardhome.is currently ghting to receive funds he believes Bobcat Bonnie’s is owed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, having led a lawsuit in September 2021 against the U.S. Small Business Administration for un paid Restaurant Revitalization Funds.

In 2018, she approached the board about helping and was hired as a part-time consultant for six months before she was named COO. In April, she was named CEO.

Proudest achievement: 365 Markets had started to look for new investors in 2019, but had to stop its search because of the pan demic in 2020. In October 2020, the compa ny restarted an accelerated process and completed it in three months. Morales Wes terman said she presented the company to potential investors, overseeing the accumu lation of very large quantities of data and information about the business. e pro cess, dubbed “Project Garage” internally, resulted in the sale of the company and a new majority investor.

Robert Schumaker | 39

Proudest achievement: Spurring and leading the investment of $5 million of the zoo’s $40 million portfolio in socially and environmentally responsible companies that align with its mission and are per forming in line with other investments.

Proudest achievement: Being a woman of color in a leadership position and hearing her mother say she is proud and this is why they came to the U.S. and hearing other women and people of color congratulate her for getting to this point in her career.

Advice to other nonpro t CFOs: Be curi ous and ask questions. Spending quality time with fellow leaders and learning about how they operate and what keeps them up at night is invaluable. You’ll make better decisions with these learnings than with data alone.

What’s next: Launching a capital cam paign to improve and expand the Freedom House building.

Career trajectory: While earning a bache lor’s of business administration from Cen tral Michigan University in 2006, Robert Schumaker interned twice with Plante Moran PLLC’s East Lansing o ce. After graduating, he spent nearly six years at the rm in its nonpro t audit practice, work ing with associations, foundations and health care organizations. He then joined beauty school and salon operator Douglas J Management LLC where he served as ex ecutive director of nance for more than ve years before joining the Detroit Zoo logical Society as director of nance in 2015. e zoo named him COO in Decem ber after he shepherded it through nan cial modeling that enabled it to be nimble in responding to the pandemic. He led the zoo through deep cuts made early in the pandemic to prioritize animal welfare and virtual education and helped it secure fed

Morales Westerman said she doesn’t typi cally plan out her career in terms of “What title do I want to achieve?” or “What level do I want to be?” She said, for her, her career trajectory is aimed more toward what chal lenges she wants to take on and what keeps her interested and excited.

Career trajectory: Brittany Morales Wester man received a master’s in business adminis tration, operations and corporate strategy from the University of Michigan in 2014, which she used alongside her bachelor’s de gree from the University of Michigan’s Col lege of Engineering to start a career in busi ness technology and operations. Morales Westerman previously worked at General Motors and DTE Energy before starting at Troy-based 365 Retail Markets in 2015 as a se nior business analyst.

CFO, Detroit Zoological Society

Lesson learned: You are going to stumble, feel out of place, feel that imposter syn drome, but you’re right where you belong.

Surprising fact: She climbed a 14,000-foot mountain in Peru when she was 30.

CEO, Freedom House

Current business goal: Growth. Morales Westerman said her goals include acquiring four to six businesses for 365 Retail Markets annually.

the Alzheimer’s Association Greater Michi gan Chapter, rst on a contract basis and then as the on-sta director of contracts and information management. After four years, she went back into consulting, work ing with Camp Casey and Freedom House — whose board she served on from 2012 to 2017 — to improve operations. e board role gave her insight into the operational weaknesses at Freedom House, which pro vides housing, basic needs, legal aid, job assistance and other supports to 125 to 135 asylum seekers, refugees and others seek ing humanitarian protection each year from its Southwest Detroit building.

you need to pivot as an organization.

“I had also just returned from maternity leave, so that was a chaotic, yet really excit ing time for me. at process was chock-full of very hard work, and it empowered me to showcase a variety of skills in order to ac complish each task, whether it was my own knowledge and abilities or leveraging the re sources and relationships that I have to ex cel,” Morales Westerman said.

Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez | 36

Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Operations, 365 Retail Markets

— Anna Fifelski

“Being an immigrant myself ... I realized this was an organization I really wanted to help. (It) reminded me a lot of the strug

Lesson learned: You can’t plan for every nancial scenario, no matter how predict able your business model. Stay exible and be ready to take quick action when

Brittany WestermanMorales|34

12 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

from Mexico when she was less than a year old, Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez lived in Cal ifornia until the age of 5 or 6 before moving to Southwest Detroit with her mother and little sister to be near extended family. She graduated from Cass Technical High School and entered the bachelor’s of business track at Davenport University. As she’s worked to complete her degree, she’s moved through a number of nonpro t roles. In 2010, she started part time at Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, enrolling clients in Medicaid and over the next seven years moved through the ranks to deputy director of information and grants management. She spent a year as a quality assurance manager for software company BRT Inc. before launching a non pro t consultancy and going to work with

gles my own family and (I) went through coming to the U.S. as immigrants, with no safety net,” Orozco-Vasquez said.

“I have a background in consulting, so the concept of change — whether that’s chang ing projects, roles or whatever I’m doing, simply maintaining a versatile approach to things — that’s kind of stayed consistent in my life. It’s more of “what opportunities do I have in front of me and how can I continue to grow my skill set and take on more new exciting things?” Morales Westerman said.

Current business goal: To identify oppor tunities to increase the zoo’s earned (aka ticket) revenue by identifying new pro grams to activate the zoo’s central, veacre trail, like the current Dinosauria ex hibit.

Advice: “To answer the call — to say yes to an opportunity, to explore it.”

Sherri Welch

Career trajectory: After coming to the U.S.

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eral relief dollars to help put the beloved institution on stable nancial footing.

Sherri Welch

Call

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Advice? Follow your passion. Success comes easiest when you are doing what makes you happy and working toward something you truly believe in.

Adam Meldrum | 39

Words of wisdom: At the end of the day, Redding said doing something good is more important than money. “It’s really important to make sure the work that you do is ful lling,” she said. “Find something that ful lls you.”

What’s next: “Between now and November, just getting through the election season.” Longer term, he wants to grow AdVictory’s footprint, particularly in the TV space, and expand Strauss Bros.

Proudest achievement: When Campbell was promoted to CNO, the hospital faced an impending accredi-

Career trajectory: Ashley Redding was always interested in psychology, but realized as she was applying to Ph.D. programs that the path she’d imagined as a child no longer t. She went the public health route instead, and an internship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she studied violence in the transgender community was eye-opening for her. ere, she said, she learned that her social justice interests could inform the work she did: “My career doesn’t have to be separate from my beliefs,” she said.

He worked on Republican campaigns across the U.S. and in 2015 founded his company. It specializes in buying TV, digital, radio and other ads for candidates to reach voters.

tation survey by state agencies to ensure the hospital was in compliance with safety standards. She also needed to get a new inpatient dialysis program up and running — on top of her daily CNO duties, of course. e hospital passed the survey with only two citations, which were recti ed quickly. It was the lowest citation count in the hospital’s history.

the Patient-Engaged Research Center and said her focus is on elevating the voices of patients, caregivers and family members in research, where they’re often second thoughts. She’s focused on research regarding lifestyle and environmental factors that a ect pregnancy in Detroit, and is interested in working with patients to generate questions and nd out what others haven’t looked at.

tal factors a ecting pre-term birth.

Proudest achievement: For several years, Redding was involved with e orts to end the tampon tax in Michigan, a measure that was passed last year and went into e ect in February. She said the existence of a 6 percent tax on menstrual products — the only medically necessary items that were taxed in the state — was “eyebrow raising” in its sexism, and eliminating it would help people who struggled to a ord period products. “You follow the rules without realizing that maybe not all of the rules are fair,” she said of her activism.

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“ e worst thing that can happen to any business or with any career trajectory is you just get paralyzed ... thinking everything has to be perfect or everything has to be aligned to make a move. Sometimes you’ve just got to jump and go.”

Congratulations on your recognition as one of Crain’s Detroit Business 40 Under 40 Laura is a litigation partner who specializes in supply chain, shareholder and complex commercial disputes and whose practice nationwide.extends Detroit | Bloomfield Hills | Macomb County | Grand Rapids Midland | Lansing | Kalamazoo | Muskegon | Holland Learn more at wnj.com

Career trajectory: Adam Meldrum, a Clinton Township native and Birmingham resident, graduated from Michigan State University with a political science degree. He got his start in politics on John McCain’s presidential campaign, at one point managing a press plane, and was hooked.

Epidemiologist, Henry Ford Health

Laura You Partner

der, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Proudest achievement: One is being on the board of directors at HeadCount, a nonpartisan organization that helps music lovers at concerts and online register to vote. He calls the group’s work “absolutely amazing” and is honored to serve alongside the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, another board member. Professional highlights include working to elect former Gov. Rick Sny-

Words of wisdom: Stay humble and aggressive, be concise, focus on communication and make decisions.

“I was new, all of my managers were new,” Campbell said. “But we did really well. I think we were able to accomplish this because all of our leaders tend to work the oor at times, working alongside other nurses and sta . It shows them we’re not so far removed that we don’t understand the impact of our decisions.”

Career trajectory: Meghan Campbell started her nursing career in 2009 at a skilled nursing facility before moving to surgical care at Hillsdale Hospital months later. Since then, she’s steadily been moving up the ranks from a medical surgical nurse to a house supervisor to a charge nurse of medical surgical nursing to infection control coordinator for the entire hospital. Each new position added new responsibility. But her management skills blossomed as the hospital’s clinical manager of medical surgical and critical care units and eventually the director of inpatient services, where she managed 65 employees and three departments.InSeptember 2021, she took over the role of chief nursing o cer, overseeing all of the hospital’s roughly 250 nurses and 100 nursing assistants.

David Eggert

Founder and President, AdVictory

What’s next: Redding works with

Meghan Campbell, 35

Ashley Redding (Rapp) | 25

e business, which generates $10 million in revenue annually, has grown to roughly 15 full-time employees in Washington, D.C., Grand Rapids and Detroit, and has close to 200 clients this cycle. He also is senior adviser at DDC, a public a airs rm based in Washington. And he is helping his wife, Christina Parrott, relaunch and rebrand the former Eastern Market butchery Strauss Bros. Co., which her grandfather and father co-owned before its closure.

Dustin Walsh Chief Nursing O cer, Hillsdale Hospital

Redding graduated with her master’s degree in epidemiology during the pandemic and started working at Henry Ford Health, where she focuses on environmen-

Arielle Kass

14 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

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Career trajectory: Laura You began working at Rocket Cos. (when it was still Quicken Loans) right after graduating from Albion College. e mortgage business provided a stable and lucrative life for about threeand-a-half years, but it was never the end game. at was law school, which You completed at Wayne State University, graduating summa cum laude, before being scooped up by Warner Norcross + Judd.

Kurt Nagl

“We have a dominating position with the purchase market,” he said. “ e macro environment is allowing us to put ourselves in that position.”

Proudest Achievement: When it comes to de ning life and career events, You points to a tier-one automotive supplier dispute case she led for ve years.

Career trajectory: A member of the Michigan State University track team, Kolo was looking for ways to stay at the university for ve years when a junior-year internship at Ernst & Young led him to get his master’s in accounting and stay at the school. He worked at Ernst & Young, in the fraud investigation dispute division, after graduation, but left for Conway MacKenzie because his mom was ill and he wanted to travel less. ere, he did fraud and investigation work before moving to the Siegfried Group, where he was managing director and ran the Detroit o ce. e growth at United Wholesale Mortgage attracted Kolo and he joined as the chief business o cer, taking on investor relations duties when the company went public.

Arielle Kass

Laura You | 39

Proudest achievement: “What I’m most proud of, when I look back, are the relationships that I have built — and more so maintained — over a 20-plus year period of being an

adult. I’ve been fortunate to work in industries and hold positions where I got to do a lot of cool things and meet a lot of cool people as part of my job. But ultimately it was the connections that were made and kept with di erent people along the way that both helped me in my career but also helped me grow as a person that I am most proud of.”

16 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

“One of the great things about the law is there’s always room to learn to grow and to improve constantly,” she said.

What’s next: Kolo wants UWM to

What’s next: Although You isn’t

“I was shipping milk back home to my ve-month-old son every single day and prepping for trial,” she said. “So, it kind of encapsulated my career as an associate and really drove my path to partnership, and it was also really challenging personally but also really rewarding … and we got a really great outcome in that case, so it was all worth it.”

For many years, Van Tine’s work had her on both coasts, working for a time in the media sector, at startups and as an associate in the venture capital sector. But in early 2020, she was back in Michigan and helped launch the Michigan Founders Fund, a nonpro t comprised of startup founders and investors that o ers networking and mentorship opportunities, while also growing a philanthropic giving fund.

You left her family for the trial in Delaware, balancing her biggest case to date with caring for a newborn son.

Words of wisdom: “It’s never really enough to sit back and be happy with what you’ve got,” she said. “You owe it to yourself to explore your passion, and if you’re brave enough to do that, and it doesn’t work out, you’ll gure out what your fall-back plan is.”

Nick Manes

Proudest achievement: Kolo was involved in taking UWM public last year, something he said put the company in a position of strength while it continues to grow. e work was “not easy,” he said, “especially during a period of such uncertainty.”

Partner, Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Executive Vice President, Chief Business O cer and Head of WholesaleRelations,InvestorUnitedMortgage

Career trajectory: Trista Van Tine describes her career thus far as “non-linear.”Growing up in rural Lapeer County and eventually receiving a master’s from the London School of Economics, the nonpro t executive was pretty sure Michigan would not be the focal point of her career.

“When I started on it, I was a junior associate, and by the time that case ended, I was married with children,” You said. “ e case went to trial about two months after I returned from maternity leave with my rst child.”

Trista Van Tine, 37

KoloBlake| 39

“When you come from that space — especially in startups — you’re used to adapting quickly, to moving quickly, to wearing many hats simultaneously within one role,” said Van Tine. “And I think that lends itself well to actually starting and founding a nonpro t in the same way that it does to a tech company.”

Words of wisdom: “I’m like a spark plug. I always nd positive energy and I always nd a way to say yes,” Kolo said. He said someone with a positive attitude is an attribute on anyHeteam.also encouraged people to network thoughtfully. He keeps a list of 20 people on his desk and said he makes sure he stays current in their lives by tracking how often he reaches out. “If it goes too long, it’s not natural,” he said.

content being content, she said there is plenty of impact to make and projects to explore at Warner Norcross + Judd, where she plans to stay until retirement.

be the No. 1 mortgage originator in America, something he expects to happen by the end of this year.

Now, it’s second only to hometown rival Rocket, Kolo said, and with UWM focused on expanding the broker network for mortgage originations, and re nancing down, he said the e ort is well underway.

And indeed, for years, it was not.

‘Kind of an adrenaline junkie:’ Citing her love of entrepreneurship, Van Tine says she needs action and adventure in her life. at has included skydiving, hiking mountains in Switzerland and a planned trip to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. For a slower pace, Van Tine said she paddleboards the Huron River with her two dogs.

Executive Director and Co-founder, Michigan Founders Fund

ISHAPHERE

Career trajectory: Abdullah Hammoud had every intention of becoming a doctor and began his college career at the University of Michigan studying biology. He said he applied to medical school three times after earning his degree and faced harsh rejections. It was then when Hammoud decided to turn his attention to public health. He earned a master’s in public health in 2012 and an MBA from University of Michigan in 2019.Hammoud said he became focused on the social determinants of wellness and the predictability of illness through his work as a senior strategic intelligence consultant for Health Alliance Plan/Henry Ford Health System.In2015, Hammoud suddenlylost his older brother, motivating him to run for state o “Hece. was a big brother to all who knew him, and I wanted to be for my community what he was for all of the people in his life,” HammoudHammoudsaid.won a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives in 2017 and served three terms. During his tenure Hammoud secured $10 million for Dearborn Public Schools, $6.7 million to build Henry Ford College’s Entrepreneur and Innovation

What’s next: “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I sort of don’t know what’s next,” Siegel said. Still, she has dreams to make Lafayette American one of the greatest creative agencies in the world, and hopes to expand the roster of national, and global, clients as the company continues to grow.

Words of wisdom: “You just never know what opportunities present themselves,” Siegel said. “You’ll know what feels right, or what doesn’t, along the way.”

“I had to learn very quickly what our operations were,” said James, who assumed the CEO role in 2018.

Proudest achievement: “When you’re in a family business, I think operational and personal success are kind of one and the same,” James said.

“ at meant more to me than any piece of big business that we got,” he said.

“Being a good corporate citizen is really important,” he said. “I think if your customers can see that you’re doing well by others, and you’re giving back to the community, it’s very rewarding — A., because it’s the right thing to do and B., because you’ll nd yourself having conversations with people you wouldn’t have been in a room with otherwise.”

double-digit percentage growth this year. Getting it done with his brother has made the success that much sweeter.

Career trajectory: Lorron James was born into the family business but started on the warehouse oor before being allowed in the C-suite. James bounced around to di erent positions in his father’s Detroit-based logistics and warehousing company, from sales and marketing to picker/packer and forklift operator. His father wanted to ensure he knew every aspect of the business before one day handing it over.

At the same time, running a family business comes with unique challenges, like sibling rivalry. James said one of his proudest accomplishments is working with his older brother John when he came back from duty in Iraq and pursued a role in the business, and eventually politics.

Proudest achievement: Building a family in Detroit while building the agency thoughtfully is “without a doubt” her proudest accomplishment. “I feel real purposeful being here,” Siegel said. “I feel really proud of being here, of building something here.”

Arielle Kass

What’s next: James has big aspirations for the family company that would require shaking things up in a major way.

Career trajectory: Emily Siegel had dreams, when she studied journalism at the University of North Carolina, of working for legendary editor Graydon Carter in New York. She moved to the city and “realized how insane that world is,” she said, but soon found a job doing recruiting for Teach For America. Still, she had aspirations to move back toward media and took a job at Nielsen doing social media analytics before moving to Federated Media, overseeing a team of editors. She later moved to Detroit, where she did storytelling for Ford at Team Detroit and met Lafayette American partner Toby Barlow. “You just walk through the door when the opportunity presents itself,” she said.

Words of wisdom: Philanthropy is a key pillar of the business, James said, because it bene ts the community, but also opens doors for business.

CEO, James Group Inc.

M&A rms that are interested in buying what we do, but nothing formal.”

Kurt Nagl

HammoudAbdullah | 32

Mayor, City of Dearborn

“We want to do everything for each customer,” James said. “Right now, we’re kind of trying to gure out what the best route is. It would be good for us to eventually get into some sort of strategic alliance or partnership or even get involved in some sort of M&A activity and be able to expand our scope … We’ve been approached by a lot of

“He learned the business rather quickly,” James said. “He and I had to coexist. Although we have two di erent personalities, I’m proud of the fact that he and I continue to work together and be in meetings together to grow the company.”

at they’ve done. James Group saw revenue of $138 million last year, a nearly 20 percent year-over-year jump, with anticipated

18 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Emily Siegel | 37 President and Founding Partner, AmericanLafayette

Lorron James | 39

— Minnah Arshad

Words of wisdom: “Bet on yourselves. If you have a vision, if you have a dream, if you have an idea, take it to the next step, and the rst step would be to bet on your selves.”

Words of wisdom: “Don’t shy away from who you are,” Hammoud said. His father passed along a mantra Hammoud said is important to remember as well: “Work is never embarrassing.”

“ is taught me the value each and every role brings to the company and how each role is important to the company’s overall success,” Barnes said.

Proudest achievement: Barnes has seen Belle Tire stores and sales grow organical ly. He’s helped manage the company during the coronavirus pandemic. Barnes, though, is most proud of how his leader ship style has evolved since taking over as Belle Tire president in September 2014.

“As a leader, it’s my job to support my team, have them know I work for them, and most importantly, help them discover the best version of themselves.”

Proudest achievement: is spring, Hammoud waived admission fees to Dearborn’s public pools for Dearborn youth.“(As a child) the welcome respite of the pools were overshadowed by the per-entry cost for children’s swim tags and the burden that provided for my par ents,” he said. “Sometimes my brothers and I would pass our tagged swim shorts through the links of the chain fence of our neighborhood pool to take turns

| 29

Career trajectory: As far as Belle Tire goes, you could consider Don Barnes III a “lifer.” Barnes is the grandson of Don Barnes Sr., who in 1970 went into business with Belle Tire founder Sam Waze. He has worked with the Allen Park-based tire giant for 22 years, starting as a tire tech at a Rochester Hills location. Barnes transitioned to sales while studying business administration at Michigan State University. In 2005, Barnes entered into the Belle Tire leadership pro gram, spending two years learning the company’s various roles.

Institute and $1.25 million for a consoli dated 911 dispatch center.

What’s next: As the father of an eightmonth-old daughter, Hammoud said his future goals are focused on creating op portunities for his daughter’s generation that he didn’t have.

Founder and CEO, Gildform

President and Chief Tire Guy, Belle Tire

Amelia Benavides-Colón

Proudest achieve ment: “Creating a platform that allows for others to create. is platform empowers business owners, freelancers. It empowers solopreneurs, entrepreneurs … By empow ering them, they’re now creating genera tional wealth for themselves, they’re creat ing legacy, they’re growing their local economy, they’re creating jobs in their own communities.”

Current business goal: Barnes wants to continue to push Belle Tire’s organic growth into various markets. Currently, there are more than 125 Belle Tire loca tions in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Illi nois. e four Illinois locations opened in 2021. e company plans to open 50 more stores by Continuing2025.to grow his leadership skills is top of mind, too.

cooling o on hot days. Now, as the may or of Dearborn, I have declared that ad mission to city pools will be free of charge for all youth under 13.”

Career trajectory: Karissma Yve started her career designing jewelry in her Detroit basement. Her creations eventually took her to Paris Fashion Week, after which she acquired various retail accounts and grew her brand across continents. However, Yve struggled to meet demand in an industry with slow, dated processes and high barri ers to entry. After connecting with other designers experiencing the same challeng es, she devised the concept for Gildform.

“It became very clear that the world needed an all-in-one, on-demand jewelry design and manufac turing platform that supports the entire process from con cept to creation and evenGildform,beyond.”founded in 2020, allows cre ators to upload com puter-aided designs, or collaborate with CAD designers on sketches, and send them to production at the Gildform warehouse in De troit.

What’s next: “Doubling down on support ing and empowering creators all over the world,” while maintaining a healthy worklife balance. As someone who loves what she does, taking breaks hasn’t always come naturally to Yve, but years of hustling have taught her the importance of prioritizing balance.

“My time in the state house was truly a transformational experience.”

BarnesDon III | 39

Something else Barnes is proud of is his e ective application of the Heimlich ma neuver. Barnes said he once saved his mother’s life with the procedure as she choked on a hot dog in a Belle Tire show room.“ere aren’t a lot of people who know that,” Barnes said.

Karissma Yve

OPERADETROITATPHOTOGRAPHEDBUSINESS.DETROITCRAIN’SFORANTAYANICBYPHOTOS

— Karissma Yve

— Jay Davis

“It’s been about knowing that I don’t have all the answers, and knowing that, in order for me to be the best possible leader, I also need to know when to follow.”

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | C R AIN’S D ETROI T B USIN E SS | 19

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Micheal Davis | 38 Executive Director, Promote the Vote

Words of wisdom: “No one knows you better than you do. No one knows what you’re capable of more than you do ... You can have a slew of chronic illnesses, you can be a woman, you can be younger, you can be in this industry in any capacity you want — you just have to keep going.”

uct line at Neno’s Naturals and continuing to destigmatize cannabis. “I’m so dedicated and so passionate about the cannabis industry, because cannabis saved my life.”

What’s next: A “nice, nice way” to start his tenure as director would be

Minnah Arshad O cer, Exclusive Brands

David Eggert

20 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Proudest achievement: Getting recognized for her social equity work at Exclusive Brands in a Forbes article. “ at was my rst big piece or recognition of my e orts … I was really proud that we were helping people, and we were recognized for that, and it wasn’t all just money-based.”

Career trajectory: Narmin Jarrous earned her bachelor’s degree in behavioral and biological sciences from University of Michigan-Dearborn and went into medical equipment sales after graduation. Realizing she had a knack for business, and a personal passion for cannabis, Jarrous joined Exclusive Brands in 2019. In and out of hospitals since high school for endometriosis, along with a slew of other health complications, Jarrous discovered cannabis helped alleviate her symptoms after nding little success with prescription painkillers. Her experience with chronic pain and cannabis led her to found her brand, Neno’s Naturals, last August. (Neno was her childhood nickname.)

Chief Development

Proudest achievement: He helped launch the Michigan AFL-CIO’s “Faith in Labor,” a podcast-like series of discussions among religious, labor and other leaders amid the pandemic and in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. It was something to “bring folks to the table to talk about and try to start to mend and have some of those conversations.”

Career trajectory: Micheal Davis, a Lansing native and son of state employees, went to college in Ann Arbor, graduating with a sociology degree from the University of Michigan. He began his career at the Youth Empowerment Project, working to help disadvantaged teens in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti high schools. He became a regional eld director for an unsuccessful 2012 pro-collective bargaining ballot initiative and did “inspirational” work at the United Auto Workers trying to unionize Nissan plants in the South. He had several roles at the Michigan AFL-CIO, including political director, before leaving to lead redistricting e orts and later become executive director of Promote the Vote, a nonpro t “pro-voter, pro-democracy” coalition.

Following her endometriosis diagnosis, Jarrous recalls high school teachers dissuading her from pursuing college and constantly being told what she couldn’t do.

What’s next: Expanding the prod-

As a high school student, Jarrous started working as an assistant for Gus Shukeireh at Raymond Christopher Enterprises, who she now partners with at Exclusive Brands. She climbed the ranks at Raymond Christopher to director of special projects, eventually managing licenses and contracts for concessions at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

“Keep going, and ignore everybody who’s telling you you can’t … If I had listened to literally anybody my entire life, I wouldn’t be here.” CRUNCH. CLOUD.

successfully advocating for passage of a November constitutional amendment that would expand voting rights and neutralize a Republican-led, veto-proof initiative to tighten voting laws. “I’m locked in on growing our capacity to be able to support our partner organizations and combat misinformation and help voter education in the state.”

Narmin Jarrous 26

Words of wisdom: Cherish the people you work with and your interactions with them. Keep grinding. “Focus on getting the job done for other folks.” His mom, who was diagnosed with cancer when he was 4 and died when he was in college, had 32 surgeries before her death. “She always stayed positive. ... I can keep going if she kept going.”

LLC

— Sherri Welch

| 32

Amelia Benavides-Colon

What’s next: Using Mosaic’s performing arts, tutoring and college support programs to help the 2023 freshmen in its programs secure artistic and academic scholarships,

Surprising fact: She only has about 60 percent of her hearing in her left ear, due to ear infec tions as a child. at doesn’t interfere with her ability to sing and write music. But it makes conversation challenging, something that has strengthened her ability to read lips.

Business School. MICHIGAN

Ali VanOverbeke

Executive and Artistic Director, Mosaic Youth eatre of Detroit

Her business idea came in 2016, after she spent two weeks volunteering for the American Red Cross delivering water bot tles to Flint residents during the water cri sis.“Seeing this plastic waste stream was shocking to me,” VanOverbeke told Crain’s in 2020. “My design brain said, ‘What can I do with this waste?’”

VanOverbeke announced in August that Genusee would be winding down because of increasing costs tied to supply chain, labor and difficulties in raising new mon ey.“We have a lot to be proud of,” she said in a note announcing the pending closure. “With only one frame style we have sold

Proudest achievement: Traveling to Latvia with 26 young Mosaic singers to compete in the World Choir Games in 2014.

Genusee upcycled more than 1.80 met ric tons of local plastic water bottles, cre ated seven jobs in Flint, and donated more than $11,000 to nonprofits including The Flint Kids Fund, The Flint Women & Girls Fund and Fair Action Fight.

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Lesson learned: “ at it is vital to the growth of the organization to show up as my whole self. By showing up as my full authentic self, I create a self place that grants a safe place for everyone else to be their authentic self.”

DeLashea Strawder

She prototyped eyeglasses made from recycled plastic and launched a Kickstart er campaign. In 2018, she moved to Flint and founded Genusee — the first circular economy eyewear brand and manufactur er, VanOverbeke said.

| 38

Testimonial: “Ali Rose is an incredibly smart entrepreneur,” said Robert Wolf, the founder of 32Advisors, a family office in New York and a co-founder of 100K Ven tures, a national group of high-profile in vestors. “We look to invest in underserved communities that have very smart entre preneurs but don’t get a lot of attention from venture capitalists. Making glasses from plastic water bottles was just such a smart idea.”

Founder, Genusee

Career trajectory: Ali VanOverbeke is a Detroit native who received her BFA in fashion from Parsons The New School of Design in New York in 2014. After gradua tion, she did styling and design work for Glamour Magazine, Revlon, Lane Bryant, Joe Fresh and Nordstrom.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | C R AIN’S D ETROI T B USIN E SS | 21

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Career trajectory: You could say DeLashea Strawder grew up at Mosaic Youth eatre of Detroit. Six months after joining Mosaic Sing ers, a youth singing and theater program, at the age of 16, she began assisting in conduct ing and teaching beginning choir classes, something she did until she graduated from Detroit School of Arts in 2002. After starting college in Virginia, she moved back to Detroit and rejoined Mosaic as part-time assistant music director in 2003, focused on choir in struction. Seeking to expand her knowledge of operations and production she joined the De troit International Jazz Festival in 2008 as an operations assistant. In 2009, while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music at Wayne State University (something she earned in 2011) Mosaic promoted her to director of music and associate artistic director. In that role she de veloped Mosaic’s teaching curriculum and expanded external youth training programs.

In 2019, she was named executive and artis tic director of the $1.68 million arts organiza tion, a role she’s held for the past three years.

grants and internships that enable them to graduate from college without debt.

over 12,000 pairs of Genusee glasses, made in Flint from recycled single-use plastic bottles.”

Devin Sullivan | 37

Mike Serra | 34

Proudest achieve ment: Serra’s proudest achieve ment is ongoing. He is playing a cen tral role in navigat ing the legal impli cations of cutting o cybersecurity service to customers in Russia and fortifying it in Ukraine amid the war in Eastern Europe.

“I did ght camp for about six months straight and fought in the summer of 2019 at the biggest Muay ai tournament in the U.S., the ai Boxing Association tournament in Des Moines, Iowa,” Li said. “I lost my ght but it was a really good experience. After that, I took a break but then COVID happened and training dwin dled. Recently, though, I've been training more often and have plans to ght again next year.”

— Minnah Arshad

DETROITFILLMORETHEANDOPERADETROITATPHOTOGRAPHEDBUSINESS.DETROITCRAIN’SFORANTAYANICBYPHOTOS

And her achievements aren’t limited to her career. She’s a trained Muay ai ghter who has fought as an amateur.

quisitionty,jobbeforePropertyIntellectualpracticelandingaatDuoSecurifreshoitsacbyCisco.

Career trajectory: Devin Sullivan graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan. He started his career at Chicago-based law rm Jenner & Block LLP as a litigation associate. In 2011, he returned to Michigan to be closer to family and began working at Zausmer, becom ing a shareholder in 2018. Sullivan serves as president of the Harvard Law School Association of Michigan.

— Kurt Nagl

What’s next: “Trying to continue to expand my practice and grow our rm. We’ve got a number of di erent projects on the horizon for di erent clients, most of which I can’t really talk about unfortunately, but just continuing to work on our state’s infrastructure and grow our rm.”

Proudest achieve ment: Leading the legal battle for the state of Michigan on land acquisition for the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will be the rst freeway-to-free way connection from Detroit to Windsor. e state faced multiple legal challenges from the Moroun family’s Detroit International Bridge Co., owners of the rival Ambassador Bridge, but was ultimately given the green light. Slated to open in 2024, Gordie Howe is expected to be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, with a total antici pated cost of $5.7 billion.

Proudest achievement: Li believes asking for help is key and she uses a tool available to just about everyone. She uses Google frequently, joking with friends that she attended Google University.

Meizi Li | 31

“I never thought I would go into a business-related profession because it has always scared me, especially having to make all of the major decisions that can a ect the livelihood of everyone around you,” Li said. “Fat head has taught me that when you have great people who are passionate about what they do, it makes it easi er to make those di cult decisions with con dence.”

“ ese laws and regulations are changing day to day,” Serra said. “We have to follow the U.S. law, EU law and UK law, given where our companies are based. So, we have to nd a baseline given all the various interwoven regulatory schemes … I had to identify the various reg ulations and work with our engineering teams about how we could stop the product from being used in these regions.”

Surprising fact: Once upon a time, Sullivan performed stand-up comedy. During his years at the University of Michigan, he performed at clubs including the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase and Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak. “It was fun, but inevitably when you do that, you’re going to bomb at one point, and I learned I didn’t have the stomach to bomb.”

22 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

Jay Davis

Career trajectory: Taking on a high-ranking position at one of Detroit’s most recognizable companies wasn’t a part of the plan for Meizi Li. In 2018, after earning a mas ter’s degree in public policy from the University of Mich igan, Li was “dead set” on becoming a data scientist, and working to train computers to make decisions like hu mans. Li joined Fathead as director of data analytics af ter a run with Deloitte before taking on her current role as Fathead COO.

Career trajectory: Mike Serra started his law career af ter graduating from Wayne State University Law School and taking a job at Bodman PLC, where he worked his way up to senior associate attorney. Drawn to technol ogy and its legal tentacles, Serra carved out a spot in the rm’s

Shareholder | Zausmer PC Principal Product Counsel, Cisco

Mission work: Li wants to use her expertise to help busi nesses operate at the highest possible level. It’s a goal of hers to help companies develop processes that successfully operate their businesses.

“ e amount of things you can learn is in nite,” Li said of the well-known search engine. “I don’t think I’d have been able to get where I am without Googling my way through. Being able to see the experiences of other people and how they resolved a question being asked makes everything more relatable, and makes your jour ney to nding the answer less lonely.”

Chief Operating O cer, Fathead

What’s next: Serra cannot necessarily see the impact of his work on cybersecurity abroad, but he sees rst hand the bene ts that his legal skills can bring to the community. at’s why pro bono work is so important to “Ihim.do these expungement clinics,” he said. “Michi gan just passed a ‘clean slate’ law, where we really up dated our expungement laws, which basically hides certain crimes from criminal records … My goal is to help streamline this and help grow this, because I think the law is there to help our communities and help our people.”

StockX Nick Manes President, MKiezi Investments LLC

2023 with “major improvements” happening in 2024. at’s all in an e ort to, as he says, “turn Oakland Mall into one of metro Detroit’s favorite places to visit again.”

Words of wisdom: Do what you love and follow your passions, and adapt to a changing world.

“I think working with StockX, we still in many ways are a startup,” said Lewis. “And maturing the company’s processes (are a priority), and I would say some of the unsexy aspects of growing a company are things that I’m increasingly focused on now.”

WilsonBianca | 39

“Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 500,000 teenagers with Autism Spectrum Disorder will age out of their school-based services and move into adulthood within the next decade. As adults, the need and desire for person-centered housing opportunities is growing exponentially,” Wilson said.

Kirk Pinho Lewis Counsel,

Current business goal: Wilson is pushing for state-level care coordination initiatives among providers of care for severely cognitive and mentally impaired individuals. De ning and mandating a continuum of care in U.S. states and communities, Wilson said, can assist with barriers to the treatment individuals need and deserve.Wilson dedicates her professional and entrepreneurial achievements to her parents. Her mother passed away in 2013 after a battle with cancer — three months after the birth of Wilson’s daughter. Her father passed away in 2019 due to heart complications.“Ibuilt this company with my parents in mind to advocate, provide quality care and to persevere through anything,” Wilson said.

24 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

“So I think what has really stood out to me as my proudest achievement by far is to build the team we have here at StockX,” said Lewis.

Umbrellex provides specialized residential programs for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities and has grown since its founding in 2017 from one residential site to nine across the state.

| 39 General

Proudest achievement: Kiezi bought Oakland Mall in Troy earli-

Proudest achievement: Founding

“It’s a world class legal and compliance team, and it’s diverse, family

friendly and overall engaged and happy. We all do a lot of very interesting work and we have fun doing it. So to me, when I look at my team I think, wow, this is really amazing if this is going to be my legacy.”

Umbrellex

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What’s next: Now that Lewis has helped build the company’s legal team, she says the focus for the company — which last year received $255 million in new investment at a valuation of $3.8 billion — is on the “unsexy” work.

Proudest achievement: Since joining the company, Lewis has helped to build a global legal and compliance team that supports the company’s more than 1,700 team members in 12 countries. e legal team has grown from one full-time attorney in 2019 to 18 legal and compliance professionals in 2022.

Chief

LLC

Career trajectory: Mario Kiezi ventured into business as a teenager right after high school, opening up liquor stores in Ohio. When he and his family sold and assisted Kroger Co. with the purchase of six of them, he wound up with money that would fuel strip mall development in his early 20s and, then later, larger acquisitions, both in suburban Detroit and the city itself.

Surprising fact: Kiezi grew up in metro Detroit but is a big Chicago Bulls fan.

Career trajectory: Bianca Wilson is an entrepreneur — and a strong advocate for mental health. With a master’s degree in social work with a concentration in cognitive behavioral therapy from Wayne State University, Wilson said she’s pushing for an increase in mental health funding to support adequate housing resources, outpatient treatment, and mental health education and awareness.

As the founderand CEO of Umbrellex Behavioral Health Services, Wilson leads a sta of 71 and aims to increase annual revenue to about $8.5 million for services in the company’s residential and outpatient services department. Umbrellex this year will bring in a little more than $4 million in revenue, Wilson said.

“Being an entrepreneur is not easy but is attainable.”

Lewis later moved to Detroit, got introduced to people within the orbit of billionaire businessman Dan Gilbert, and went on to work for him, representing the mortgage mogul and his Rock Holdings in deals such as the acquisition of Dictionary.com.Lewisthen joined StockX — the Gilbert-backed reseller of sneakers, handbags and other luxury goods — as its general counsel in 2019.

Jay Davis Executive O cer, Behavioral Health Services,

er this year for an undisclosed sum, as well as the former Lakeside Mall and Oakland Mall Sears stores in separate transactions.

What’s next: Kiezi is trying to fundamentally change Oakland Mall, turning it into a hip destination with unique shops and taking it away from national chain retailers, particularly fashion. It’s an ambitious plan that would take years to pull o . He anticipates beginning some construction in the middle of

Laura

Career trajectory: After launching her career in corporate law in New York City, Laura Lewis slowly began focusing her practice toward working with venture-backed startups. And then a “bleak November” visit to Detroit in 2014 led to a love a air with the city.

Umbrellex. e Sterling Heightsbased company is committed to the wellness of its clients, their families, and the community through prevention, intervention, treatment and education, Wilson said.

Career trajectory: Brittany Lavis may be the youngest CEO of a major health system in the country. But she’s been involved in health care nances since she was 20 years old, start ing her career as a strategic planning analyst at the same hospital where she was born in Rock Hill, S.C. Within four years, she was interim CFO of the hospital — at 24 years old. And she’s been quickly climbing the ladder ever since, from assistant CFO at WellStar Atlanta Medical Center to group CFO for all of Tenet Healthcare Corp.’s hospitals in Southern Cali fornia and eventually to Detroit, where she became group CFO of Detroit Medical Center.

LavisBrittany|32

Career trajectory: Amelia Patt Zamir gradu ated from the University of Michigan and then Columbia University, spending a dozen years in New York City — but always know ing she would return home to the region to work on development in Detroit. “I went to New York and Columbia after graduating from Ann Arbor to gain a skill set with the intention of always moving home,” Patt Zamir said. After time in the Big Apple with JLL, Clarion Partners and e Peebles Corp., she and graduate school classmate Rakesh “Rocky” Lala founded Method Development in 2017 with projects in the Milwaukee Junc tion, Brush Park, Je erson Chalmers and other neighborhoods around Detroit.

Dustin Walsh

upon and improve what’s there and be in tune with the needs of the neighborhood,” she said. e company also completed an eight-unit conversion of a Brush Park mansion on Er skine Street for $1.8 million.

26 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

“ e current health status of Detroit is clearly lagging national statistics. ... ere’s a lot of work to be done to improve various components, like housing and jobs, but if we don’t solve the health status, it’ll be hard for those to stick and remain.”

Current goal: Improve the health outcomes of the city it serves.

Proudest achievement: e rst phase of the Detroit Design District, Method Develop ment’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood project on the 2800 block of East Grand Boule vard. Completing this summer, the $11.5 mil lion e ort comprised 15,000 square feet with retail leasing to Vault of Midnight, Next Space, By Popular Demand and Midwest Common, with more leases signed to be announced lat er; the rst phase also includes 18 apartments. Patt Zamir says in Milwaukee Junction, like other neighborhoods where Method Devel opment has projects, the company works with the local community. “We are trying to build

Principal and Co-founder, Method Development LLC

Proudest achievement: “It’s less about one career-de ning moment and more so how I’ve navigated as a nancial leader and now as a CEO. How do I, as a nancial analyst, help a clinical leader manage operations in their function? How do we work together on solving some of the current challenges we face today? It comes from showing I under stand the business. I don’t make decisions in a vacuum. I didn’t start out that well in my career. I thought I had all the answers. But I needed to understand what I thought

What’s next: Expect more announcements in the fall about the second phase of the Detroit Design District. “I do believe that we’ve kind of just started our mission of helping to revitalize Detroit neighborhoods,” Patt Zamir said. Method Development also has ongoing work in Je erson Chalmers and has recently bought a pair of buildings downtown.

Advice: “Don’t focus on chasing a title but try to get the experience and exposure. It’s important to be open to lessons and hearing feedback if you’re wanting a fast career tra jectory.”

Kirk Pinho Group CEO, Detroit Medical Center

After group CEO Audrey Gregory depart ed in October 2021, Lavis served as interim CEO and became the permanent CEO in February.

Words of wisdom: Take advantage of oppor tunities when you see them, and believe in yourself and your vision, and commit to it.

Amelia Patt Zamir | 38

might be the right move and navigate that with the team and what they thought need ed to be solved.”

“With aggressive screening and preventative strategies, the intermediate goal will be achieved, which includes improvement in heart disease outcomes in (the) female population, translating into lower morbidity and health care costs,” Sareen said. “My long-term goal is to make health a necessity for our underserved female community, not a luxury.”

Partner, Beringea LLC

Dustin Walsh

Interventional Cardiologist and Medical Director of the Women’s Heart Clinic at Ascension Providence

Now as he looks at the current economic slowdown, Blake said he’s learned a thing or two from the past.

“Just given that there may be some choppy waters ahead, I guess I won’t be disappointed in the fact that maybe plans change,” he said. “While I was bummed that I didn’t get an MBA, my life has worked out so far.”

e venture capitalist — recently promoted to partner at Beringea — initially undertook di erent areas of the nancial world, starting his career in investment banking.esector, however, did not quite match Blake’s passion, as investment banking largely required working with a company on one deal and then the work was over.

Nishtha Sareen | 39

Nick Manes

Career trajectory: Nishtha Sareen grew up watching her father, a pediatrician, work at his clinic in India. ere she watched destitute patients struggle to remain healthy. She then earned her medical degree in her native India but completed clinicals at Harvard Medical School before entering an internal medicine residency at North Shore LIJ Health System at Hofstra University. She focused on cardiac care and earned a cardiology fellowship at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. She’s served as a cardiologist at Beaumont Health and Ascension Health hospitals in Michigan ever since. Last year, she became the medical director of the Women’s Heart Clinic at Ascension Providence in South eld.

Blake said he has sourced and led ve of Beringea’s last eight new platform investments, since the start of 2020, deploying a total of $37.3 million in capital both invest-

ed and reserved for follow-on investing.

Proudest achievement: Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women, six times the rate of death of breast cancer. To combat gaps in care, Sareen founded the Women’s Heart Clinic at Ascension that exclusively focuses on the cardiac care of women. e entire sta — cardiologists, nurses, support sta — are all women as well. e rst clinic opened at Ascension Providence Park in Novi in October; locations have since opened in Detroit and Saginaw. Besides traditional cardiac care, the clinics provide patients with diet plans, on-

line exercise and yoga courses and mobile screening.“Women are so often preoccupied with taking care of everyone else they don’t take care of themselves,” Sareen said. “ e idea for our clinic is to actively participate in their care and their recovery.”

What’s next: Sareen plans to open another clinic in the coming months and even more over the coming years.

“And what drew me to the buy side of private equity and venture capital was really a chance to work with companies after those kinds of meaningful milestones,” Blake said.

DETROITFILLMORETHEANDOPERADETROITATPHOTOGRAPHEDBUSINESS.DETROITCRAIN’SFORANTAYANICBYPHOTOS

Blake, 38, has spent nearly a decade at Farmington Hills-based Beringea, the state’s largest venture capital investment rm with about $750 million under management.

Advice: “If something does not seem accessible, it does not mean it’s not worth following,” Sareen said. “When I started with this idea, I was the only woman among 40 to 50 men. It takes support and mentorship to accomplish your goals. You have to nd that support and keep constantly following the idea until it’s achieved. You may not get an immediate result, but a de nite result will happen if you’re persistent.”

Moving up the ranks: Promoted to partner at the rm earlier this year, Blake said he’s seen his role at Beringea expand greatly in recent years, working on deal sourcing, making and managing investments and leading a team of investors and analysts. He sits on the board of multiple startups within Beringea’s portfolio.

Career trajectory: William Blake did not set out to be in the venture capital sector, but the ability to lend support to fast growing startups proved tempting.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 27

William Blake III 38

Lessons learned: Like many his age, Blake came into the working world in the immediate run-up to the Great Recession. e economic conditions at the time meant Blake changed his plans to go back to school and earn an MBA.

Proudest Achievement: Stockwell said her proudest achievement is the Women’s Leadership Development Program that Dawn Foods launched in 2021, which is designed to get more women to higher executive levels and into the company’s C-suite.

Career trajectory: After graduating from Indiana University in 2008, Ben Schrode was “scrambling for a job” during the recession. He spent some time working for an o shoot of Novi-based DeMaria Building Co. and then in Plante Moran’s market consulting group before winding up at JLL in 2012.

“We currently have 11 women in the program who are getting 360 assessments, executive training, sponsorship, and we’ve just selected the next cohort and we’ll have another 11 women going through the program next year. One of the women who’s currently in the program was promoted at the end of May into a vice president role, so we’re already starting to see the fruits of our labor which is really exciting. It’s a big step for the organization.”

who grew up in the Grosse Pointe area. “ at was just a cool deal because I’m just proud of where I’m from in that area, and it was tough to kind of see where (the mall) had gone,” Schrode said. “We wanted to see positive redevelopment there, which is happening.”

StockwellFelisa | 39

Words of advice: Mentorship is important, Schrode says, crediting veteran JLL brokers AJ Weiner and Dave MacDonald for helping him early in his career. “It’s all about hard work and being passionate about it,” Schrode says.

Ben Schrode | 36 Vice President, JLL

In addition, working on the sale of Eastland Mall in Harper Woods was partially a trip down memory lane for the east-side native

Career Trajectory: Felisa Stockwell received her master’s in human resources and labor relations from Michigan State University in 2013 and immediately went to work developing her career in human resources, working for companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Tenneco Inc. Stockwell began working for Jackson-based Dawn Foods in 2015 as a senior human resources manager and recently ascended to her “next step” position as vice president, in June, a promotion from her role as senior director. She’s been working toward that title for several years, she said.

Proudest achievement: e COVID-19 pandemic has been a struggle in the commercial real estate industry and Schrode says it was professionally scary at the onset, with two young children at the time (his family just welcomed a third). As deals in a lot of areas have been scarce, Schrode worked on more than 5 million square feet of them, including on a 420,000-square-foot lease in a competitive market for Security Packaging in Burton. “We had to ght for the deal,” Schrode said.

Advice: Stockwell said the best advice she has received, which she would also give to aspiring business owners or people looking to better their career, is “be vocal about what you want.” She said it is important to nd someone who can give you feedback and help you navigate your career, whether a mentor or your manager.“Youhave to be proactive and nd opportunities: asking to get on projects, asking for more responsibility and being clear about what your goals and objectives are for your career, and how you can get there.”

28 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Kirk Pinho

“But if I think about where the next step will be for me, there’s a lot that I can do in my current role, potentially making a lateral move in the HR people organization, but ultimately, excelling into a chief people o cer role or a chief HR o cer role.”

Executive

Vice President, Global People & Culture, Dawn Foods

Anna Fifelski

What’s next: Schrode says building his and JLL’s client base of Michigan and national companies remains key, but also growing younger talent within the brokerage rm. As a 10-year veteran of the company now, he notes that he is “not the younger guy here anymore,” and that he enjoys mentoring newer brokers. “It’s fun to work with them and show them the business,” Schrode says.

Proudest achievement: Delivering a force ful, viral Senate speech that countered a GOP colleague’s “groomer” attack and is credited with giving Democrats a national playbook. She calls it a “through line” be cause she ran for o ce to combat politics based on “othering and fear mongering.” “It feels like I’m making a di erence, even though I can’t pass any legislation.”

What’s next: Flipping Michigan’s Republi can-led Senate to Democratic control in No vember. Her speech resonated. e rising star has traveled the country speaking to and raising money for Democrats, empha sizing “critically underfunded” and over looked legislative races.

OPERADETROITATPHOTOGRAPHEDBUSINESS.DETROITCRAIN’SFORANTAYANICBYPHOTOS

| 32

“THESE REAL WORLDSESTATE ARE SMALL. IT ALL QUICKLY.”PRETTYFULLCOMESCIRCLE

Mallory McMorrow | 36

“ e leading institutions don’t measure PROMs, so I see an opportunity to redesign care,” Makhni said. “We’ve seen entrepre neurship blow up in health care because so much of the industry is under an old-school mentality.”

“Surgeons see the X-rays and if it shows something that can be xed, they want to x it,” Makhni said. “But the patient isn’t al ways in pain or (doesn’t) really require sur gery. We’ve cut down on an untold number of surgeries using PROMs. We’re changing the culture of orthopedics.”

needed to do something.” In the 2018 mid terms, she unseated an incumbent Republi can in Oakland County.

What’s next: Taking more of a leadership role at Ashley Capital and making sure the company, which has some 22 million square feet in the region, is poised for the long haul in Metro Detroit. “ at’s why I moved here, and expanding geographically is a compo nent of it,” Morton said.

Medical Director of Patient Reported Outcome Measures and Attending Orthopedic Surgeon, Henry Ford Health; Team Physician, Detroit Lions and Oakland University Athletics Department

David Eggert

She vividly remembers video of Royal Oak Middle School students chanting “build a wall” the day after Donald Trump’s elec tion, which led a Hispanic student to unen roll. “I Googled how to run for o ce. I had no idea what I was doing but decided that I

Career trajectory: New Jersey native Mallory McMorrow has a bachelor’s degree in indus trial design from the University of Notre Dame. She wanted to be a car designer and in college won a Mazda design competition, which led to a company internship. But the industry “fell o a cli ” around graduation. She stayed in California, landing as a toy de signer and creative lead at Mattel after living in the back of her car and on friends’ couch es. She was Gawker Media’s creative director and creative strategy director for advertising production company HeLo. She moved to Michigan, her now-husband’s home state, and opened a branding consultancy.

Career trajectory: With a Cornell University economics degree in hand, Kyle Morton ended up where many do: In New York City, working in investment banking. It wasn’t for him, however. He then spent seven years in Atlanta with what is now PGIM, a real estate arm of Prudential. “I was kind of burning out on the institutional travel grind,” Morton says. “I was on the plane multiple times a week, and I always had an a nity toward construction and wanted to go into a devel opment role.” So in the middle of 2019, not long before the onset of the COVID-19 pan demic, he ended up in Detroit working for Ashley Capital, the powerhouse industrial/ warehouse development company co-founded by his father, Rick, with an o ce in Canton Township.

Proudest achievement: A complex groundup industrial/warehouse development proj ect in Highland Park. Its developer Eric Means, died suddenly in 2020, putting the ef fort in jeopardy and prompting Ashley Cap ital to join the team. at tragedy was just one of the complexities to face the Means Lo gistics Park, a ground breaking ceremony for which is scheduled lat er this month. “ at took the better part of two years now to get to this point and sorting all that out in complexity takes the cake,” Morton said. Challenges ranged from incen tives to land assemblage, entitlements in two di erent cities — both Highland Park and Detroit — as well as street vacations.

Advice: “Opportunities come at random times. It’s OK to have ve-, 10- and 15-year plans but you have to be ready to change path and embrace opportunities. e day I started PROMs, I thought I was going to leave Henry Ford, but then they gave me time to create this and it changed my trajec tory. I’m glad I didn’t jump ship. e longer you stay, sometimes the deeper you can get on your passion.”

Words of wisdom: “ ere is no perfect ca reer path. ... Just take one step and then take the next step even if it doesn’t make any sense. Do something you’re afraid of be cause sometimes it works out.”

medicine doctors are using the program.

— Dustin Walsh

Kyle Morton

Words of advice: Focusing on long-term business relationships and maintaining your reputation are key. “ ese real estate worlds are small,” Morton says. “It all comes full circle pretty quickly.”

Proudest achievement: Studies show many orthopedic surgeries are unnecessary. Makhni set out to create a platform to better understand patient discomfort and reduce ine ective or unneeded surgeries. He and his team launched an application for patient reported outcome measures, or PROMs, in 2020. e program is a questionnaire to de termine to what degree an injury a ects a patient’s life. Two years later, more than 80 percent of Henry Ford’s orthopedic sports

Kirk Pinho Vice President of Development, Ashley Capital

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 | C R AIN’S D ETROI T B USIN E SS | 29

Eric Makhni | 39

—Kyle Morton

Career trajectory: Eric Makhni, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, spent the rst six years of his post-doctoral career as an ortho pedic surgeon at Columbia University Medi cal Center. He then became a clinical fellow at Rush University Medical Center in Chica go before moving to Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloom eld Township in 2016 as an at tending orthopedic surgeon in its sports medicine department. He’s also served as team physician for dozens of collegiate and professional sports teams, including the Chi cago Bulls, Chicago White Sox, DePaul Uni versity and the Detroit Pistons. He currently serves as a team physician for the Detroit Li ons, Oakland University athletics, Detroit FC soccer team, Cranbrook Kingswood Acade my and Bloom eld Hills High School.

What’s next: Makhni is launching a soft ware platform startup focused on introduc ing PROMs into orthopedic departments across the country.

State Senator, Michigan Senate

CONSTRUCTIONAUCHConstruction

back ve days a week but some level of hybrid work appears here to stay. What happens with all that o ce space once leases begin to roll over and, as expected, companies o cially shed space, is in the back of observers and landlords’ minds.

surrounding neighborhood as it grows up is really critical.”

When: Saturday and Sunday

Denise Close, AIA, Fitwel Amb., has been promoted to senior associate with Quinn Evans, a leading national design rm.

` Bedrock’s redevelopment of the Harvard Square Center building on Broadway Street.

ARCHITECTUREQuinnEvans

This week will be a big one for downtown Detroit, with several major events marking a return. For live event coverage, go to crainsdetroit.com.

ARCHITECTUREQuinnEvans

population is three-quarters of Columbus, Ohio’s but Columbus’ downtown has near ly 11,000 units. Cleveland has 300,000 fewer residents than Detroit within its limits but about 12,400 units in its downtown — nearly three times as many as Detroit, with another 1,000 or so in the hopper.

FINANCIAL SERVICES PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Advertising Section To place your listing, visit crainsdetroit.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

It’s public space and residential projects like these, Larson said, that will help drive more residents and visitors downtown when the daytime o ce population continues to lag — and will for the foreseeable future.

“I think we’ll see building owners start to get obviously more creative in terms of how they can utilize those spaces,” Larson said.

So whether it’s nding new life for struggling o ce buildings, bringing more residents into the CBD and in jecting new life and adding to public space and amenities, all will be cru cial to a downtown still trying to nd its footing in the pandemic.

Detroit Homecoming

“ at community, especially as Related and Ilitch come together, is really starting to in ll,” Larson said. “It’ll take some years, obviously, and it’s not going to be overnight, but the transformation of that park is going to take some time, too. Having a strat egy about how the overall master planning of that park evolves with the

` Karp and Associates’ redevelopment of the 1133 Griswold St. building.

More information: detroithomecoming.com

Many major corporate players and large employers remain in hybrid or work-from-home mode, said Eric Lar son, CEO of the DDP.

Chicago-based brokerage house JLL, which has a Royal Oak o ce, says o ce vacancy downtown is 11.7 per cent — among the lowest rates in Southeast Michigan. However, the DDP says that daily o ce population is still just perhaps 45 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

` Grand Circus Park placemaking en hancements.

North American International Detroit Auto Show

` A pair of placemaking investments in the Paradise Valley Cultural and Entertainment District improving the central park and enhancing the en tryway into the district.

Concours d'Elegance

Detroit’sservice.

If it becomes law, that could help drive additional residential inventory in a central business district that tends to lag behind the downtowns of other largeFormetros.example, there are about 4,500 units in the downtown core, accord ing to the DDP.

Ben Telian, AIA, LEED AP, has been promoted to senior associate at Quinn Evans, a leading national design rm. Telian is an architect with more than ten years of diverse experience, Library,BranchLansing;historiccenterHeritageworkresidentialeducational,includingcultural,andprojects.HisrecentincludesthedesignofHall,anewwelcomeandmeetingspaceattheMichiganStateCapitolinandthenewNorthoftheClinton-MacombalsoinMichigan.

More information: www.naias.com

And Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Visit Detroit, said down town hotels have increased occupan cy from the mid 20s in January to 57 percent as of last month. In 2018, there were eight major citywide con ventions and this year, there are 12; next year, seven are already on the books, he said.

downtown visitor tra c since the pandemic began — an average of 95,010 per day, not including workers or residents — and the rst time during the global health crisis that a month surpassed its pre-pandemic level.According to Placer.ai data com piled by the Downtown Detroit Part nership, there was an average of 94,522 visitors downtown in July 2019.

Larson pointed to improvements at Grand Circus Park helping drive a broad strategy for the area.

Baltimore has 100,000 fewer resi dents but more than 15,000 units in its central business district.

“It’s a very signi cant impact,” Lar son said of the o ce population drop.

“We’re excited about where things are going,” Molinari said.

Vigi Wasserbaech Private Wealth, UBS Financial Services Vigi

Truscott Rossman

` Placemaking enhancements to Ca dillac Square next to Campus Marti us Park.

Lea Vigi has joined their UBS team. Lea will broaden the team’s intellectual capital with a focus on analytics, digital platforms, and marketing while delivering the highest level of service to the group’s Ultra High Net Worth clients. Lea previously worked as the Digital Marketing Manager for Detroit Public Television for 10 years. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. Lea currently resides in Northville.

` Social district infrastructure in Cap itol Park.

When: Media days run Wednesday-Thursday, charity preview Friday, public days Sept. 17-25

Truscott welcomesRossman Kevin Tshiamala as its senior director of digital media based in the rm’s headquarters.Detroit Kevin joins TR from the Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors®. He has a track record of increasing market share for employers and clients and brings diverse expertise in structuring strategic digital and traditional marketing campaigns and delivering cost-effective solutions to meet client needs.

General Motors Co. is famously hands-o — it’s policy is called “Work Appropriately” — leaving the decision of whether to come into the o ce to its workers, leaving much of the Re naissance Center empty.

SoHybrid.although landlords’ buildings are well-occupied on paper, in reality it’s a di erent story at the ground lev el, having ripple e ects on restaurants and other businesses that rely on the 9-5 crowd for Companiesrevenue.mayyet order workers

Close’s recent projects include the conversion of Walter French Junior High School into housing in Lansing and the restoration of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina.

From Page 1

Shawn Verlinden, Sr. Project Manager, has been elected to AUCH Construction’s Board of Directors. Shawn is well respected within the rm and skilled in operations, staff development, and customer and trade contractor relations. He is active in strategic planning and committed to AUCH’s long-term success through his leadership of the AUCH intern program. Verlinden joined AUCH in 2013 and holds a Masters of Engineering in Construction Engineering and Management from the University of Michigan. announcedManagementPrivateWasserbaechWealth

Federal legislation introduced last summer that would o er developers a sweetener to turn old o ce buildings into residential, institutional, hotel or mixed-use space has oundered in Congress, sitting in the U.S. Senate Fi nance Committee.

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

How landlords grapple with re duced o ce consumption remains up in the air, although some ways to help repurpose that space have been tossed around.

When: The annual invite-only Detroit expat event produced by Crain's Detroit Business runs Wednesday-Friday. Session videos will be available at crainsdetroit. com.

Yet four hours away in Cincinnati, a city with less than half of Detroit’s population, there are close to 18,000 residential units downtown, accord ing to CoStar Group Inc., a Washing ton, D.C.-based real estate informa tion

For opportunities at TR, www.truscottrossman.com.visit

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan? Mostly hybrid, but some come in Monday through Friday. DTE Energy Co.?

Spotlight on Detroit

But the o ce-dominated central business district faces challenges not revealed in those visitor-driven num bers. Although there may be more feet on the street from downtown visitors, there remain far fewer butts in seats in the central business district’s 17.9 mil lion square feet of space.

30 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

Rocket Companies Inc., with its of ces in a constellation of downtown buildings, staggers its workforce, al ternating days in and days at home.

DOWNTOWN

ADVERTISING / PR / MARKETING

Pivot for downtown?

at’s part of the reason why some are envisioning a pivot, adding more residential and public space to bal ance out the sea of o ces that com priseLastdowntown.week,the Michigan Strategic Fund doled out $13.74 million in Re vitalization and Placemaking Pro gram money — which comes from the federal American Rescue Plan Act — to the DDP for eight projects, including a pair of residential real es tate developments by Gilbert’s De troit-based Bedrock LLC and Lan sing-based Karp and Associates. ose projects are:

Close is an architect with approximately 20 years of experience and is skilled in the design of museums, libraries, and residential communities, including historic preservation and adaptive use projects.

` Randolph Plaza improvements at the entryway into the Greektown neighborhood with permanent out door gathering space.

“ is 24/7 environment with resi dential and mixed-use is going to be really critical,” Larson said.

Downtown Detroit visitor numbers will get a big boost this week from several major events. | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The rst edition of the Detroit-centered classic car show arrives at Comerica Park Lots 1 and 2, College for Creative Studies Taubman Center and Detroit Institute of Arts.

More information: detroitconcours.com

vice.Jax and El Car Wash are just two examples of private equity-backed car wash companies.

e International Carwash Association says there are close to 62,700 car washes in the U.S., with 29,000 being in-bay automatic, 17,500 being conveyor and 16,200 being self-ser-

e TRP equity stake is to fuel expansion, which has the chain currently at 31 locations, primarily in Southeast Michigan, after a series of acquisitions but also planned new construction.Privateequity’s appetite for the car wash business is relatively new.

“Any time you’ve got good margins and predictability of revenue and cash ow, that starts to be very attractive to private equity,” Kell said.

In addition, the industry has historically been highly fragmented — much like, for example, self-storage and manufactured housing.

It’s the latest private equity-backed car wash chain to emerge locally, after February’s purchase of Southeld-based Jax Kar Wash by Birmingham-based PE rm TRP Capital Partners for an undisclosed price.

who have the vision to invest.”

them: An outlot of the Meijer Inc. property in Brighton, on the Fairlane Green property in Allen Park and others, according to Gabe Schuchman, Alrig’s founder and managing director.

“Ukrainians are grateful for the support we have received from around the world, but today I am writing not to ask for favors,” Zelensky wrote. “Advantage Ukraine, our new program, outlines investment opportunities that will unleash the economic potential of Ukraine while delivering growth for those

“We have joined forces just in time to help clients navigate the challenges and opportunities created by the Ukrainianschoolsutilities,roads,lease.indirector,tio’sShtohryn,tive,”coveryUnited24government’sRe-initia-OlenaDic-managingsaidanewsre-“Manybridges,and

er near the onset of the war in late February, when Shtohryn fled the country and went to Poland, where Miller Canfield opened an office following the end of the Cold War.

Serhii Shtohryn, the firm’s other partner who remains in Ukraine, focuses his practice on debt restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings, something Walawender said is sure to be needed in the future and which could have benefit for American practitioners as well.

Since 2014, when Russia started becoming openly antagonistic toward its neighbor, the U.S. has committed nearly $12 billion in security assistance to the country, with $9.8 billion of that coming since the

The messaging delivered by Miller Canfield executives appears in line with the goals of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

start of the Biden administration in 2021, according to figures from last month from the U.S. Department of Defense.It’sunclear how much added business the law firm might see from the Ukrainian affiliation, but Walawender said the boost might be “significant,” noting that the firm’s office in Washington, D.C., has been seeing an uptick in inquiries about potential work in the country.Withabout 200 attorneys around the world, and about 175 in Michigan, Miller Canfield stands as the fifth-largest law firm headquartered in the state, according to Crain’s data.

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

“WE HAVE JOINED FORCES JUST IN TIME TO HELP CLIENTS NAVIGATE THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES CREATED BY THE UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT’S ’S UNITED24 RECOVERY INITIATIVE.”

When subscription models were

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Given the increasing isolation Russia has suffered as part of its widely condemned invasion and the collapse of its economy, that country “has already lost,” Walawender said, adding that the planning for infrastructure projects and rebuilding of homes and factories could come quickly.

—Olena Shtohryn, managing director, Dictio

“ ere’s no di erence in Chickl-A and what we provide, in our minds, and we want to be where they are, where Starbucks is,” Landau said. “I think you’ll start seeing us pop up more where you expect to do your retail shopping, versus areas that might be more auto mall or industrial in nature.”Aspart of that, El Car Wash designs facilities that are colorful and WASH

“There’s also a real need for people to get re-employed again,” the attorney told Crain’s Detroit Business. “To participate in the economy to the extent they can. And I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about as soon as things start subsiding with a war.”

CAR

“ ere are clear economies of scale to be had,” Kell said.

eye-catching.“Wearebuilding more retail-looking facilities, and then we ultimately drive more demand because people like the product,” Landau said.

Landrau, for example, said a typical El Car Wash’s revenue stream comes 75 percent from monthly subscription fees. In south Florida, it has 100,000-plus subscribers. And they stick around, said Geo Karas, coCEO of El Car Wash.

A Tommy’s Express car wash is under construction on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak. | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

From Page 1

“ ey tend to have a lot of brand loyalty and a nity because of the product,” Karas said.

The Dictio firm with which Miller Canfield is partnering has a focus in real estate and construction law.

El Car Wash currently has 18 locations in south Florida after starting in 2018, with the intent to primarily build ground-up car washes in heavily tra cked retail areas, Landau said.

housing projects need to be rebuilt.”Walawender said executives at the two firms got to know each oth-

e country’s largest operator, Mister Car Wash, went public last year; prior to that, it had been owned by private equity rm Leonard Green & Partners LP.

Grand View Research Inc. says the $14.2 billion car wash industry is expected to grow to $20.7 billion in revenue by 2028.

Ukrainian forces have made up ground in counteroffensive maneuvers, according to reports.

Despite the ongoing fighting, Walawender dismissed notions that it might be too early to be making plans and seeking opportunities for the rebuilding of the country.

“So I would say, even if this is six months away, that’s really a short time period,” he said.

El Car Wash was purchased earlier this summer by Warburg Pincus, the world’s ninth-largest private equity rm with $73 billion in assets under management, for an undisclosed price.e New York City-based fund had been working with Bingham Farmsbased real estate development and investment rm Alrig USA to secure properties for car washes for about a year before the El Car Wash acquisition, said Justin Landau, a University of Michigan graduate who is the co-founder and co-CEO of El Car Wash.“ey were nding A-plus locations to build express car washes on, but what they didn’t have was a brand or management team of people to build and operate them,” LandauAmongsaid.

In an editorial titled “Invest in the Future of Ukraine” published earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, Zelensky announced “Advantage Ukraine.” The initiative invites foreign investment into the country’s post-war economy.

El Car Wash, based in Miami, through a local developer has tied up around 50 sites for new car washes from Detroit to Flint to Lansing. | COURTESY OF EL CAR WASH

Konrad Marciniuk (from left), Olena Shtohryn and Andrzej Chełchowski in the Warsaw, Poland, o ce of Miller Can eld. | MILLER CANFIELD

introduced in recent years, that created a more stable revenue stream that became attractive, said Michael Kell, managing partner of ornlea Capital, another Birmingham-based private equity rm invested in the Jax Kar Wash deal with TRP.

Now nearly 200 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, the war remains very much ongoing with no clear sign of ending. However, recently

UKRAINE From Page 3

And then there is residential, as vast and diverse as that spectrum is, as well.Townhouses vs. apartments vs. se nior living facilities? All have di erent minimum requirements in certain ar eas, said Kimani Je rey, another city planner for the Detroit City Council’s Legislative Policy Division as well as the City Planning Commission.

In one analysis, the city said in Jan uary 2020 that a 120-foot by 130-foot lot could support a 10-unit townhome development with 20 spaces, or two spaces for each unit. But without the parking requirements, that same lot could be built with 35 units.

businesses in downtown Royal Oak expressed concerns over parking shortages several years ago when a new mixed-use project in the central business district was being built. Parking woes in the central busi ness district became part of a bitter campaign several years ago in down town Birmingham over a bond.

Similarly, a 150-foot by 250-foot lot could support a 38-unit housing de velopment with 58 parking spaces (1.5 per unit), or the same lot could sup port a 123-unit development with no spaces.Inshort, parking requirements

On a broader level, some remain skeptical on whether scrapping all minimums is a good idea.

Rules by location

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

Surface parking built as part of the new DYNO Detroit climbing facility in Eastern Market, where a new potential zoning designation under consideration may remove parking minimums in the food district. KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

e logic behind the demolition was that the building, named after the weekly Detroit Saturday Night news paper that it once housed at 550 W. Fort St., was derelict and that it was needed to build a 25-space surface parking lot for condominiums being converted from apartments in the ad jacent Fort Shelby.

While providing parking can be ex pensive, Detroit and the region — without consistent and reliable public transit, coupled with suburban sprawl and other issues — remain heavily re liant on cars. Despite the cost of pro viding it, a lack of it can sometimes hurt the marketability of both rental and for-sale residential units, some have argued.

It’s not just major city hubs that are overhauling how they think about the issue as walkable living in dense towns, with apartments or lofts above retail and restaurants, and city cores remains in demand, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s consistent with, I think, current zoning and planning (practices) for places like central business districts and commercial districts,” Carmody said. “Parking minimums aren’t par ticularly useful. Obviously there has to be parking and the market has to de cide that, but it’s a pedestrian district and people can walk.”

Pamela Opyd of Chicago-based Gateway Investment Partners LLC, one of the project’s managers, said in an email to Historic District Commis sion sta at the time that the demoli tion is needed “to provide the parking spaces necessary to continue to sell the apartments as condominiums.”

“For every parcel that somebody is trying to develop, when you use that real estate for cars instead of units, it increases the price of those units be cause that’s real estate that’s not being used for people, but for cars,” Je rey said.“More people and more units means more taxes brought in that strengthens the city and improves public health with less cars on the street, promoting more walkability and also supporting local businesses,” Je rey said. “When you have pedestri ans on the street, you have feet on the street instead of cars.”

In some ways, some contend, park ing is a necessity that’s hard to shake.

In the eyes of some, parking re mains a key selling point for residen tialForunits.example, three years ago, the

“ ere’s a national trend to kind of get rid of parking (minimums) just because it increases the cost of devel opment, which makes projects less a ordable. A lot of times it’s not needed. Let the market decide,” Gu lock said.

Other cities

32 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | S EP TE M BER 12, 2022

“We’ve been trying to put in inter mediate xes, if you will, over the past 10 years or so where we see maybe there has been a change with the op eration of certain uses,” Todd said. But there is “no one-size- ts-all solution,” Todd said, given “the complexities of Detroit, its size and I think its chang ing character across di erent parts of theForcity.”example, the city is considering a new zoning code for the Eastern Market“We’redistrict.stillmaking the sausage, so to speak,” said Christopher Gulock, another Detroit city planner with the City Planning Commission. “We hav en’t reached the nal decision yet. I don’t think we would do exactly what we have now. I think we would at least do a pilot (eliminating parking mini mums) for a major part of the city, or the whole city. So we’re still explor ing.”One part of the sausage: e pro posed MKT zoning district for the Eastern Market area, currently under consideration by the Detroit City Council. Among many other things, minimum parking requirements in the city’s historic food district would beDaneliminated.Carmody, president of the Eastern Market Corp., said there is “near unanimous” consent among business owners and developers in the district that parking minimums should be removed.

New regulations for new era

Impact on housing prices

But also bit by bit, for the last de cade or so, the city has chipped away at parking minimums, Todd said. It has reduced parking requirements for housing projects along major transit corridors, for example. Parking hasn’t been a required component in most downtown projects for decades.

about six months, a “major update” to the city’s zoning ordinance is expect ed, including changes to how parking is built into its requirements.

From Page 3

In cities like Detroit and Ann Arbor, which have struggled to provide af fordable housing for years, reducing parking requirements could have an impact on density and therefore on housing costs.

But those rules may be antiquated based on a host of factors and what cities like Detroit and others are at tempting to achieve: ings like great er access to a ordable housing, better land use, small business support and better public health.

quirements around the country. e dense enclave of Hamtramck has no parking requirements in its main businessLansing,district.Howell, Grand Rapids and Traverse City redid their parking rules in their central business dis tricts, and even tiny Berrien Springs and Mancelona north of Kalkaska have limited the amount of parking required, according to the reform network.Ingeneral, the revisions are part of a broader move in communities that are trying to move away from being car-centric in the state where the au tomobile was born to more pedestri an-friendly.AnnArbor planners say that the changes are designed to reduce un der-utilized surface parking lots, pro vide incentives for new housing con struction, including a ordable housing, and through the use of more e cient land usage, support transit service.Providing massive parking infra structure with large developments is an expensive proposition. According to WGI, a national engineering rm which has an o ce in Kalamazoo, in the Detroit market, it costs $27,900 per space to build an above-ground parking deck; underground garages cost substantially more due to things like excavation costs.

Di erent types of property have dif ferent parking minimums in Detroit, said Eric Fazzini, a city planner for the Detroit City Council’s Legislative Poli cy Division and the Detroit Planning Commission.Anddierent parts of Detroit allow for di erent types of property uses in what is known as Euclidean zoning, named after a town in Ohio.

“ ere’s the big district-based re quirements, what uses you can have there, and then once that’s deter mined, you get into the site develop ment standards, like landscaping, parking, lighting, and signage, which are all kind of secondary items,” Fazzi ni said.e uses are as diverse and pre scribed as can be.

“force projects to trade more a ord able units for fewer luxury units,” the analysis says.

For example, the city of Ecorse rid itself of parking minimums, accord ing to the Portland, Ore.-based Park ing Reform Network, which tracks the movement to rethink parking re

PARKING

A courthouse? Fifteen spaces for every courtroom. A stadium? One space for every six seats. A tennis court? One for every two employees plus two for each court. A miniature golf course? Two for every hole.

It’s by far not the only one, joining perhaps several hundred across the country in reconsidering what parking mandates they have on their books.

It doesn’t just come down to De troit, either.

In 2018, the city hired Austin, Tex as-based Code Studio to update its zoning regulations, including how the city handles parking requirements, said Marcell Todd, the director of the Detroit City Planning Commission.

A place to park at home

It’s not just residential developers who have to balance a ne line on parking.Some

It’s been a long, arduous process, at times hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Todd said that within

In some areas like Royal Oak, busi nesses have said they have su ered when parking has been impacted in the short term by real estate develop ment. In Birmingham, parking in the downtown is a near-constant issue, and reconstruction of the Old Wood ward Avenue main drag has caused headaches for businesses, as well.

Detroit Saturday Night building downtown was razed for parking, a move that sparked concern in the his toric preservation community.

Still, change could be coming in a matter of months in Detroit.

“Because, basically, if you don’t change you go out of business.”

He laughs o the notion of retirement, but reluctantly relinquished some day-to-day control of the company earlier this year with the hiring of a new president, Bradley Walker.“Change, in my years of business, had to be done a few times,” he said.

It would ease the burden of its 60 manufacturing employees and lessen the urgency to nd more labor.

“Probably, hopefully, they’re gonna take over,” he said. “But either way there will be a future, and my people will be taken care of at TEMO.”Vitale leaves it there. He said he doesn’t like to dwell too much on the future when there’s much to be done in the short term. So, he’ll keep waking up and going to work as long as he can.

China and Turkey are trying a similar model, but Walker hopes to beat them in the race.

| NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

“I got to have a sense of achievement,” he said. “I have a lot of things I still have to accomplish.”

Steeped in sunroom manufacturing, TEMO makes a variety of other standalone structures and add-ons, including patio covers, windbreakers, screen enclosures and pergolas — one of the hottest trends for homeowners.TEMO’sbusiness now is almost solely through a dealer network that consists of home improvement stores across the country, including Taylor-based Wallside Windows. Its largest customer is New Jersey-based SRA Home Products.

From Page 3

Typically, customers buy TEMO products through the dealers, which charge substantial markups after contracting out the installation work. e DIY model seeks to eliminate ethat.envisioned self-assembly kits will be similar to the ones prepared for dealers, but much simpler, Vitale said.

On the subject of family, Vitale said he’s been unsuccessful thus far in passing along his passion for the business to his kids. ey are pursuing their own interests, and he understands that, but now he’s holding out hope for his two teenage grandchildren who he takes to work whenever he has the chance.

Walker, a native of Texas and service industry veteran with 20 years of leadership experience, is tasked with bringing Vitale’s vision to life.

To start, Walker said, that will require launching the new business this fall, Luxury Backyard Living LLC, along with a revamped website and shopping catalog and a new enterprise resource planning system to integrate the new ow of operations. e company also hired Mount Clemens-based Hunch Free Inc. to redevelop its marketing strategy.Ontop of that, the company plans to invest $1.4 million to automate a lamination line and materials handling in its plant and is considering installing a conveyor to load trucks.

ness through dealers, the executives said, especially for more complex jobs and home additions, which require more permitting than standalone“Westructures.want(DIY) to be just as big as the regular business, maybe bigger,” Vitale said.

TEMO

ey will be shipped to homes in pre-assembled panels with user-friendly instructions written with the weekend warrior in mind, he said.

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

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TEMO will continue doing busi-

Stores such as Lowe’s, Home Depot and Menards have had self-assembly sheds for years, Walker said, but they di er from the quality living spaces being developed by TEMO. A handful of companies in

As part of the restructuring, Walker said the company aims to hire an additional 5-10 employees, adding to its sta of 25 on the administrative and showroom side.

e plus side is better margins for the business, Vitale said, while customers willing to put forth some sweat equity pay half the typical price for a unit. A typical sunroom installed by contractors costs about $35,000, whereas a DIY screen room or windbreaker kit with similar materials costs $8,000-$12,000.

“We have to get more e cient,” Walker said, adding that he is exploring the integration of EPS foam manufacturing at its plant to protect against supply disruptions of a key material. “All of the business paradigms and ways of doing business kind of got thrown out during COVID.”Vitale keeps an eye on spreadsheets, but he’s not much for being tied to a desk. Doing laps around the plant help him stay engaged with employees, he explained on one such walk, during which employees returned his cheery greetings.“Ilove to come to work every single day,” he said. “I always look at my employees as an extended family because you spend more time with your fellow employees than you do at home with your wife.”

An overall view pictured at the showroom at TEMO Sunrooms in Clinton Township.

“ ere’s a lot of work going into re-laying the foundation to make this scalable,” Walker said.

Teressa Barrer of Sterling Heights builds a window frame at the factory at TEMO Sunrooms in Clinton Township. NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS)

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It’s still a challenge, but it is better. And, you know, I’m optimistic that it’ll be a gradual improvement over the coming quarters, but it’s not behind us. It has been great to see improvement starting to come. And we’re seeing that on all sides. You know, the

Is the company still dealing with supply chain problems, and are you worried about vehicle demand?

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Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the fundamental concept behind heating and cooling a car has traditionally been

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“We’re excited to expand this opportunity to all of the athletes on the women’s basketball and volleyball teams and are eager to see the in uence they have on educating consumers about career opportunities at UWM and the bene ts of working with an independent mortgage broker,” UWM’s president and CEO said in theerelease.newsponsorship deals with the MSU athletes will provide participating athletes up to $700 per month for the full year pending the completion of social media promotional posts assigned by UWM. e posts will be pushed out on student-athletes’ social accounts, and will focus on the benets of working with an independent mortgage broker, in addition to the career opportunities at UWM.

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treating the interior cabin just like a house, basically trying to bring the entire air temperature inside the cabin either up or down to a certain temperature range. And that takes an enormous amount of energy. But when you’re running o of an internal combustion engine, there’s a lot of residual energy that’s pretty easy to tap into from the engine itself. So you know, you get kind of a free supply of energy … but with an electric system, trying to do that same thing to heat and cool the entire cabin drains a tremendous amount of the charge from the battery.

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Gentherm CEO on vying for EV interior dominance

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34 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 THE CONVERSATION

` Can you expound a bit on that challenge?

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CLASSIC $169/yr. (Can/Mex: $210, International: $340), ENHANCED $399/yr. (Can/Mex: $499, International: $799), PREMIER $1,299/yr. (Can/Mex/International: $1,299).

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Rachel Watson, West Michigan, (989) 533-9685 or rachel.watson@crain.com

Phil Eyler, the 51-year-old president and CEO of Gentherm Inc., says the battery-powered vehicles of the future will be di erentiated not by what is under the hood, but what is inside the cabin. More than horsepower and handling, Eyler said, customers will care about comfort solutions, such as heated seats and even lumbar massage systems, both of which are in the Northville-based supplier’s portfolio after its recent acquisition of German supplier Alfmeier Präzision SE. However, heating and cooling EVs, which lack the residual energy of gas engines, poses signi cant engineering challenges. Eyler thinks Gentherm can capitalize. e following conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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e Pontiac-based company, led by MSU alum and former walk-on basketball player Mat Ishbia, announced the expanded name, image, likeness (NIL) deals on ursday morning, exactly one year after o ering such deals to men’s basketball and football players at the university.

I wasn’t planning on (leaving Harman) at the time ... but a recruiter reached out to me about the opportunity. And I had spent most of my career at Harman in the high tech space, and thermal management, at least in my view at that time, was something that hadn’t seen a big move technology-wise. Many of my colleagues in automotive had already been talking about the challenges with electric vehicles coming and the fact that managing human temperature in the cabin was a signi cant challenge in the EV space.

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Well, I went to Purdue for my mechanical engineering degree and started my rst job out of school at Siemens, which at that time had kind of a rotational engineering program that I was lucky enough to get admitted into. So I spent my rst three years of my career just rotating through di erent roles, and one of those was in manufacturing. So I kind of got my feet wet early in my mid-20s in manufacturing and really fell in love with it. I love the technology and I would say the ability to see your work on a daily basis, make a di erence for the company, and the adrenaline of manufacturing as well. I left Siemens after about four years and joined Harman, and spent my rst several years with Harman all in manufacturing. I had the chance to, at about 29 years old, open a new plant for Harman and became plant manager at that age. So that was a really exciting journey for me.

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So, the approach that I saw to take to the next level was to focus on, instead of heating and cooling the entire air of the cabin, heating and cooling the actual passenger or driver one at a time … So adding in software and algorithms that take into account our fundamental science that we have here at Gentherm, which is called thermo-physiology. We also have a medical division in our company, and really what I would say, the scienti c essence of our company is understanding how a human reaches thermal comfort in the most e ective way, and it’s really not necessarily related to air temperature. Your body has all kinds of di erent thermal receptors. They’re more concentrated in the back of the neck, certainly around the vital organs are very sensitive. And so you can apply cooling and heating to speci c parts of the body and reach comfort in a much more e cient way.

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Women’s basketball and volleyball players at Michigan State University are being o ered $700 a month from United Wholesale Mortgage for promoting the Pontiac-based mortgage lender.

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largest customer … We’re kind of considered a direct source tier-two supplier for a lot of the products that go into the seat. So basically, the car company will come to us, discuss what kind of technology they want. We will negotiate that deal, the pricing and purchasing negotiations, and then they’ll decide on the product they want and the supplier they want, and then they’ll go to a seat manufacturer and tell them that they’re going to use the Gentherm product. Kongsberg is one (competitor). Kongsberg was just acquired by Lear. There is a company called IGB, a German company (also acquired by Lear). There is a company called AEW in China, and then there are several smaller competitors that might provide one type of product or another. We’re by far the global leader in terms of market share.

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We have almost every global automaker you can think of. GM is actually our

Senior Account Executives Maria Marcantonio, John Petty

THE DETROIT CHILDREN’S FUND 6 TH ANNUAL GOLF OUTING THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! The Detroit Children’s Fund 6th Annual Golf Outing raised nearly $500,000 in support of our mission to ensure that one day, every child in Detroit has access to a quality, public education. EVENT CHAIRS: ASHLEY & KC CRAIN | RINA & ANUP POPAT EAGLE SPONSORSTITLE BIRDIESPONSORSPONSORS HOLE-IN-ONE SPONSOR PARAlixPartnersSPONSORS|Barton Malow | BorgWarner | Gretchen & Ethan Davidson | Fisher Dynamics Ghafari Associates | Ideal Contracting | Magna International | OneMagnify | Matt & Mona Simoncini Siebert Williams Shank & Co. Bank of Ann Arbor | Wendi Farner Family | Goldman Sachs The Suburban Collection

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