Crain's Detroit Business, November 18, 2024

What’s next after Duggan leaves of ce?

By Kirk Pinho and David Eggert

When Mike Duggan mounted an improbable write-in campaign in 2013 to become Detroit’s next mayor, the city was in the throes of the largest municipal bankruptcy in history.

Fast-forward to 2024, and much has changed, with Duggan ushering in a results-oriented style of governance that worked hand-in-hand with businesses and cultivated relative harmony with City Council and other

elected o cials.

But problems still linger in the city, and nobody says the job is nished.

Duggan announced last week that he will not seek another four-year term as the city’s top executive. A raft of candidates — City Council members, business leaders and others — will look to succeed him.

Whoever does prevail in the mayoral race a year from now will

DUGGAN on Page 18

Detroit riverfront boardwalk opening delayed to cut costs

By Sherri Welch

It will be another year before a picturesque boardwalk completed more than four years ago o the west Detroit riverfront opens to the public.

e delay comes as the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy drops a plan to build a temporary asphalt path that would have connected to the boardwalk following the alleged embezzlement of

some $44 million by its former CFO, William Smith.

Ditching the plan to construct the temporary connector path, a move rst reported by e Detroit News, and delaying the opening of the boardwalk will save the Riverfront Conservancy money as it balances operational costs in the wake of the embezzlement case, said Marc Pasco,

on Page 4

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced last week that he will not seek another four-year term as the city’s top executive. CITY OF DETROIT VIA FLICKR

Church’s vending machines let users donate to needy

By Sherri Welch

Charitable giving will be as easy as buying a can of pop this holiday season in Detroit and two other Michigan cities.

e Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is bringing its Giving Machines, or “reverse vending machines,” to Detroit for the rst time, with additional berths in Grand Rapids and Midland.

e church launched the Light the World Giving Machines e ort in 2017 and has raised more than $32 million in donations since. It covers all costs for the machines, including to ship them to cities and install them so that 100% of the tax-deductible donations go to charities.

e machines look like traditional vending machines but give people the opportunity to give rather than receive. Among the donation card selections are for coats, glasses, books, meals, goats and chickens, community wells and child car seats. e donations for individual items range from $5-$350.

For those so inclined, a contribution of $1,920 will purchase all of the more than 35 donation cards in the Detroit machines with the code 777, said Je Day, volunteer president for the Farmington

Hills stake, or region, of the church and chief revenue o cer for Leon Speakers in Ann Arbor.

“Each of the organizations have already selected the things that are of most worth to them,” Day said, noting people donating will know the money they contribute will go speci cally for the gifts they chose. Day is one of several local lead-

ers who helped bring the machines to Detroit by submitting a request to the global church, along with member John Rakolta Jr., chairman of Walbridge construction company and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates; and R. Michael Peterson, president of the church’s Bloom eld Hills stake and global

director of nancial services for EV startup Lucid Motors.

Day said he and Rakolta were inspired to bring the giving machines to the area after attending the tree lighting at Campus Martius Park in Detroit last year.

“It was electric, exciting to be in Detroit and feel the energy of what was going on and so many uni ed

people together wanting to celebrate not only the city but the season,” Day said.

Rakolta agreed. “We could feel the spirit of giving there and that touched us,” he said. “And secondly, Detroit needs help.”

“I am proud and honored to support the LDS Giving Machine initiative in Detroit at Campus Martius as it brings the holiday spirit of giving to our community in a unique and meaningful way,” Rakolta said. “It allows people to make an immediate di erence in the lives of those in need, from providing meals to delivering essential medical supplies. e Giving Machine is a powerful reminder that small acts of generosity can have a tremendous impact, and I encourage everyone to join in this opportunity to help light the world this holiday season.”

“ ... the whole idea of giving and not getting credit for it, just knowing you have helped someone else and get nothing in return. We need more of that in the U.S.,” Rakolta added.

e Detroit leaders were instrumental in the Giving Machines also heading to Grand Rapids and Midland, but local leaders in those communities organized e orts there, Day said.

Asian grocer taking over failed Amazon Fresh site

By Kirk Pinho

A planned Amazon Fresh location in metro Detroit will finally start selling groceries soon.

But it definitely won’t be Amazon Fresh selling them.

Kim Nhung Superfood Inc., a growing Asian grocery store, is taking over the Madison Heights space that Amazon.com Inc.’s chain was slated to occupy, company President Hang Phonrath said.

Kim Nhung will occupy part of Amazon Fresh’s roughly 42,500-square-foot box on the

west side of John R Road north of 12 Mile Road, carving it up into about 25,000 square feet for itself — more than doubling its real estate footprint — and building some smaller units for other users, Phonrath said. One would be about 7,000 square feet, while the rest would be roughly 1,000 square feet for smaller businesses.

The grocer is expected to open in the spring.

“We’re trying to make it more convenient for (our customers) to go grocery shopping, and then there’s other Asian businesses we would probably put in there, like

Michigan health insurer abruptly makes CEO change

By Dustin Walsh

Dr. Michael Genord is out as the top executive at Henry Ford Health’s integrated insurer Health Alliance Plan.

The Detroit-based health system announced Nov. 11 that President and CEO Genord has left the company, effective immediately.

It’s unclear whether Genord resigned or was terminated from HAP; and the system declined to elaborate on his departure.

Genord had been at HAP since 2016 when HealthPlus of Michigan, where he served as president, CEO and chief medical officer, merged with HAP. He then served as interim CEO and chief medical officer of HAP-Flint before ascending to interim president and CEO of HAP in July 2019; when he then shed the interim title in the position in 2020.

terim basis, the company said in a press release. Anderson will concurrently lead the company and maintain her current role of senior vice president and chief sales and marketing officer.

Henry Ford Health President and CEO Bob Riney said in a press release the transition will be seamless for HAP’s roughly 430,000 members.

a little bit of food hall, you would say,” Phonrath said.

Kim Nhung specializes in foods from Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, but the store also “caters to all Asian groceries.” Its specialties include things like fresh fruit and seafood.

The move addresses a long-standing need for the company — which was founded by Phonrath’s aunt and uncle in 1999 and was purchased by her family in 2007 — not only for more space, but one central

A trained obstetrician and gynecologist, Genord spent two decades in private practice before entering the insurance business.

Margaret Anderson, 54, will replace Genord in the role on an in-

“With a relentless focus on improving the customer experience, Margaret and the HAP executive team have consistently prioritized serving HAP members and addressing the challenges of the communities where HAP operates,” Riney said in a release. “I am confident that Margaret will do an exceptional job in advancing our commitment to value-based care, leading our best-in-class team at HAP, and continuing to always put the health and wellbeing of our members first.”

HAP is the fourth-largest health insurer in Michigan according to its 2022 revenue in the latest data available that was compiled by Crain’s Detroit Business last year.

Jury rebukes Blue Cross vaccine mandate in $12.7M verdict for fired employee

By Dustin Walsh

Jurors in U.S. District Court in Detroit punished Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for terminating an employee for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic, potentially setting a precedent for employers across the state.

The jury awarded $12.7 million to former IT specialist Lisa Domski after the Detroit-based insurance giant denied her religious accommodation request to forgo vaccination, as the company required it as a condition of her employment. Domski claimed the vaccine man-

date violated her Catholic beliefs.  But it’s the jury’s rebuke of Blue Cross’ termination of Domski and, ultimately, of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine policy, that could hold massive implications not only for Blue Cross — which is facing at least 179 more similar lawsuits — but for employers across Michigan.

Blue Cross stands by policy

Much of the jury’s award — $10 million — is for punitive damages against Blue Cross, according to the verdict form.

Domski worked at Blue Cross

for 32 years. Domski’s attorney, Jon Marko, said she worked 100% remotely as an IT specialist during the pandemic; 75% before COVID-19 hit in 2020.

Even without the vaccine, “she wasn’t a danger to anybody,” Marko said in an interview after the trial.

Besides punitive damages, Nov. 8 the jury in Detroit federal court awarded Domski about $1.7 million in lost pay and $1 million in noneconomic damages.

Blue Cross issued its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in October 2021 and stands by its decision in the

Health Alliance Plan’s headquarters building in Troy. | CoSTAr GroUP INC.

Michael Genord

A former expected Amazon Fresh location in Madison Heights is getting a different grocery store operator.

New zoning would allow skyscraper at Lakeside Mall site

Let’s le this in the “I’m 99.999999% Certain is is Never Gonna Happen” category — but still.

Zoning rule changes under consideration for the closed Lakeside Mall site in Sterling Heights would allow for buildings on the northern portion of its 110 acres on Hall Road at Schoenherr to be — yikes — up to 50 stories tall.

To be clear, the current vision for the property owned by Miami Beach, Fla.-based Out of the Box Ventures LLC does not include any buildings even remotely that tall. At most, some of the senior housing envisioned for the southeast corner of the property tops out at six stories, and the other residential buildings are four or ve stories in height.

said. “So we want to have that exibility that this can grow and adapt as the city does.”

For some context: e Hudson’s Detroit skyscraper by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC in downtown Detroit is 49 stories and 685 feet or so tall, topping out in April. e Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, the state’s tallest building, is 73 stories and 727 feet.

e tallest building in Macomb County is the 27-story, 260-foot Shore Club Apartments building in St. Clair Shores; while in Oakland County, the tallest building is the 25-story PNC Center in Troy, topping out at 346 feet tall.

“ at’s based on our assessment based on multiple years of working on this,” said Erich Dohrer, principal with the Dutch design rm Arcadis.

He made the remarks during an Oct. 8 special Sterling Heights Planning Commission meeting during which commissioners heard an overview of proposed zoning regulations for the property.

“You can say, ‘No one is building a 50-story building in Sterling Heights,’ but in 25, 30 years, is that the case? We don’t know,” Dohrer

As for the other portions, the maximum heights would be limited to 35 stories and 10 stories, decreasing as you move southward.

e conceptual plan for Lakeside, which shuttered for good in July after nearly a half-century drawing shoppers along one of the region’s busiest retail corridors, currently calls for a few thousand residential units, some of which would be senior housing. Other uses include retail, hotel, public park and other space.

At Lakeside, the JCPenney and Macy’s department stores remain open.

According to Planning Commis-

sion documents, a groundbreaking is expected in the fall next year and the project would take some eight to 10 years to complete in phases.

e Sterling Heights City Council on Dec. 17 will consider whether to sign o on a site master development plan, which the Planning Commission granted its blessing to this month, said Luke Bonner, the city’s economic development adviser.

Bonner said the Lord & Taylor department store space is under contract to Out of the Box Ventures,

RIVERFRONT

From Page 1

director of communications for the nonpro t.

“Every greenway, the Riverwalk, everything we do, there’s a cost associated with professional services … (from) the construction and security (to) planting the owers and shoveling the snow and keeping it accessible and everything in working order,” he said.

e move also makes sense given the lower levels of pedestrian tra c on the Riverwalk during the winter months and a city plan to resurface Je erson Avenue that would have impacted the asphalt pathway, Pasco said.

“Looking at those factors all together, we decided that it was best to open that stretch of RiverWalk when we can celebrate the opening of Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park in the fall of 2025,” something that is on schedule, he said.

At that point, the RiverWalk will continue through the park rather than up to Je erson Avenue.

e conservancy said in April that it planned to open the boardwalk over the summer after an 1,800-foot stretch of the Riverwalk on land owned by the Downtown Development Authority was completed — which it now is — giving pedestrians and cyclists a way to exit the boardwalk. e temporary asphalt path would have connected that stretch of the Riverwalk to Je erson Avenue and the Southwest Greenway while Centennial

and it purchased the Macy’s space.  e process for project incentive review is expected to begin next year, Bonner said.

One part of the project that’s a question mark: the fate of the Sears store, which is owned by Mario Kiezi, the property owner on the site that has not been bought out or consented to the development plan.

I emailed Kiezi seeking comment last week, and will update when I hear back.

ere is also a plan for the city to issue a $45 million public bond

Park was being completed. e conservancy hosted a preview of the boardwalk in June for residents of Riverfront Towers, Pasco said in a letter sent to residents providing a construction update.

In the letter, he acknowledged the conservancy’s original plan to install a fence securing the Centennial Park construction site along the DDA-owned stretch of land and lay down the temporary asphalt path to Je erson before opening the boardwalk and new stretch of Riverwalk at some point this year.

“However, as the conservancy works through challenges associated with the fraud disclosed earlier this year, operating budgets do not support the opening and maintaining of this additional segment of the Riverwalk,” Pasco wrote to residents.

In an email to Crain’s, Pasco said: “ e decision to delay the opening of the boardwalk and newest stretch of RiverWalk just west of it is simply the result of our cost/bene t analysis given sea-

that would be paid back with revenue generated by increased property values at the site. e city still needs to sign o on that. Lakeside was developed by the late A. Alfred Taubman and Rodamco, opening in 1976 and expanding in 1990.

Out of the Box picked up Lakeside for $26.5 million after Chicago-based General Growth Properties defaulted on a $144 million loan in 2016 and it went to special servicer C-III Capital Partners LLC, based in New York.

sonality and upcoming construction on Je erson. We revisited the bene t of an interim opening this year and should have conveyed the basis for that decision more clearly.”

After discovering the alleged theft of funds in late April, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy put Smith, its longtime CFO, on leave and later red him before federal prosecutors charged him with bank and wire fraud.

Meanwhile, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan is administering $35 million in new philanthropic commitments and helping to raise $25 million of that total to complete work already underway on the west riverfront, namely Centennial Park.

e Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation is seeding e Detroit Fund for Public Spaces, a supporting organization at the Community Foundation, with a new $10 million grant and making a $25 million loan guarantee to provide a $35 million credit facility to pay contractors as they complete work on the riverfront projects.

e Community Foundation’s oversight, however, does not extend to the development of the last pieces of riverwalk yet to be initiated between Centennial Park and the Ambassador Bridge. It also won’t cover the programming and maintenance of the existing riverwalk, parks and promenades along it or the Dequindre Cut, President and CEO Ric DeVore said when the fund was announced.

Kirk Pinho

An aerial view of the now-closed Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights. | COSTAR GROUP INC.

The 900-foot-long boardwalk that’s part of the west Detroit RiverWalk won’t open until late in 2025. JOANN CASTLE/COURTESY OF DETROIT RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY

Traverse City startup hub names new executive director

By Tom Henderson

A longtime Silicon Valley tech executive has replaced another former longtime Silicon Valley executive as executive director of the 20Fathoms business incubator in Traverse City.

Craig Wesley, who spent nearly 30 years with a series of technology companies in the Valley, replaces Eric Roberts, who resigned in September after three years leading the incubator.

Wesley, who grew up on Grosse Ile and graduated with a degree in communications from Michigan State University, took a sales job in Silicon Valley in 1985.

It was an exciting time to be there, he said, with startups getting funded and urged to ramp up fast and fail quickly if they had to. Build the technology, seek out a market and move on to the next venture if the current one wasn’t going to cut it.

“You were always surrounded by very bright people. It was fun and vibrant,” he said. “If a company folded, you weren’t considered a failure. What did you learn? How did you develop? How can you apply that to the next venture?”

In 2005, the next venture for him turned out to be a winner. He joined Southwall Technologies in Palo Alto and in 2010 was named

president of one of its business units, Southwall Films.

Southwall Films made high-performance thin films and glass products and got industry praise and recognition after it got the contract in 2010 to provide insulating windows for a renovation of the Empire State Building in New York.

While Southwall itself was a small company based in California, it had a global presence. It got glass

products from Singapore and China that had thin films applied at its factory in Dresden, Germany.

Its glass for the Empire State Building got rave reviews and led to the company being sold in 2012 for $113 million, which allowed Wesley and his family to move to Traverse City in 2013.

“My Valley friends said, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ “ said Wesley.

“We had been here on summer va-

cations and knew this was where we wanted to be.”

Since then, he has been president of the Wesley Performance Group, a consulting firm that worked closely with 20Fathoms on behalf of one former client. He said when he heard Roberts was retiring, he threw his hat in the ring.

“We’re pleased to have Craig at the helm of 20Fathoms,” said Lowell Gruman, 20Fathoms’ board chair-

man. “We conducted a nationwide search to find the right person, and we found him right in our own backyard.” From 2019-2023, Wesley had been on the board of Traverse City’s City Opera House.

“I want to help build a scalable entrepreneurial infrastructure in Traverse City and northern Michigan,” he said. “The nice thing is this is not a turnaround situation. Eric did a phenomenal job of building a great team here.”

Roberts will remain on its board of directors and continue to be active with other community organizations, including remaining on the board of the Fresh Water Research Institute.

The institute is a partnership between 20Fathoms, Michigan Technological University, Northwestern Michigan College, the chamber of commerce and the Discovery Center and Pier northwest of downtown where the center will be built.

Groundbreaking is expected next year.

“It was time to do more deer hunting,” said Roberts. Helped, he said, by his wife, Christine’s, recent retirement as a senior vice president at Hewlett-Packard.

“I’m going to be happy playing more pickleball and more hunting

See HUB on Page 7

Craig Wesley is the new director of the 20Fathoms startup incubator in Traverse City. | Tom HeNDerSoN

Duggan’s successor must maintain, build on his success

When Mike Duggan left the CEO job at the Detroit Medical Center to mount a campaign for mayor of the city, he quite handily won an improbable 16-point victory as a write-in candidate and cruised into office in the general election in a city looking — even desperate — for real solutions.

Now that he has announced he won't seek a fourth term as mayor, it's worth looking back over his tenure so we can look forward to what the city needs from its next top executive.

The roles at which Duggan has excelled are many.

He’s the salesman and storyteller-in-chief, the master of the PowerPoint outlining exactly what progress the city was making.

He’s the results-driven technocrat, reorganizing city government and holding his lieutenants strictly accountable for measurable progress on how many streetlights were working or how long ambulances took to arrive after a call.

And he’s a master retail politician, meeting residents where they live, up to and including living-room meetings in their

PERSONAL VIEW

Genesee

homes, and often was “the only white face in the room,” as he noted in his announcement Nov. 13.

All of that built a record of political success. His write-in primary victory is the stuff of Detroit legend, but his victory margins increased every time he ran, taking 55% of the vote in 2013, 72% in 2017, and 75.6% in 2021.  Duggan took office amid a bankruptcy,

County project would bring home our supply chain, let us stand up to China

The unprecedented breakdown in the supply chain that crippled the auto industry during the pandemic showed us the urgent need to bring our supply chain back to the United States.

Now we have an opportunity to do that just in Genesee County.

Attracting an advanced manufacturer to a 1,000-acre site in Mundy Township would be an economic hat trick for the rapidly changing auto industry:

It would make us less reliant on and more competitive with foreign countries like China.

Act funding for a new facility on its campus near Saginaw to produce a crucial ingredient in advanced chips.

Now we have to keep our feet on the accelerator.

A new large-scale advanced manufacturer in Michigan would create a new skilled workforce right here in Michigan and give us the tools to take on our economic adversaries like China by reducing our dangerous dependency on Chinese raw materials, technology and products.

and will be leaving the city with an investment-grade credit rating and a healthy balance sheet. He even met his goal of population growth, even if it took a while according to Census numbers that Duggan himself has criticized.

It’s hard to doubt that a fourth term would have been his had he wished it.

All of which is to say: Filling Duggan’s shoes is a tall order.

Charity Dean, CEO of the Detroit Black Business Alliance, perhaps summed it up best ahead of Duggan’s announcement: "Hell yeah there's a void. We need someone that's going to be able to build bridges.”

As she pointed out, being able to work with power centers outside the city and of different parties will be crucial going forward, with full Republican control of Washington at a time when the urban-rural political split among voters has never been more stark.

The field of potential contenders is already starting to emerge. Duggan’s announcement means it could be huge, with the field wide open and the job even more appealing with the strong base he leaves behind.

It’s vital that Detroit’s next mayor maintain Duggan’s business-friendly posture while also retaining the fiscal discipline the mayor brought to city hall.

It’s also critical that the city’s prosperity continue to expand to all of its neighborhoods and residents, rebuilding the strong middle class that once defined the city, but then left it in the bad years.

The city’s next mayor needs to not just maintain the processes that have led to so much progress. He or she needs to build on Duggan’s successes, and let voters know how they intend to do that.

We hope for a positive campaign of possibilities, rather than the divisiveness that sometimes comes too easily to politicians.

The stakes are high and Detroit deserves no less.

As the city prepares to write this next chapter, Duggan's tenure offers a crucial lesson: effective city leadership requires both vision and disciplined, detailed execution. The challenge now lies in finding a successor who can preserve this legacy while crafting bold solutions for Detroit's future — someone who understands that the city's best chapters are still waiting to be written.

move to the forefront of the transformation in the auto industry and help us develop the highly skilled workforce we need to lead that transition.

It would enhance our national security. And it would allow us to create thousands of jobs and a long-term talent pipeline for jobs in emerging technologies.

As the auto industry in the United States moves to electric vehicles, we currently depend on foreign countries, including China, to manufacture and supply batteries and other necessary components, including semiconductors.

It’s exciting to see our region’s economy beginning to make a comeback. In October, Hemlock Semiconductor received $325 million in federal CHIPS and Science

A new large-scale advanced manufacturer in Michigan is likely to include jobs in the skilled trades as well as highly technical jobs that require PhDs, making Michigan a hub for both new knowledge economy jobs and jobs that do not require a college degree.

Attracting an advanced manufacturer to Michigan would allow our state’s historic auto industry to continue its evolution toward creating cutting-edge vehicles that are more efficient while also investing in a local workforce with the culture and know-how to succeed in manufacturing. Supporting advanced manufacturing projects in Michigan will help our country

Competition is intense among countries around the world for investment in advanced manufacturing projects that support the automotive industry. That’s because these projects make countries less dependent on hostile nations and foreign competitors for developing necessary technology. They also provide long-term benefits to local communities with thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of investment.

As the auto industry continues to recover from the supply chain breakdown in 2020, it is critical the United States — especially here in Michigan — builds an economy that reduces our dependence on other countries and makes important in-

vestments in our workforce here to power that engine long into the future. With policymakers focused on building a strong advanced manufacturing economy here, we will be better able to weather future supply imbalances and strengthen our national security.

If we want to stand up to China and compete, let’s bring our supply chain, along with jobs and projects that have been outsourced, back to the U.S.

If we care about national security, and economic prosperity, we should be rallying around projects like one that could be come to Genesee County or Ford’s BlueOval Battery Park Michigan project in Marshall. These exciting projects create jobs and are the best way to go toe to toe with countries like China in an increasingly competitive world.

John Cherry Jr. served as Michigan’s 62nd lieutenant governor from 2003 to 2011.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced Wednesday that he won’t seek a fourth term as Detroit’s mayor. LAURA mCDERmOTT/BLOOmBERG

The 1,000-acre Advanced Manufacturing District of Genesee County in Mundy Township is being marketed to high-tech manufacturers. | FLINT & GENESEE ECONOmIC ALLIANCE

and having more time with my wife.”

In 2019, Roberts was ready to retire from his job as vice president of revenue operations of Saba Software in Dublin, Calif. He and his wife, who were both graduates of Michigan Tech, visited Traverse City and decided this is where they wanted to live.

He joined the Northern Michigan Angels in 2020, and the next year replaced Lauren Bigelow as executive director of 20Fathoms.

She had previously served as executive director of the Accelerate Michigan Innovation event in Detroit, which annually awarded $500,000 to the winning early-stage company in a pitch competition.

Under Roberts, 20Fathoms received two large grants in late 2023, $3.3 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s Small Business Support Hubs program and $4 million in grants and matching funds from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

at funding was to expand 20Fathoms’ reach over three years to a large swath of northwest Michigan, including Petoskey, Charlevoix, Cadillac and Manistee.

e incubator has a full capaci-

ty of 120 members, with rent as low as $100 a month. Some rent entire o ces, some have dedicated tables or desks in a large common area, some have drop-in privileges and take whatever seat is available.

e incubator also sponsors TCNewTech, an organization that hosts monthly prize-money pitch events for early-stage companies.

Wesley said he hopes to raise a seed fund next year to further help nance promising early-stage companies. e goal for the size of fund has yet to be determined.

He said he has met with venture capitalists in Grand Rapids and plans to meet with members of the VC community in the Detroit area and in Ann Arbor.

Outreach to Ann Arbor began Nov. 13, with the annual Desai Accelerator event at the Robertson Auditorium at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

It is a pitch event for would-be investors to learn about ve startups launched by UM business students, and Wesley said he planned to be actively networking with attendees to introduce himself and promote opportunities Up North.

e 20Fathoms name is derived from the depth of visibility from the surface of the clear water in the east and west Grand Traverse bays, which is equals 120 feet.

VENDING

e Michigan cities were chosen through an application process and are among more than 100 sites worldwide to host the machines this year, said Chad Lyons, a member of the church and a volunteer spokesperson for the local e ort. Lyons is also head of communications for General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet brand.

Two Giving Machines will be open to the public at Campus Martius through Dec. 8.

e proceeds of the Light the World Giving Machines berth in Detroit will bene t two global charities, Church World Services and WaterAid, and ve local charities chosen based on relationships and recommendations from leaders at the Downtown Development Partnership, Day said. Local bene ciaries are:

◗ Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan

◗ Focus: Hope

◗ Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County

◗ Pope Francis Center

◗ Zaman International Campus Martius attracts 2 million people during the winter holiday season, David Cowan, chief public spaces o cer for DDP, said in a video conversation with Day posted on the Detroit Giving Machine Facebook page. Visitors come for events including the annual tree lighting ceremony, scheduled for Nov. 22 this year, the menorah lighting, set for Dec. 25, and ice skating at the Rink at Campus Martius, among other events.

“We couldn’t be prouder to host this incredible opportunity to give back in such an amazing way,” Cowan said.

From Detroit, the Giving Machines head to Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids from Dec. 12-Jan. 4. e Midland Mall will host other Giving Machines from Nov. 20-Dec. 31.

COURTSIDE SUITES FRONT ROW, CLASSfirst

Open-air Courtside Suites with dedicated in-game service and access to the exclusive sold-out Players Club, BetRivers Backcourt Club, and CURE Insurance Courtside Club.

Erin Srebinski, manager of Startup Education at 20Fathoms, leads a Startup Bootcamp in October. ALLEN KENT PHOTOGRAPHY

StockX CEO to step down, be succeeded by co-founder/COO

By Anna Fifelski

StockX CEO Scott Cutler will step down at the end of the year, the Detroit-based online marketplace for collectible sneakers and more announced Nov. 8.

Cutler will be succeeded by Greg Schwartz, a co-founder who is currently president and COO, StockX said in a news release.

Cutler — who is one of StockX’s earliest investors and served as an adviser to the company prior to joining as CEO in June 2019 — will work closely with Schwartz through the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition, the company said. Cutler’s last day is Dec. 31 and Schwartz will assume the CEO role effective Jan. 1.

StockX operates an online marketplace where consumers can buy and sell authentic sneakers, streetwear, handbags, watches and more.

Cutler, a longtime veteran of marketplaces, joined StockX in 2019 to scale it for growth with the ultimate goal for Schwartz to step in as CEO, Cutler told Crain’s on Nov. 8.

During his time as CEO, he built a leadership team ready to take

StockX into its next chapter and worked closely with Schwartz in preparation for the eventual transition.

Under Cutler’s tenure, StockX recently reached 50 million trades on the site, which features 15 million buyers and 2 million sellers.

The company’s revenue has also grown five-fold and the team size has quadrupled to nearly 1,000 employees in offices and verification centers worldwide, he said.

StockX’s Detroit headquarters has around 200 employees.

“I think I take from StockX just tremendous learning about scaling a startup, really working closely with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship,” Cutler said. “Whatever I apply that to next is really going to supercharge my own skill set.”

Schwartz co-founded the company in 2016 with billionaire businessman Dan Gilbert and entrepreneurs Josh Luber and Chris Kaufman. Luber stepped aside as CEO in mid-2019 just as StockX became Detroit’s first tech unicorn with a valuation of more than $1 billion. Schwartz has served as StockX’s COO since its inception.

The company currently has no announcement on who will be serv-

ing in the open COO position, he said.

In his role as CEO, Schwartz will continue to extend the company’s reach through brand growth, category diversification and market expansion, he told Crain’s.

StockX recently announced a multi-year partnership with the Detroit Pistons to add the StockX logo to the Pistons’ jerseys this season, Crain’s previously reported.

“When we started StockX and we started building the platform, I think I realized right away I really wanted to be part of the background product … We got to a spot where it just felt like the timing was right and had learned what I needed to learn, and was excited to dive in and really be able to take the reins and lead this next chapter as we go after the long term vision,” Schwartz said.

While StockX has seen tremendous growth since its inception in 2016, Schwartz said the company’s current focus is to “build out global infrastructure, continuing to innovate in our product and continuing to build a great culture.”

There has been speculation about StockX going public for

years, with Gilbert saying in a 2021 interview that the e-commerce reseller could have its initial public offering sometime the next year.

“Whether or not there’s an opportunity to go public at some point down the road, part of that’s not in our control. Part of that is tied to, you know, when markets are back open and so we keep an eye on that,” Schwartz said. “Our focus really isn’t on that. That’s never been the end goal. It’s on, ‘How do we create great value for our team members, our shareholders and obviously, most importantly, our customers?’”

Meanwhile, StockX continues to

fight a lawsuit with sportswear giant Nike Inc., which claimed StockX violated Nike’s trademarks and sold counterfeit shoes. StockX has denied both charges. Schwartz and Cutler declined to comment about the ongoing lawsuit.

In February 2022, Nike filed a lawsuit against StockX alleging that the resale company’s Vault NFTs, or non-fungible token trading service, violate Nike’s wellknown trademarks. Later that year, Nike escalated the lawsuit, alleging the company had bought four pairs of counterfeit shoes on the StockX platform despite its promises that it is marketing only authentic footwear.

StockX CEO Scott Cutler (left) will step down and be succeeded by company co-founder Greg Schwartz. | STOCKX

CAN ANYTHING STOP HACKERS AND CYBERATTACKS?

With ransomware and other increasingly sophisticated cybercrimes on the rise, unprepared businesses can face high costs, compromised data and crippling downtime

By Dustin Walsh

The Russell Industrial Center, the heart of Detroit’s booming automotive industry a century ago and mere steps from General Motors’ Hamtramck Assembly plant, hardly seems a likely target for cybercrime backed by a nation-state.

But in the fall of 2018, new world in, old world out, direct-mail agency Wolverine Solutions Group fell victim to an advanced ransomware attack on its network that crippled the company for weeks and compromised the equivalent of 4.2 billion pages of customer data — an attack that ultimately cost Wolverine nearly 15% of its annual revenue to recover.

“At the time, we felt very prepared,” said Darryl English, president of Wolverine. “We had an extremely quali ed technical team and we had invested in the best security for the network, in terms of rewalls, antivirus and everything you’re told you should have. We were doing all the right things. But nothing prepared us for this.”

Wolverine was an early victim to the rise of ransomware — when cybercriminals hack into a network, encrypt the data and demand a ransom to get it returned or threaten the release of private customer information across the dark web — spiderwebbing across the nation.

e statistics are staggering: ransomware attacks grew by 73% in 2023 to more than 4,600 successful breaches; the average ransom demand in 2024 is $5.2 million; 65% of all nancial institutions have reported a ransomware attack this year; the average cost to recover data encrypted in the attack is $2.73 million; the average downtime for a company’s network after an attack is 24 days.

And ransomware is just one of many increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks today’s companies face.

What can be done to stop them? State legislators are now weighing in with a package of bills in Lansing that would de ne how businesses respond to an attack, including the timing of notifying consumers of an attack, third-party vendor noti cations, authorizing

FORUM UNDERWRITER

investigative authority to the Michigan attorney general and procedures for safeguarding sensitive information.

But would that increased burden on businesses, which are victims of crimes most commonly committed by nation-state actors from the Iranian National Guard or Russia or North Korea, prevent or lessen the damage done by cyberattacks?

It’s complicated and, of course, controversial.

One company’s journey

English is a supporter of the proposed legislation; he testi ed in a Michigan Senate committee hearing saying as much late last month.

Wolverine, at the behest of noted cybersecurity attorney and Butzel Long partner Claudia Rast, did all the things the proposed bills would require — sent notices and o ered credit protection to 1 million consumers, 800,000 in Michigan; held two calls a day with each of its customers, including the state of

Annual compromises

Annual compromises

Total number of compromises and the number of victims affected from 2005-2023

Total number of compromises and the number of victims affected from 2005-2023

Compromises by industry

Compromises by industry

Industries affected by compromises in 2023

Industries affected by compromises in 2023

Michigan; and noti ed the AG’s o ce and FBI immediately.

“We were not required to notify the AG, but we did. We were not required to o er any consumer credit protection, but we did it,” English said. “Claudia said it was the right thing and it was. We did everything this bill is presenting.

We went to the extreme and did everything we could.”

English said the company was lucky it had a well-rounded response e ort, but it didn’t prevent the crime.

e hack, which occurred in September of 2018, started as minor hiccups in Wolverine’s systems

— computers getting those wretched blue screens, rendering them useless, systems shutting down randomly and without warning.

“Your initial reaction is to address those problems, and you don’t think it’s something bigger,” English said.

But by the third day of network

bugs, his team realized it was a security event when all of its more than 10 terabytes of data — the equivalent of 10 million high-quality photos or 19 years of downloaded music played continuously — and its controls were encrypted by the cybercriminals.

e demand, like most in the world of ransomware, was for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin — auto dealer software supplier CDK Global was targeted with ransomware in June when criminals demanded 387 bitcoin, equivalent to $25 million at the time, and the company reportedly paid.

Wolverine paid, too, though a much more modest sum for the $35 million company compared to the nearly $2 billion CDK.

“We did what we were advised,” English said. “To pay this amount with all of the questions we had — ‘Would they take the money and go away? Do you actually get the encryption keys or will they come back and ask for more?’ We were told there was honor amongst thieves. If they take our money and don’t give us the encryption keys, then the whole jig is up for them. So we rolled the dice and we paid. ey gave us the keys and sent us a thank you note.”

Secrecy and uncertainty

Companies pay. at’s why the ransomware is so prevalent. In 2023, victims paid out $1.1 billion in ransom to cybercriminals, according to New York bitcoin tracking rm Chainanalysis.

Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of insurance giant UnitedHealth, paid a $22 million ransom to Russian cybergang BlackCat after its ransomware attack disrupted millions of payments to health care providers for weeks in 2023.

But that honor English spoke about appears to have eroded in the last few years as Change never got its data back and hackers reportedly tried to extort the company a second time.

Sources close to the ransomware cyberattack on Ascension Health in May, which took down the 140-hospital system’s electronic medical records and caused doctors and nurses across Michigan to maintain handwritten records, told Crain’s the system didn’t pay the ransom and elected to rebuild its systems and restore the data it could.

Grand Blanc-based McLaren Health Care declined to con rm whether it paid a ransom in a attack similar to Ascension’s in August.

Source: Identity Theft Resource Center

Source: Identity Theft Resource Center

In 2018 Wolverine Solutions Group fell victim to an advanced ransomware attack on its network that crippled the company for weeks. “We were doing all the right things. But nothing prepared us for this,” Darryl English, president of Wolverine, said. | NIC ANTAYA

CYBERSECURITY

Wolverine was ultimately at a business standstill for three weeks, English said.

“We were extremely transparent,” English said. “I was personally doing calls from 6 a.m. to midnight every day until we were up and running. I think we gained a lot of respect because a lot of companies get hit and never say anything because they don’t have to. At the very least, these bills present a guideline of the things you need to do. e right thing to do.”

What states can do

Governments, such as Michigan’s, are eager to prevent the loss of consumer data and prevent these attacks from occurring, but appear relatively hamstrung by the clandestine nature of the cybergang diaspora.

Michigan’s AG doesn’t have much authority to wrangle with faceless gangs operating out of co ee shops in Romania or arcades in China.

Instead, legislation targets the victims of the crimes, the companies themselves. It’s the only play the state government can make and one it hopes pushes all industries toward stronger defense systems and safeguarding capabilities.

Michigan Senate Bills 888-892, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Rosemary Bayer, expand the scope of Michigan’s Identity eft Protection Act by including biometric information as protected personal data and require all companies to notify consumers and the AG’s ofce if the data of 100 or more people has been breached.

“Like too many other Michiganders, I have been personally affected by data breaches in recent years, and I understand the worry, frustration, and headaches that come along with it. We can and must do better for our Michigan consumers,” Bayer said in a press release upon introducing the legislation early last month.

“ is legislation brings Michigan up to speed with 37 other states who require that entities notify the attorney general when data breaches occur, enabling them to get ahead of the issue and better support a ected consumers.”

Not everyone agrees

Despite English’s support, many across the business sector are opposed to the legislation.

In an Oct. 9 letter to the Senate Committee on Finance, Insurance, and Consumer Protection, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Detroit Regional Chamber, Michigan Retailers Association, Grands Rapids Chamber, Michigan Manufacturers Association, Small Business Association of Michigan and National Federation of Independent Business issued concerns about the package.

e coalition of business groups said in the letter that the legislation is too vague and creates overlapping mandates from di erent states and the federal government.

Also at issue is the requirement to provide 24 months of credit monitoring to a ected parties versus the industry standard of 12 months and the 100-consumer impacted threshold, instead of 250 to 500 in other states.

“We urge the committee to closely review the language of this bill and to work with the business associations included in this letter to nd a path to balance both the protection of Michigan’s customers and the ability of businesses to comply with this act while competing for growth in the state,” the letter reads.

e Michigan Bankers Association, which represents 99 banks in the state, also opposes the legislation.

“We do not want things that are going to be punitive or burdensome for businesses,” said Alex Morris, assistant vice president of advocacy for the Lansing-based group. “Consumer data should be protected and we support a baseline noti cation method, but in this space we are typically more supportive of a federal solution to avoid a patchwork from the states. All of these breaches are interstate or even have international pieces to them.”

Meanwhile, every September, English gathers Wolverine’s employees not for a celebration, but for an educational event on the day the company was ransomed. It’s a solemn reminder of the cost to the company’s bottom line and the diligence required to prevent another attack.

“( e attack) is not something we’re proud of, but part of the DNA of this company,” English said. “Something happened here and this threat is not going to go away. We can never feel 100% comfortable again and that’s why we keep reinvesting in infrastructure tools to make sure we are doing the very best that we can.”

steps companies should take after a data breach

You’ve been hacked. Now what?

Cybersecurity is now paramount in the operations of every business. While large hacks, such as the attack on UnitedHealth’s Change Health Care last year and Equifax in 2017, dominate the headlines, cybercrime against businesses is nearly ubiquitous. In fact, small businesses are the target of 43% of all cyberattacks annually. Yet, only 14% of small companies even have a cybersecurity plan. Even fewer have cybersecurity insurance.

The most common expression in the world of cybersecurity today is “not if, but when” will a cyberattack happen. While all efforts should be put on prevention, there’s also little guidance for companies on what to do if systems are breached.

This is a basic, somewhat rudimentary, guide for steps companies can take to address a cyberattack before, during and after the event, compiled from several reputable sources in the sector, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, IBM and federal agencies.

1

2

3

Develop an incident response plan

While response plans are required in some industries and those with certain federal contracts, they are recommended for every company. An IRP is exactly what it sounds like — an outline of steps required to plan, respond to and recover from a cyberattack. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and private companies like the SANS Institute and Crowdstrike offer free, step-by-step frameworks for developing an IRP. Setting a framework of procedures can be the difference in discovering and addressing a breach and mitigating the damage as well as realizing immense cost savings.

Determine the type of attack

Once your systems have been breached, it’s of timely importance to determine what the attackers are or were after. Has data been stolen? If so, what data? What can they do with it? Ransomware attackers generally let the company know they are there, with demands for ransom to return control of the systems back to the victim. The response will be dictated by the type of attack. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has a guide on how to handle ransomware.

Isolate affected systems, hardware

Among the most challenging aspects of a cyberattack is rooting out the bad guys, nding what systems are struck and removing those systems, computers, etc., from the larger connected network. Powering down hardware is not recommended because maintaining evidence is key to understanding the hack and vulnerabilities.

Go ‘old school’

Hackers may very well be monitoring IT communications and activity. So it’s important to immediately switch from email and chat app communications to in-person meetings. Allowing the culprits to know what you know could cause them to better cover their tracks or destroy valuable information or rapidly lock users out of the systems. 4

Preserve and restore

At this point, a third-party cybersecurity contractor should have been brought in if the attack is above the internal IT department’s skill level. But preserving logs, memory dumps, network traf c and more is critical to restoring the systems to full working status. Then the work of removing malicious code and software updates commences as well as resetting all passwords. If ransomware is involved, all the data may need to be decrypted, a laborious step. Once the systems are free from hackers, the systems’ les should be tested and then, once determined to be safe, the systems can be reconnected to the network. 5

Inform and communicate

The company’s legal team, internal or external, should have by now informed the proper authorities on the attack. Different states and federal agencies require noti cation following a cyberattack at various times depending on the type of attack and what data has been compromised. Customers and vendors should also be noti ed as soon as possible about the attack, especially if their data has been compromised. 6

To pay or not to pay ransom, that is the question

When hit with a ransomware attack, the health care industry faces a dilemma: pay the ransom or try to restore the systems and data manually. This is a tricky and risky proposition.

Do we figure out a way to eliminate the threat and restore our system to a time when all was running well, or are we merely shrugging our collective shoulders and caving to those within the organization, considering what could happen to patients’ lives?

Doug Witten is an assistant professor in the department of computer science at Wayne State University.

The critical functionality of ransomware is that once the attacker gains privileged access, they embed the software deep into the system, making it extremely difficult to eradicate. The application will remove methods to recover the system and encrypt all pertinent systems and data files. The program will then send a message to the user with instructions on paying for their recovery.

This past April, Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, suffered a loss of $1.521 billion in direct data breach response costs due to a ransomware attack that caused its payment platform to suspend operations between doctors, pharmacies and testing facilities. This affected nearly one out of every three Americans. The theft centered around billing records, personal data and insurance data.

Also, this past April, Octapharma Plasma, a company that produces blood plasma products in America and supplies almost 75% of European countries, was hit with a ransomware attack that shut down over 150 collection centers, resulting in critical shortages in Europe.

In an interesting case study from August 2023 in Las Vegas,

CEOs need to act today to outsmart adversaries with AI

Cyber adversaries — the bad guys — are leveraging AI to infiltrate IT environments and compromise data on an unprecedented scale.

As a leader who runs an IT and cybersecurity organization, I’ve witnessed firsthand how rapidly the threat landscape is evolving. While some executives take this seriously, many CEOs remain on the sidelines, not fully embracing their responsibility to safeguard their technology and customers. Leaving this to IT departments without strategic oversight or appropriate budgets exposes organizations to an increasingly hostile digital world. Without AI-powered cybersecurity solutions and full CEO support, businesses are bringing a knife to a gunfight.

liseconds. It’s crucial to fight fire with fire.

ransomware hit Caesar’s Palace and MGM Grand casinos. Caesar’s Palace opted to pay the $15 million ransom, while MGM decided to try to fix the problem themselves. MGM’s decision cost them dearly, with an outage lasting 10 days and costing them over $100 million.

Companies face the decision of whether to pay; some do, some don’t. The consequences are enormous either way.

A hacking organization called Blacksuit, formerly Royal Ransomware, is responsible for all the ransomware listed here. It hires contractors to help facilitate these large fraud schemes and operates as a ransomware-as-a-service business. The group brings in hackers from all over the world to assist with various aspects of an attack. An interesting aspect is that this organization failed to pay many of those cybercriminals, reminding us of the adage that there is no honor among thieves.

Health care deals with patients' lives rather than a slot machine. But the gamble is there: to pay or not to pay. The pros and cons for each are striking.

On the one hand, I would have enormous grief about forking over cash to these cybercriminals. My hubris would make me believe we could solve the problem faster and cheaper than shelling out money to crooks. Why pay for something we can fix? On the other hand, what happens if we can’t fix it?

These decisions are not made in a vacuum. Input is needed from multiple departments and upper management. Most of all, the risk factor for what happens if we choose to solve our issue, as lives are at stake, is at play. Do we want to be Caesar’s Palace or MGM in this case?

Cybercriminals are outpacing companies’ prevention tactics by using AI to launch sophisticated, scalable attacks. AI-powered malware and automated hacking tools exploit vulnerabilities with unmatched speed and precision. They use algorithms to swiftly scan networks for weaknesses, adapt in real time and mimic legitimate user behavior to evade detection.

The statistics are alarming. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, global cybercrime costs are projected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, with AI-driven attacks playing a significant role.

In practice, this is challenging. With over 3,200 cybersecurity vendors globally, according to Gartner, part of the strategy is selecting the tools your business needs based on risk profile and industry.

Cybersecurity isn’t just an IT issue; it’s a fundamental business concern. Consider a hospital. If systems go down due to a cyberattack, IT can’t care for patients. Medical staff must continue care, potentially resorting to pen and paper. While IT restores systems, front-line staff need training and plans to operate without digital tools.

Think of cybersecurity tools like safety features in cars. In the ’80s and ’90s, cars had seat belts and eventually ABS. Today, multiple airbags, backup cameras and advanced warning systems are standard. Cybersecurity has evolved similarly. Traditional defenses — firewalls, antivirus software and the like — are no longer sufficient. Outdated security practices also can’t compete. An IT manager might say, “We patch our systems every Thursday.” But no team can manually address all vulnerabilities promptly. New threats emerge daily, and without AI assistance, keeping up is impossible.

AI-driven solutions like vulnerability management solutions continuously monitor systems, identify vulnerabilities in real time and automate remediation. They prioritize threats, allowing IT teams to focus on critical issues first. By integrating AI, businesses shift from reactive to proactive.

If adversaries use AI to enhance attacks, we must use AI to bolster defenses. AI-driven tools analyze vast data faster than humans, detect anomalies indicating breaches and respond in mil-

This scenario isn’t limited to health care. In a manufacturing plant hit by ransomware, production halts, revenue plummets. Operations need contingency plans to keep processes running, even manually. Without these plans, businesses risk significant financial and reputational damage.

Leaders must recognize that preparing for and responding to cyber threats is as much about business continuity as technology.

Despite escalating risks, many organizations over-rely on IT departments without executive support. This gap becomes glaring during outages when companies scramble without a plan. IT alone can’t resolve crises or keep the business running smoothly.

Operations teams must be involved in planning.

CEOs need to consider: How will your business operate if systems are down for an extended period?

Given the critical nature of cybersecurity, the company’s top IT and cybersecurity executives should report directly to the CEO or at least have seats at the executive table. If the business isn’t large enough for these roles, consider virtual or fractional CIO/ CISO services.

Together, they should formulate

contingency plans. They develop strategies addressing both technological defenses and operational continuity. When IT executives are part of leadership, cybersecurity and resilience become integral to strategic planning.

Here’s what business leaders need to do:

Educate yourself on AI and cybersecurity: Understand how AI is reshaping cybersecurity to make informed decisions.

Elevate IT leadership: Ensure your CIO/CISO reports directly to the CEO or has a seat at the executive table. Consider combining IT and resilience roles or fostering close collaboration.

Update basic security measures: Implement advanced tools like dndpoint detection and response, multi-factor authentication, enhanced email security, and end-user training.

Invest in AI-driven solutions: Allocate resources to AI-powered tools for threat detection, response and prevention.

Integrate IT and operations: Foster communication between leadership, IT, and operations to align cybersecurity strategies with business objectives.

Develop comprehensive plans: Create robust policies and incident response plans, including worst-case scenarios.

Conduct regular audits and drills: Routine assessments and drills prepare the organization for cyber incidents.

It’s time to ask ourselves: Are we leveraging AI to enhance cybersecurity, or are we falling behind? Do we have a plan involving both IT and operations? Is our IT executive involved at the highest levels? Is the CEO setting the tone from the top?

We have to accept that cybercrime is a never-ending war. We only “win” by protecting our businesses through preparedness. Business leaders must embrace AI not just for growth but as a shield against harm.

The tools are at our disposal, and the stakes have never been higher. It’s up to us to lead the way, integrating teams and strategies to safeguard our organizations’ futures.

Matt Loria is the managing partner and CEO of Auxiom, an IT and cybersecurity company.

Cybersecurity is a fundamental business concern. GeTTY ImAGeS

CYBERSECURITY | COMMENTARY

Prepare for a cyber incident before it happens

Cybersecurity articles and webinars are quick to advise what to do when a cyber incident happens. While this advice is extremely helpful — and I certainly have authored and presented many of these post cyber-event focused articles and webinars — my recent focus has been to advocate the steps one can take in advance of the cyber incident.

Claudia

Rast is a shareholder based in Butzel Long's Ann Arbor office and is chair of the IP, Cybersecurity & Emerging Technology Group.

In other words, short of implementing the typical cyber defenses, what else should companies do? My simple response: prepare for the event as if it will happen and don’t assume your defenses are perfect. So, how does a company build that resiliency?

There are three basic steps: create the Incident Response Plan or IRP, recruit the Incident Response team, and implement robust and comprehensive training that includes full-scale tabletop exercises.

In my experience, it is the rare client that appears with its IRP in hand and IR team in the wings. Most cli-

ents need immediate help and advice, and hours if not days, can be wasted in the immediate aftermath of a cyber incident with the client wondering if its insurance policy will cover the event and, if so, what will it cover, whether its policy requires paneled experts (and if so, where does one find those experts), what laws apply, who needs notification and more.

When properly prepared and used, IRPs are well worth the time and energy it takes to prepare them because most of these questions will be answered as the IRP is drafted. IRPs become valuable roadmaps for navigating the early chaotic hours of a cyber incident. In addition and as noted above, they are extremely useful tools during the process of their preparation, for as the initial IR team drafts the IRP, they must identify, connect with and gain buy-in from their internal and external IR teams and familiarize themselves with the function and interconnection of the

entity’s basic digital infrastructure.

The IRP and IR team are critical to the entity’s successful response and recovery from a cyber incident. The real trick is to ensure that the IRP does not languish on the company server, and the internal IR team does not forget its training. The IRP should be printed out and tucked into the laptop case or backpack of every internal IR team member, and training that includes tabletop drills should be an annual exercise.

Whether your IT staff is internal or external, unless their day job involves digital forensics and cybersecurity, you should engage specialized and experienced third parties to assist with incident response. Experts in forensics, law and public relations are the main external partners of the IR team, and their skill and experience are invaluable.

Cyber insurance policies will generally list paneled legal and forensic teams, but it is the rare insurer that will refuse qualified experts as long as they agree to the insurer’s panel rates. Once vetted and engaged, these external IR team members can conduct periodic vulnerability assessments

and be active participants in your tabletop exercises with internal IR members. Contact your insurance broker to confirm pre-approval of these external IR team members.

Access resources:The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency is a federal agency that offers free tools and templates for incident response, such as cyber hygiene services that include vulnerability scanning and web application scanning.

CISA also offers a wide variety of tabletop exercise packages for download.

The FBI is another helpful partner when the cyber incident occurs. The Office of Private Sector oversees the bureau’s effort to increase collaboration and information sharing with the private sector. Building relationships with the FBI and/or CISA agents in advance of an event allows sufficient familiarity for all to be ready, willing, and able to work together when the inevitable incident happens.Perhaps the most important message is the realization that you are never “all set.” The measures you implement, the tools you deploy and the training you roll out must be subjected to continuous

scrutiny and updating.  Everyone from the C-suite to the storeroom must participate in — successfully — cyber-scenario training. Every person in your company represents a potential pathway for threat actors to find and exploit. In sum, draft your IRP, recruit and assemble internal and external IR members, and conduct periodic tabletop exercises. These measures create the resilience needed to survive a cyberattack.  Entities that actively prepare and train for cyber incidents are those that recover faster, better, and with far less economic loss than those who do not.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency is a federal agency that offers free tools and templates for incident response.

Butzel continues to make an impact after 170 years

The Detroit-based rm innovates to serve business clients across the world

PAUL M. MERSINO President and CEO

Paul M. Mersino, Butzel President and CEO, sets his primary focus on continuing the rm’s tradition of excellence for clients.

Founded in 1854, Butzel is one of the oldest law rms in Michigan and one of the oldest continually operated companies of any kind in Detroit. Butzel has been involved in some of the biggest business deals in Michigan, including incorporation of General Motors and helping the Dodge Brothers to leave Ford to start their own company. The rm remains immersed in helping to shape businesses today.

And what about your workforce? How does Butzel recruit and retain young talent?

Butzel has a long legacy. Being in business for 170 years is impressive. How is Butzel evolving to stay relevant and ahead of the rapid pace at which industries and businesses are developing?

Our attorneys recognize that staying relevant means continually evolving alongside the industries we serve. Detroit’s business community faces new allenges and opportunities, particularly in the automotive sector. Our automotive practice has been actively guiding clients through this transition, helping them navigate regulatory anges, supply ain disruptions, and the integration of new te nologies.

biggest mergers and acquisitions within the industry; and today has assisted startups, foreign corporations, private equity rms, and legacy clients as they grow, invest, acquire, and merge while they continue to evolve with the anging industries. We continue to evolve with the City of Detroit and the greater region.

Why is investment in these areas so important for Detroit?

Detroit has always survived and thrived on being innovative. For the region to thrive there must be a robust ow of capital. Now more than ever private equity investment, venture capital funding, angel investors, and

“Excellent client service is our true north star in all we do. And we will continue providing that high caliber service to businesses big and small.”

Beyond the automotive sector, cybersecurity, data privacy, and arti cial intelligence are on the minds of every business. Our cyber practice is at the forefront of advising companies on how to protect sensitive information and maintain compliance in an increasingly connected world. We’ve established a dedicated group focused on AI and emerging te nologies, providing counsel on the legal and ethical implications of deploying these innovations in various sectors.

Butzel began as an admiralty law rm; evolved with the growing auto industry, working on some of the

mindful business acumen is of the utmost importance. Businesses need to be ready for anything and know when they are well situated to acquire—or be acquired. Private equity and VC in particular are going to continue to play a critical role in the ow of new business, new ideas, and te nologyfocused success for Detroit’s driving industries. We know because our Corporate and M&A attorneys are working these deals and we feel the sense of urgency to not only make sure our clients have the resources they need in their industry, but also the strategic partnership they need in their legal team.

e next generation of legal minds brings energy and perspective that we haven’t seen before. We’ve recently been named one of Crain’s “Best Places to Work” for the fourth year in a row. We really take pride in that award. We’re committed to o ering opportunities and work experience that allenge young talent. We know the younger generation values inspiration and relationships in a new way. ey want to work someplace that fosters collaboration and innovation. Our growth trajectory is one that we think appeals to these future leaders of the legal industry. Our attitude towards continuously evolving, and our relationships serving the most innovative clients, positions us to continue to recruit and retain the very best in our eld.

With all the growth the rm is experiencing, including opening of ces across the state, what does that mean for clients in Detroit and the surrounding Metro region?

Our recent growth only underscores our deep commitment to all things

Detroit. We’ve been in Detroit for 170 years. Our presence here is central to our rm’s legacy. We believe in the future of Metro Detroit and that our statewide rea is just one more way we can serve all of our clients.

If you had a crystal ball, what would you predict is in store for Butzel in the next 170 years?

Butzel’s future is bright. We’ve always been very serious about innovative business and believe that staying nimble and forward-thinking is the way we can best stay relevant, successful, and of service to our clients in solving their problems and a ieving their goals. Our current success was built over 170 years on the shoulders of brilliant men and women. Today’s Butzel team

strives to continue that strong foundation for future Butzel. By continuing to relentlessly pursue excellence in the service of our clients, and nurturing the culture of trust and collaboration that we’ve established, I’m con dent Butzel will remain a leader in legal innovation and a trusted partner for industry giants and startups still nding their footing—for the next 170 years.

Learn more about Butzel:

We exist to provide excellent service to help our clients achieve their goals and solve their problems. For more than 170 years, we’ve remained true to our Core Values: Excellence. Drive. Trust. Teamwork. Come experience the Butzel Advantage.

LARGEST VENTURE CAPITAL FIRMS IN MICHIGAN CRAIN’S LIST

MichaelGross, Managing Partner; WilliamBlakeIII, Partner; Charles Rothstein, Founding Partner; EmmaBiasiolo and BenBernstein, Principals

Plan for licenses to sell tobacco, vapes sparks a fight

By David Eggert

LANSING — Retailers would have to pay $1,500 for a three-year state license to sell vapes or tobacco under bills that may advance in Michigan, igniting a fight between health advocates and businesses.

The state is among 10 that do not have a tobacco retail license. Most enforcement targeting underage sales at shops is left to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The legislation’s supporters point to the prevalence of teens vaping. They say more must be done to combat the problem, including with regulation in an outlier state that has “weak” tobacco laws.

Jodi Radke, a regional director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said retailers “are privileging from the sale of selling an age-restricted product. They’re profiting from it. With that comes responsibility. Their role in that is to have accountability. The only way that we ensure accountability is to license them so we can actually check to see if they are indeed selling” to people under age 21.

Michigan, she said, has a high failure rate in federal underage compliance checks, over 25%, compared with other states.

Senate Bills 651-654 would create a licensing system for tobacco retailers and require the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs to regularly conduct inspections. A new or renewed license would cost $1,500 and last three years. The legislation would also decriminalize sales to minors and minors’ use of tobacco, e-cigarettes and other nicotine products.

A violation currently is a misdemeanor, punishable with a fine. While it would no longer be a criminal penalty, a violation would result in much stiffer fines for stores.

A third violation in a three-year period would lead to a suspended license, which would be suspended longer for subsequent violations. A licensee would lose its li-

cense for a sixth violation.

Wild Bill’s Tobacco, which has around 150 stores in Michigan; the Midwest Independent Retailers Association; and the Michigan Petroleum Association/Michigan Association of Convenience Stores are opposing the measures. So are the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce.

Rob Zora, general counsel for Wild Bill’s Tobacco, said the chain takes the issue of underage selling “very seriously” and fires employees caught selling to those under 21 a second time.

“We’re confident that the tobacco products that (are) present in some of the schools are not coming from minors coming into our stores and purchasing,” he told the Democratic-controlled Senate Regulatory Committee recently.

“Quite frankly, I think the bigger culprits are some of the local gas

stations where minors can come in freely or local mom-and-pop shops, party stores where minors can come in freely, buy a bag of chips, buy a soda,” Zora said. “The clerk, which is typically the same owner/operator who runs that store, thinks they can make some extra cash by selling to whoever comes in because they’re less likely to get popped.”

He said the proposed penalties are excessive and would have a disparate impact on specialty smoke and vape shops that, unlike other stores, sell relatively few non-tobacco products.

Michigan Petroleum Association/Michigan Association of Convenience Stores President Mark Griffin said the licensing scheme “is strictly a money grab. And I say a money grab because it’s entirely unnecessary.”

Most of the time, he said, minors are getting cigarettes and va-

Chinese auto supplier considers $12M investment in Auburn Hills

By Kurt Nagl

A Chinese supplier of Ford Motor Co. and Volvo engine exhaust manifolds is looking to invest $12 million and bring up to 100 jobs to Auburn Hills.

Wescast Industries Inc., a subsidiary of China-based Bohong Group, aims to build out a CNC machining operation inside a vacant building at 3300 University Drive, formerly home to driveline supplier GKN Automotive, according to site plan details submitted to the Auburn Hills Planning Commission.

As part of the project, the company plans to transfer key Ford

and Volvo programs from its Sterling Heights location while taking on more work for General Motors Co. at the 127,655-squarefoot building in Auburn Hills.

Wescast Industries is seeking approval of a special land use permit to conduct light industrial activity at the site, which is zoned for technology and research. It received the go-ahead from the city in 2017 but did not move forward with the project at the time.

Products to be produced at the building include manifolds for a Ford 3.3-liter engine, standard on the F-150, as well as manifolds for Volvo semi-trucks, ac-

cording to a site plan document. It would also house some office functions.

If approved, construction is expected to start in the first quarter next year with operations in full swing by the fourth quarter. The investment is expected to cover new manufacturing lines, exterior and interior improvements, and a new concrete truck apron.

Around 25 engineers, designers and machinists would work at the plant beginning in the second quarter of next year, ramping up to 100 by 2027, depending on growth and demand.

“The timeline is designed to

bills, Sen. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, said he has worked with the industry to make “significant” changes.

“The good actors here will continue to be rewarded by this system, and then we can get after the bad actors that we know are in the system because the access that young people have out there,” he said.

The Michigan Health & Hospital Association, which represents hospitals, supports the legislation. So do big health systems like Henry Ford, local public health agencies, other health organizations and groups representing school districts and school boards.

Backers say licensing is not burdensome, noting that 40 states require it. They contend that the state should have a deeper ability to track tobacco sales, enforce the laws and reduce minors’ access to harmful products.

pes from non-retail sources — friends and family.

Members of his association own roughly 3,000 of the state’s 4,800 gas stations and supply petroleum to the rest. The stores already have a sales tax license and must notify the state if they intend to sell tobacco. They also have motor fuel, food, alcohol and underground storage tank licenses, he said.

Griffin questioned removing the penalty for minor in possession, calling it a “head-scratcher. It taints the seriousness of the whole package.”

The Democratic-led House Families, Children and Seniors Committee was to hear testimony on a similar package, House Bills 6002-6005. A fifth bill, HB 6022, would let municipalities regulate the sale and licensure of tobacco products — ending the state’s “preemption.”

A lead sponsor of the Senate

Related Senate bills that would prohibit flavored e-cigarettes and menthol-flavored cigarettes, tax vapes and increase tobacco taxes appear to be bottled up. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned flavored vapes in 2019 but, following legal setbacks, her administration withdrew the rules in 2021.

Dr. Brittany Tayler, an assistant professor at the MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, said tobacco retail licensure is evidence-based and decreases the number of youth using tobacco products by nearly half.

“It works,” he said. “Right now, we make our retailers be licensed to sell Christmas trees. So what you’re telling me is that we are more concerned about our pine trees than we are about our kids getting a hold of a carcinogenic product.”

Tayler said subjecting minors to a misdemeanor, including a $50 fine, for buying or using tobacco or vape products is ineffective.

“These are kids. They do not know how to deal with a substance abuse disorder. We need to be uplifting them and not criminalizing them,” she said.

ensure a smooth transition from our existing operations in Sterling Heights and to minimize any disruption to ongoing customer programs,” the company said in its proposal. It is unclear if Wescast plans to close its plant in Sterling Heights. Crain’s contacted the company Nov. 11 for comment.

The legislation would also decriminalize sales to minors and minors’ use of tobacco, e-cigarettes and other nicotine products. | bLoomberG

Wescast Industries is seeking a special permit for light industrial manufacturing at 3300 University Drive in Auburn Hills. | CoSTAr GroUP INC.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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

CONSTRUCTION

AUCH Construction

AUCH Construction is pleased to announce the selection of Danielle Eschner to the Board of Directors. Danielle has worked in the construction industry since 1996 and joined AUCH in 2004. A graduate of Eastern Michigan University, she has developed her leadership skills and built strong client relationships working with a variety of higher education, K12 education, and municipal clients. Danielle works to be rm and fair with her clients and teams, and to empower people to succeed at all levels.

CONSULTING

ChoiceTel

HEALTHCARE / PROVIDER

IEP-PC

CONSTRUCTION

AUCH Construction

AUCH Construction is pleased to announce the selection of Jacob Munchiando to the Board of Directors. Jacob graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy with a degree in Civil Engineering and joined AUCH in 2011. As a Project Director in AUCH’s healthcare, commercial, and municipal markets, Jacob is dedicated to establishing strong relationships with his clients and using a coaching attitude to ensure team success. He is also on the BOD for the Building Enclosure Council of Greater Detroit.

CONSTRUCTION

AUCH Construction

AUCH Construction is pleased to announce the selection of Aaron St. Dennis to the Board of Directors. A graduate of Michigan State University, Aaron has been active in the construction industry since 2000 and with AUCH since 2006. As a Project Director, he is a skilled mentor and coach to project teams in the municipal and K-12 educational markets. Aaron is a positive impact on all of his project teams, ensuring that his clients’ expectations are achieved.

ChoiceTel is pleased to announce that Tabice Ward joins our team as an Executive Technology Strategist.  Tabice brings over 35 years of experience in the regulated utility and education sectors and has held progressive leadership roles at Fortune 250 utility companies. Her impressive background and expertise will undoubtedly bring immense bene ts to our clients. Since 1994, ChoiceTel has been consulting with mid-market to enterprise clients with their technology and cybersecurity needs.

HEALTHCARE

Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute

Karmanos welcomes Craig Cole, M.D., hematologist, member of the Hematology Oncology Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) and Multiple Myeloma (MM) and Amyloidosis MDT. He treats multiple myeloma with research interests in the clinical application of novel biologic therapeutics in MM, pathobiology of myelomagenesis and smoldering MM, measurements of psychosocial distress in malignant and non-malignant hematology disorders, and ethnic and racial disparities in MM education, diagnosis and treatments.

PROMOTE. Why not?

Celebrate your success with promotional products!

• Digital Reprint

• Logo Licensing

• Social Media Images

• Plaques/Frames

Contact: Laura Picariello Sales Manager

732.723.0569

lpicariello@crain.com

Dr. Nick Dyc, MD, has been named medical director of all seven metro Detroit area IEP Urgent Care locations. The announcement was made by IEP Emergency Physicians (IEP) President and CEO, David Hall, MD, FACEP. Dr. Dyc is a physician owner of IEP and was elected twice to the IEP Board of Directors, serving from 2016 to 2021. Dr. Dyc chairs the IEP Patient Experience Committee. IEP Urgent Care has locations in Brighton, Clinton Township, Ferndale, Grosse Pointe, Jackson, Novi and South eld.

LAW

Plunkett Cooney

DUGGAN

inherit not only his administration’s successes, but also areas where work is still sorely needed.

“I would give him a lot of credit for the transformation that we’ve seen downtown, for sure,” said Charity Dean, a former member of Duggan’s cabinet who is now the president and CEO of the Michigan Black Business Alliance and owns a co ee shop in the city. “We’ve seen neighborhood transformation, as well. We still have a long way to go in our city, for sure, but we’re nowhere near where we were in 2013.”

made headlines have been kept to a minimum, but how a new mayor and council interact is a question mark.

Although Duggan proposed a new property tax structure, it has not been adopted, and high property taxes leave a sour taste in homeowners’ and the private sector’s mouths.

“ ey’ve got to gure out a way to get the taxes down,” said Rick Portwood, the president and CEO of e Display Group, an event production company based in the city. “ at’s a barrier to entry for a lot of people.”

Karen CollingsworthCrusse joined Plunkett Cooney as a senior attorney in the Trusts & Estates Practice Group. Karen is an experienced estate planning attorney and exit planning advisor, relationship manager and business development of cer who provides advicebased solutions for high-networth individuals and business owners. A Certi ed Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA®), she provides the guidance and tools business owners need to optimize success with their business and their family.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Comcast Corporation

Yes, street lights are now working and public safety response times have improved, but violent crime remains a persistent problem.

e population increased for the rst time in decades, but concerns linger about gentri cation and economic inequality.

“ e momentum that the Duggan administration has really put us on this fast track to revitalization, and that is something that I think every Detroiter, no matter where you live, wants to continue,” said Anika Goss, CEO of Detroit Future City. “However, I do feel like a new administration will have the complicated challenge of really trying to gure out how that economic momentum benets all Detroiters at every level.”

While new jobs in industries like tech, health care and advanced manufacturing have come to Detroit, Goss said it is imperative for a new administration to ensure those jobs bring with them wages that o er a true path to upward economic mobility for city residents.

Bureaucratic red tape causes headaches for residents and business owners alike, something Duggan has acknowledged as recently as September.

Jennifer Jambor has joined Comcast’s Heartland Region as Director of Community Impact. Jambor brings years of experience leading impactful philanthropic initiatives to increase digital inclusion and close the digital divide to the Comcast team. Jambor will lead the team responsible for executing programs to advance digital equity across the communities Comcast serves across Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. Jambor previously led philanthropy and partnership work for national non-pro t Human-I-T.

New housing is being built in and around downtown and in neighborhoods that had not seen new development in years. But tax incentives are still needed to make most development pencil out and rents are still too high for many longtime residents who stayed in the city while others ed.

Long-neglected eyesores have been redeveloped or demolished, but Detroit is a long way away from being blight-free. And neighborhoods continue to need investments in housing, parks, commercial corridors and other things, Goss said.

e public battles between the mayor’s o ce and City Council that in previous administrations

“Whoever comes in o ce has to understand that it is still extremely di cult to get deals done,” said Cli ord Brown, a Detroit developer who has worked on projects in southwest Detroit, West Village and Brush Park in recent years. “It costs more to build a building than what the building is worth.” e next administration will also have to work to keep together what Sandy Baruah, the president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, called “the incredible collaboration and alignment between philanthropy, the governmental community — and that’s federal, state and local, led by the mayor — the business community and then nally the community itself.” at was echoed by Ryan Maibach, the president and CEO of South eld-based general contractor Barton Malow Co., who said Duggan “has demonstrated a unique ability to solve problems by building partnerships with political, business and community leaders.”

Baruah, who worked in President George W. Bush’s administration, has spent a lot of time in government and politics. He said Duggan — who ran the Detroit Medical Center prior to becoming mayor — has mastered both policy and politics and has combined them with a business acumen that is results-oriented.

“He knew which battles to ght, which battles not to ght. He knew how to get what he felt was the right thing for the city done in the long term. He always knew how to play kind of the long game. ... ey don’t build them like Mike Duggan much anymore.”

Dean, of the Michigan Black

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan speaks to the media in 2018. CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Here’s a look at who might run for mayor of Detroit

By Kirk Pinho, David Eggert and Amy Barczy

With Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s Nov. 13 announcement that he will not be seeking reelection for a fourth term, eyes now turn to his potential replacements.

The mayoral election is nonpartisan and will take place in 2025, with an August primary and a November general election.

During the last mayoral race in 2021, Duggan handily won reelection with 75% of the vote over challenger Anthony Adams after cruising through a primary with 10 candidates on the ballot.

A handful of early candidates for the office have emerged in the past year and some have taken more formal steps than others to solidify their intentions. Although the requisite 500-1,000 petition signatures are not required to be submitted until April 22, names have already been floated.

Declared candidates

Fred Durhal III  Detroit City Council Member Fred Durhal III recently formed a candidate committee to pursue the possibility of a run for mayor. The committee’s treasurer is Briaunna Durhal.

Fred Durhal, 40, was elected to the council in 2021 representing District 7 on the west side after serving as a state lawmaker, a position to which he was elected in 2014.

He serves on the council’s Budget, Finance and Audit Committee as well as the Planning and Economic Development Committee. Durhal formed his candidate committee on Oct. 7 and reported no fundraising as of Oct. 20.

Joel Haashiim  Businessman Joel Haashiim, 74, declared in January that he would seek a run for Detroit mayor.

The Detroit native attended Cool-

Business Alliance, said she does not necessarily see eye to eye with Duggan on every policy issue, but thinks he is innovative.

The “mayor does not take no for an answer. He’s obsessed with getting it done, which I think the city has benefited from in terms of its growth.”

Asked if there could be a vacuum following Duggan’s departure, she said: “If the mayor decides not to run again, hell yeah there’s a void. We need someone that’s going to be able to build bridges. What just happened on Tuesday (the Nov. 5 election) demonstrates that the next mayor’s going to have to work with a completely red D.C. You can’t be so locked into your world that you don’t know how to build bridges across the aisle in or-

ey High School and Shaw College at Detroit. At the age of 20, Haashiim opened Brothers Party Store at Seven Mile Road and Hartwell Street. After opening two more stores, he sold them to become a wholesale purchaser and distributor for chain stores including Kmart, Spartan Nash and Wynn Dixie, according to his campaign website.

Haashiim has experience in a variety of international trade delegations and business deals, including building systems and home construction. He currently is involved in the shoe import business and has a partnership in an energy-related company.

Haashiim has a candidate committee from his 2021 bid for mayor, when he ran a short write-in campaign and then withdrew; giving his support to another candidate before the primary.

Saunteel Jenkins

Saunteel Jenkins, a former City Council president and the current CEO of Detroit-based nonprofit The Heat and Warmth Fund, formed a candidate committee in August. The treasurer is Carl Bentley.

A former policy analyst and chief of staff for ex-City Council President Maryann Mahaffey, Jenkins, 54, was first elected to that body in 2009 and served 2010-14 as Detroit slid into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in history in 2013.

She was reelected in 2013 but stepped down a year after the election to lead THAW, a nonprofit that helps people in Detroit and around the state pay their utility bills.

As of Oct. 20, she had raised about $120,000 in two months. Big donors included PVS Chemicals Chairman Jim Nicholson ($8,300); Benjamin Kennedy, vice president of programs at The Kresge Foundation ($8,300); and Chuck Bullock, an attorney with Stevenson & Bullock, a law firm that specializes in bankruptcy work ($8,300). Those giving $5,000 each were John Stroh; ac-

der to get things done for the city.”

John Rakolta Jr., chairman of Detroit-based Walbridge Co., one of America’s largest privately owned construction companies, said Duggan has “done an absolutely amazing job. I don’t think anybody else in the country could have done what he’s done in the last 10 years. ... He knew he had a bad deck of cards when he went into office and not only did he play them brilliantly, but he’s really rebuilt the city.”

He pointed to economic development and job creation along with better public services, blight reduction and an improved police department. Duggan, Rakolta said, really knows how to leverage partnerships and private investment.

countant Patrick Fuelling; Hank Campbell, DTE Energy Co.’s human relations director; Van Conway, CEO of turnaround and financial consulting firm Van Conway and Partners; Carla Walker-Miller, founder and CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services; Leon Richardson, founder and CEO of The Chemico Group, and his wife Cheryl.

Mary Sheffield  City Council President Mary Sheffield has long been viewed in political and business circles as a mayoral hopeful. She formed a candidate committee in August 2023. The treasurer is Wanda Bush.

Sheffield, 37, was elected to the council in 2013 at 26, making her the youngest person to hold the office. She is also a board member of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.

The Detroit native has strong family connections in the city. Her father is the Rev. Horace Sheffield III, who organizes social justice and advocacy efforts through his ministry at New Destiny Christian Fellowship.

As of Oct. 20, she had raised nearly $240,000, including $103,000 transferred from her city council committee. Donors giving the maximum $8,325 included Majed Elseblani, president of Sebcom Group Investment; Sam Seblani, president of ZaZa; Christopher Jones, chief financial officer of Belfor Properties; Jordan Yellen, a manager of Belfor Properties; Sheldon Yellen, CEO of Belfor Properties; Brandon Yellen, a manager of Belfor Properties; and Central Transport President Matthew Maroun and his wife Lindsay.

Other potential candidates

Dennis Archer Jr.  Dennis Archer Jr., CEO of Sixteen42 Ventures and son of former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, told the

Rakolta said he is not concerned about Detroit regressing after Duggan, citing safeguards against a backslide including community engagement and a recognition that economic stability and employment are critical to the city’s well-being.

“I think that the city has righted itself in many ways,” he said. “I’m optimistic that if he doesn’t run, there will emerge centrist candidates who will determine not only the city’s future direction but will have learned and seen from the mistakes of the past and continue doing what Mike Duggan has done so well. ... Detroit’s shown unbelievable progress, stability under Duggan, and I think maintaining this momentum will continue.”

Michigan Chronicle during the Mackinac Policy Conference in May that he would consider running if Duggan does not seek reelection.

Archer has not formed a candidate committee.

James Craig  Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig dropped out of a run for U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat. In February, the Associated Press reported he was mulling a run for Detroit mayor as a result. He told Crain’s last week that he was still evaluating the possibility.

In addition to leading the police department, Craig was a leading Republican candidate for governor in 2022 before fraudulent nominating signatures derailed his campaign.

Craig has not formed a candidate committee for mayor.

Garlin Gilchrist II  Garlin Gilchrist II, of Detroit, will be out of a job after 2026 when his second term as Michigan’s lieutenant governor ends. Gilchrist has not formed a candidate committee for mayor. He could run for governor because Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will be term-limited.

Joe Tate  Joe Tate, speaker of the Michigan House, will no longer hold that role when the Republicans take control of the chamber in January. Tate’s next term as a legislator runs through 2026, though he could seek reelection and serve through 2030. Tate, of Detroit, has not formed a candidate committee for the mayoral race.

Lead Customer Quality Specialist, Continental Tire The Americas, LLC, Auburn Hills, MI. Design & plan projects for Continuous Improvement (including improvement of quality processes) w/impact to OE products and services. Telecom. permitted up to 2 days/wk. Int’l travel req. up to 5%. Domestic travel req. up to 10%. To apply email resume w/ 242387 in subject line to 07AHFMCIT@continental-corporation.com Sr Software Engineer, Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., Auburn Hills, MI. Develop software units in accordance with the defined MISRA coding guidelines & AUTOSAR standards using the development & debug tools. Telecom. permitted up to 50%. To apply email resume w/ 241988 in subject line to 07AHFMCIT@continental-corporation.com

Supervisor Mech. Eng., Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., Auburn Hills, MI. Perform eng. duties related to planning & design of air springs & subcomponents. Telecom. permitted up to 3 days/wk. Int’l travel req. up to 5%. Domestic travel req. up to 10%. To apply email resume w/ 241972 in subject line to 07AHFMCIT@continental-corporation.com.

Associate Engagement Director, VML LLC, Detroit, MI. Cllbrt wth busnss, tech & anlytcs prtnrs to dtrmn dta needs & estblsh dta cllctn rqurmnts. Req Bach deg, or frgn equiv deg, in Comp Engg, Infrmtn Sci, or a rel fld & 3 yrs of rel wrk exp in the pstn offrd or a rel pstn. Telecommuting permttd. Please apply by emailing resume to apply.vmlyr@vmlyr.com referencing job code MI0023.

Event Manager

This position reports to Marketing and Business Development leadership and collaborates with all members of the Marketing and Business Development department. This position manages a team focused on firmwide event strategy, intake, calendaring, planning, coordination, execution, and measurement in consultation with our business unit and office leadership. This role requires a focus on strategic value by assessing - through benchmarking, outcomes measurement, and ROI - the appropriate level of investment for key event marketing initiatives.

Pizza kiosk chain plans 40 new locations in Michigan

By Abby Poirier

A company that sells pizzas from automated kiosks is expanding in Michigan.

PizzaForno recently opened two locations at an Amazon Distribution Center near Grand Rapids as part of an expansion plan to develop 40 more units across the state in the next two years.

Jason Lowder is the Michigan licensee and chief marketing officer for the brand, leading Toronto-based PizzaForno’s expansion in Michigan. He is eyeing industrial facilities around the state, as well as hospitals and colleges, for the automated kiosks, which produce hot pizzas 24/7 at the push of a button. PizzaForno is designed to fill a gap for customers who need food at hours when restaurants might be closed.

“People are needing that 24hour service and that convenience of service,” said Lowder, who was previously a vice president for the Marco’s Pizza chain. “When there’s three shifts working, (businesses) need to be able to offer a hot food service available right on location. Sometimes the third party delivery services take too long, and sometimes those options aren’t available for the third shift.”

Currently, PizzaForno operates five kiosks in Michigan, including single units at Oakland Mall in Troy, a Sunoco gas station in Clarkston, Mott College in Flint and two West Michigan units at an Amazon fulfillment center in Caledonia.

The 40-unit development deal with Forno Brothers LLC is set to

bring 10 more units to Michigan in 2025, with the remaining to open by 2026, focusing on food deserts, college campuses and warehouses, Lowder said. The brand plans to have 1,000 operating units by 2027.

Forno Brothers is a partnership of two couples — Jason and Monika Lowder and Dan and Shay Russell. The Russells manage locations/real estate and operations, respectively. Jason Lowder leads development and marketing while Monika handles accounting for the group.

The PizzaForno expansion comes just a handful of years after the brand landed in Jackson, its first U.S. location that opened in 2021.

Les Tomlin, co-founder and president of PizzaForno, said the company wants to partner with gas station chains, large-scale distributors like Amazon and other locations to capture non-conventional workers in need of a hot meal.

How the pizza kiosk works

Each PizzaForno kiosk takes up roughly 50-80 square feet of space and holds 70 12-inch pizzas that are baked on-demand after a customer places an order from the company’s app or a touchscreen on the unit.

After the kiosk receives an order, a robotic arm retrieves the selection, which is stored in a refrigerated section, and moves it into a convection oven where it is baked inside its box. After the baking is complete, the pizza is ejected from

a slot at the front of the machine for the customer. The whole process takes about 5 minutes.

For the sake of cleanliness, pizzas remain within their boxes during storage and baking, and do not touch the inside of the machine at any point in the baking, loading or serving process. To ensure pizzas stay fresh, they’re given a three-day shelf life within the PizzaForno kiosk and are taken off the menu and replaced after their expiration date has passed.

PizzaForno kiosks offer customers six menu options: vegetarian, meat lovers, four cheese, barbecue chicken, pepperoni and a breakfast option with egg and bacon toppings. Pizzas start at $9.99 for a basic cheese pizza and rise from there, with some price fluctuation by state.

To maintain product quality and flavor, all PizzaForno pizzas are made at a food processor in Chicago before being distributed to individual units.

PizzaForno operates outdoor and indoor kiosks as well as builtin ATM-style units operated by licensees who are responsible for cleaning, stocking and maintaining them.

Expansion plans

Thanks to its relatively small footprint, ease of operation and minimal human labor and infrastructure needs, PizzaForno offers a solution to many issues plaguing traditional quick-service restaurant operators, Tomlin said.

“The challenges faced by any QSR operator right now are all

things we solved,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of PizzaForno all over North America. There really are very few places where PizzaForno cannot go.”

PizzaForno operates more than 60 units in Canada, Mexico and 11 U.S. states, where the brand has development deals that range from 10 to 30 units, Tomlin said.

PizzaForno is also embarking on its first equity raise, having bootstrapped the company up until this point, according to Tomlin.

He said the greatest challenge for the growth of the brand has proven to be convincing customers to trust a “vending machine” pizza.

“In North America, we’re used to getting a dry ham sandwich out of a vending machine on white bread that’s been in there for six days,” he said. “To get a fresh baked, high quality pizza from a machine is just so foreign to us that it’s a whole new concept.” Lowder sees the company’s success in Michigan as a sign of the quality of PizzaForno’s product.

“Michigan is maybe the untapped pizza capital of the world,” he said. “So many (pizza) brands are based out of this marketplace. I think consumers know good products when they see them.”

— Crain’s Detroit Business contributed to this report.

A PizzaForno location at a gas station at 7650 Ortonville Road in Clarkston. PIZZAFORNO

PizzaForno recently added two kiosks at an Amazon facility in Caledonia. PIZZAFORNO

GROCER

location to eliminate inefficiencies.

“We’ve just been growing so much, and we’ve always been looking for the right location, but nothing ever comes up,” Phonrath said, adding that the company has about 25 part- and fulltime employees.

Kim Nhung has a location at 30925 Dequindre Road in Madison Heights at the southwest corner of East 13 Mile Road. That primary hub is about 5,000 square feet, and there is another unit in the same shopping plaza that’s about 1,000 square feet. In addition, there is warehouse space clocking in at about 5,000 square feet.

“A lot of our business right now, we have to go back and forth and pick things up at our warehouse and bring it back to the store all day long,” she said. “Being that this will be all in one, we’re able to service our business a lot more efficiently. We’re able to carry more items that were kind of restricted.” Amazon Fresh — the Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth’s attempt to infiltrate the budget grocery store space, competing with the likes of Walmart and Aldi — has so far been not a bang but a whimper in terms of its rollout in Southeast Michigan.

No fewer than 10 locations have been identified in metro Detroit in close to four years since Crain’s first reported the retailer was building out a Shelby Township spot, which also has yet to open.

While the locations in Madison Heights and Dearborn officially were scotched when the space was put up for sublease last year, the remaining eight remain in limbo, with no work done for years.

Gabe Schuchman, owner of the Dearborn location through his Bingham Farms-based Alrig USA LLC, said there are “several” letters of intent to take over all of the Amazon Fresh space, and more in the center.

Amazon Fresh declined to comment on metro Detroit stores specifically No. Griffin Buch, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement that “building out our physical presence” is a “next step” in expanding its grocery shopping vertical, complementing its online efforts in that area. The build-out, Buch said, “will require significant innovation and persistence.”

“We’ll continue to open new Whole Foods Market stores, and will do so selectively with Amazon Fresh as we see results we like,” Buch said, pointing to what he described as encouraging early signs shown following store redesigns in Chicago and southern California.

In addition to the scrapped Madison Heights and Dearborn Amazon Fresh locations, those in limbo are in Plymouth Township, Shelby Township, Troy, Rochester Hills, Livonia, St. Clair Shores, Grand Blanc and Roseville.

Large site near Eastern Market under contract

By Kirk Pinho

The former Joe Muer’s Seafood restaurant site on Gratiot Avenue near Eastern Market is under contract for the future use of one of its neighbors.

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the religious community that oversees the historic St. Joseph Shrine and Parish located at 1828 Jay St., is attempting to buy the 4.34-acre site bordered by Gratiot, St. Aubin Street and the Dequindre Cut, which had been slated to become a mixeduse development with housing and retail space by The Platform LLC.

The historic church says on its website that an offer of $2.75 million was accepted and that a due diligence period is slated to end Dec. 4. The church was originally founded in the 1850s and its iconic building opened in 1873, according to HistoricDetroit.org, Ultimately, if the sale to the institute goes through, the church intends to implement a plan over time that includes a larger church hall that could be rented for a variety of events; a playground; a multi-use building for its Wednesday co-op program, catechism, music program and children’s choir and food pantry; a commu-

BLUE CROSS

From Page 3

light of the jury ruling on Nov. 8. In a statement to Crain’s, the company said it has not decided whether to appeal the jury decision and on what grounds.

“Throughout the pandemic, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, together with its employees, worked to promote the health and safety of our colleagues, stakeholders, and communities,” the company said in a statement to Crain’s. “As part of that shared work, in October 2021, Blue Cross, and its subsidiaries, enacted a vaccine policy requiring all of its employees to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 or obtain a religious or medical accommodation. In implementing the vaccine policy, Blue Cross designed an accommodation process that complied with state and federal law and respected the sincerely held religious beliefs of its employees. While Blue Cross respects the jury process and thanks the individual jurors for their service, we are disappointed in the verdict. Blue Cross is reviewing its legal options and will determine its path forward in the coming days.”

Noah Hurwitz, attorney for Domski and principal attorney at Ann Arbor-based Hurwitz Law, said the accommodation policy was sloppy and not well implemented; leading to the termination.

“The company told the jury that Ms. Domski was denied a religious accommodation because she wasn’t cooperative enough in the process even though she submitted

nity garden; and eventually a middle school, the website says.

A nonprofit called Desales Park was set up last month as part of the purchase effort for the property.

In a Nov. 11 email, the Rev. Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins, rector of St. Joseph Shrine, said a Nov. 19 press conference is planned and declined a phone interview.

The Platform, which bought the site in 2017 for an unknown price, declined comment.

The Joe Muer restaurant, which closed in 1998, at one point served as many as 300,000 meals per year, Crain’s reported in 2011. The building was demolished in 2003 and a new Joe Muer restaurant opened in the Renaissance Center in 2012.

a really incredible letter describing her religious beliefs and provided contact info for her priest,” Hurwitz told Crain’s. “They also questioned whether she was a Christian or a Catholic. I kept having flashbacks to ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’ This is like Santa Claus on trial.”

Religious exemptions

Many religious exemption vaccine requests during the pandemic came from people involved in certain sects of Catholicism or other religions that morally object to the use of embryonic stem cells in any fashion.

The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were tested using embryonic kidney cells. Acetaminophen is also tested on that same line of cells pulled from aborted fetuses in the 1970s.

The Vatican publicly supported the use of COVID-19 vaccines but has said the choice to vaccinate should be voluntary. Many companies, mostly in health care, have had flu vaccine mandates on the books for two decades.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers can implement vaccine mandates, but have to provide exceptions only for those that have religious beliefs that are sincerely held. That definition is broad and it’s generally accepted that all religious exemptions sought by employees are valid.

But under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, companies are allowed to question those beliefs if the employee has behaved in a manner in opposition to those beliefs or if an exemption is sought for secular reasons. Companies can also ask for appropriate documentation from the employees’ religious leaders.

Implications for employers

Lawsuits cropped up all over the country after tens of thousands of employees were terminated for refusing to get the vaccine against COVID. More than a dozen states, almost all Republican strongholds as the pandemic grew political, fought back against the federal

A year ago, The Platform listed several properties for sale as it abandoned development plans on them, including the Joe Muer site.

The asking price was $3.6 million, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service. Detroit-based O’Connor Real Estate has the listing.

statute for vaccine mandates by employers and instituted more exemption rights to employees.

Indiana, for instance, passed a law in March 2022 requiring companies to give exceptions vaccine mandates for “natural immunity” as well as the federally protected medical and religious reasons.

But the jury’s verdict in Domski’s case against Blue Cross could impact pending litigation against employers across Michigan.

Hurwitz has 179 more vaccine mandate lawsuits in motion against BCBSM, with the next trial starting on Feb. 25.

His firm is also representing clients who were terminated for noncompliance to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in lawsuits against Henry Ford Health, MotorCity Casino Hotel, the city of Ann Arbor, MGM Grand Detroit, Red Cross, Whirlpool, Honeywell, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Corewell Health, among others.

The cases were not filed as a class because class-action lawsuits require commonality of facts and religious beliefs are “like a fingerprint,” Horwitz said.

But whether the recent BCBSM decision sets precedent remains unknown. It could make defendants push for settlements more aggressively, fearing an expensive loss in court.

“I think every case is unique, but it certainly puts companies on notice,” Hurwitz said. “Especially if they investigate further and find out what happened in this case. Trying to do an assessment of who is religious and who is not is not the greatest idea.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Noah Hurwitz has filed around 400 lawsuits over firings that resulted from COVID-19 vaccine requirements. | HUr WITZ LAW

The former Joe Muer’s Seafood restaurant site next to Eastern Market is under contract. CoSTAr GroUP INC.

Michigan’s first innovation ecosystem exec works to make 1 plus 1 equal 3

Ben Marchionna is a Michigan boomerang. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in aerospace engineering in 2011 and moved to California to work as a senior aeronautical engineer for global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin. In 2016, he decided to move back to Michigan for an opportunity to work at a renewable energy asset management startup, SkySpecs. In the years since, he has served as the director for technology and business development for aerospace company Electra.aero. Earlier this year, when he was preparing to move his family to the Washington, D.C.-area where Electra is located, he got a new job. Now, he’s the first chief innovation ecosystem officer for the state of Michigan.

By | Anna Fifelski

Michigan is the first state in the U.S. to appoint a chief innovation ecosystem officer. What does the role entail? There are a few states that have chief innovation officers. However, those roles tend to be focused on innovation within state government. So what’s unique about this focus on the innovation ecosystem is this broader stakeholder group — the government, startups and their founders, risk capital, corporations and universities. My charter is to help make sure that one plus one equals three, and it’s accelerating and maximizing opportunities to drive Michigan forward as a state.

This role is really focused on developing that connective tissue across in-state players, but also with out-of-state capital and talent networks. I also have to be focused on wearing the intrapreneur hat to help the state re-orient toward this big vision, and sort of using my voice as a former entrepreneur, to help some of the in-state stakeholders understand where this contributes to a

vision for prosperity for all within Michigan. It’s not just tech because it’s cool, there’s this underlying theme of driving population growth and prosperity across the state, which is at the heart of the strategy.

How does Michigan compete with other states, like Ohio, that are pulling ahead in the Midwest in terms of startup investments?

In Michigan, we spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to Ohio. In my case, I want to think bigger than Ohio. Because they’re our neighbor, that’s an easy comparison to make — they’re here in the Midwest — but we ought to have our sight set on something bigger and better than Ohio.

The assets that we have available in the state, Ohio doesn’t have, and we need to be smart about harnessing these assets in the right way. What I’m talking about is the big research universities in the state. The innovation prowess and capability that these universities are already demonstrating is tremendous. We’ve got all of the

right ingredients homegrown in the state to be able to take advantage of this. And so with some really smart decisions in the next couple of years, we can do something really special.

What are your goals for Michigan’s startup ecosystem?

The big rocks of my strategy are centered around strengthening our core innovation engines, nurturing trusted collaboration opportunities to build out that deep connective tissue and wearing the intrapreneur hat to help the state begin turning the big ship that is our innovation economy toward this big vision. That deep connective tissue that I talked about is not just in-state, it’s making sure that we’re supporting the startups that are in the state, which means having the entrepreneurial support resources to raise the founder readiness level.

There’s a lot of startups that are interested in coming to Michigan, looking exclusively at manufacturing, and they say they want to keep engineering and development somewhere else. That doesn’t get me too

excited. That doesn’t help the innovation economy, and that doesn’t help move the flywheel, the manufacturing and production, the scale-up nature that is important, that has a really excellent connection to what Michigan is good at: building things at scale.

What are your hobbies, or what do you like to do for fun when you’re not working as chief innovation ecosystem officer?

Because of that passion for things that fly, I’m working on my instrument rating for flying smaller planes; so I’m a private pilot on the side. I love flying, and so I have begun spending my limited free time working toward sort of the next evolution of the pilot skills.

You break yourself out of the two-dimensional world, and suddenly you’ve got this threedimensional space to work with and so I find it very relaxing. You’re just focusing on flying the airplane, and you’re not thinking about all of these other factors at play. So I find it to be a really freeing exercise.

Director

REPORTERS Jay Davis, restaurants, retail and small businesses, (313) 446-1612 or jason.davis@crain.com

David Eggert, politics, policy and energy, (313) 446-1654 or david.eggert@crain.com Anna Fifelski, banking, investment and innovation anna.fifelski@crain.com

Jack Grieve, audience engagement, jack.grieve@crain.com

Nick Manes, residential real estate and mortgage industry, (313) 446-1626 or nmanes@crain.com

Kurt Nagl, manufacturing, law and courts, (313) 446-0337 or knagl@crain.com

Kirk Pinho, real estate, (313) 446-0412 or kpinho@crain.com

Dustin Walsh, health care and cannabis, (313) 446-6042 or dwalsh@crain.com

Sherri Welch, nonprofits, philanthropy and higher education, (313) 446-1694 or swelch@crain.com

ADVERTISING

Sales director Bernie Barnes munk, (206) 310-0313 or bernice.munk@crain.com

Business development strategist Andy Rasero, andy.rasero@crain.com

Michigan events director Samantha Flowers, samantha.flowers@crain.com

Events planner Isabella Kulchycki, isabella.kulchycki@crain.com

Senior account executives

maria marcantonio, Sharon mulroy

Account executives Ainsley Burgess, Tawni Sharp People on the Move manager Debora Stein, (917) 226-5470 or dstein@crain.com

Classified sales Suzanne Janik, (313) 446-0455 or sjanik@crain.com

Sales assistant Rachel Smith

CRAIN’S CONTENT STUDIO

Senior director of Crain’s Content Studio Kristin Bull, (313) 446-1608 or kbull@crain.com

Crain’s Content Studio manager Clare Pfeiffer

PRODUCTION

Vice president, product Kevin Skaggs

Product manager Tim Simpson

Media services manager Nicole Spell

CUSTOMER SERVICE (877) 824-9374, customerservice@crainsdetroit.com

Reprints Laura Picariello, (732) 723-0569, lpicariello@crain.com

Ben Marchionna speaks at the University of Michigan School of Information in October. | UNIvERSITY OF mICHIGAN

Boosting reliability and bottom lines in every season.

Rain, shine, wind or snow, count on us to help you reach your goals.

Our Demand Response Program rewards businesses for shifting when they use energy. In 2023, participants earned over $7.3 million in incentives to reinvest in their operations, just for the summer. Beginning in summer 2025, Demand Response will be available year-round, with incentives paid at the end of each season. That means more opportunities to boost reliability — and your bottom line.

There’s no better season than now to be part of something bigger for your business and Michigan. Space is limited. Scan the QR code or go to ConsumersEnergy.com/incentives today to learn more and enroll for summer 2025 and beyond.

Thursday, Nov. 21 | 6–9 PM | MGM Grand Detroit

Introducing 40 Young Professionals Defining Detroit’s Future. Come Meet Them. Our 33rd annual celebration of 40 leaders younger than 40 honors exceptional professionals making waves across the state. From leading businesses to spearheading impactful community initiatives, these stars are shaping Southeast Michigan’s future. This year’s honorees join a prestigious alumni network including Mayor Mike Duggan, Judge Kyra Harris Bolden, and business leaders like Dan Gilbert, Dug Song, and Hiram Jackson. The celebratory dinner provides a unique opportunity to connect with these accomplished individuals and fellow attendees from diverse industries.