Crain's Detroit Business, July 8, 2019 issue by Crain's Detroit Business

Pre-construction work taking shape at Gordie Howe bridge site Page 3

WDET GM resigns to take journalism project role Page 22

JULY 8 - 14, 2019 | crainsdetroit.com CRAIN’S MICHIGAN BUSINESS

Play ball!

Traverse City Pit Spitters celebrate inaugural season at Pit Spitters Park

The plan for rebranded Pit Spitters Park is to hold events such as craft beer and wine festivals, concerts, fireworks shows, car shows and possibly a skating rink in the winter over the artificial turf. TRAVERSE CITY PIT SPITTERS

By Tom Henderson | thenderson@crain.com

ne cool baseball team name, the Traverse City Beach Bums, has been replaced by another, the Traverse City Pit Spitters, following the purchase last September of Wuerfel Park by an ownership group affiliated with the West Michigan Whitecaps in Grand Rapids. The group, Traverse City Baseball LLC, bought the

GAME ON

Sports and recreation are big business in Michigan. In this special report, a look at the teams and tourist destinations that draw devoted fans and determined athletes alike. Pages 10-14



Beach Bums’ stadium, which is in Blair Township, just south of the city, and replaced the Bums, a low-level minor league team in the independent Frontier League, with a team of collegiate All-Stars. The investment group includes investors in the Whitecaps and local northern Michigan investors. SEE PIT SPITTERS, PAGE 20

LEE IACOCCA, 1924-2019

Bluntness made him a ‘folk hero’

Former Chrysler CEO became voice for American auto industry

Chrysler Corp. hired Bud Liebler in 1981 in its public relations office as Lee Iacocca was seeking a bailout of the company from the federal government. “I came in to see him after I interviewed to join the company,” said Liebler, president of public relations firm Liebler Group and owner of The Whit-

ney restaurant in Midtown Detroit. “He said he didn’t know if he could make good on the promises he made the government. But he told me not worry, saying, ‘No one is going to say it’s Liebler’s fault.’ It was on him to fulfill those promises and he did. It made him sort of a folk hero. He really connected with the American people.” It was that bluntness that people remembered about Iacocca last week, after his death Tuesday at 94

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from Parkinson’s disease at his home in Bel Air, Calif. Iacocca, a natural huckster and tireless competitor with Italian roots and a penchant for cigars, vinyl car roofs and Greek-temple grilles, defined the role of the imperial American executive — first as president of Ford Motor Co., then as chairman and CEO of Chrysler — for much of the last quarter of the 20th century.

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS FILE

By David Phillips

SEE IACOCCA, PAGE 18

INSIDE

Water taxis on Detroit River may get new wave of interest A nearly decade-old federal grant may finally be used to purchase ferries. Page 3

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

MICHIGAN BRIEFS

INSIDE

From staff and wire reports. Find the full stories at crainsdetroit.com

Ex- Gov. Snyder withdraws from Harvard post

Former Gov. Rick Snyder has pulled out of a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University after the Ivy League school faced immense criticism for the governor's track record in the Flint water crisis. Snyder announced midday Wednesday his decision to withdraw from a senior research fellow position at Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government. “It would have been exciting to share my experiences, both positive and negative,” Snyder wrote on Twitter. “Our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive.” Harvard’s appointment of the former two-term Republican governor and businessman sparked backlash on social media and reportedly caused friction on the university’s Cambridge, Mass. campus. Snyder has shouldered public blame for the Flint water crisis after his emergency managers switched the city’s water source in April 2014 to Flint River water without corrosion control chemicals to prevent toxic lead from leaching into the city’s drinking water supply.

CALENDAR

Lakeshore to lose Medicaid contract

Lakeshore Regional Entity, one of the original 10 community mental health agencies in Michigan, is losing its state Medicaid contract in West Michigan and will be replaced with a new managed care organization, officials with the state Department of Health and Human Services said. The state notified Norton Shoresbased Lakeshore in April of its intent to cancel its contract, based on several factors, including five years of financial deficits and failure to come up with a plan to erase a $16 million structural deficit, the state said. Lakeshore is a quasi-public agency known as prepaid inpatient health plan, which provides Medicaid mental health services in Allegan, Ottawa, Kent, Muskegon, Oceana, Mason and Lake counties. “Michigan residents deserve access to behavioral health services that are accessible, affordable and effective, and Michigan taxpayers deserve a system that manages our tax dollars efficiently,” MDHHS Director Robert Gordon said in a statement. “Following many years of poor performance and financial mismanagement that stands out among PIHPs, we believe it is clear that LRE is not the right entity to deliver services for West Michigan residents in need. The success of our public system depends

CLASSIFIEDS

DEALS & DETAILS

OPINION

PEOPLE

RUMBLINGS

WEEK ON THE WEB

Improvements needed for state’s energy supply

ANNALISE FRANK/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A deep freeze that plagued Detroit and the Midwest in January led to a review of the state’s energy supply.

on effective management. With a new approach, building on LRE’s recent work with Beacon, the region can achieve better outcomes for people while operating on a sustainable basis.” Under the state’s current mental health payment system, the MDHHS makes monthly per-person Medicaid payments to PIHPs in the 10 regions. Southeast Michigan has three regional PIHPs — one each in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. The PIHPs subcontract with a variety of providers and community mental health agencies to deliver services that include treatment for autism, developmental issues, substance abuse and serious mental health disorders. Dozens of commu-

nity mental health agencies, which serve all 83 counties, also receive general fund dollars for non-Medicaid-covered services. Nine of 10 PIHPs are facing a combined $92.8 million in structural deficits on revenue of $2.8 billion, according to a December report by the Michigan Association of Health Plans, the trade organization for the state’s managed-care companies. The state has requested supplemental funding from the state Legislature for 2019, but that wouldn’t be enough to address Lakeshore’s problems. MDHHS said it will sign a temporary contract with for-profit Beacon Health Options, which has been working with Lakeshore to shore up its finances.

Regulators say Michigan’s energy supply and delivery systems are adequate to meet demand, but improvements should be made after extreme winter weather led to electric and natural gas emergencies. The state Public Service Commission on last week submitted an initial 247-page energy assessment to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who requested it after the Jan. 30-31 polar vortex. Regulators say Michigan’s diverse energy-generation resources, including access to natural gas storage, can accommodate extreme weather events. But they recommend rule updates, better emergency-management communications and changes such as prioritizing home heating over electric generation when natural gas usage is curtailed. In January, a Consumers Energy Co. compressor station fire sparked concerns about keeping natural gas flowing to millions of people during a snap of bitter cold and at a time of record demand.

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR

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POTENTIAL CANDIDATES INCLUDE:

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

INFRASTRUCTURE

The Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River will pass between the Lafarge North America aggregates plant (left) and the McCoig Concrete plant (right). LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S

Howe Bridge construction heats up

Long-anticipated project starts to take shape on Michigan side of the riverfront

By Chad Livengood clivengood@crain.com

The small industrial buildings and blighted homes that once dotted the landscape of Detroit’s Delray neighborhood are gone for good as demolition and site-cleaning work for the Gordie Howe International Bridge is in full swing this summer. The long-anticipated bridge construction project is starting to take shape on the Michigan side of the Detroit River, as cranes have been working along the riverfront in recent weeks.

TRANSPORTATION

Water taxis on Detroit River may get new wave of interest

Need to know

 Pre-construction work at Gordie Howe bridge site taking shape  40 Michigan-based companies contracted to date on bridge project  Seawall work on Detroit River, earth work in Delray underway

The cranes were drilling test shafts into the ground that will determine the final design of the new span and its towers rivaling Detroit’s 73-story Renaissance Center, said Aaron Ep-

stein, CEO of Bridging North America, the consortium of international infrastructure companies that is building the bridge. Excavators are tearing up what’s left of concrete foundations from one-time businesses in Delray that were uprooted through condemnation proceedings to acquire the 167 acres needed for the U.S. Port of Entry customs of plaza that will connect the new bridge to I-75. Some 255 buildings have been demolished in Detroit to make way for the new international crossing.

“We certainly haven’t forgotten about the water taxi idea, it just has taken a back seat for the moment.” Kyle Burleson

KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A Detroit riverfront water taxi could start with Belle Isle as the easternmost stop.

about the water taxi idea, it just has taken a back seat for the moment,” Kyle Burleson said in an interview last week. Developer interest along the Detroit River remains high but concerns over an economic slowdown and increasing construction costs loom. Burleson said in cities like Chicago, where such a service morphed from being aimed mostly at tourists to one that is a practical option for daily commuting, real estate developers have taken notice. “Housing developments are promoting it,” he said. “It gives us hope that once we get this thing off the

ground, it could take off and then we could start talking about expanding outside of downtown.” Previous visions have called for it to provide services on the river outside of Detroit, in areas like Wyandotte and Grosse Ile. But a more concentrated vision is on the table right now, Burleson said. “Let’s focus on something that can serve the downtown area right now,” he said. “I think if you start with Belle Isle as your easternmost stop and Wilson park as the westernmost, with stops at Milliken and our office, that’s a pretty good backbone.” SEE TAXIS, PAGE 21

SEE BRIDGE, PAGE 21

Next steps for University Physician Group after exiting bankruptcy By Jay Greene

kpinho@crain.com

years, Epstein said. About 40 Michigan-based companies are under contract on the bridge project working on everything from earth-moving and fence installation to supplying tools, portable toilets and project vehicles, according to Bridging North America. “We’re looking at over the course of the next month or so having another 10-15 contracts we’re going to put out on the street for bids. ... A lot of dirt work contracts for the earth work that has to go on,” Epstein said.

HEALTH CARE

jgreene@crain.com

By Kirk Pinho

By the end of the year, the Detroit/ Wayne County Port Authority may finally start moving down the path toward using a $2.4 million federal grant it received nearly a decade ago to purchase ferries. The port authority’s executive director said he anticipates a request for qualifications for a private ferry operator will be issued by the end of the year, marking a key step in getting them on the Detroit River and in use. The Federal Highway Administration awarded the grant in 2010 under the Obama administration but the funding has sat unused ever since as the port authority has studied the matter and dealt with other issues — most recently, an authority-owned cargo dock on Clark Street near the Ambassador Bridge that needs repairs. “We certainly haven’t forgotten

Crane operators and construction companies are currently working to shore up the seawall along the Detroit River between Lafarge North America’s riverfront aggregates plant and McCoig Concrete’s plant where the new bridge will make landfall on the Michigan side. On Springwells Court, an acre lot of modular office trailers totaling 28,000-square-feet has been installed to house the dozens of field engineers and support staff who will work on the construction project over the course of the next five

Paying outstanding claims is just one of many steps Detroit-based University Physician Group will take in the coming months that executives and doctors hope will help re-establish the medical group as a premier provider in Southeast Michigan. Last month, Judge Mark Randon of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit approved UPG’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan that allowed the faculty practice affiliate of Wayne State University School of Medicine group to exit bankruptcy. But many steps remain. They include negotiating down about 30 remaining unsecured creditor claims to the $10.7 million cap agreed in the bankruptcy order, finalizing clinic locations in Detroit and three suburban locations, improving revenue with a new billing and collecting system, adding key specialists, creating a new doctor compensation system and possibly undergoing a rebranding campaign that could rename the

20-year-old practice group, CEO Charles Shanley said in an interview with Crain’s. “We will begin a rebranding process (change of name, logo and signage) for UPG over next six Shanley months,” Shanley said. “We need to do that. After years of financial trouble, we need to change the narrative. We need to get back to an awareness in the community of quality of care these doctors provide.” Last Nov. 8, UPG filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization after trying for three years to get the group on a sustainable path. In the fall of 2015, Wayne State officials, led by former Vice President of Health Affairs David Hefner and President M. Roy Wilson, discovered the group was on track to lose $9 million in 2015. SEE UPG, PAGE 21

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REAL ESTATE INSIDER

511 Woodward may get dramatic exterior redesign

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“Wild.” That was my one-word text to Zaid Elia last week when I saw the rendering of the building at 511 Woodward Ave. in downKIRK town Detroit that PINHO he is in the process of buying from Wayne County for $4.65 million. To be sure, if the project gets completed, the 30,000-square-foot building will look dramatically different when all is said and done. Elia envisions floor-to-ceiling windows and a unique screen wall covering most of the building’s Woodward frontage. “I wanted to have a modern building in the city that was a little different than any other building surrounding it, but it was within the context of the community,” Elia said Monday. “Because it is a four-story building at the footstep of the Guardian Building, I needed to differentiate the look.” Construction is expected to start in November, Elia said, and take about a year. A construction budget has not been established, he said. The Historic District Commission has reviewed and approved the proposal, Elia said, since the building sits in the historic financial district. The Downtown Detroit Partnership is expected to take a full floor, which is about 7,600 or so square feet; the first floor is slated for retail space. Michael Lawrence, senior project manager for the Detroit-based architecture firm Yamasaki Inc. that’s working on 511 Woodward, said there will be over 380 chevrons that comprise the screen wall, which would sit about 2 feet off the new glass to allow for window washers. “Zaid’s an exciting guy and he wanted to put together an exciting project,” Lawrence said. “They wanted to reskin it with a new, up-to-date curtain wall system that will be more energy efficient, and we wanted to put a screen on it such that it wouldn’t totally impede vision from outside to inside and inside to outside.” The area in front of the building is also going to be lowered about 2 feet to make it more friendly to the public. And the historic marker that an HDC staff report describes as being “awkwardly incorporated” into the plaza marking the first Michigan Bell telephone service? “We are going to fully landscape and redesign the plaza in front of the building and restore the historic plaque and replace it on the front of the building,” Elia said. The building was built in the early 1970s for Detroit Federal Savings and Loan.

MotorCity Casino parking deck deets

Finally! After three months trying to get more information about the proposed MotorCity Casino parking deck expansion, we got a little more now that executives from the Ilitch family’s casino have presented their plans to the

YAMASAKI INC.

Construction is expected to begin in November on a reskinning and redevelopment of the currently vacant building at 511 Woodward Ave. downtown.

COSTAR GROUP INC.

The 30,000-square-foot building at 511 Woodward Ave. as it appears currently.

Detroit Planning Commission. Here is what we know: Basically, the Ilitches are saying the existing three-level deck is poorly designed (the casino goes so far as to say that the garage “has limited convenience for customers” in a 22-page document submitted to the city, which is a phenomenal way of saying, “The deck sucks”). That’s because less than half of the spots are within 200 feet of the doors, and some are as far as 500 feet. In addition, there are only two elevators and the pedestrian ramp into the casino is steep. In addition, the Elm Street entrance only services the first level of the garage, while the Temple Street entrance services all three. The document says the expansion “will exist harmoniously with the existing garage,” meaning that casino-goers would be able to go from one to the other seamlessly. Jacci Woods, a spokeswoman for MotorCity Casino, said the expansion is also needed “to help with higher demand periods” such as “weekends, special events and prime concert nights.” It would take about 12 months to build, and how to adorn the deck is still being discussed, she said.

Pieces of Hotel Fort Wayne fell to the ground

Yeah, you read that right, but keep reading. The Ilitch family’s Olympia Devel-

opment of Michigan characterized what fell from the building at 408 Temple St. at Cass Avenue as “some small debris from the decorative terracotta.” I asked them about why there was a crew at the 1926 building on June 20 and ultimately it led to this little news nugget, along with an email last week that included the words “safe,” “secure” and “stable” numerous times. Netting was installed “to help secure the exterior and to ensure the building remains safe and stable,” Olympia said in a statement. “The area surrounding the building is safe and secure and the building has been and remains stable.” Detroit-based Akins Construction Inc. installed the netting and consulted on the work. David Bell, director of the Building, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department, said in a statement that permits are not required for installing the netting. “We will continue to monitor this site for compliance and plan to sit down with Olympia in the coming weeks to discuss compliance at this location,” Bell said. Olympia also said the netting is “very common, especially for older buildings that are being prepared for pre-construction and future development.” Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

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DOUG COOMBE

Crowds gathered at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Sosnick Courtyard during a Concert of Colors event in 2018.

DSO launches effort to activate secluded courtyard behind The Max By Sherri Welch

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swelch@crain.com

While a dozen cultural institutions move forward with a plan to activate the outdoor space in Detroit’s 83acre anchor cultural district a mile up Woodward Avenue, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is doing the same for a courtyard in its backyard. The orchestra has secured over $1 million in grants for summer programs and planning efforts aimed at creating a more permanent stage in the secluded courtyard, which is tucked behind the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center on Parsons Street between Woodward and Cass avenues. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation “have shown interest in seeing us take advantage of this green space we own,” said DSO President and CEO Anne Parsons. The DSO has invited people to bring lawn chairs to events hosted episodically in the courtyard, like a concert during the annual Concert of Colors music festival or digital MaxCasts of live orchestra performances on the south wall of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. But it doesn’t get used all the time, Parsons said. “We’re going to go through a reimaging process for that space,” she said. The effort aligns with the work of the cultural district to activate public spaces for the benefit of the community, she said. Laura Trudeau, principal of Trudeau Consulting and retired managing director of the Kresge Foundation’s Detroit program, is chairing a stakeholders committee which began meeting in late June. The goal is to develop a request for proposals for a consultant to get public feedback on what people would like to see in that space, whether it’s public music, a lunch spot or something else.

“Fifteen years have passed since the last major renovations on the DSO campus, and much has changed in Midtown over that timeframe.” Lavea Brachman

The committee includes Midtown Detroit Executive Director Sue Mosey, who has taken the reins of the cultural district plan; representatives from Broder & Sachse Real Estate Services Inc., which purchased the Orchestra Place Building from the DSO in 2017; and the family of late Redico President and CEO Robert Sosnick, for whom the courtyard is named. Each time the DSO presents a performance in Sosnick Courtyard, it has to Harrington build a stage, bring in lighting and a film projector and rent chairs and tables, said Chris Harrington, managing director and curator of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra @ The Max and Paradise Jazz Series. “We’re looking for a permanent stage where we’d be able to present performances throughout the summer and possibly throughout the year, if the right opportunity presents itself,” Harrington said. Activating the courtyard is an opportunity for the DSO “to continue to experiment, to make sure we present programming not only in line with what we’re already doing but (also aimed at) attracting new audiences,” he said.

While those efforts are underway, the DSO plans to host a series of six to 10 events at Sosnick Courtyard in July and August. The DSO will announce details later this month, but attendees can expect to see film screenings, opera, salsa, swing dance parties, yoga, local and national artists, interactive music sculptures and the DSO’s own musicians in the courtyard this summer, Harrington said. The Sosnick Courtyard series will be funded through a five-year, $800,000 grant from the Knight Foundation and a $150,000 grant from the League of American Orchestras, which is supporting programs both in the courtyard and in the DSO’s Peter D. and Julie F. Cummings Cube. The series kicks off July 10 with a “Summer Street Party” hosted by the DSO and WDET 101.9 FM. It will feature three Detroit artists and food trucks, kicking off the Concert of Colors and celebrating WDET’s 70th anniversary and Orchestra Hall’s centennial year. The Sosnick Courtyard is an underutilized space attached to a key anchor cultural institution, said Lavea Brachman, vice president of programs for the Wilson foundation, in an emailed statement. “Fifteen years have passed since the last major renovations on the DSO campus, and much has changed in Midtown over that timeframe,” she said. Wilson’s $150,000 grant to support a master plan to activate the Sosnick Courtyard into a community gathering space “will provide the DSO the funding needed to generate a community vision for a unique, highly accessible public space with increased cultural programming opportunities,” Brachman said. Sherri Welch: 313 (446-1694) Twitter: @SherriWelch

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

Merged Lighthouse MI nonprofit launches with flurry of activity By Sherri Welch swelch@crain.com

Lighthouse of Oakland County and South Oakland Shelter began operating as one nonprofit July 1, seven months after leaders announced plans to merge. Completion of the deal comes amid a flurry of activity for the combined nonprofit, which will do business as Lighthouse MI. Lighthouse MI is making plans to launch center-based services to connect low-to-moderate income families in Oakland County to financial and labor assistance as part of a program operated by Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corp. and United Way for Southeastern Michigan. And later this month, it plans to break ground on the $15 million affordable housing development in Oak Park that SOS has been co-developing with Detroit-based Southwest Solutions for the past two years. “Our community is not doing enough to respond to poverty and homelessness in Oakland County and the surrounding areas,” said Ryan Hertz, who’s led SOS since 2009 and will lead Lighthouse MI as president and CEO. “Bringing our two organizations together and consolidating our resources … is a step in the right direction, both in regards to services we’re able to deliver and our capacity to engage our community in a stronger collective response,” Hertz said. The combined nonprofit will operate under the federal 501(c)3 nonprofit status secured by SOS, to avoid confusion with current government contracts, he said. Made up of equal representation from each nonprofit, the Lighthouse MI board decided against keeping the Lighthouse of Oakland County name to avoid putting geographic limitations on its work, Hertz said. “Our mission is related to ending poverty, which we view as an issue that doesn’t recognize county boundaries,” he said. “Both through our activities and through partnerships, we are open to operating outside of Oakland County.” SOS brings to the merged nonprofit a rotating homeless shelter program coordinated with 67 local congregations and supportive housing services, along with the new affordable housing development. Lighthouse provides more than 10,000 families annually with emer-

gency food, utility assistance, transitional and supportive housing, foreclosure prevention and other services. It also provides programs to help families become economically Hertz self-sufficient so they will not cycle back into crisis. Lighthouse MI will focus on four areas: basic needs, stability services, systems change and community engagement, Hertz said, with the rotating shelter at SOS continuing to operate under that name. Three staff positions were eliminated with internal restructuring, Hertz said. Those cuts were balanced out by the addition of five new employees: a chief administrative officer and positions in fund development, volunteer/community engagement and the new Centers for Working Families program, which will provide job training and assistance, financial coaching and assistance signing up for income supports such as public benefits. The merged nonprofit is operating with 45 employees and a combined budget of about $7.5 million, with two offices in Pontiac and one each in Lathrup Village and Clarkston. Hertz said both SOS and Lighthouse of Oakland County — which struggled financially in recent years — are expected to finish the current fiscal year ended June 30 well into the black. Lighthouse MI began the new fiscal year July 1 with total combined assets of $10 million and about $1.5 million in liabilities, he said. The two nonprofits launched a $500,000 campaign to fund exploration and planning of the merger, integration of the two agencies and operational support. So far, the effort has raised about $200,000 with gifts from individual donors, Flagstar Bank, Borg Warner, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the McGregor Fund, Hertz said. Lighthouse hosted a private event for 300 invited guests last month before the Cars under the Stars fireworks display at M-1 Concourse to mark the merger and raise additional funds. Lighthouse MI heads into its new fiscal year with a strong, balanced budget, Hertz said, and two new proj-

ects set to move forward this month. Groundbreaking for an affordable housing project in Oak Park that’s been in the works for two years is tentatively planned for July 31, Hertz said. SOS created a subsidiary, Spero Housing Group, in July 2017, and teamed up with veteran housing developer Southwest Solutions to develop the project. Coolidge Place will include 64 affordable townhome and ranch-style apartments, a quarter of them set aside for those with special needs. Rents will range from $389-$824 per month for the one- to three-bedroom units, as part of a plan that also calls for green space and a community center where Lighthouse MI will provide onsite services. Lighthouse MI secured $12.6 million in tax credits for the project, purchased by TCF Bank, Hertz said. It’s funding the balance through a blend of debt, deferral of developer fees, grants and donations. Fusco, Shaffer & Pappas Inc. Architects and Planners in Ferndale is serving as architect and O’Brien Construction Co. Inc. in Southfield as the general contractor on the development, which Hertz said should be completed by summer 2020. “We have no intention of being one and done on housing development,” he said. “This is our first effort … it sets the stage for our ability both to continue developing housing ourselves (and) to help the community understand the value of affordable housing more broadly.” Lighthouse MI has also secured a $50,000 grant from United Way for Southeastern Michigan to open a new Pontiac-based location as part of the Greater Detroit Centers for Working Families. A partnership between LISC and United Way of Southeast Michigan, the program provides employment and career services, financial education and coaching, and low-cost financial products that encourage investment and savings. Lighthouse of Oakland County had previously operated one of the centers but closed it in 2016, Hertz said. The new center will be based out of Lighthouse’s location in Pontiac but provide programs, including one-onone financial, workforce development and income support coaching, to Oakland County residents in their homes, he said.

Nominations due Aug. 13 for Crain’s Best Managed Nonprofit Contest Crain’s Best Managed Nonprofit Contest this year will focus on what Southeastern Michigan nonprofits are doing to develop the next generation of leaders in their organizations in the face of high turnover the past few years and increased competition for talent at all levels. This could include efforts aimed at board development and/or succession planning at the executive level or efforts in specialized programmatic areas or other high-demand areas such as development. Applications are due Aug. 13. Finalists must appear for in-person

interviews with judges the morning of Oct. 29. Applicants for the award must be a 501(c)(3) with headquarters in Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland, Macomb or Livingston counties. Applications must include an entry form, a copy of the organization’s code of ethics, a copy of its most recent audited financial statement and a copy of its most recent IRS 990 form. First-place winners within the past 10 years are not eligible; neither are hospitals, HMOs, medical clinics, business and professional orga-

nizations, schools, churches or foundations. The winners will be profiled in the Dec. 2 issue, receive a “best-managed” logo from Crain’s for use in promotional material and will be recognized at Crain’s Newsmaker of the Year luncheon early next year. To submit a nomination, go to crainsdetroit.com/nominate. For more information about the contest, email Senior Reporter Sherri Welch at swelch@crain.com. For technical questions on submitting an application, contact Keenan Covington at kcovington@crain.com.

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OPINION COMMENTARY

New road-funding scheme: Issue $10B in teacher pension debt to free up cash

he latest idea to fix Michigan’s crumbling roads is to float $10 billion in bonds to pay down the state’s long-term liability for school employee pensions, freeing up $1 billion in the state’s School Aid Fund that’s currently diverted from classrooms to pensions. Then, the newfound savings there would allow lawmakers to remove the sales tax on gasoline without impacting school funding, and raise the per-gallon gas tax by the same amount the sales tax generated — roughly 16 cents on a gallon of $2.65 gas — so that the price at the pump doesn’t noticeably increase for motorists. Some of Michigan’s most powerful businessmen came up with this scheme. What could go wrong? “It is a Chicago-style pension holiday,” said Patrick Anderson, a conservative economist and CEO of the Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing. Except Chicago backed away from issuing $10 billion in bonds to solve its pension crisis, in part because the interest rates for the debt-ridden Windy City were going to risk reverse arbitrage — where the pension fund returns less on its investments than the interest payments on the pension bonds. The pension-bonding proposal the conservative West Michigan Policy Forum has floated to Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is designed to kill two birds with one stone: Lock in the long-term cost of school employee pension obligations to state taxpayers and free up much-needed cash for roads. “It’s not borrowing for additional dollars, it’s borrowing to repay the money you already owe,” said former House Speaker Jase Bolger, who is the Grand Rapids-area business group’s political consultant. “It ends up saving you cash over the long term.” The plan would spread the cost over 30 years instead of the 20-year payoff assumption former Gov. Rick Snyder carved into the state’s budget as he touted that 2038 would be a good year to run for governor of a debt-free state. John Kennedy, the CEO of Autocam Medical in Kentwood and board chairman of the West Michigan Policy Forum, recently presented the plan to House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey. The policy forum’s board members, who include such West Michigan business titans as Doug DeVos, Michael Jandernoa, J.C. Huizenga and Peter Secchia, essentially believe Snyder’s pension payments will break the state’s School Aid Fund over time. So they want to smooth out the cost with a debt refinancing.

CHAD LIVENGOOD/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

An idea to fix Michigan’s crumbling roads is to float $10 billion in bonds to pay down the state’s long-term liability for school employee pensions, freeing up $1 billion in the state’s School Aid Fund that’s currently diverted from classrooms to pensions.

CHAD LIVENGOOD clivengood@crain.com

The West Michigan Policy Forum also proposed transferring ownership of the Michigan Lottery to the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System to dedicate the lottery’s $900 million in profits to the pensions and further lower the state’s long-term liabilities on paper by boosting the pension fund with the asset value of the lottery. These proposals are among the numerous ideas Chatfield and Shirkey are weighing as an alternative to Whitmer’s proposed 45-centsper-gallon gas tax increase while a state budget standoff with the governor drags into midsummer with no resolution in sight. A national expert in the municipal bond market says the conversation in Lansing about issuing school pension bonds to free up money for the roads is a “financial engineering solution” in search of a problem. “Restructuring the pension so as to create money for transportation is just a gimmick instead of raising taxes, which is the best practice,” said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics, a muni bond research firm in Concord, Mass. “If you want more money for transportation, you have to raise more money or cut spending and revert real dollars in the budget.” Fabian questions what the crisis is that Michigan lawmakers would be

seeking to solve. The $50 billion MPSERS fund paying the pensions of 217,000 retirees was 61 percent funded at the end of the 2018 fiscal year, according to an annual report. That funding level is average for state pension systems, Fabian said. By contrast, Chicago’s four city pension funds are 26 percent funded, according to the Illinois Policy think tank. Bolger said the pension bonds would lock in a set annual payment for the state’s contribution to MPSERS — payments the debt-averse Snyder wrote into his budgets after years of skipped payments under former Gov. Jennifer Granholm during the state’s prolonged recession. “Once and for all, this would finally be funded,” Bolger said. The policy forum hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to analyze the pension bond plan, which assumes a 4 percent interest rate and 6 percent investment return, according to Bolger. But pension bonds have become “strongly frowned upon in the market,” Fabian said. “People think that’s a bad practice,” he said. “It’s not at all a common transaction.” The West Michigan Policy Forum’s own presentation to legislative leaders and the governor’s office was brutally honest about the downsides: “Asset returns may not meet expectations and fall short of returns required to cover bond interest rate — 3 years of 0 percent investment returns could eliminate arbitrage (assuming 6 percent returns in all other years).” The document also acknowledged that issuing pension bonds prolongs debt repayment into the future and creates the “potential for negative

perception — trading one form of debt for another.” There’s also an inherent additional risk to issuing debt for the purpose of making money on the stock market and other investments, Fabian said. Michigan lawmakers need to look no further than Detroit for an example about how these high-finance schemes can go wrong. Under now-imprisoned Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit issued $1.44 billion in pension bond-like IOUs to pump cash into its underfunded pension systems in 20042005. Detroit didn’t issue traditional pension bonds because it had hit its constitutional debt limit. Instead, the city set up an elaborate set of service corporations and trust funds to bypass the debt limits and infuse two pension funds with cash. Within five years, the pension systems had effectively burned the $1.44 billion in the stock market and real estate crash of the Great Recession. “If your expected return is 8 percent and you have one down year of minus 10 percent, that means every other year you have to make 8.5 percent,” Fabian said. “One down year forces investment managers to skew investments into much riskier investments.” And that’s exactly what happened at Detroit’s retirement systems as the trustees invested money in one risky real estate venture after another. Detroit struggled for years to make its payments for the certificate of participation (COPs) notes that were coupled with a particularly disastrous interest rate swap deal — a casino-like bet that went in the favor of UBS AG and Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch Capital Services. The infamous “COPs and Swaps” pension debt deal eventually triggered Detroit’s bankruptcy filing six years ago this month when the city defaulted on paying the underlying bonds. The insurers of those bonds took the biggest bath of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Because of the “lessons learned” from 2008-2009, the West Michigan Policy Forum wouldn’t recommend investing the bond money all at once in this current bull market like Detroit did, Bolger said. “As long as you make 4 percent or more from your return, you’re only ahead,” he said. Anderson said the state should just stick to paying its pension obligation each year without incurring new debts and risk. “All of these ideas are variations of we borrow money and we don’t fully admit it … and persuading ourselves that we didn’t just do something stupid,” Anderson said. “All of these ideas are illusory and dangerous.” Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

OTHER VOICES Tom Watkins

Benton Harbor should be call to action

he Benton Harbor school crisis is ground zero for a dysfunctional educational funding model and a state government that has been pretending to address the problem going back decades. I foreshadowed many of these issues in a report I wrote in 2004, called “Structural Issues Surrounding Michigan School Funding in the 21st Century.” If you have a hole in your roof, pretending to fix it does not keep the rain out. Our system of funding our schools is fundamentally, structurally unsound and follows Stein’s economic rule: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

A child without a decent education today is an adult without much of a future tomorrow. Addressing the Benton Harbor crisis should not be a Band-Aid, but a systematic cure. We need to ask, are we going to prepare our students for their future and how do we create a rational system to do so? Benton Harbor should be the 21st Century Kalkaska that forces the state to fundamentally change how we deliver and fund our schools. The BandAid request for Benton Harbor schools should be the impetus to spark an educational “Me Too” movement. We need to demand that the system be fixed. The problems in Benton Harbor should be a canary in the coal mine moment for education across Michigan. Without a “real” systemic fix — the tragedy of failing the students of Benton Harbor is coming to a community near you. A child without a decent education today is an adult without much of a future tomorrow. Are we going to fix the fundamental problems or continue to look away? Tom Watkins of Northville was Michigan state superintendent of schools from 2001-05

MORE ON WJR Listen to Crain’s Group Publisher Mary Kramer and Managing Editor Michael Lee talk about the week’s stories every Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. Mondays on WJR 760 AM’s Paul W. Smith Show.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

Ilitches miss development plan deadline for Woodward/I-75 site By Kirk Pinho

kpinho@crain.com

The Ilitch family has missed another deadline as part of its District Detroit project. The Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the taxpayer-funded quasi-governmental city development agency, last Monday said Olympia Development of Michigan has not yet filed a development plan for the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and I-75 as required. “There is no plan before the (Downtown Development Authority) for the development of this parcel, but we are currently in ongoing discussions with (the) developer to identify next steps,” Charlotte Fisher, spokeswoman for the DEGC, said in an email. She did not answer questions about any penalties Olympia, the Ilitch family’s real estate company, will face for missing the extended June 28 deadline that was approved last year. Olympia Development provided only the following statement: “We continue to be in discussions with the city on this matter.” Officials with Olympia have in recent years envisioned the site as future hotel space but today it sits vacant, fenced in and adorned with a

Crain’s wins Best Newspaper, 6 other awards in competition Crain’s Detroit Business won seven awards, including a gold award for Best Newspaper, in the annual Alliance of Area Business Publishers annual Editorial Excellence Awards. The awards, announced Saturday, spanned breaking news, design, commentary and email newsletters. They were chosen from more than 500 entries from 41 publications, the trade organization said. “Consistently strong, thorough cover stories are a hallmark of this publication,” the judges for the Best Newspaper category wrote about Crain’s Detroit Business. “The reporting is solid, and so is the artwork and design.” Among the awards Crain’s received were: J Best Newspaper, Large Tabloids, gold award. J Best Scoop, gold award, for Kirk Pinho and Chad Livengood’s report that Ford Motor Co. was in talks to buy and renovate the Michigan Central Station in Detroit. J Best Editorial, gold award, for an editorial on Michigan State’s lack of leadership on the Larry Nassar case. J Best Overall Design, Large Tabloids, silver award. J Best Coverage of Local Breaking News, silver award, Jay Greene for coverage of Beaumont Hospital’s $84.5 million kickback settlement. J Best Bylined Commentary, silver award, Dustin Walsh, for multiple columns, including one on tariffs and the auto industry. J Best Specialty Newsletter, bronze award, for the weekly Real Estate Report. Crain’s is published by Detroit-based Crain Communications Inc.

“District Detroit” scrim. Five years ago, the Ilitch family unveiled its plans for 45 to 50 blocks of new development north of downtown anchored by Little Caesars Arena. But instead of a bustling retail, entertainment, residential and office district that was promised to be completed within three years, it remains largely barren, strewn with surface parking lots and empty buildings, much of which is owned by the Ilitch family through subsidiaries. Although the $862.9 million arena and parking decks are complete, as is

some office space and the Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business, there has been growing criticism about lack of progress on the overall district vision. There is no new residential or hotel space, and the arena has received $398.1 million in taxpayer subsidies. In May, Christopher Ilitch, president and CEO of Olympia parent company Ilitch Holdings Inc., said in an interview with Crain’s that the company’s residential development “timelines proved to be aggressive,” addressing some of the criticism.

KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A view of a vacant property at Woodward Avenue and I-75. The Ilitch family’s Olympia Development of Michigan missed a June 28 deadline to submit a development plan for the site, which in the past has been envisioned as hotel space.

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FOCUS

CRAIN’S MICHIGAN BUSINESS

RAISING THE BAR Across Michigan, women’s pro and semi-pro sports are growing By Allison Torres Burtka | Special to Crain's Detroit Business

hen Tatyhana Pauling tells people she plays running back on a football team, they say, “Like a powder puff team?” No. “Oh, you play flag?” No. Then they ask if she plays in the LFL (formerly the Lingerie Football League, now the Legends Football League). “I say, ‘No, we play fully padded, with helmets and stuff,’ and they’re in disbelief,” she said. Pauling is one of the Detroit Dark Angels, a team that is part of the Women’s Football Alliance, the largest womFootball

“When the fans and spectators see the level of play — the athleticism and the skills — it’s like, ‘Wow,’” said Keith Thomas, head coach of the Detroit Dark Angels. “People think, ‘You’re just a woman — there’s no way you could do that,’” he said, but then they see the athletes

catching, tackling and performing at a high level, and their attitude changes. For tackle football, there is no women’s equivalent of the NFL, and colleges don’t offer much — even as clubs or intramural teams. But, “because of Title IX, you will see a lot of females now on high school boys’ teams,” said Thomas, who also

In this package

JJTraverse City Pit Spitters celebrate

inaugural season at Pit Spitters Park. Page 1

JJAcross Michigan, women’s pro and semi-pro sports are growing. This page JJThe birth and growth of Boyne USA, Northern Michigan’s outdoor sporting empire. Page 11 JJA listing of Michigan minor league sports teams. Page 12 JJNorthern Michigan boasts other golf, ski resorts. Page 14

coaches high school football. He has been coaching the Dark Angels for nine seasons, and this is his third year as head coach. Detroit once had another women’s football team, the Detroit Demolition, that was disbanded in 2009. “They were pioneers,” but because they had been so successful, the Dark Angels initially had a hard time

KELSEY ALYSE/DETROIT DARK ANGELS

The Detroit Dark Angels, part of the Women’s Football Alliance, includes about 40 players from diverse backgrounds and experiences, ranging in age from 19 to over 40.

en’s tackle football league in the U.S. The league also includes the Flint City Riveters, Grand Rapids Tidal Waves and, in Lansing, the Capital City Savages. Across the state of Michigan, talented athletes are excelling at their sports in women’s pro and semi-pro leagues. The teams generally have devoted fans but lack the numbers that their male counterparts draw. But these aren’t casual, recreational teams. For the women who play in them, and for the fans who love and look up to them, they’re quite literally changing the game. trying to come out of their shadow, Thomas said. But the team’s support has steadily grown. “These last couple of seasons, the spectators have been amped. They’re hyped — they’re excited,” he said. “This season, I probably have the nation’s best running back: Tatyhana Pauling. If they had a women’s

equivalent of a Heisman, I believe she would win it or come in a close second,” Thomas said. “When people see her play, she’s not a girl playing football — she’s a football player running that ball. She runs it like she’s trying to be drafted in the first round. But I have a whole roster of tremendous players.” SEE WOMEN’S, PAGE 12

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

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King of the mountain The birth and growth of Boyne USA, Northern Michigan’s outdoor sporting empire

By Tom Henderson thenderson@crain.com

As Stephen Kircher tries to take Boyne USA Inc. from “good to great,” fans of the resort company’s downhill skiing and stunning golf courses in Michigan, Montana, Maine, Utah, Washington, New Hampshire and British Columbia can thank Henry Ford and his audacious 1913 plan to pay his assembly-line workers the unheard of wage of $5 a day. John Kircher was an 18-year old in Illinois, whose 17-yearold wife, Hilda, Stephen Kircher had just given birth to their son, Everett, at their home in southern Illinois. He saw an ad in the local newspaper placed by Ford to recruit workers, and he headed for Detroit, fetching his family after landing the job. After saving up his money from working on the line, he opened a repair shop on Livernois Avenue in Detroit, then later opened a lucrative Studebaker dealership there. Eventually, he was able to loan his son the $20,000 he needed to buy and install a chair lift and build a lodge at his Boyne Mountain resort in the small village of Boyne Falls, just east of Boyne City, which opened for business on Jan. 6, 1949. Fans of Boyne’s golf and skiing can also thank a former Michigan state senator named William Pierson, who for just $1 sold Everett Kircher the 40 acres he needed in 1947 to build Boyne Mountain, saying if anyone was crazy enough to think he could build a tourist desti-

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nation on his hilly property in northern Michigan, he needed all the help he could get. Northern Michigan had Caberfae Peaks, the state’s first ski resort and one of the oldest in the U.S., which had opened in Cadillac in 1938. But in 1949, “up north” was still a place to go to in the summer, not the winter. In 1952, Everett decided to build a golf course to generate cash-flow in non-winter months and to keep employees working year round. He built a par-3 course at Boyne Mountain, giving him the state’s first golf resort, jumpstarting what would eventually become a major tourist draw throughout the region. Stephen Kircher, who became president and CEO after his father died at age 85 in 2002, has long been a fan of the 2001 book, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don’t,” by James Collins. “Good to Great” was the theme of Boyne USA’s annual meeting in June of shareholders in the family-owned business, as well as lenders, business partners and company executives. One could argue that Boyne Resorts is already well on the way to great. In 2002, the company had revenue of just over $100 million. According to Kircher, it had revenue of $400 million last year and now employs 10,500 at its 11 resort properties, 13 golf courses and nine ski areas. The National Ski Areas Association ranks Boyne as third nationally in the number of skier visits annually, behind Vail Resorts and Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. Boyne USA also owns a chain of retail sporting goods stores in Michigan called Boyne County Sports, with outlets in Traverse City, Novi,

Petoskey, Bloomfield Hills, at Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands. A Grand Rapids store is set to open in August or September. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for what they’ve done and accomplished,” said Barry Owens, the general manager at one of Boyne’s biggest rivals in northern Michigan, the Treetops Resort in Gaylord (see related story, Page 14). “At the end of the day, they’re the big fish in a big pond. I have a lot of respect for Steve and what he’s done there and how they’ve grown the business. I consider him a great competitor. They’re the leader in northern Michigan in size and scope. We refer to them as the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and I say that fondly.”

$460 million in private offerings On June 24, the week after the annual meeting, Boyne USA, which does business as Boyne Resorts, announced a private offering of $60 million in senior secured notes at an interest rate of 7.25 percent, which the company said would be used to retire up to $20 million of higher priced debt and for general business purposes, including capital expenditures. That followed a private offering of $400 million Boyne announced in March 2018 to buy seven resorts and tourist attractions it previously had been managing, including Brighton Resort near Salt Lake City, Utah; Cypress Mountain in Vancouver, B.C.; the Loon Mountain Resort in New Hampshire; Sugarloaf and Sunday River Resorts in Maine; and The Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle, Wash. SEE BOYNE, PAGE 14

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WOMEN’S FROM PAGE 10

Detroit Dark Angels Home games: Southfield Lathrup High School, 19301 Twelve Mile Road, Lathrup Village Season: April to June Tickets: $10 adults; $5 students, kids 6-12 years old and veterans; free, kids 5 and under More info: detroitdarkangels.com Detroit Sun Home games: Ultimate Soccer Arenas, 867 S. Blvd. E., Pontiac Season: April to July Tickets: $20 for a season pass to all five home games and a Detroit Sun booster scarf More info: detroitsunfc.com Flint Monarchs Home games: Dort Federal CU Event Center, 3501 Lapeer Road, Flint Season: May to August Tickets: $6 general admission More info: flintmonarchs.com Detroit Dodgers Home games: Northwest Activities Center, 18100 Meyers Road, Detroit Season: April to July More info: facebook.com/detroitdodgerswomensbasketball

Business

The team includes about 40 players who come from a range of different backgrounds and experience levels. The youngest is 19, and the oldest is in her mid-40s. Some have been playing the game for several years, and others had never played sports. One is a college softball coach, one is a sushi chef, and Pauling is a model. Some players identify as LGBT, so the team dedicated one game to LGBT pride. “We want to empower people,” Thomas said. The players don’t get paid — in fact, they have to pay player fees. “I’d love for them to compete and not have this be a burden — for it to be something they can really hang their hat on,” Thomas said. Pauling, a former Division II college basketball palyer at Wayne State University, said women’s football doesn’t get the kind of support other women’s sports get. “We don’t get accepted as much, even as much as the LFL does,” she said. “But a lot of people are becoming more familiar with the sport, and it’s growing.” High school girls and boys have reacted enthusiastically to the Dark Angels. “It’s fun because they find excitement in our excitement,” Pauling said. They see “that we’re this group of women that are beautiful and strong,” and that the team includes a variety of people. “You do have a segment of the community that wants to see women succeed outside of society’s norms,” Thomas said. Former Dark Angel Alicia

Where to see them

Woollcott appeared in a Nike commercial that showcased her roles as linebacker and homecoming queen. The Dark Angels are headed to Denver for the Division II national championship on July 13. “The ultimate marketing tool: Go and win yourself a championship in a town that’s struggling to win a championship,” Thomas quipped. Although the team could always use more support, the business side is solid. The team’s operations are well organized and well run, unlike some of the teams that have folded, Thomas said. Sponsors include Steelfish Designs, IAMCOACHKIWI and attorney Odey K. Meroueh. Pauling said she’d like to see their division televised. “No one really knows about the sport. If some huge sponsor gave us that opportunity to televise, that would be a game-changer,” she said.

Soccer The Detroit Sun is a semi-pro soccer team, part of the United Women’s Soccer league. The league is considered second tier, below the professional National Women’s Soccer League. The roster of 53 women includes about 40 college players. Others play professionally but spend their summers on the Detroit Sun. Now in its third year, the Detroit Sun has sent five athletes to pro teams. In Metro Detroit, interest in women’s soccer has exploded, said head coach Skip Mukhtar, who has been coaching women’s soccer for 12 years. “Six years ago, I had the only women’s semi-pro team in all of Michigan, and now there’s seven of them in Michigan,” he said. “The local competition is amazing.” The season runs from late April to late July. The players are not paid, and the team relies on sponsors, including Region Title, Curly Cone and U-RentEm Canoe. The biggest challenge is “getting people from the outside to come to games and believe that this is good soccer,” Mukhtar said. “Normally, if we get people to a game, they’re believers after their first game.” The Detroit Sun has gained spectators. “From year one to now, our attendance has probably tripled,” Mukhtar said. “It’s nowhere near what the men’s side gets, but we’ve got great atten-

Michigan minor-league sports teams This is a list of notable minor league and semi-pro teams based in Michigan. Included is the name of the team, its league, its venue, the year it was established or began play, and any formal known major league affiliation:

United Women’s Soccer

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AFC Ann Arbor Skyline High School, 2014 Detroit Sun FC (Pontiac) Ultimate Soccer Arenas, 2016 Grand Rapids FC Grandville High School, 2016

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Lansing United Archer Stadium, 2018

Russ Kacin

Michigan Legends FC (Brighton)

FVP, Commercial Loans 248.743.4034

Legacy Center, 2017

USL League One IndependentBank.com

The the

Member FDIC

Lansing Ignite FC

Cooley Law School Stadium, 2019

USL League Two Flint City Bucks (formerly the Michigan Bucks in Pontiac) Atwood Stadium, 1995

National Premier Soccer League Michigan Stars FC (Pontiac)

Major Arena Soccer League 2 Waza Flo

Por

Carpathia FC Carpathia Club (Sterling Heights), 1952 Muskegon Catholic Central High School, 2014

Grand Rapids FC

Affili Vanc

United Premier Soccer League

AFC Ann Arbor

Keyworth Stadium, 2012

Wing

Fed

Muskegon Risers SC

Detroit City FC (Hamtramck)

Kala

Detroit City Fieldhouse, 2008

Ultimate Soccer Arena, 1982 Hollway Field, 2014

McM

Gra

Delt

Detr

Oakland County FC

Clawson Stadium, 2014

(Cla

American Hockey League

Lan

Cool

Houseman Field. 2014

Grand Rapids Griffins

Kalamazoo FC

Van Andel Arena, 1996

Toro

Detroit Red Wings affiliate

Gre

Soisson-Rapacz-Clason Field, 2015

Dow

ol,

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

The Flint Monarchs are five-time defending champions of the Global Women’s Basketball Association, a professional league that includes four teams. The Monarchs have been around for nine years, and some have signed with the Women’s National Basketball Association, said Nicole Randolph, the Monarchs’ head coach. The players do get paid, but not enough to support themselves. Many of them have full-time jobs, and some play professionally year-round — 85 percent of them played overseas last year. The season is May to August. The team’s recognition has grown. “More fans have heard the name. Especially in the Flint area, it’s become a household name,” Randolph said. Still, they want their reach to extend across Michigan, not just in Flint, she said. Randolph remembers seeing basketball players on TV who inspired her as a kid. “I feel like the Flint Monarchs right now are in great position to do that for basketball players — especially people in the city of Flint, who have had so

many public issues,” including the contaminated water supply. The Monarchs do community service projects, hold food and water drives and offer free basketball clinics for kids. The Flint Monarchs are looking forward to expanding their league and fan base, as well as bringing in more sponsors. The team’s next home game is Sunday, July 28. The team is also holding a clinic for kids ages 7-16 on July 11. The 15 players on the Detroit Dodgers, a team in the Women’s Basketball Development Association, aim to play professionally for the WNBA or overseas. The Grand Rapids Galaxy is another team in the league. As a professional development league, the WBDA filled a gap that had grown in women’s basketball in metro Detroit, said Kanisha Ward, owner of the Detroit Dodgers and a player on the team. Ward went to Detroit Renaissance and played Division I basketball at Wright State University. She and other players from Renaissance would play together when they came home for the summer, but after they graduated from college, “those opportunities kind of vanished” for players who didn’t automatically go overseas, she said. Now, the WBDA and the Detroit Dodgers offer that opportunity. The team is now in its third year. The male leagues in the area get more exposure, but the Dodgers are elevating women’s basketball, Ward said. “Come watch my point guard put up 25 points against this team from Cleveland or Toledo, and see that we actually do have game.” Ward said she’s fielded a growing number of inquiries from athletes who want to join the Dodgers — including from overseas. The team is doing well as a business; they raised enough money to cover their expenses for the season, but they are looking for more donations and sponsorship, and companies in the community have expressed interest, Ward said. The players are not paid. Although scheduling is a challenge because of the players’ jobs and other commitments, the Dodgers “are extremely dedicated, traveling hours on the road, and being there for one another,” much like family, Ward said. “We’re ordinary women trying to do extraordinary things.”

ECHL

Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate

Kalamazoo Growlers

Kalamazoo Wings

West Michigan Whitecaps

Homer Stryker Field, 2013

Wings Event Center, 1999

Comstock Park (near Grand Rapids)

Traverse City Pit Spitters

Affiliate of AHL’s Utica Comets and NHL’s Vancouver Canucks

Fifth Third Ballpark, 1994

Blair Township

Detroit Tigers affiliate

Wuerfel Park, 2019

Federal Hockey League

United Shore Professional Baseball League

Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League

dance,” usually 200 to 500 people at every game, he said. Many of the spectators are families, including young girls who play soccer. The team offers spectators “good role models to look up to, gives collegiate players a place to get ready for their seasons, and it gives fans a chance to see future professionals and future players on the national team,” Mukhtar said. The young girls who come to their games “run over to us and ask for autographs, give us hugs, and want pictures,” said Dani Evans, the team captain. She is a teacher at Lincoln Park Middle School and also coaches youth club soccer. Younger girls have always been interested in soccer — what’s changed is that players now have more opportunities to play after college, Evans said. “When I graduated from college, there was nothing for me,” she said. “Unless you got drafted, you were done.” The Detroit Sun made it to the Michigan Milk Cup finals for the first time this year and is poised to start the playoffs. United Women’s Soccer includes four other teams in Michigan: AFC Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids FC, Lansing United and Michigan Legends.

Basketball

JOCELYN HO / DETROIT DODGERS

The Detroit Dodgers face off against the TC Queen Elites in Detroit in May.

Port Huron Prowlers McMorran Place, 2015

NBA G League Grand Rapids Drive DeltaPlex Arena, 2006 Detroit Pistons affiliate

(independent) (Utica) Utica Unicorns Eastside Diamond Hoppers Birmingham Bloomfield Beavers Westside Woolly Mammoths

(collegiate summer baseball, unpaid) Muskegon Clippers Marsh Field, 2017 Lake Erie Monarchs (Flat Rock) Siena Field, 1999

All teams are owned by the league and play at Jimmy John’s Field, 2016

Women’s Football Alliance

Lansing Lugnuts

Northwoods League (collegiate summer baseball, unpaid)

MacArthur K-8 University Academy, 2010

Cooley Law School Stadium, 1955 Toronto Blue Jays affiliate

Battle Creek Bombers

Great Lakes Loons (Midland)

C.O. Brown Stadium, 2007

Midwest League (Class A baseball)

Dow Diamond, 1982

Detroit Dark Angels West Michigan Mayhem Kalamazoo Roy Davis Field, 2002

Intellectual Property Experience

In Your Corner.

Contact Tim Kroninger at tkkroninger@varnumlaw.com n

Extensive experience in intellectual property, franchising, licensing, contract, corporate and general business law Works to strategically protect and enforce intellectual property, and help businesses grow through franchising and licensing Metropolitan Ranking Intellectual Property 2019

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

SPECIAL REPORT: CRAIN’S MICHIGAN BUSINESS

After the great Gatlinburg, Tenn., fire destroyed a chair lift in 2016, Boyne replaced it with the Gatlinburg SkyBridge, which opened May 17 as the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America.

BOYNE FROM PAGE 11

It had already owned the renowned Big Sky resort in Montana, co-founded by Chet Huntley, the TV news superstar of the 1950s and 1960s. Three days before the grand opening of its ski lifts in 1974, Huntley died of lung cancer, and Boyne bought the resort in 1976. “I’ve been talking to the team about the journey we’ve been on, and this is an exciting step on our journey to become a great company,” Kircher told Crain’s following news of the $60 million offering. “Collins talks about creating more oxygen. This is a big set of oxygen tanks that allows us to move forward with great flexibility. It will allow us to deploy capital over the next two to three years on high-impact initiatives.” Kircher said the latest offering will not be used for acquisitions. “We will focus on organic growth. Boyne Highlands is on the cusp of a transformation like what Boyne Mountain has gone

through,” he said, referring to ongoing renovations at the company’s first resort property. Those began in 2005 with construction of a new condominium and hotel called the Mountain Grand Lodge and continued through the opening in 2016 of a new 19,500-square-foot spa. Boyne Highlands is a ski and golf resort in Harbor Springs, with four golf courses. In 1963, Everett Kircher bought a small downhill ski operation in Harbor Springs called Harbor Highlands out of bankruptcy, bought some additional land, upgraded the facilities and opened it as Boyne Highlands that December, leading to a review in the New York Times that said: “The new development underscores the fact that Northern Michigan, once known only as a summer resort area, now attracts sports enthusiasts and vacationists on a year-round basis. Winter sports, in fact, have grown phenomenally.” The next year, he installed the world’s first three-passenger chair lift there. In 1966, The Heather, a golf course

designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. — arguably the best golf-course designer in the world at the time — opened at the Highlands. In 2018, The Heather was named golf course of the year by the Michigan Golf Course Association. Everett Kircher also installed, at Boyne Mountain in 1964, the world’s first four-person ski-lift chair; he installed the first six-seat chairlift in the world at Boyne Mountain in 1992. And in the 1970s, he patented and introduced what could be considered the biggest technological advance in skiing — making snow. He invented what he called the Boyne Snowmaker, a snowgun that shot out huge volumes of snow to make up for what nature had failed to produce. In 2000, Ski Magazine honored Kircher as one of the 100 most influential skiers of all time.

Chair lift legends In December 1936, the Sun Valley ski resort opened in Idaho. It was the first destination winter resort in the

U.S., developed by W. Averell Harriman, the chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, as a way to increase ridership on his trains. The resort included the first chair lift in the world. Soon after Sun Valley opened, Everett Kircher took the Union Pacific there (Harriman’s plan in action), where, he later told friends and family, he rode the chair lift up the hill one day right behind a whistling Bing Crosby. He made Sun Valley an annual winter destination. In 1948, with construction underway at Boyne Mountain, Kircher found out Sun Valley was selling its first lift. He borrowed $5,000 from his father to buy it and install it. It is still in operation on the Hemlock run at the resort. Steven Kircher credits another chair lift with the success of his entire company. The ability to raise $460 million in capital, to run golf and ski resorts around the country, to employ thousands — it’s all thanks to a lift in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

BOYNE

In the early 1950s, Everett Kircher was approached by a businessman in Gatlinburg who wanted to buy a chair lift. Instead of selling him one, Kircher engineered and installed a lift in 1953; Boyne Resorts charged 300,000 tourists a year for their ride up a mountain for a scenic view of the Smokey Mountains National Park and a chance to buy souvenirs at a stand at the summit. The great Gatlinburg fire of November 2016 destroyed the lift, but Boyne replaced it with the Gatlinburg SkyBridge, which opened May 17 as the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America. It’s been packed since. “Without Gatlinburg, we wouldn’t exist as a company,” said Kircher. “Until 15 years ago, we had a negative net worth without Gatlinburg. Dad’s ability to call up Robert Trent Jones and hire him to build a golf course was because of Gatlinburg.” Tom Henderson: (231) 499-2817 Twitter: @TomHenderson2

Northern Michigan boasts other golf, ski resorts By Tom Henderson

thenderson@crain.com

Boyne Resorts shares at least two things in common with two of its highest profile, northern Michigan golf and ski-resort rivals, Gaylord-based Treetops Resorts and Bellaire-based Shanty Creek Resort. One, some of the most famous names in golf-course design have designed courses at the three resorts, making them must-play courses for avid golfers who plan their vacations around great destinations to haul their clubs to. And two, all three owe their current success and national reputations to wealth generated by the auto industry in southern Michigan. Boyne’s founder, Everett Kircher, was the son of an Illinois man who moved to Detroit to get one of those $5 a day assembly-line jobs Henry Ford announced in 1913. After saving money from working the assembly line, his father, John, later owned a repair shop and then a Studebaker dealership in Detroit. Everett opened the Boyne Mountain ski hill in 1949, borrowing $20,000 from his father to build a lodge and buy what had been the world’s first chair lift in Sun Valley in California. There were a few commercial ski hills in northern Michigan, then, and a handful of private golf country

Skiing on Summit Mountain at Shanty Creek Resort.

clubs, such as Belvedere in Charlevoix. But Boyne would prove to be the birth place of the golf and ski resort industry in Michigan. In 1954, Lin Meade opened the Sylvan Knob Ski Area in Gaylord. It sported two tow ropes and six slopes, and the tickets for the first ski lift built a year later cost $3 a day or $5 for a weekend pass. In 1983, Meade sold Sylvan Knob to an auto-parts mogul named Harry

BETH PRICE / SHANTY CREEK RESORT

Melling, whose Jackson-based Melling Tool Co. was a maker of fluid pumps, transmissions and other powertrain components for the auto industry. He added a 40-room resort to go with the downhill runs, then decided he needed a golf course, too. Not just any course, but one designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., one of the best course designers in the world. On his first visit to the property, at a plateau overlooking the Pi-

geon River Valley, Jones and Melling decided on a better name for the place than Sylvan Knob: Treetops Resort. And they decided on a name for Jones’ new course: The Masterpiece. Not so coincidentally, his father, Robert Jones Sr., designed The Heather golf course at Boyne Highlands, a Boyne Resorts property in Harbor Springs. The course, Boyne Resorts’ first, opened in 1966 and was named the 2018 golf course of the year by the Michigan Golf Course Association. Golf Digest has named Threetops, Treetops Resort’s nine-hole par 3 course, as the best par 3 course in the country. It was designed by noted architect Rick Smith. Other of Treetops’ 18-hole courses include The Premier, designed by Tom Fazio; and The Tradition and The Signature, both also Rick Smith courses. The resort offers 23 ski runs on its big hill. Shanty Creek also has an auto connection. Roy Deskin, the son of a coal miner, began working in Detroit’s steel factories and later owned General Sheet Steel Co. and became rich as a supplier to the auto industry. In 1944, he retired up north and years later decided he wanted to build a place to entertain his friends. He broke ground in 1961 on a ski hill called Summit Mountain. In 1963, he

opened The Lodge at Shanty Creek, a 91-room hotel named for an old fur trapper’s shanty, and hired golfcourse architect William Diddel to design a golf course, known originally as the Deskin Course and now as the Summit. In 1967, a former stock broker from Chicago named Daniel Iannotti opened a ski resort three miles from Shanty Creek, in Mancelona, called the Kingdom of Schuss, later redubbed Schuss Mountain. He added a nine-hole golf course in 1972 and expanded it to 18 in 1977. In 1985, the Dallas-based ClubCorp., an owner of golf courses around the U.S., bought both Shanty Creek and Schuss Mountain and next year it opened The Legend at Shanty Creek, a now-renowned course designed by Arnold Palmer. In 2006, an investment group from St. Louis, Trinidad Resort & Club LLC, purchased them, with Schuss Mountain operating under the Shanty Creek umbrella. Today, Shanty Creek includes three residential villages, Schuss, Summit and Cedar River; four golf courses, two ski hills with a total of 53 runs, 28 kilometers of Nordic cross-country ski trails and three kilometers of fat-tire bike trails. Tom Henderson: (231) 499-2817 Twitter: @TomHenderson2

C R A I N â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

CRAIN'S LIST: LARGEST OEM PARTS SUPPLIERS

Ranked by 2018 automotive original-equipment parts sales Rank

Company Address Phone; website

Top local executive(s)

OEM sales OEM sales ($000,000) ($000,000) Percent 2018 2017 change

Products

Lear Corp. 21557 Telegraph Road, Southfield 48033 (248) 447-1500; www.lear.com

Raymond Scott president and CEO

$21,148.5

$20,467.0

3.3%

Magna International of America Inc. 750 Tower Drive, Troy 48098 (248) 631-1100; www.magna.com

Jim Tobin chief marketing officer

20,547.0

19,571.0

5.0

Body, chassis, exterior, seating, powertrain, active driver assistance, electronics, mirrors and lighting, mechatronics and roof systems

Adient plc 49200 Halyard Drive, Plymouth 48170 (734) 254-5000; www.adient.com

Douglas Del Grosso president and CEO

17,439.0

16,213.0

7.6

Automotive seating

Denso International America Inc. 24777 Denso Drive, Southfield 48033 (248) 350-7500; www.denso.com/us-ca/en

Kenichiro Ito chairman and CEO, Denso North America

11,162.5

9,600.0

16.3

Powertrain and electrification systems, electronics systems, thermal systems and information and safety systems

ZF North America Inc. 12001 Tech Center Drive, Livonia 48150 (734) 855-2600; www.zf.com

Franz Kleiner CEO

10,264.0

13,970.0

-26.5

Automotive braking products, transmissions, suspension, electronics

Samir Salman CEO, Continental, North America region

9,045.8 B

8,978.0 C

0.8

Continental Automotive Systems U.S. Inc. 1 Continental Drive, Auburn Hills 48326 (248) 393-5300; www.continental-corporation.com/ en-us

Tires, stability management systems, electronic chassis systems, brake systems

Robert Bosch LLC 38000 Hills Tech Drive, Farmington Hills 48331 (248) 876-1000; www.boschusa.com

Mike Mansuetti president

8,419.0

7,600.0

10.8

Powertrain systems, human-machine interface, connectivity solutions, automated driving, driver assistance systems, driving safety systems, comfort actuators, infotainment, steering systems

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. One Dauch Drive, Detroit 48211 313-758-2000; www.aam.com

David Dauch chairman and CEO

7,270.4

6,266.0

16.0

Driveline and drivetrain components and systems

6,372.1

Airbags, seat belts, steering wheels, electronics

5,938.0 C

4,498.0 C

32.0

Automotive multimedia products and components

5,839.0

5,648.0

3.4

Body, brake and chassis systems; electronics; drivetrain and engine components

5,167.0 C

5,300.0

-2.5

Seating, interiors, Clarion electronics and clean mobility

4,900.0

4,097.0 C

19.6

Connection systems, electrical distribution systems, electronic components, instrumentation

9 10 11 12

Joyson Safety Systems (formerly Key Safety Systems Guido Durrer E global president and CEO Inc.) D 2025 Harmon Road, Auburn Hills 48326 (586) 726-3800; www.joysonsafety.com Scott Kirchner, president; Tom Panasonic Automotive Systems Co. of America Gebhardt, CEO 26455 American Drive, Southfield 48034 (248) 447-7000; www.panasonic.com Scott Turpin Aisin World Corp. of America president and CEO 15300 Centennial Drive, Northville 48168 (734) 453-5551; www.aisinworld.com Kevin Lammers, SVP, Faurecia Faurecia North America Group North America; president, 2800 High Meadow Circle, Auburn Hills 48326 Faurecia USA Holdings Inc. (248) 724-5100; www.faurecia.com

Seating and electrical

Yazaki North America Inc. 6801 Haggerty Road, Canton Township 48187 (734) 983-1000; www.yazaki-na.com

Bo Andersson, president and CEO of Yazaki North and Central America, and president of Yazaki Europe

Aptiv PLC 5725 Innovation Drive, Troy 48098 (248) 813-2000; www.aptiv.com

Kevin Clark president and CEO

4,890.0 C

4,257.0 C

14.9

Electronics and technologies for automotive, commercial vehicle and other market segments

Valeo Inc. 150 Stephenson Highway, Troy 48083 (248) 619-8300; www.valeo.com

Francoise Colpron president, Valeo North America

4,816.2 B

4,889.2 B

-1.5

TI Fluid Systems plc 2020 Taylor Road, Auburn Hills 48326 (248) 296-8000; www.tifluidsystems.com

Bill Kozyra president and CEO

3,983.0

4,193.0

-5.0

Electrical, transmission, engine management and air management systems; hybrid and electric vehicle systems; climate control, powertrain thermal systems; compressors; front-end modules; driving assistance; interior controls and wiper systems; others Automotive fluid storage, carrying and delivery technology

Nexteer Automotive 1272 Doris Road, Auburn Hills 48326 (248) 340-8200; www.nexteer.com

Michael Richardson president and executive board director

3,912.0 C

3,878.0

0.9

Automotive systems

Delphi Technologies plc F 5725 Delphi Drive, Troy 48098 (248) 813-2000; www.delphi.com

Richard Dauch G CEO

3,863.0 H

3,902.0 C

-1.0

Powertrain and aftermarket parts

Federal-Mogul LLC I 27300 W. 11 Mile Road, Southfield 48034 (248) 354-7700; www.federalmogul.com

Roger Wood and Brian Kesseler co-CEOs

3,786.0 C

5,650.0 C

-33.0

Engine bearings, pistons, piston rings, sealing systems, ignition products, systems protection products, valvetrain products, braking, lighting and wiper products

Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc. 39550 Orchard Hill Place Drive, Novi 48375 (248) 596-5900; www.cooperstandard.com

Jeffrey Edwards chairman and CEO

3,629.3

3,618.1

0.3

Sealing, fuel and brake delivery and fluid transfer systems

Mahle Industries Inc. 23030 Mahle Drive, Farmington Hills 48335 (248) 305-8200; www.us.mahle.com

Scott Ferriman president

3,590.0

3,345.0

7.3

Engine components, filter systems, vehicle air conditioning and engine cooling

Autoliv North America 1320 Pacific Drive, Auburn Hills 48326 (248) 475-9000; www.autoliv.com

Dan Garceau president, Autoliv Americas

3,536.0

3,536.0 C

0.0

Airbags, inflators, seat belts, safety electronics, steering wheels

Want the full Excel version of this list â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and every Crain's list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data This list of automotive suppliers is an approximate compilation. For companies based in Detroit and divisions of U.S.-based companies in Detroit, figure is for worldwide OEM sales. For divisions of foreign-owned companies, figure is for North American OEM sales. It is not a complete listing but the most comprehensive available. Crain's estimates are based on industry analyses and benchmarks, news reports and a wide range of other sources. Unless otherwise noted, information was provided by the companies. NA = not available.

B Crain's estimate. C Automotive News. D A deal finalized in April 2018 resulted in a combined Takata and Key Safety company renamed Joyson Safety Systems. E Succeeded Yuxin Tang in June 2018. Tang had served as interim president. F Incorporated in London, but has operating headquarters in Michigan. In December 2017, Delphi Automotive plc spun off its powertrain segment as Delphi Technologies PLC (NYSE: DLPH) while Aptiv PLC (NYSE: APTV) emerged as its electric architecture and autonomous driving-focused business.

G Replaced Liam Butterworth who stepped down as CEO in October. H Automotive News estimate. I Tenneco Inc. acquired Federal-Mogul in Oct. 2018. LIST RESEARCHED BY SONYA D. HILL

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

DEALS & DETAILS CONTRACTS JJPublicCity PR, Southfield, a public relations agency, has four new clients: Blake’s Orchard and Hard Cider, Armada, an orchard and cider mill; Hire It Done, Bloomfield Hills, a home improvement company; Lady Jane’s Haircuts for Men, Birmingham, a chain of salons; and Trumbull & Porter Hotel, Detroit, a hotel. Websites: BlakesHardCider.com, blakefarms.com, HireItDone.com, LadyJanes.com, trumbullandporterhotel. com, PublicCityPR.net JJDTE Energy, Detroit, an energy company, and its partnership with Ann Arbor and Roseville schools was selected by the state of Michigan to receive $1.5 million in grants for six Thomas Built “Jouley” electric buses and equipment to charge them. The Ann Arbor Public Schools will re-

ceive four buses and Roseville Community Schools will receive two buses. DTE will work with both districts on the associated electric infrastructure and to implement a vehicle-to-grid study, which will allow the utility to better understand the effects of battery storage technology. Website: dteenergy.com

EXPANSIONS JJPet Supplies Plus, Livonia, a pet re-

tail franchise, has reached 22 new franchise agreements for 46 new store deals in the first half of 2019. The newly signed stores will be developed in Michigan Texas, Florida, California, Kentucky and New Hampshire. Website: petsuppliesplus.com JJRutkowski Law Firm, Bloomfield Hills, an estate planning and elder law firm, has opened a new location

SPOTLIGHT at 12900 Hall Road, Suite 180, Sterling Heights. It is the third location for the firm which has offices in Bloomfield Hills and Rochester. Website: rutkowskilawfirm.com JJA new franchise location of PuroClean, Tamarac, Fla., a property damage remediation company, has opened at 9251 N. Beck Road, Plymouth. Phone: (734) 738-0444. Website: puroclean.com/pp-mi

NEW SERVICES JJSterling Insurance Group, Sterling Heights, an insurance agency, has joined the Worldwide Broker Network, a network comprised of firms that offer cross-border services on behalf of clients. Sterling is the only member in the state of Michigan. Websites: sterlingagency.com, wbnglobal.com

CALENDAR UPCOMING EVENTS Investing in Futures: The economic and business benefits of making postsecondary education avaiable for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. 8-10:30 a.m. July 10. Detroit Regional Chamber. The discussion will frame the national and local conversations on this issue. Panelists will delve into findings from the Investing in Futures report and the Don’t Stop Now report, focusing on the established economic benefits of higher education in prison—in areas such as public safety, employment, and state economy. Panelists include: Sandy Baruah, president and CEO, Detroit Regional Chamber; Laura Tatum, di-

rector of Jobs and Education, Economic Security & Opportunity Initiative, Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality; Margaret diZerega, project director, Vera Institute of Justice; Matt Elliott, Michigan Market president and region executive, Bank of America; Heather Gay, education director, Michigan Department of Corrections; Brian Jones, student, Eastern Michigan University; Barbara McQuade, former U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Michigan; professor from practice, University of Michigan, legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC; Robert Riney, president, health care operations and COO, Henry Ford Health System; Rebecca Silbert, senior fellow and director of Corrections to College, Opportunity

Institute and Beverly Walker-Griffea, president, Mott Community College. Detroit Golf Club. Free. Website: eventbrite.com/e/investing-in-futures-the-e conomic-and-business-benefits-of-making-postseconda r y - e d u c a t i o n - av a i l a b l e - t i c kets-62608132610 Government Contracting 101. 9-11:30 a.m. July 18. Schoolcraft College. The class outlines the first steps for entrepreneurs and businesses wishing to gain access to government contracting. Restricted to businesses located in Wayne, Oakland, Monroe, Washtenaw and Livingston counties. Schoolcraft College. $45. Email: ptac@ schoolcraft.edu

Eversight adds duties to president’s role

Eversight, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit dedicated to the restoration of sight, has added CEO to President David Bosch’s title. Bosch was named president in 2018 after serving as chief marketing officer since 2014, according to a news Bosch release. Kevin Ross remained CEO after Bosch was named president. Ross’ current role is unclear. An Eversight representative did not immediately respond to a request for more details. “The Eversight Board of Directors is pleased that David has graciously accepted this appointment, and we look forward to his leadership in helping us succeed in our mission of sight restoration worldwide,” board Chair Rashid L. Bashshur said in the release. “He has a track record of professionalism, integrity and achievement.” The organization said it works to restore eyesight and prevent blindness through research; recovering, evaluating and providing human eye tissue for transplants; promoting donation awareness; providing aid to people in need of corneal transplants and more. Before joining Eversight, Bosch was the director of communications and government affairs for Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network, an organ procurement organization based in Itasca, Ill. Bosch also has a wide range of experience in grant project development and implementation, according to his company biography.

Eversight, which also operates out of Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio and South Korea, collaborates with surgeons, researchers, academic medical centers and eye banks across the United States and beyond, the release said.

Hemlock Semiconductor hires CFO

Hemlock Semiconductor Operations LLC has hired Steven Sklenar to lead its finance and IT functions. Sklenar, 56, started his role last Monday as chief financial officer for the company, which is based in Hemlock, west of Saginaw. Sklenar replaces Sklenar Greg Lubben, who plans to retire in the first half of 2020, according to a news release from the company. Lubben will serve as senior executive vice president until that time. “Steve (Sklenar) has a very strong and diverse financial background that will enable him to hit the ground running as CFO,” said company Chairman and CEO Mark Bassett in the release. Sklenar spent 28 years at Midland-based Dow Chemical Co., most recently as global compliance director. Prior to that, he worked for five years at Illinois-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP. He earned his bachelor’s degree in administration, accounting and finance from Central Michigan University. Along with his new post, Sklenar will join the company’s operational leadership team as an officer, providing leadership, direction and management for finance, IT and portfolio management.

Advertising Section

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

To place your listing, visit www.crainsdetroit.com/people-on-the-move or for more information, please call Debora Stein at (917) 226-5470 or email dstein@crain.com. INSURANCE / FINANCIAL SERVICES

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Cendrowski Corporate Advisors

Integrated Fiduciary Advisory Services

Comcast

Cendrowski Corporate Advisors is pleased to announce the addition of Ron Braver as a strategic partner to the firm. A veteran of the IRS criminal investigation team, Ron has more than 35 years of Federal law enforcement and private sector consulting experience. He has worked on high-profile investigations involving criminal tax matters, failed banks, bankruptcies, and fraud across a range of issues including securities, mortgage, healthcare, foreign exchange as well as embezzlement.

Integrated Fiduciary Advisory Services is proud to announce that Thomas Kessel has joined the firm as Managing Director. Tom is responsible for leading the firm’s marketing and relationship development activities, focusing on entrepreneurs, family offices, and institutional investors such as foundations, endowments and retirement plans. Integrated Fiduciary Advisory Services is a boutique investment consulting firm headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan. Learn more at integratedfas.com

Comcast has named Jill Johnson senior director of Customer Experience for its Heartland Region, which includes Michigan. Johnson oversees all projects and initiatives to improve customer service for business and residential customers. Previously, Johnson was senior director of business process effectiveness for Comcast’s West Division Customer Experience team in Colorado. A Michigan native, Johnson graduated from Kalamazoo College with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and business, cum laude.

NEW HIRE? PROMOTION? BOARD APPOINTMENT?

NEW GIG? Preserve your career change for years to come.

Crain’s People on the Move showcases industry achievers and their companies to the Detroit business community. Contact: Debora Stein at dstein@crain.com

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July 8, 2019

Page1717

Advertising Section

CLASSIFIEDS To place your listing, contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455 or email sjanik@crain.com www.crainsdetroit.com/classifieds POSITIONS AVAILABLE

Webasto Roof Systems, Inc., Tier-1 auto supplier,

seeks Financial Analyst in Rochester Hills, MI to perform financial analyses for N. Amer ops based on IFRS principles. Duties: apply IFRS principles to perform financial plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & analysis for program, project, R&D, toolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & purchasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g controllâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & to analyze deviatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns & variances fr actual costs & income; monitor financial KPIs & draft & present reports to improve business & mfg processes; develop financial business cases for auto programs; develop Excel-based financial plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & analysis models for project & regâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal forecastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g; perform project & regional cost accountâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g based on IFRS principles in alignmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t w/ matrix org; provide financial analyses for acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n project quotes & engâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g changes for auto programs; monitor & validate VA/VE & commercial savâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;gs; draft & present financial reports (quarterly forecasts, annual budgets, 5-yr plans) for program acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n & project developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t; support harmonizatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of projects to align customer quotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g, expense trackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & allocatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns for global auto programs; support project teams w/ financial forecastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & controllâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g analysis on developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t projects; validate purchased componâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ts & mfg costs. Min edu req: Bachelor in Accountâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g, Finance or Business Admin, or foreign equiv degree. Min exp req: 2 yr exp in financial analysis positâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n. Special skills req: Must have 2 yr work exp in each of followâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g: performâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g month-end closâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g (incl data validatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n, journal entry prep & postâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & account reconciliatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns) for multiple business units; usâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g financial consolidatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n software for multi-dimensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal data analysis; monitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & reconcilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g intercompany balances. Must have 1 yr work exp in each of followâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g: evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g financial & operatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal risks; finance controllâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g to inc budget & forecast developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t & variance monitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & analysis. Exp may be acquired concurrently. Resume to Webasto Roof Systems, Inc., Attn: Jacqueline Billingsley, 1757 Northfield Dr, Rochester Hills, MI 48309, or apply online at www. webasto.com (Requisition ID 1079). EOE. Employer Pd. Ad.

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The Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority (Authority) is interested in securing the services of a General Contractor for design-build construction services to create Gender Neutral ADA compliant restroom facilities on the 5th and 9th floors of the Office Tower of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Interested parties should request a copy of the RFP by emailing a request to Commissioners@dwjba.com Site Visit: A mandatory pre-bid site visit will be held on Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 2pm in the 13th floor auditorium at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Bond Requirements: Upon being awarded the contract, the General Contractor will be required to provide a performance bond and payment bond both equal to 100% of the price specified in the contract. Submission Requirements: RFP responses are due no later than Monday July 29, 2019 at 12:00 Noon. All submission requirements are included in the RFP.

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of sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems for auto industry, seeks Business Analyst in Auburn Hills, POSITIONS AVAILABLE MI, to provide market analysis & guidance for corp long-range plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & 2,500 SQ FT organizatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal structure. Areas of responsibility incl strategic plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g, evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n WOODWARD/ 9 MILE of polymer developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems & organizatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal structure in multi-culVICE PRESIDENT - FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION CRAINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DETROIT BUSINESS tural & global settâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g. Natâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;l & internatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;l travel 40%. Duties: investigate operatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal Page 16 LOWER LEVEL Come work for OHM Advisors, the community advancement firm. performance (due diligence, business plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g & performance & global gov 24 HR ACCESS - $1,500 MO With the singular mission of Advancing Communities, our diverse, 500+ member regs) & assist in deploymâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t of strategic growth initiatives; evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of commer248-398-7000 team works collaboratively across multiple service areas including architecture, cial activities for auto TPV & EPDM sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems & of business developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t engineering, planning, surveying, and construction engineering to create better & growth thru evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of new technology, functâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of componâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t & developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t of places for people. We are seeking a strategic and business savvy Finance & 2,280 ACRES advanced sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems; perform financial forecasts & analyze opportunities Business Executive to join our team! In this role you will report to the President for mergers & acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns to expand global footprint & strengthen compâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posiand will work closely with the entire leadership team. The successful candidate tâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n in auto market; coordinate monthly written & verbal communicatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n between will oversee the financial and operational health of the organization, as well as 2,280 ACRES FOR SALE N. Amer exec team, global investors & Board of Directors of parent comp in provide leadership and direction at the Senior Executive Level. Bringing over 15 China (on topics relatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g to composite material characterizatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n & improvemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, fiyears of AEP or Construction Industry will be critical to ones understanding of DOUBLE EAGLE RANCH nancial strength & impact of acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns, gov reg issues & global affiliate opporthe functions of the organization and no doubt will aid in the overall success. North Central Michigan tunities) to aid in ID of potential business cooperatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n opportunities; daily written The key priorities will include all aspects of the internal administration of the firm TheDoubleEagleRanch.com & oral communicatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n w/ parent comp in China on financial, business & performincluding long range financial planning and financial department oversight, superCall Kyle: 248-444-6262 vision and coordination of corporate legal matters, supervision of Information ance data & on evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of environmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tal constraints, mfg reqs & competitor Technology department, oversight of facilities/real estate management, corpointel; draft doc for initial public offerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;gs, liaise w/ gov & stock exchange agenrate safety program and standardization of support services. cies, consolidate corp data & develop stock exchange doc; develop strategies Advertise your OHM Advisors is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) for market penetratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n, new product developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t (thru acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns or joint venProducts and Services in Apply Online at www.ohm-advisors.com. tures), market developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t & diversificatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n; develop & implemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t strategic business evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n criteria to measure future business initiatives, acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns & conCrainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Detroit Business solidatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ns; formulate corp business structures for vehicle sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g system ops to maximize growth & profitability; align N. 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Special skills req: Must have 3 yr work exp in each of followâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g: financial, operatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nal & product maServices RFP Responses Due: Rolling Basis through August 2, 2019 terial selectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n & plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g; quality systems long-term strategic plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g for TPV & DESC Sector Partnership Training, Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) EPDM sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems; evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of vehicle sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g system engâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g specs to develResponses Due: Rolling Basis through May 31, 2020 op processâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g parameters used for business acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n models & strategic '(6& D QRQ SURĂ&#x20AC;W FRUSRUDWLRQ $ 0LFKLJDQ :RUNV $JHQF\ LQ FRRSHUDWLRQ ZLWK WKH 0D\RUÂˇV :RUNIRUFH 'HYHORSPHQW consideratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of future product portfolio; evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of vehicle sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems %RDUG 0:'% VHUYHV DV WKH Ă&#x20AC;VFDO DQG DGPLQLVWUDWLYH HQWLW\ WKDW SURYLGHV SXEOLF ZRUNIRUFH GHYHORSPHQW SURJUDPV DQG (innovatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n trends, engâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t & mfg) for potential impact on future busiVHUYLFHV IRU WKH FLW\ RI 'HWURLW WR HPSOR\HUV DQG MRE VHHNHUV ness plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g; evaluatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of raw material supply & product mfg plannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g to optiMore information on these opportunities are available at the following website: mize profitability of Tier-1 vehicle sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g system business; developmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t & analyKWWSV ZZZ GHVFPLZRUNV FRP RSSRUWXQLWLHV UISV DQG UITV sis of strategic matrix for global business growth; prep of docs for IPOs & anTo request a full RFP package, please email DESC at procurement@detempsol.org. 4XDOLĂ&#x20AC;HG DSSOLFDQWV PXVW nual supplemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tal financial & business filâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;gs for Tier-1 auto supplier; performâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g VXEPLW WKH IROORZLQJ LQIRUPDWLRQ YLD HPDLO &RPSDQ\ 1DPH $GGUHVV 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH 3KRQH 1XPEHU &RQWDFW SHUVRQÂˇV QDPH due diligence in environmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tal, technical, mfg & regulatory approval process for 7LWOH DQG 9DOLG (PDLO $GGUHVV global merger & acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n targets of vehicle componâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ts; consolidatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of N. Amer, European & Asian due diligence data & prep & presentatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of reports to Email Subject Line should include: DESC Math and Mechanical Tutoring Bid Request or DESC Sector Partnerexec mgmt, investors & governmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tal agencies; assessmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t of technology for poship FOA Training Bid Request 0D\RUÂˇV :RUNIRUFH 'HYHORSPHQW %RDUG tential acquisitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n of vehicle sealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;g systems component comp. Exp may be acDetroit Employment Solutions Corporation Board Cynthia J. Pasky, Co-Chairperson Calvin Sharp, Interim Chairperson quired concurrently. Resume to careers@hennigesautomotive.com (SubDavid E. Meador, Co-Chairperson Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation ject Line: HQ-2019-07 Business Analyst), or mail to Henniges AutomoJeffrey M. Donofrio, Executive Director Nicole A. Sherard-Freeman, President and Chief Executive An equal opportunity employer/program. Supported by the State of Michitive North America, Inc., Human Resources, ATTN: Paula Pilotti, 2750 gan, Talent Investment Agency. Auxiliary aids and services available upon request to individuals with disabilities. 1-800-285-WORK. TTY: 711. High Meadow Circle, Auburn Hills, MI 48326. Employer Pd. Ad. EEO.

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

LEE IACOCCA, 1924-2019

Larger than life, Iacocca was one of a kind

he auto industry seems to have more than its share of icons. It just said goodbye to another one with the death of Lee Iacocca at age 94. You could love him or hate him, but you could never ignore him. He was an unbelievable figure in the auto business. Everyone had a strong opinion of him. Not many auto executives can claim to have run two huge companies successfully for more than two decades, but Iacocca did just that. I can’t remember exactly when I first met Lee, but he was larger than life and had a huge impact on everyone he met.

KEITH CRAIN Editor-in-chief

I certainly will never forget our well-reported story when Henry Ford II fired Iacocca. I was on the phone with his wife, Mary, who told me he was on his way home. She corrected herself

when she saw him walking in the door and handed the phone to him. “What happened?” I asked. Lee responded: “He fired me.” And I said: “Say it isn’t so.” In those days, Automotive News was shipped to the printer on Thursdays but didn’t publish until Monday. This was a Thursday. So we put out a press release saying Automotive News would report in Monday’s issue that Lee Iacocca had been fired. Ford wasn’t yet saying anything about the move, and I had the scoop of my career. It did not take long for Lee to start his second career, and he was soon hired by

Chrysler Corp. as president and COO. He had no idea how tough it would be at Chrysler. But in spite of all the challenges, he turned the company around and fixed it. It would take more than $1 billion in federal loan guarantees, adding the K car to its lineup and buying American Motors, the ugly duckling whose Jeep brand has become a great success. When Iacocca was fired by Ford, a number of other executives fell under the blade as well. Hal Sperlich avoided the firing because he had left before all the bloodletting. He had some impact on the Mustang and then went on to help create not only

the K car but the minivan, another incredibly important vehicle. When Iacocca retired, he replaced himself with Bob Eaton, a controversial decision even today. You could write a book about Lee. In fact, he wrote three, and all were bestsellers. Iacocca was someone special. I knew him for four or five decades and I was fascinated the entire time. There have been a lot of interesting folks along the way but no one quite like Lee Iacocca. He was one of a kind. I have great memories of Lee and, like so many other people, I shall miss him.

Keith Crain (left) shares a smoke with retiring Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca during an interview one week before Iacocca’s last day. AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

IACOCCA FROM PAGE 1

With a sometimes brash, no-nonsense style and fiery tongue, he was the towering public face, corporate pitchman and voice for the American auto industry’s triumphs and challenges. “I think America is getting an inferiority complex about Japan,” Iacocca lamented before a group of Chrysler executives in one late 1980s TV commercial. “Everything from Japan is perfect. Everything from America is lousy ... now that’s got to stop.” Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, in a statement, paid tribute to Iacocca as one of the “great leaders of our company and the auto industry ... who played a profound role on the national stage as a business statesman and philanthropist. “Lee gave us a mindset that still drives us today — one that is characterized by hard work, dedication and grit.” Iacocca began his career at Ford in 1946 as an engineer trainee after earning his master’s at Princeton University. He earned an industrial engineering degree from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He quickly moved up the ranks thanks to an eye for design. Iacocca’s keen product planning skills were behind Ford’s risky gamble, soon after the Edsel flop, to bring the Mustang to market in 1964. The first socalled pony car, with its low price and sleek styling, was an instant sensation and gave a new generation of

young Americans another reason to fall in love with Detroit metal. With just $45 million to develop and build — what he called “an unheard of low amount at the time to design and push a new car line through to production” — the overnight success of the Mustang put Iacocca on the fast track at Ford. He became president of the company’s Ford division the same year the Mustang launched and was promoted to president of the entire company in 1970. Iacocca also was responsible for the ill-fated Ford Pinto. He rushed the Pinto through production because, he was convinced, Ford needed an inexpensive subcompact car to compete with the small imports making inroads in the U.S. in the early 1970s. The Pinto quickly became known as “Lee’s car.” He demanded that it weigh no more than 2,000 pounds and sell for $2,000. Ford, under pressure from safety advocates and facing numerous lawsuits, recalled the Pinto in 1978 because the design of the fuel tank made it vulnerable to explosion after a rear-end collision. In the end, Ford recalled 1.5 million Pintos. The automaker was the subject of more than 100 lawsuits because of the Pinto and paid millions of dollars in restitution. Henry Ford II launched an investigation to determine any wrongdoing on the part of Iacocca, demoting him in 1977 and ultimately firing him in 1978. Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. and William Clay Ford

Sr.’s son, on Tuesday praised Iacocca for leaving an “indelible mark on Ford, the auto industry and our country ... I will always appreciate how encouraging he was to me at the beginning of my career. He was one of a kind.” Iacocca became CEO of struggling crosstown rival Chrysler in 1979. With Chrysler’s financial woes mounting and bankruptcy looming, Iacocca successfully lobbied President Jimmy Carter and Congress in late 1979 and early 1980 to obtain a $1.5 billion loan guarantee from the

“From the time he started at Chrysler to the time he left, people would walk through walls for him.” — Bud Liebler, president of the public relations firm Liebler Group

federal government. In return, Chrysler came up with $2 billion in cost reductions. The controversial rescue backed by the federal government was unprecedented for the auto industry and American business at the time. Iacocca worked tirelessly to secure it. That meant cost-cutting everywhere, particularly labor costs. Iacocca and Chrysler secured a new UAW contract in 1979, ultimately providing the automaker with $462.2 million in concessions. Nonunion employees took $125 million in pay cuts, dealers and suppliers provided $180 million

and Chrysler closed 20 plants. Iacocca famously reduced his salary to $1 a year. Chrysler paid back the government loan in 1983, seven years ahead of schedule. President Ronald Reagan in 1982 appointed Iacocca head of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation created to help raise funds for the renovation and restoration of the landmark statue in New York Harbor. Chrysler shot back to profitability with Iacocca’s second home run, the minivan. Iacocca was convinced there was a market for such a van with a low step-in height and what he called “garageability.” The Voyager and Caravan, introduced in 1984, became two of the hottest new products of the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, Iacocca was a household name, appearing regularly in commercials to tout Chrysler’s lineup, often taking shots at Japanese rivals and daring U.S. consumers to buy a rival car if they could land a better deal. He also became an author, publishing Iacocca: An Autobiography in 1984. The book was an overnight sensation and proved popular in all social strata and in all regions of the country. Sales topped 200,000 copies per month in Japan and it became a must-read among “the Saudi technocratic elite,” Time magazine said. It was on The New York Times bestseller list for 88 weeks. Iacocca would write two more books: Talking Straight in 1988, and 2007’s Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, in which he railed against ex-

cessive executive compensation, political gridlock in Washington, the competitiveness of the Detroit 3, why America couldn’t build a competitive hybrid and other hot topics of the day. With Chrysler on the mend — it posted record profits of $2.38 billion in 1984 and $1.64 billion in 1985 — Iacocca hatched plans to build a modern technology center 30 miles north of Detroit, in Auburn Hills. The $1 billion project opened in 1991. Chrysler also went on a spending spree, snapping up Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., FinanceAmerica, Electrospace Systems, Lamborghini and a major prize, American Motors — including AMC’s profitable Jeep brand — for a combined $2 billion. Iacocca aimed to diversify Chrysler’s revenue sources and help shield the company from future economic downturn. But the acquisitions raised the automaker’s breakeven point and, combined with several poor product calls, produced another period of losses for Chrysler. With the company back on the ropes, Iacocca was forced to sell assets to raise cash and focus on Chrysler’s core automotive operations. He retired from the automaker in 1992. “From the time he started at Chrysler to the time he left, people would walk through walls for him,” Liebler said. “He was like a rock star; people wanted to reach out and touch him. People always looked at him as a guy who put his money where his mouth is.”

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

PIT SPITTERS FROM PAGE 1

The Pit Spitters play in the Northwoods League, founded 25 years ago and based in Rochester, Minn. More than 200 of its former players have gone on to play in the major leagues, most notably Max Scherzer, who won the 2013 Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the American League when he played for the Detroit Tigers and who won the Cy Young in 2016 and 2017 with the Washington Nationals of the National League. “Pit Spitters” refers to Traverse City’s best known commercial product, cherries. That name was announced in December after a contest that drew more than 4,000 entries. The other finalists were Black Pearls, Dogmen, Dune Bears, Tree Shakers and Sasquatch. The stadium was also renamed Pit Spitters Park. The Beach Bums, founded in 2005, played in the Frontier League, a league unaffiliated with what is called organized ball — that is, teams made up of players under contract to major league baseball teams. Why not keep the Beach Bums? Because the Whitecaps are a Class A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, the ownership group isn’t allowed to also own a professional team in an independent league, according to Joe Chamberlin, the CEO of the Whitecaps as well as of the Pit Spitters. While an obvious focus of Traverse City Baseball is baseball, the main attraction to the buyers was what they saw as an underused stadium with the potential to become a year-round entertainment venue. Chamberlin said the plan is to hold such events as craft beer and wine festivals, concerts, fireworks shows, car shows and possibly a skating rink in the winter over the artificial turf. He said he would also like to rent the park out for company picnics and to host high school baseball and soccer games. When John and Leslye Wuerfel first looked into bringing a team to Traverse City, they met with Chamberlin’s father, Lou, who had founded the Whitecaps in 1994, to get advice on starting and running a baseball team. Last year, they let Joe know they were looking to sell the park. “They were kind of ready to move on. It was just a matter of getting to the point where a deal worked for both of

A young Pit Spitters fan with the team’s mascot, Monty. TRAVERSE CITY PIT SPITTERS

Arnold

Smith

us,” Chamberlin said. They agreed to terms Chamberlin declined to disclose and the sale closed on Sept. 18. “It’s a significant investment for us. We plan to be there a long time. “What we really like about Traverse City is it is a growing market, vibrant and exciting. And it’s a beautiful ballpark with untapped potential,” he said. “The Beach Bums demonstrated they could put 200,000 people in the ballpark in a season. Traverse City is ready for the next iteration of what the ballpark can be.” Mickey Graham, the Pit Spitters’ general manager, agrees. “This is a great market and a beautiful ballpark. There is nothing like it,” said Graham, the former longtime general manager of the Whitecaps, who said he happily volunteered to take over the Pit Spitters. “There’s only 36 (home) baseball games here. That

Graham

Chamberlin

leaves more than 300 other days to schedule things. We want to make this an entertainment destination.” Chamberlin said there weren’t any Class A teams for sale when they bought the ballpark but at some point in the future, if one comes on the market, they would look into buying it and moving it to Traverse City. “Traverse City is a market that could support a Class A franchise,” he said. The Northwoods League, like the Cape Cod League, is a wooden-bat league for college stars. The use of wooden bats instead of metal bats gives scouts a better way to judge a player’s talent. Balls don’t travel as far when hit with a wooden bat. “When the Whitecaps began discussing a Northwoods League franchise in Traverse City, I knew the baseball was going to be terrific. My staff scouts the Northwoods League very

heavily and having our friends at the Whitecaps running that operation in Traverse City will make it a frequent stop for us. It won’t be long before a Pit Spitter alum is playing in the pros, maybe even in Detroit,” said David Chadd, a vice president and assistant general manager with the Detroit Tigers. Actually, one is already playing in the pros. Last month, at the annual draft of amateur players by major league teams, Pit Spitter pitcher Chase Wheatcroft was taken in the 37th round by the Oakland Athletics and is now playing in the Arizona rookie league. The Pit Spitters play a condensed schedule of 72 games. From opening day on May 28, they played 27 straight days before a day off and are now on a 20-game streak. They play their last game on Aug. 11. The Pit Spitters play in the six-team Great Lakes East Division of the 22team league. Other teams in the division are the Battle Creek Bombers, Kenosha Kingfish, Kokomo Jackrabbits, Kalamazoo Growlers and Rockford (Ill.) Rivets. Tickets prices are $6 for a seat on the sloping lawn that rings the outfield fences; $10 for box seats; $80 for a patio table of four seats, which includes wait service; $250 for a 12-person suite; and $450 for a 25-person suite. Frequent

promotions offer discount tickets. (See related story, this page.) The two-story structure that rings the seats and field looks more like a condominium complex than a ballpark. The ground floor houses a series of souvenir and ice cream shops, beer stands, including one named the Spitoon Saloon, favoring craft beers from around the state, and food stations, as well as locker rooms and indoor batting cages. The second floor houses team offices and suites. The team employs six with six interns. The park seats 4,660, including the lawn. Graham said attendance has been picking up, averaging 1,137 for the first 12 games. Given the timing of the sale last September, much of the off-season was spent hiring staff, hiring coaches and signing up sponsors, and he said he expected attendance to have somewhat of a slow start. What hasn’t been slow, says Graham, is merchandise sales. The team was featured on a program on ESPN on minor league baseball and sales have been nonstop since. “We get online orders every day,” he said. “We’ve got hats on back order.” The team provides the players with lunch and dinner on game days. They do not get paid and have no meal allowance. Players stay with volunteer host families in the Traverse City area. Jake Arnold, a first baseman from Georgia who will be a junior at the University of North Georgia, and Kam Smith, an infielder and outfielder from Virginia who will be a junior at Northern Illinois, had never been to northern Michigan. Arnold said his college coach knew the Pit Spitters’ field manager, Josh Rebandt, and made a pitch on Arnold’s behalf. “He told me about the park and what the area looks like and I said, ’Heck, yeah. It sounds like a great place to play,’” said Arnold. “It’s been awesome. There’s no other park in the league like this. The facilities are beautiful. I’ve been fishing a few times. I was out on Long Lake. Traverse City just has a cool beach-town feel.” Smith said he was in talks with a team in the Cape Cod League when he got a call from Rebandt. “He said, ‘You sound like a guy who can play on my team.’ It was January and I wanted to confirm where I was playing summer ball, and I said I want to come. I live in a beach town in Virginia, so this appealed to me. I like to fish. I haven’t been out, yet, but I will.”

Promoting Pit Spitters, luring fans part of the game Promotions are at the heart of minor-league and college summer-league baseball. In addition to kids running the bases and T-shirt launcher guns, there is a season-long emphasis on special nights to lure fans to the park. That’s where Britani Eaton, promotions and community-engagement manager for the Traverse City-based Pit Spitters, comes in. Eaton, a native of Beaverton, graduated from Central Michigan University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in sport management with a minor in athletic coaching. While at CMU, she interned with the Chicago Bandits, a professional women’s softball team in the National Pro Fastpitch League, as their game-day operations manager. After graduation, Eaton spent 11 months in New York as a sales representative for the Madison Square Garden Co., focusing on the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association, the Rangers of the National Hockey League and the Lib-

Britani Eaton is the driving force behind promotions for the Traverse City Pit Spitters.

erty of the Women’s National Basketball Association. She returned to Michigan in 2018 to be director of promotions and special events for the Traverse City Beach Bums, a member of the Frontier League, an independent league not

affiliated with major league baseball. “All my family was here. I didn’t know anyone in New York,” she said. So when she saw the Beach Bums job posting, she applied. She was retained by the Pit Spitters when Wuerfel Park was bought by

the Traverse City Baseball LLC, a group led by investors in the Grand Rapids-based West Michigan Whitecaps, a Class A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. The Beach Bums folded and were replaced by the Pit Spitters, a summer-league made up of college all-stars. The stadium was renamed Pit Spitters Park for the new team. At the end of June, the Thunderbirds came to town for a series of shows as part of the National Cherry Festival, and members of the U.S. Air Force’s precision flying team came out one night to throw the opening pitch and sign autographs. Eaton has scheduled 10 fireworks nights, including, of course, the Fourth of July, as well as the last home game of the season, Aug. 9, against the Rockford Rivets. The Fourth of July game also included a buffet special, which for $20 a person included a ticket and a buffet of pulled pork, Moomer’s ice cream, hot dogs, burgers, corn on the

cob, fruit salad, potato salad and chips. (Moomer’s is the legendary local ice cream maker; in May 2008, it was named America’s best ice cream by ABC’s Good Morning America.) Promotions this season include Pokemon Night; Sermons and Strikeouts Sunday, with attendees who bring in their church or community bulletin getting tickets at half price; Hometown Hero Night, where active military, veterans, first responders and snow-plow drivers get half-price tickets; Thirsty Thursdays, with 20-ounce beers and hot dogs for $2 each; Nickelodeon Night with SpongeBob SquarePants; Bark in the Park night, with the first 500 fans with dogs on leashes getting free dog bowls; Dime Dog Mondays, with hot dogs going for 10 cents; and Food Truck Night, with local food trucks parked in the outfield lawn-seating area. For a list of promotions and to buy tickets, go to northwoodsleague. com/traverse-city-pit-spitters. — Tom Henderson

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

UPG

FROM PAGE 3

Within weeks, a turnaround plan was created. Losses declined and business improved the next two years. However, in 2018, losses began to rise again to $8.1 million for the year, nearly double what was expected. One reason? Earlier in the year, nearly 60 doctors left the group. “I always believed it was critically important to faculty and the community to get through (bankruptcy) as quickly as possible,” said Shanley, a WSU graduate and vascular surgeon with a longtime affiliation with Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He was hired in February 2018 to bring stability to UPG and work much more closely with Detroit Medical Center, a six-hospital system owned by for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp. in Dallas. “We kept to our deadlines and accomplished a lot,” he said. “We are all just thrilled. ... The instability, the stigma, (bankruptcy) creates, both with physicians and the patients” hurts the ability to care for people and conduct research and education.

Hiring doctors limited by finances Shanley said he is pleased that

UPG lost only five doctors to competitors or retirement over the seven months of the bankruptcy. During that time, UPG has recruited and hired 23 specialists, increasing UPG’s physician force from 244 last fall to 267. Still, at its height, UPG employed more than 500 doctors. It has lost more than half its doctors over the past decade, leading to a 22 percent drop in revenue the past four years, bankruptcy court documents show. In the months leading up to the November bankruptcy filing, UPG lost 58 doctors. Of the 58, 15 anesthesiologists left to form their own practice group, Shanley said. “We are hiring doctors all the time. It’s the way a large practice works. My fear going into bankruptcy was attrition because of the uncertainty. But we only lost five doctors,” Shanley said. Hiring more doctors is a critical need for UPG as it has lost more than 100 since the beginning of 2017. It is not known yet how many more doctors will be recruited over the next several years, because hiring is limited by available cash on hand. He said UPG still is working hard to boost revenue and must manage its expenses carefully. “We are hiring across the board in all areas, where it makes sense to serve a clinical need,” he said. “We need to be very strategic in hiring now because it takes time for doc-

tors to ramp up practice, and we are not flush in cash” to subsidize them for long. Shanley said new doctors will be needed in the following areas: obstetrics and gynecology, neurology, surgery, oncology, behavioral and internal medicine. “Part of our five-year contract with (the Detroit Medical Center) is to look at manpower planning together in a (13-member) joint operating committee,” said Shanley, referring to the clinical and administrative contract UPG signed with DMC last October. “We are trying to grow women’s health and looking at needs they have in the community.” Shanley said he talks regularly with DMC CEO Tony Tedeschi, M.D., to discuss hiring and mutual strategies.

Financials improving The court-approved reorganization strategy created with consulting firm AlixPartners shows a path toward profitability and will guide the future of UPG. Bankruptcy documents filed by UPG March 24 show revenue dropped to $153.1 million in fiscal 2018 from $196.9 million in 2015. Net losses during that period totaled $21.9 million, even though losses narrowed to an $8.1 million deficit in 2018 from $13.1 million in 2015.

Interestingly, in 2017, UPG reported a $275,000 profit, primarily as it cut expenses 6 percent, or $12 million, compared with a $1 million loss in 2016 when expenses were cut even more by 7 percent, said UPG court filings. However, in the first six months after filing bankruptcy in November, UPG reported to the court that its financial picture has improved dramatically. Total revenue since bankruptcy filing from November through May 2019 was $72 million with surplus income of $2.7 million, according to a financial statement filed with the court June 25. In May, the last month for which UPG filed a financial statement, revenue was $10.3 million with a $945,014 surplus. Looking ahead, UPG projects total losses of $16.8 million in 2019, which includes bankruptcy costs, but profits of $1.6 million in 2020, $3.9 million in 2021 and $3.1 million in 2022. Operating revenue is projected to decline to $119.8 million in 2019, increase to $122.5 million in 2020, and $125.7 million for the following three years, documents show. “We have lots of expenses with bankruptcy (lawyers, trustee, consultants),” Shanley said. “Once those go away, it turns around pretty quickly.” Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325 Twitter: @jaybgreene

TAXIS FROM PAGE 3

Discussions with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which manages Belle Isle to the east, and the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, which is working on the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park development to the west, have been “very encouraging,” Burleson said. The conservancy declined comment. In 2017, Mark Wallace, president and CEO of the conservancy, said the organization “would love to see water taxis on the Detroit riverfront in the near future.” In order to get the money, the port authority has to submit to the FHA a business plan, the planned stops and route, projected schedule and an agreement or contract with a private operator. The grant application that was written under a previous executive director said that the boats would be purchased and operational within 12 months. A study completed in January 2015 for the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy by Detroit-based Freshwater Transit Solutions LLC suggested phasing in water taxi service in three stages with stops at various points along the river: the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle, the former Uniroyal Tire Co. factory site, the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel, Rivard Plaza, the Renaissance Center, the port authority and the west riverfront. It also said operations should start small and be expanded in varying phases. “I want to make sure that if we spend this money, it’s spent wisely and with a well thought-out plan and we are not ready to do that yet,” Burleson said. “I’m hoping to have some better ideas by the end of the year about who might operate this.” Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

crainsdetroit.com Editor-in-Chief Keith E. Crain Publisher KC Crain Group Publisher Mary Kramer, (313) 446-0399 or mkramer@crain.com Associate Publisher Lisa Rudy, (313) 446-6032 or lrudy@crain.com Managing Editor Michael Lee, (313) 446-1630 or malee@crain.com Product Director Kim Waatti, (313) 446-6764 or kwaatti@crain.com Digital Product Manager Carlos Portocarrero, (313) 446-6056 or cportocarrero@crain.com Creative Director David Kordalski, (216) 771-5169 or dkordalski@crain.com Assistant Managing Editor Dawn Riffenburg, (313) 446-5800 or driffenburg@crain.com News Editor Beth Reeber Valone, (313) 446-5875 or bvalone@crain.com Senior editor, Chad Livengood, (313) 446-1654 or clivengood@crain.com Special Projects Editor Amy Elliott Bragg, (313) 446-1646 or abragg@crain.com Design and Copy Editor Beth Jachman, (313) 446-0356 or bjachman@crain.com Research and Data Editor Sonya Hill, (313) 446-0402 or shill@crain.com Newsroom (313) 446-0329, FAX (313) 446-1687, TIP LINE (313) 446-6766

REPORTERS Annalise Frank, breaking news. (313) 446-0416 or afrank@crain.com Jay Greene, senior reporter, health care. (313) 446-0325 or jgreene@crain.com Anisa Jibrell, breaking news. (313) 446-1612 or ajibrell@crain.com Kurt Nagl, breaking news. (313) 446-0337 or knagl@crain.com Kirk Pinho, real estate. (313) 446-0412 or kpinho@crain.com Bill Shea, enterprise editor, the business of sports. (313) 446-1626 or bshea@crain.com Dustin Walsh, senior reporter, economic issues. (313) 446-6042 or dwalsh@crain.com Sherri Welch, senior reporter, nonprofits and philanthropy. (313) 446-1694 or swelch@crain.com

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CUSTOMER SERVICE LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S

About 24,000 square feet of modular trailer office space has been assembled along Springwells Court in southwest Detroit for field engineers and base operations of construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge over the next five years.

BRIDGE FROM PAGE 3

The consortium of companies declined to release names of sub-contractors. But in recent weeks, Detroit-based demolition firm Homrich has had crews on site tearing out concrete foundations inside the footprint of the customs plaza. Brian McKinney, co-owner of Detroit-based Gayanga Co., a minority-owned construction and demolition company, previously told Crain’s his company has won a subcontract for demolition work for the bridge project, but could not comment on the nature of the work. The new six-lane, cable-stayed bridge, customs plazas and highway

connections are expected to cost $2.9 billion to construct, with an additional $1.5 billion in operating costs over 30 years through the contract Bridging North America inked with the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority last fall. The consortium of companies leading the Bridging North America partnership includes ACS Infrastructure Canada Inc., Fluor Canada Ltd. and Dragados Canada Inc. In the coming weeks, Bridging North America will be putting out for bid contracts for construction work on and around I-75 where the interstate highway will be eventually connected to the customs plaza and Gordie Howe bridge, which is being financed by Canada. Those projects includes demoli-

tion and concrete work, traffic signs and management, surveying, temporary barriers and concrete pavement pumping stations, Epstein said. “There’s just a lot of different skill sets required that we’re looking to obviously put qualified subcontractors on,” he said. General contractors have not expressed any issue with finding labor for subcontract work, according to Epstein. “That is always a concern, but we haven’t seen that addressed to us at this point in time,” he said. “And we don’t foresee that with the upcoming work in this construction season.” Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

Single copy purchases, publication information, or membership inquiries: Call (877) 824-9374 or customerservice@crainsdetroit.com Reprints: Laura Picariello (732) 723-0569 or lpicariello@crain.com Crain’s Detroit Business is published by Crain Communications Inc. Chairman Keith E. Crain Vice Chairman Mary Kay Crain President KC Crain Senior Executive Vice President Chris Crain Secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong Chief Financial Officer Robert Recchia G.D. Crain Jr. Founder (1885-1973) Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. Chairman (1911-1996) Editorial & Business Offices 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732; (313) 446-6000 Cable address: TWX 248-221-5122 AUTNEW DET CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS ISSN # 0882-1992 is published weekly, except the last issue in December, by Crain Communications Inc. at 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732. Periodicals postage paid at Detroit, MI and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 07925, Detroit, MI 48207-9732. GST # 136760444. Printed in U.S.A. Contents copyright 2019 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial content in any manner without permission is prohibited.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U LY 8 , 2 0 1 9

THE WEEK ON THE WEB

RUMBLINGS

Domino’s, GM among 206 corporations urging Supreme Court to defend LGBTQ people

WDET GM to resign for journalism project role

JUNE 28-JULY 3 | For more, visit crainsdetroit.com

DET General Manager Michelle Srbinovich is resigning from the Detroit-based public radio station (101.9 FM) after 10 years. Srbinovich’s last day at Detroit’s National Public Radio affiliate is July 12, according to a Tuesday news release from Wayne State University, which owns the station. She starts a new job July 15 at the venture philanthropy-backed American Journalism Project as managing director of civic news organization success. Michael Wright, the university’s chief of staff and vice president of marketing and communications, will take over on an interim basis until a permanent replacement is found. Wayne State plans to hire a search firm to help recruit a new general manager. Srbinovich, 34, who was honored in Crain’s Twenty in Their 20s in 2014, started at WDET in 2009 as digital director, coming from Detroit-based advertising firm Campbell Ewald. She became general manager in 2014. Since then, she has helped lead the station through a financial turnaround and digital transformation,

omino’s Pizza and General Motors Co. are among the more than 200 corporations, including many of America’s best-known companies, that have signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal civil rights law bans job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the Associated Press reported. The brief, announced last week by a coalition of five LGBTQ rights groups, is being submitted to the Supreme Court this week ahead of oral arguments before the justices Oct. 8 on three cases — including one in metro Detroit — that may determine whether gays, lesbians and transgender people are protected from discrimination by existing federal civil rights laws. Also among the 206 corporations endorsing the brief are Amazon, American Airlines, Bank of America, Ben & Jerry’s, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nike, Starbucks, Viacom, the Walt Disney Co. and Xerox. Two major league baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Tampa Bay Rays, were among the group. In their brief, the companies argued that a uniform federal rule is needed to protect LGBTQ employees equally in all 50 states. “Even where companies voluntarily implement policies to prohibit sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, such policies are not a substitute for the force of law,” the brief argued. “Nor is the patchwork of incomplete state or local laws sufficient protection — for example, they cannot account for the cross-state mobility requirements of the modern workforce.” Federal appeals courts in Chicago and New York have ruled recently that gay and lesbian employees are entitled to protection from discrimination; the federal appeals court in Cincinnati has extended similar protections for transgender people. The question now is whether the Supreme Court will follow suit, given its conservative majority strengthened by President Donald Trump’s appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The three cases are the court’s first on LGBTQ rights since the retirement last year of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored landmark gay rights opinions. The Obama administration had supported treating LGBTQ discrimination claims as sex discrimination, but the Trump administration has changed course. The Trump Justice Department has argued that the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not intended to provide protections to gay or transgender workers. The companies signing the brief represent more than 7 million employees and $5 trillion in annual

Srbinovich

launched the popular radio shows “CultureShift” and “Detroit Today” with ex-Detroit Free Press editor Stephen Henderson, and guided the station through a strategic growth plan,

the release said. Her new role will allow her to remain in Detroit. She is tasked with guiding investments in local news organizations for the American Journalism Project, which was launched in 2018 by the founders of Chalkbeat and The Texas Tribune. It has raised $42 million in less than six months, according to Poynter. The money will be distributed to nonprofit digital media sites, or “civic news organizations.” WDET operates with a staff of 35 people and an annual budget of roughly $4.4 million. It relies on the university, grants and fundraising drives to stay on the air.

AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Oct. 8 on three cases — including one in metro Detroit — on whether federal civil rights law bans job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Detroit digits A numbers-focused look at last week’s headlines:

55,000 square feet Size of RH store planned for downtown Birmingham approved by city’s Planning Board

$4 million

Cost to build a new headquarters for a dog training business in Auburn Hills

$20 million Amount Ciena Healthcare is investing to build a rehab center in St. Clair Shores

revenue, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest of the LGBTQ rights groups organizing the initiative. Other organizers included Lambda Legal, Out Leadership, Out and Equal and Freedom for All Americans.

BUSINESS NEWS J A training and breeding business for scent-detection dogs plans a $4 million investment to convert an industrial building in Auburn Hills into its new headquarters. Elite Detection K9 LLC, formed by Rochester Hills-based nonprofit Leader Dogs For the Blind in August, will begin work on the building at 2700 Auburn Court this fall, according to

Greg Guidice, EDK9’s president and CEO. Elite Detection expects to close on the property by the end of the month and open the center by spring. J Ciena Healthcare, a 39-facility nursing home chain based in Southfield, has opened the Regency at St. Clair Shores, a $20 million skilled nursing and rehabilitation center. The St. Clair Shores facility at 22700 Greater Mack Ave. is the fourth opened by Ciena in Macomb County. It will employ more than 200 in full- and part-time positions to serve more than 140 residents, the company said. J A make-your-own taco chain chose downtown Royal Oak for its first spot in Michigan. Condado Tacos plans to open Aug. 8 in the location B Spot, the burger joint from celebrity chef Michael Symon, vacated last fall. It would join a spate of recent downtown Royal Oak restaurant openings including Kaizen Ramen, Bar Louie and Sake Sushi. J Longtime investigative reporter Kevin Dietz said he was fired from WDIV-TV (Channel 4) in Detroit over a comment he made about a black reporter at a recent conference. In a post on his Facebook page last Monday, the award-winning journalist said that while he and co-workers were taking a group photo at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Houston he said, “We are probably going to have to crop the black reporter out of the photo.” Dietz, 54, said he was joking and that the reporter and his co-workers did not take offense, but word got around back at the office and the story “took on a life of its own.”

FEMOLOGY

Femology plans to open a new 3,000-square-foot location at 1804 Franklin St. in Detroit (shown here in a rendering) this fall.

Femology to expand with new HQ in Rivertown

emology, a co-working lounge for women entrepreneurs, is moving its headquarters to Detroit’s Rivertown Warehouse district, laying the groundwork for a business accelerator aimed at boosting access to venture capital for women. The 3,000-square-foot location at 1804 Franklin St. is scheduled to open this fall, boasting a wellness and fitness room, yoga space, podcast room, kitchen and shared office space, along with private offices, conference rooms and a lactation space for new mothers, according to a news release. “Beyond co-working, Femology addresses the issue of access to capital. We plan to address that by getting traditional and non-traditional funding workshops and initiatives that support women getting funded to scale their businesses,” Meagan Ward, who co-founded the company in 2017, said in the release. “Less than 3

percent of women owned businesses reach $500,000 in annual revenue, a glass ceiling that isn’t talked about.” The new business accelerator program would help women scale their existing small businesses, Ward said. Femology will also host weekly workshops on topics such as the legal structure of a business, social media and more, she added. The expansion was made possible by a six-figure investment from Brooklyn-based entrepreneur Yliana Guzman, now COO of Femology. The company is investing $200,000$250,000 into the build-out of the space, Ward said. Femology is still vetting general contractors for the space, Ward said. Femology, which generated a little less than $100,000 in sales last year, has 50 members. The new space is more than seven times larger than its current space at 553 E. Jefferson Ave. at The Beaubien House in Detroit.

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