Crain's Detroit Business, Sept. 2, 2019 Issue by Crain's Detroit Business

Another snub for troubled condo Page 4

Motawi Tileworks molds its future Page 3

SEPTEMBER 2 - 8, 2019 | crainsdetroit.com

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Pages 8-29

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REAL ESTATE

Silverdome deal seals 2019 as a big year for big properties

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

If anything, 2019 so far has been a big year for big sites. The most recent example: A developer has been revealed for the Pontiac Silverdome property, a 127-acre swath that for years had been a major blemish in the Oakland County seat. Whether it’s the Palace of Auburn Hills that’s facing the wrecking ball later crainsdetroit.com

“There’s a dearth of space in Southeast Michigan. It’s difficult to find 20 acres, let alone 50 to 100 acres. These are good things.” — Luke Bonner, CEO of Bonner Advisory Group LLC

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this year or the Summit Place Mall property that’s just been torn down, major milestones for large, and in some cases previously troubled, properties have been met since the beginning of the year. Real estate experts see the progress as signs of optimism for new development, particularly industrial and distribution, in one of the nation’s wealthiest counties. “It’s representative of the need for

that kind of space,” said Luke Bonner, CEO of Ann Arbor-based economic incentive, real estate and economic development consulting company Bonner Advisory Group LLC. “These larger sites at some point were going to come down and accommodate that. There’s a dearth of space in Southeast Michigan. It’s difficult to find 20 acres, let alone 50 to 100 acres. These are good things. The market’s been pret-

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ty primed for that and it’s good to see these properties turned over.” Details of the planned Silverdome project by Atlanta-based Seefried Industrial Properties Inc. have been scarce so far, although there is a Sept. 18 public hearing of the Pontiac Planning Commission scheduled for the project, according to a notice posted last week to the city’s website. SEE SILVERDOME, PAGE 32

R 2, 2019 S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E CRAIN’S DETROIT BU

Michelle Aristeo Barton, 34 and Anne Aristeo

Martinelli, 39

Marichelle Aristeo Barton and Anne Aristeo leadership tinelli are the next generation of Conat the growing Livonia-based Aristeo Joseph struction Co., founded by their father in 1977. Aristeo and grandfather Agostino Aristeo Women in the They are also a bit of a rarity: which in industry, male-dominated construction is men, acmore than 90 percent of the workforce Association of cording to data from the National Women in Construction. and utilThe health of the automotive and supplier which emity markets has been key for the company, $448.6 about from ploys more than 700, as it has gone last year, an million in 2017 revenue to $470 million expects reveincrease of 4.77 percent (the company it had 220 emnue to remain flat this year). In 2004, million. ployees and $100 the growth of “(The) automotive and utility sectors, and Nissan have the Michigan Three plus Toyota Martinelli said. helped fuel our expansion,” Aristeo to their current The sisters took different paths positions, respecpresident and chief strategy officer tively. University Aristeo Barton graduated from Duke Stephen M. Ross (BA) and the University of Michigan her first taste of School of Business (MBA), but got she was just 7, working in the family company when phones on Saturwhen her father “let her” answer to take an HR role days. After college, she returned including and rotated through various positions, enterprise, Stenco leading Aristeo’s minority business beginning the Construction LLC, from 2014-17 before starting a transition from Aristeo EVP to president, year ago. kid,” Aristeo “I have been here since I was a punk odds and ends, a Barton said, chuckling. “I did little full time.” couple internships and then started for 15-plus Aristeo Martinelli, however, worked sectors in the Bay years in the retail and consulting with her BA and Area and Chicago after graduating

Kate Baker, 39

MBA from Stanford University. She worked for Gap Inc. and The Boston Consulting Group. She most recently served as COO/senior practice manager for McKinsey & Co.’s North American Consumer Practice in Chicago before returning to metro Detroit to become Aristeo’s chief strategy officer, which puts her in charge of strategy, marketing and busi-

“[Swimming] “I have been taught us at a here since I was very early age a punk kid.” ... that you Michelle Aristeo have to work for something.” Anne Aristeo Martinelli

ness development. “In the spring 2017, my dad called me and said, ‘I think we official transition,’” need to start going through our your last opportushe recounted him saying. “‘This is business in a way nity to officially be involved in the

Barton

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President Chief Strategy Officer Aristeo Construction

you would want to be for awhile. Would you like to consider moving back to Detroit?’ At that point, we talked about what that would look like for our family and how I could help the rest of the management team in the transition.” Both sisters are also accomplished swimmers; Arisfor Stanford, while Aristeo Bar-

teo Martinelli swam ton swam for Duke. You are “There is a lot of delayed gratification. that’s two minutes training for a decade to have a race Aristeo Marlong, and it ties with what we are doing,” age, outside of tinelli said. “It taught us at a very early something.” academics, that you have to work for — Kirk Pinho

e may live in the connected era, but connection, besides being an old-fashioned adage of business success – “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” – is part of the basic business of human society. Our lives depend on collaboration, community and what we do together in our organizations, institutions and neighborhoods. These 40 leaders embody connection: some went to the same schools, or the same business accelerators, or share coworking space. More importantly, they’re connected to each other through their work on Michigan’s most pressing issues: technology, inclusivity and opportunity for all.

Pages 16-17 John Haji

Ryan Hertz

Gwen Jimmere Roslyn Karamoko Pages 18-19 Tina Kozak Alexander Leonowicz Lisa Ludwinski Pages 20-21 Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang Nathan Martin Brian McKinney Palencia Mobley Pages 22-23 Jon Oberheide

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

MICHIGAN BRIEFS

INSIDE

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

Grand Rapids airport plans $90M expansion

The Grand Rapids airport plans a three-development expansion to accommodate continued passenger and airline growth, beginning with a $90 million project to add eight gates and create 300 jobs. The Gerald R. Ford International Airport has seen double-digit passenger growth for the past 19 months, with an increase of 16 percent to a record more than 3.26 million passengers last year, it said in a news release. Forecasts show steady passenger growth averaging 3.5 percent annually through 2040, underscoring the need for the expansion, it said. “Project Elevate will change the skyline of the airport,” Dan Koorndyk, chair of the Gerald R. Ford International Airport Authority Board, said in a news release. “It sets the stage for not only the airport’s growth, but our region’s as a whole.” Building construction is set to begin in the spring on the addition to Concourse A, which will add eight gates and new amenities. Concourse A work is expected to create more than 125 construction jobs and more than 300 permanent positions. Airport officials are seeking federal approval for the second development of Project Elevate, which pro-

poses to add a $24 million federal inspection station capable of screening international commercial passenger flights, the release stated. The third phase would be to relocate the air traffic control tower to make way for projects such as new tenant hangars and parking. Already underway is the $47 million Gateway Transformation project, which began in 2014 and is to wrap up in the spring. The project raised more than $17 million from the business and philanthropic communities, the release said. Leadership at the airport is coming, too. Last week, the airport authority board announced it had selected Torrance Richardson as the new president and CEO of the airport. Richardson was most recently executive vice president and COO of the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, which oversees three airports in central Ohio.

Strong fall apple harvest expected

Michigan apple growers are expecting another strong showing this fall, the Associated Press reported. Officials announced a crop estimate of 25.25 million bushels, about the same as the harvest in 2018. The estimate is based on reports from various regions of a clean crop

The first phase of Project Elevate will add add eight gates at Gerald R. Ford International Airport.

with good-sized fruit, said Diane Smith, executive director of the Michigan Apple Committee. Smith says the cool, rainy spring and hot July weather provided favorable weather conditions. Michigan apples typically are shipped from mid-August through the following June to more than 30 states and 18 nations. The state has more than 11.3 million apple trees in commercial production, covering 35,500 acres on 825 farms.

Michigan civil rights director fired

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission fired the director of the state’s Department of Civil Rights after it emerged that he made inappropriate comments that objectified women. The commission originally reprimanded Agustin Arbulu, 69, after an investigation into remarks he made to a male staffer during a listening session at a middle school in May. On Tuesday, in a 5-2 vote with one member absent, the commission dis-

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missed Arbulu as director of the agency that investigates discrimination complaints. Arbulu was appointed in 2013 to the commission by then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican. He has been director of the agency since 2015. He has been on a personal leave since last week, a move that surprised the commission. He did not give a reason why or a timeline as to when he would return. In his absence, the department is being led by former department deputy director Mary Engelman. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier this month blasted the commission’s decision to let Arbulu keep his job despite his comments, which a staffer said included such things as “would you look at that woman” and that the staffer should “check out” her butt.

CORRECTION A Page 1 story in the Aug. 26 issue incorrectly said Paw Paw Brewing closed. The brewery closed to move to a new, larger location and filed for a new brewer’s license.

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MANUFACTURING

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Ex-Covansys chief targets data in his second act By Doug Henze

Special to Crain's Detroit Business

MOTAWI TILEWORKS

Ann Arbor-based Motawi Tileworks hand-crafts tiles as art pieces or for residential and commercial installation. Owner Nawal Motawi specializes in art nouveau, arts and crafts and mid-century modern styles.

The other art tile maker

In a business climate where customer data is king, Raj Vattikuti is striving to get meaningful information to companies faster. That’s the focus of Southfield-based Altimetrik, which compiles and analyzes market research information and then helps clients use digital tools to launch new products rapidly. Founded in 2012 by the former leader of Farmington Hills information technology company Covansys Inc., the company has focused on serving large companies. But it opened its Altimetrik Collider office in Detroit in June to cater to startups. “Everything is about data,” said Vattikuti, the Altimetrik chairman and CEO, whose firm develops software tools to help make sense of the data. “(Companies are) all going through major transformations. These companies have to change quickly for them to survive. They cannot continue to depend on the same things.” Vattikuti points to the U.S. auto industry, which once got along just fine

Motawi Tileworks molds its own profitable path from Ann Arbor outpost By Annalise Frank afrank@crain.com

Nawal Motawi is founder, owner and artistic director of Motawi Tileworks in Ann Arbor.

Motawi Tileworks has an open book policy, and its founder says that saved the company in 2009. Now, amid the Ann Arbor ceramic tile maker’s best-ever sales and with an eye for future expansion, Nawal Motawi said she would do the same if another recession struck. “When we were in trouble in 2009, I threw the books open,” said Motawi, 54, also owner and artistic director. “It was very powerful, because (the employees) came up with things that were great coming from them, but would have been ugly coming from me (to cut costs). For instance, a couple people volunteered to clean our offices. So we got rid of the office cleaning person.” The company that started out of a garage in 1992 had grown to 26 employees by then. But it found itself with sales around 30 percent below planned, amid the Great Recession. Employees worked together to slash

expenses, Motawi said, and hours were cut by 10 percent, with layoffs avoided. With more economic warning flags cropping up and some economists projecting a 2021 tipping point, according to the Washington Post, it’s not out of the question that Tileworks could be rationing its expenditures again within the next couple of years. “The books are open, so everyone’s gonna see it coming,” she said. Motawi credits the open book policy with helping drive employee interest in keeping the company profitable, though it requires education so they don’t misinterpret where money goes. She shares financial information and doles out bonuses when Tileworks outperforms. Open book management, paired with attention to distinctive craftsmanship and a Toyota-style approach to production based on continuous improvement are main contributors to Tileworks’ rise, Motawi said. SEE MOTAWI, PAGE 32

180 CEOs that includes General Motors’ Mary Barra, Ford’s Jim Hackett, Dow Chemical’s Jim Fitterling, BorgWarner’s Frederic Lissalde, ITC Holdings’ Linda Apsey, among others — flipped corporate responsibility on its head by saying they would abandon the view that shareholders’ interests are paramount. Instead, the group said these companies are now to serve all constituents, including employees, customers and society writ large. SEE COMPANIES, PAGE 33

SEE DATA, PAGE 33

Can socially conscious companies serve greater good as well as shareholders?

DUSTIN WALSH dwalsh@crain.com

philanthropy — important enough to impact sales. Noted economist Mil-

ton Friedman wrote in 1962 that the only social responsibility a company holds is “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits” while following regulations and laws. And the threat of new laws and regulations, particularly by presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, may have spurred the country’s most powerful CEO group to publicly commit to another way. Earlier this month, the Business Roundtable — a group of more than

BRETT MOUNTAIN

only selling modes of transportation. Enter competition from Japan, Europe, China and now private transport services such as Uber and Lyft — which allow people to get around without vehicle ownership — and U.S. automakers need to find other ways to lure drivers behind the wheel. “The car companies cannot survive just selling cars,” Vattikuti said. “A car is becoming more like a device, instead of just transportation.” But which technological features do buyers consider cool or useful? And how are the wants of a Baby Boomer different than those of a GenXer or a millennial? That’s where the data comes in. The auto companies that Altimetrik counts among its clients already have much of that data — gathered internally or purchased from vendors such as Nielsen Holdings.

ANALYSIS

What is the purpose of a company? For generations, businesses and their executives subscribed to the theory that exclusively creating profit for shareholders would deliver the best products and the best services and maximize employment. By doing well, they were doing good: the ageold theory of American free market economics. Social agendas were always an afterthought, adjacent to business decisions strictly as consumers deemed them — sustainability, diversity,

Raj Vattikuti

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REAL ESTATE INSIDER

Norman A. Yatooma ATTORNEY AT LAW

KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Birmingham-based developer Fadi Nassar passed on buying the eight unsold Forefront condominiums in the city’s downtown.

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Developer passes on troubled Birmingham luxury condo building The expected buyer of a troubled downtown Birmingham luxury condominium building has passed on the property purchase after KIRK all. PINHO Fadi Nassar said Monday that he was “seriously looking at the building, but based on our due diligence, we felt the purchase price didn’t warrant it and passed on it.” “For the right number, we would be interested,” Nassar said. The Nassar purchase price was expected to be $7.9 million, the Detroit Free Press reported in May in a story about the building, which was developed by Joey Jonna of Jonna Luxury Homes. Jonna did not return an email seeking comment. He reportedly owes $2.4 million on a $7.3 million construction loan that he defaulted on, plus another $80,000 in property taxes, JC Reindl reported. According to marketing materials from Farmington Hills-based M. Shapiro Real Estate Group, the court-appointed receiver, there are eight partially built condos up for sale in the building. The units are on the second floor (five units) and third floor (three units) with a total square footage of 27,363 square feet (3,420 square feet on average). I left multiple messages with M. Shapiro but have not heard back. Two of the 10 condominiums in the development sold, and the commercial space is occupied. When it was announced in June 2014, the project was expected to cost $20 million and top downtown Birmingham’s residential market with sale prices of $1,000 per square foot or more.

Varsity Shop demolition expected to begin soon More from downtown Birmingham: The Varsity Shop property at 277 Pierce St. may start coming down soon, the city says. It is owned by Bloomfield Hillsbased Kojaian Management Co., which said it is awaiting a permit from the city. Kevin Byrnes, the city’s spokesman, said earlier this month that “indications are from the developers that they would like to start demoli-

COSTAR GROUP INC.

The former Varsity Shop property at 277 Pierce St. in downtown Birmingham is owned by Bloomfield Hills-based Kojaian Management Corp.

“The developers are close to getting permits to demolish the existing building and start the foundation work on what will be the new mixed-use.” Kevin Byrnes

tion/construction as soon as the outdoor dining decks are closed for the season. Those dates, though, are for the developers to determine.” Contingent on weather, the last day for outdoor dining is Nov. 15, Byrnes said. The October 2018 Downtown Parking Plan says the development is expected to consist of 2,900 square feet of first-floor retail, 11,400 square feet of office on the second, third and fourth floors and a fifth-floor penthouse. Whenever it starts, between prep work and the actual demolition, the process is expected to take about a month and a half, Byrnes said. “The developers are close to getting permits to demolish the existing building and start the foundation work on what will be the new mixeduse,” Byrnes said. According to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service, Kojaian paid $3.15 million for the Varsity Shop property in September 2016. The Bir-

mingham Historic District Commission approved the building’s demolition in August 2016. Marc Secontine, managing partner of the limited partnership, which owns the Varsity Shop sporting goods retailer and the roughly 8,400-squarefoot building at Pierce and Merrill streets, said in April 2016 that a burst boiler pipe destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and prompted the relocation of the store to 623 S. Adams Road in Birmingham.

‘Bleeding rainbow’ mural damaged, will be repaired The Metro Times reported in April about damage to the Illuminated Mural — sometimes known as the “bleeding rainbow” mural — at 2937 E. Grand Blvd. in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood caused by construction. A spokesman for Detroit-based The Platform LLC, which is redeveloping the vacant building in a $16 million project known as Chroma, said Tuesday that the company has been in touch with muralist Katherine Craig about restoring the areas that had been damaged. “They’ve made it clear that the mural isn’t going anywhere,” said Dan Austin, senior account executive for the Detroit-based public relations firm VanDyke Horn. Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

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to unburden themselves in order to be more present with the client. Burns: What about the Internal Critical Incident Stress Management Team? White: Whenever a critical incident happens, such as a patient gets injured or a staff member witnesses something traumatic, we provide a debriefing for our staff and then refer them to ongoing services. It’s helped with the overall wellness of our staff, for them to recognize signs of compassion fatigue and burnout. Burns: What is trending with kids? Spizarny: There is less of a stigma associated with seeking our services. Kids and families are more comfortable coming in to see us. There’s also social media and the link to depression. We’re seeing children depressed or bothered by the lack of likes on a post or the responses on a post. Burns: Tell us about the Neonatal Wraparound Program. Spizarny: A peer mentor and a wraparound facilitator work with pregnant women with substance use disorders. We coordinate their substance abuse services, appointments and medical facilities.

Lisa Daniels-Goldman, Co-founder of The Jamie Daniels Foundation

Larry Burns: What are you most proud of? Lisa Daniels-Goldman: The grants that we wrote to Michigan State University Collegiate Recovery Program. Jamie was a graduate of Michigan State and recovery has a special place in my heart. Ken Daniels: People tell me, “I know your foundation has saved lives.” That really makes me proud. Burns: What are some things that have surprised you? Daniels: It’s all about talking about it. We hid. I’ve learned we can’t do that. I learned how much empathy matters, which is the highest form of knowledge without judgment. Addicts don’t want to be addicts, so don’t judge, have empathy. Daniels-Goldman: What I learned is the big lesson of corruption in the addiction world; because of insurance fraud Jamie was lured into a situation that we didn’t know existed. We were trying to figure out who to trust and where to go. Now there are advocacy groups and places to turn to—three years ago there weren’t. Burns: Where do you want the foundation to be in two years?

Daniels: Digging a hole in the ground where we’ll build the recovery center. Jamie was in a safe place until he was patient brokered and wound up in a place that wasn’t safe. Our goal is to build—with the help of Michigan State Housing Development, our foundation and some great people—a long-term, safe sober living place. It’s a place that’s going to have job placement and all meetings on site. Addicts need direction every day. That’s my vision: to build a recovery home so others don’t have to go through what Jamie went through. Burns: Tell us about the inaugural Jamie Daniels Foundation Celebrity Roast. Daniels-Goldman: We’re roasting Mickey Redmond. He obviously has very strong shoulders, but I’m not sure if he knows what he’s in for. Along with the roast we have an online silent auction that you can register for and start bidding on now. The roast is on Saturday, September 7 at Motor City Casino Soundboard. It includes a live auction too. Visit Jamiedanielsfoundation.org for tickets and to register for the silent auction.

Larry Burns: What is Delta Dental doing in the community and why is it important? Mike Bobak: We have an important part to play in supporting the overall health and well-being of individuals who live in this community. We made a large investment in the West Riverfront—the $5 million investment for the park—to help with children’s wellbeing and play in that area. We’re doing a similar effort in Lansing with a $250,000 investment in Rotary Park. This is designed to attract individuals to the region, to create a more vibrant workplace, but also to allow people the space to continue to improve their overall health. We also believe in investing in schools and young individuals’ education. We made a significant investment in the water filtration systems in Detroit Public Schools. We continue to look for ways that we can give back both with our dollars and with volunteer hours through our employees. We’ll continue to engage our staff in projects like Life Remodeled in Detroit and to seek out places like Detroit Public Schools where we can make a big

difference with the dollars that we can contribute in this region. Burns: What is Delta Dental’s commitment to the opioid crisis? Bobak: We feel a very strong social responsibility to be an advocate and voice for education around the opioid issue. We know that a lot of times an individual’s first exposure to opioids may be when they get their wisdom teeth taken out. Roughly 6 percent of opioids are prescribed by dentists, primarily for post-surgical pain relief. It’s very important that we educate consumers and dentists about appropriate use and prescribing of narcotics. Burns: What is the strategic vision for the organization? Bobak: Throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana and through our plans we cover over 14 million individuals. Our strategic vision is to continue to expand our reach and provide oral healthcare for as many individuals in the region as possible. But we also strive to be a force for good every single day in the regions where we do business—to be that type of company.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

OPINION COMMENTARY

Michigan’s real talent shortage: college grads

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S

Can governor and Legislature ‘meet in the middle’ on road funding?

or nearly six months, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had cornered Republicans in the Legislature with the widely accepted conclusion of transportation planning experts that Michigan needs to be spending $2.5 billion more each year on roads and bridges. She prescribed a 45-cent-per-gallon increase in the 26.3-cent state tax on fuel as the solution, rejecting smaller plans for generating new revenue from Republican leaders who generally seem to understand there’s a crisis beneath the tires of the motoring public. And then last Tuesday, Whitmer moved the goal posts. Backward. “If they come to the table with $1.8 billion of new revenue, I will happily sit down and negotiate,” Whitmer told me in an interview, later adding: “I’m not wedded to the 45-cent gas tax. But I am wedded to fixing the problem.” Republicans viewed it as the governor blowing a hole in her own dam, erasing any doubt about whether her $2.5 billion plan was a take-it-orleave-it proposition that she would shut the government down over on Oct. 1. So GOP leaders left it. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, responded the next day, saying the Senate would begin moving budget bills without a long-term deal on roads. House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, piled on, saying the budget process affecting funding for everything from Medicaid to critical payments for public schools in October could not be “held hostage over roads.” And by Thursday, the wheels seemed to fall off Whitmer’s 45-cent gas tax increase entirely when House Democratic Leader Chris Greig

CHAD LIVENGOOD clivengood@crain.com

“There has to be an actual plan, not just a money-raising plan.” State Sen. Ken Horn

called the proposal “probably the extreme that won’t happen.” “Extreme.” Look for that video clip to be used against Whitmer in her 2022 re-election campaign. From the beginning, Whitmer’s lump-in-throat-inducing proposal to nearly double the fuel tax has been a tough sell. Normally, governors try to find a legislator to at least sponsor their controversial tax hike. “It’s like making sure you get to the batter’s box,” said former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, president of the Small Business Association of Michigan. But in this case, nobody was even in the on-deck circle for the first-year governor — not even term-limited Democrats like Senate Democratic Leader Jim Ananich, who has nearly 700 lane miles of poor roads in his Genesee County district. “Everyone knows that if Democrats introduce that bill, they’d put it up on the board (for a vote), Republicans would vote it down and it will be a vote they’ll use against marginal members,” said Sen. Adam Hollier,

D-Detroit, who was “all in on the 45cent gas tax” just a week ago. Whitmer followed much of the same messaging on roads that her predecessor tried, falling back on the same talking points of the road-building industry and the Michigan Department of Transportation, as she emphasized the declining conditions of state trunkline roads, like I-96 and Woodward Avenue. Meanwhile, local streets in Jackson and sprawl-induced subdivision roads in Macomb County are coming apart at every seam. And rural Republicans have thousands of more miles of bad local roads in their districts than Democrats. People want to know how any new tax is going to fix their street. That’s why local property tax millages routinely gain voter approval, but statewide tax increases are rejected in polling. Calley’s old boss, former Gov. Rick Snyder, seemed to miss this point in his multiple failed efforts to get his party to pass a substantial tax increase for roads. Snyder would define the problem and House Republicans would fall back on their belief that they can cut $2 billion out of a $10 billion general fund budget. They never did it. In continuously defining the problem, Whitmer didn’t deliver a plan legislators could take home and sell at the coffee shop level. Just a 45-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase and a vaguely explained new spending formula that Republicans defined as a sop to urban areas. “There has to be an actual plan, not just a money-raising plan,” said state Sen. Ken Horn, a Frankenmuth Republican. “She’s at loggerheads with the people of the state of Michigan, not the Legislature.” SEE ROADS, PAGE 7

he biggest talent shortage Michigan faces is in college graduates. While we certainly do need more skilled trades workers, recent analysis by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s team shows that the key to reaching her “Sixty by 30” goal — 60 percent of Michiganders having a four-year or associate degree or certificate by 2030 — is graduating more with a bachelor’s degree or better. In fact, of the 700,000 additional credentialed workers Michigan will need to reach that goal, 500,000 must be college graduates; 160,000 will be those with associate degrees and 70,000 will be certificate holders, including apprentices. Meeting that goal will be daunting. While some have suggested that Michigan’s high schools have taken a “college for all” approach, the reality is that Michigan is below the national average in the share of high school graduates going to college. We are lagging at a time when college graduates are the raw material for the best paying employers and positions in the economy — as Michigan discovered when Amazon passed over us for the HQ2 opportunity. Students may not be getting all the facts either. State data show that the starting median annual wage for someone with a certificate is $32,220, going up to $35,500 after five years. But with a bachelor’s degree, the median wage is $37,200 — jumping to $50,000 after five years. The primary issue standing in the way of many young people, particularly those from families of modest means, is the perceived cost of attending college. A survey commissioned by the Michigan Association of State Universities conducted last year showed that while more than eight in 10 parents of a Michigan high school student expected their child to earn a degree, 70 percent said that high costs are a barrier. The sticker price of tuition in our state is high, due primarily to massive cuts in state support for college students. Today, Michigan invests an inflation adjusted $1 billion less on higher education than in 2002, leading to higher tuition costs. But for many families, the opportunity is still there. Students attending a Michigan public university pay on average a full 40 percent less for the full cost of attendance when all forms of financial aid are taken into consideration, not including loans. The key to unlocking that student aid is the FAFSA form — the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It’s used by virtually all student aid granters to determine need-based aid from any source. But in Michigan, just over half — 55.9 percent — of high school graduates filled out the FAFSA last school year. That compares with 78.7 percent in Louisiana, 77.8 percent in Tennessee, 63.3 percent in Illinois and 60.9 percent in Ohio.

OTHER VOICES Daniel Hurley

The sticker price of tuition in our state is high, due primarily to massive cuts in state support for college students. Today, Michigan invests an inflation adjusted $1 billion less on higher education than in 2002, leading to higher tuition costs. When it comes to completing the FAFSA, we often see wide discrepancies among student populations. Students from smaller, rural schools, where less affluent parents may never have gone to college, complete the FAFSA at far lower rates than those from suburban schools, where more affluent parents who have attended college seek to maximize support for their students. For example, for the 2018-19 school year, Owosso High School had a 42 percent FAFSA completion rate while West Bloomfield High School had a 66 percent FAFSA completion rate. That suggests many modest income families in Owosso are bypassing the opportunities a college education can provide. When that happens, our state’s future economic competitiveness is endangered. A year ago, MASU kicked off the Get MI Degree campaign (getmidegree.com) to remind parents and students of the value of a four-year degree and to encourage and help them to complete the FAFSA. We will be coordinating even more closely with the Michigan College Access Network, the Detroit Regional Chamber and other organizations to bolster that message this fall, focusing on October as Michigan College Month, and the time to start working on the FAFSA. Michigan needs more college students to meet the needs of employers. Our state’s families can find college to be more affordable than often thought. It all starts with filling out the FAFSA. Daniel Hurley is CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities.

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Wilson Foundation to invest $3.5M in ad campaign, summit By Kurt Nagl knagl@crain.com

The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation is committing $3.75 million to a new media campaign and summit in Detroit next month designed to keep kids from dropping out of sports. The media campaign, backed by ESPN and the nonprofit Aspen Institute, calls out the stress and pressure put on kids in youth sports. The pervasive culture of sucking the fun out of the game has lasting negative health and economic implications for communities, said Jim Boyle, vice president of programs and communications for the Detroit-based foundation. The Wilson Foundation has donat-

Need to know

JJESPN’s #DontRetireKid ad campaign will run for a year in Southeastern Michigan JJWilson Foundation intends to use campaign to build awareness of its other efforts JJAspen Institute’s Project Play Summit to be in Detroit next month for first time

ed around $55 million to youth sports initiatives, split roughly in half between Southeast Michigan and Western New York, Boyle said. The campaign, called #DontRetireKid, was created by Boston-based Ar-

nold Worldwide and is being deployed nationally by ESPN, with the help of sports stars including Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning. The Wilson Foundation saw the campaign and thought localizing it could help draw attention to the nonprofit’s efforts to increase exercise among kids. “This is not about the sport, this is about the health of the community,” Boyle said. “Sport is the avenue.” The approximately yearlong campaign will launch in tandem with the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Summit scheduled for Sept. 17-18 at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. It will be the first time in Detroit for the summit, which has been host-

ed in Washington, D.C., for the past three years. Former NBA player and University of Michigan star Chris Webber, retired NCAA gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field and New York Times columnist David Brooks have been announced as speakers at the event. Youth sports experts will engage in a dozen workshops related to issues in the field. Registration for the event starts at $499 online. The ad campaign will reach seven counties in Southeast Michigan, as well as western New York — the other area of focus for the nonprofit. ESPN began its national campaign earlier this month. Locally, there will be TV

commercials and billboards, as well as print, online and radio ads. It will also be promoted heavily on social media through ESPN’s channels and the accounts of partnering athletes. The Wilson Foundation is investing $3.5 million in the ad campaign and $250,000 in the summit next month, Boyle said. The Wilson Foundation partnered with Aspen Institute after it launched its Project Play initiative in 2013. The initiative is geared toward “building healthy communities through sports,” according to its website. “We’ve kind of taken their Project Play brand and localized it,” Boyle said.

ROADS FROM PAGE 6

Whitmer has tried every road-funding stunt in the book, including standing under rusty bridges that are just barely safe enough to let heavy trucks pass over. She has routinely pointed to a Detroit Free Press photo of a school bus crossing the 88-year-old Miller Road bridge in Dearborn, raising the specter of the Depression-era bridge being held up by 524 temporary steel supports as “a catastrophe in the making.” But Republicans have been unmoved. “The Minnesota bridge thing just isn’t selling,” Horn said, referencing the 2007 collapse of an interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis over the Mississippi River that killed 13 people and injured 145 others. “Don’t try to scare my constituents. Don’t threaten me, because that’s when the old bar bouncer comes out in me.” In Horn’s 32nd District in Saginaw and Genesee counties, there are 1,226 lane miles of roads in poor condition — 52 percent of all lane miles — in poor condition. That’s according to data Whitmer’s own administration compiled for a road maintenance industry group that’s been trying to sell her gas tax increase. Despite all of the facts about Michigan’s roads crumbling, Republican legislators aren’t moving from their position that a 45-centper-gallon gas tax hike is too big of a pill to swallow. “It’s time for us to meet in the middle and stop playing political games and start showing real leadership,” Chatfield told reporters last week. If Chatfield literally means he’ll meet Whitmer in the middle, $1.25 billion in new revenue may not fix all of the “damn” roads. But it would certainly be a remarkable feat for a first-year governor with so much at stake in this yearslong political struggle. Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

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Michelle Aristeo Barton, 34 and Anne Aristeo Martinelli, 39

ichelle Aristeo Barton and Anne Aristeo Martinelli are the next generation of leadership at the growing Livonia-based Aristeo Construction Co., founded by their father Joseph Aristeo and grandfather Agostino Aristeo in 1977. They are also a bit of a rarity: Women in the male-dominated construction industry, in which more than 90 percent of the workforce is men, according to data from the National Association of Women in Construction. The health of the automotive and supplier and utility markets has been key for the company, which employs more than 700, as it has gone from about $448.6 million in 2017 revenue to $470 million last year, an increase of 4.77 percent (the company expects revenue to remain flat this year). In 2004, it had 220 employees and $100 million. “(The) automotive and utility sectors, the growth of the Michigan Three plus Toyota and Nissan have helped fuel our expansion,” Aristeo Martinelli said. The sisters took different paths to their current president and chief strategy officer positions, respectively. Aristeo Barton graduated from Duke University (BA) and the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business (MBA), but got her first taste of working in the family company when she was just 7, when her father “let her” answer phones on Saturdays. After college, she returned to take an HR role and rotated through various positions, including leading Aristeo’s minority business enterprise, Stenco Construction LLC, from 2014-17 before beginning the transition from Aristeo EVP to president, starting a year ago. “I have been here since I was a punk kid,” Aristeo Barton said, chuckling. “I did little odds and ends, a couple internships and then started full time.” Aristeo Martinelli, however, worked for 15-plus years in the retail and consulting sectors in the Bay Area and Chicago after graduating with her BA and

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MBA from Stanford University. “[Swimming] She worked for Gap Inc. and The Boston Consulting Group. taught us at a She most recently served as very early age COO/senior practice manager for McKinsey & Co.’s North ... that you American Consumer Practice in Chicago before returning to have to work metro Detroit to become Aristeo’s chief strategy officer, for something.” which puts her in charge of strategy, marketing and busiAnne Aristeo ness development. Martinelli “In the spring 2017, my dad called me and said, ‘I think we need to start going through our official transition,’” she recounted him saying. “‘This is your last opportunity to officially be involved in the business in a way

“I have been here since I was a punk kid.”

you would want to be for awhile. Would you like to consider moving back to Detroit?’ At that point, we talked about what that would look like for our family and how I could Michelle Aristeo help the rest of the manageBarton ment team in the transition.” Both sisters are also accomplished swimmers; Aristeo Martinelli swam for Stanford, while Aristeo Barton swam for Duke. “There is a lot of delayed gratification. You are training for a decade to have a race that’s two minutes long, and it ties with what we are doing,” Aristeo Martinelli said. “It taught us at a very early age, outside of academics, that you have to work for something.” — Kirk Pinho

Kate Baker, 39

Executive Director, Oakland Housing

hen all was said and done, Kate Baker and her team had taken part in 300 public events in 365 days — and had helped collect 500 oral histories. Her efforts were in the creation and support of Detroit Historical Society’s award-winning Detroit ’67 exhibition — the project that Baker calls “the most important work I have done.” Baker was chief community and operations officer of DHS at the time of the exhibition. “Everything that was happening in our country with race relations so closely mirrored what happened in Detroit in 1967; it would have been irresponsible of us to not dig into this issue,” Baker said of the year-long community outreach effort that significantly changed how Detroit Historical Society approaches public history in the city. “It could not just be photos on a wall with a box of text next to it. This was visceral. The opportunity to bring individual voices into a space usually dominated by white academics was powerful.” Service to her community has always been a driving factor for Baker. With a bachelor’s degree in government and urban studies from Smith College, a master’s in urban planning from Wayne State University and a career path in community development, Baker’s new position as executive director of Oakland Housing allows her to sync all her passions. Oakland Housing is a nonprofit that seeks to support middle class housing with loans, mortgage advice and building opportunities. “The middle class that helped drive American prosperity is very squeezed,” Baker said. “They are working people in a very restrained income space —

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John Barker Dayne Bartscht Pages 10-11 Allandra Bulger Aaron Burrell Ryan Cockerill Chris DeRusha Page 12 Ward Detwiler whether from student since the recession,” Baker “The middle class that helped drive loans or overpaying rent — said. “We are trying to rethat can’t save for a down American prosperity is very squeezed.” build that.” payment.” Baker believes Detroit’s Baker is excited for Oakrebound will come from land Housing’s latest project, a development of 14 home ownership in neighborhoods where the proptownhouses in Corktown. The goal is to help renters erty will appreciate and owners can make investalready living in the neighborhood, or people with ments for the long term. family in the neighborhood, buy in the neighborAs someone driven to be of service, Baker said, “the hood. work I find important or fulfilling does not necessarily “Black home ownership was lost in the last decade, involve climbing a corporate ladder.” — Laura Cassar

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Dayne Bartscht, 33 Managing Partner, Eastern Market Brewing Co.

hen Dayne Bartscht left his comfortable corporate role to funnel all his energies into Eastern Market Brewing Co., he thought he would have a lot more free time. It’s been just the opposite. Turns out that scaling his business has in many ways been a taller order than starting it. Bartscht opened the elephant-themed brewery with two other friends/business partners in 2017. In less than two years, the company is bursting at the seams and scrambling to meet demand. It is on pace to hit $1 million in revenue this year. “The biggest surprise to me is that we are brewing at capacity,” Bartscht said. “When you’re growing as fast as we are, we’re constantly having resource constraints.” Any free time Bartscht might have had away from the brewery is being eaten up by a campaign he is helping lead to change self-distribution laws in Michigan — laws he says are a major hindrance to growth for his business. Launched last month, a petition to increase self-distribution limits has garnered signatures from nearly 5,000 people affiliated with breweries, retailers and wholesalers in the state. Legislation could be introduced as soon as the fall, according to the Michigan Brewers Guild. Bartscht’s world looks a lot different than it did less than a year ago, when he spent the 9-5 at a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan desk job. It’s just a different type of hustle now. Bartscht said he’s still learning to balance the brewing world with family life. “I’m still working as hard as I was when I had two jobs,” he said. Notably, as the brewery evolves, the partners behind it have not changed. Fall-outs are all too common for friends who start a business together. Fellow

“The biggest surprise to me is that we are brewing at capacity. When you’re growing as fast as we are, we’re constantly having resource constraints.”

co-owners Devin Drowley and Paul Hoskin encouraged Bartscht to take the lead on overseeing operations, and the trio remains close friends and co-own-

ers like the day the company started. “Some things have aligned with what we thought we would do, and some things have gone very differently,” Bartscht said. “I’m still stressed out, but it’s good stress about something I’m passionate about.” — Kurt Nagl

Pages 20-21 Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang Nathan Martin Brian McKinney Palencia Mobley

y Pages 22-23 Jon Oberheide Devon O’Reilly John Perkovich Pages 24-25 Robert Platt Luke Polcyn Timothy Ponton Portia Powell Page 26 Summer Ritner Tiffany Sanford Greg Schwartz Pages 28-29 Alissa Sevrioukova Gabrielle Sims White Matthew Walters Dan Ward PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS PAULINA PETKOSKI, STYLIST

John Barker, 39 Managing Director, Kresge Foundation

few years back, when the Kresge Foundation began focusing on equity across its operations, John Barker was charged with figuring out how it could do that on the investment side of the house. He landed on research from the Bella Research Group and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that showed that white men control 98 percent of the $69 trillion in investment assets globally, holding 75 percent of portfolio manager seats. But that same demographic makes up just 35 percent of the labor force. “Those numbers were shocking,” Barker said. They spurred him to develop a three-pronged approach for building a diversity and inclusion mindset into Kresge’s investment operations. Barker proposed the investment target Kresge rolled out in April with its commitment to invest 25 percent of its roughly $1.85 billion in U.S. assets with diverse-owned firms by 2025. Asset management firms owned and operated by diverse teams make more accurate decisions and demonstrate equal or better performance than their peers, according to the research from Bella and Knight. “We realized if we could identify these firms owned by women and people of color who are great investors, it was an opportunity to make great returns,” Barker said. “We saw an investment opportunity and also an opportunity to right a wrong.” Beyond that commitment, Barker identified the need for Kresge to diversify its own investment team. The various points of view that come from diverse teams make better decisions than homogeneous teams, based on research, Barker said. He also pointed to the broader change that could come from encourag-

“We realized if we could identify these firms owned by women and people of color who are great investors, it was an opportunity to make great returns. We saw an investment opportunity and also an opportunity to right a wrong.”

ing the companies Kresge places its investments with to think about the diversity of their own teams. To help spur peers to think about their work through the same equity lens, Barker is consulting with those at

other foundations and speaking at national conferences of institutional investment professionals, discussing the changes the foundation has made and sharing its findings. “At the end of the day, everyone has to buy into this; everyone on (the) team has to feel like they own this,” Barker said. — Sherri Welch

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Allandra Bulger Aaron Burrell Ryan Cockerill Chris DeRusha

Allandra Bulger, 38

Ryan Cockerill, 34

Executive Director, Co.act Detroit

Vice President Acquisitions, Agree Realty

eing a lifelong Detroiter is Allandra Bulger’s defining characteristic as a professional. “I represent five generations of Detroiters,” she said. “So when I think about my work in the nonprofit space, I think about it through the lens of impact not only on the city but also on those people that I love dearly and hold closest to my heart.” Bulger launched Co.act Detroit, a 6,500-square-foot space to connect nonprofits to resources and accelerate collaboration between organizations. Located on Woodward in New Center, the new facility is hoping to help strengthen the nonprofit ecosystem by offering meeting spaces, networking, training and expert consultation to nonprofit leaders and staff. The venture is an initiative launched by TechTown with a three-year, $4.75 million launch grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation. Other partners include the Michigan Nonprofit Association, University of Michigan Technical Assistance Center, Michigan Community Resources and Nonprofit Enterprise at Work. “Co.act has the possibility of starting to shift the culture of the way that we work in the nonprofit sector,” Bulger said. “There are so many amazing organizations doing great work in our region, but it often occurs in silos. We want to be able to lift up those examples from a local and a national perspective.” Co.act officially opened its doors in June. At the launch event, Co.act also announced the creation of the Activate Fund, seeded by a $1.5 million grant from the Wilson Foundation, which will support capacity-building efforts for Southeast Michigan nonprofits. Prior to taking on the role of executive direc-

R “Co.act has the possibility of starting to shift the culture of the way that we work in the nonprofit sector. There are so many amazing organizations doing great work in our region, but it often occurs in silos. We want to be able to lift up those examples from a local and a national perspective.”

tor for Co.act, Bulger was deputy director of Detroit Future City, a role she came to from nonprofit management consulting. She’s also an instructor at Oakland University’s nonprofit management certificate program. And she’s a hip-hop artist and founder of New Heights, an “edutainment” company that promotes perseverance, self-awareness and overcoming limited thinking through music. Her experience in those roles has grounded her in the realities of change-making, something she said will inform her work with Co.act Detroit. “What we’re attempting to do requires time,” she said. “Trust-building takes time. Culture shift takes time. We don’t anticipate that everything that we do now will have an immediate outcome. But what we are doing is starting to plant seeds for more long-term, transformative change.” — Nina Ignaczak

Aaron Burrell, 34

Si ers r “I tion capa but our thes hand

Chris DeRusha, 39

Member, Dickinson Wright

s a member of Dickinson Wright, Aaron Burrell has prevailed in tribunals such as the Michigan Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. And he’s led litigation teams in matters involving millions of dollars in alleged damages. Yet with these successes, Burrell names as his most meaningful litigation a class action lawsuit against the state of Michigan to compel the state to pay for hepatitis C drugs that cure the disease. The state of Michigan limited access to direct-acting antiviral medications for Medicaid hepatitis C patients based on their fibrosis scores — a measure of the severity of liver scarring caused by the disease. Burrell represented a statewide class of those patients in an action against the state of Michigan and negotiated a settlement that removed the fibrosis score requirements. From these efforts, thousands of Michigan residents began receiving the medication in October 2018. “I am happy that I could achieve this for a marginalized group of people. Justice is not just given to those with means,” Burrell said. “I’ve received letters and calls from patients saying, ‘Thank you. You’ve changed my life.’ Normally I don’t hear that representing corporations.” The class action lawsuit may seem outside the box for Burrell, a corporate litigator. But it was the desire to help people that first attracted him to law. “I wanted to do something that would give me a platform to make a difference in my community,” Burrell said. “It’s more than a career, it’s a calling.”

yan Cockerill, an engineer by training, ended up engineering Agree Realty Corp.’s largest-ever transaction last year. The University of Michigan graduate oversaw the Bloomfield Hills-based real estate investment trust’s purchase of more than 100 Sherwin-Williams Co. (NYSE: SHW) stores in a $150 million transaction that closed in December. Quick to point out that it was a team effort, Cockerill, whose degree is in industrial operations engineering, has always been interested in real estate and entrepreneurship, with a Realtor mother and grandfather who worked on residential properties. “Although I was good at math and science in high school, that wasn’t probably what I was going to be most passionate about,” Cockerill said. “I was always reading real estate books, investing books.” The Sherwin deal, which went from purchase agreement to closing in just over three weeks, capped off a whirlwind year in which he was responsible for $384 million of the company’s $607 million in transactions. “Ryan’s tenacity, energy and drive for success embody Agree’s culture and entrepreneurial spirit,” said Joey Agree, the company’s president and CEO. Cockerill came to Agree (NYSE: ADC) after seven years in the Southfield office of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services and has been a key team member since, Joey Agree said. He has done about $1 billion in acquisitions totaling over 300 properties in 37 states. “The Sherwin (deal) is kind of the pinnacle of my last three years at Agree,” Cockerill said. “It’s rare that a transaction of this size fits into our model because we are very conservative.” For years, the company’s portfolio of retail properties was heavily weighted with tenants such as Borders Group and Kmart until 2010, when an acquisition and diversification plan took effect.

Chief Security Officer, State of Michigan, Department of Technology, Management and Budget

“Justice is not just given to those with means. I’ve received letters and calls from patients saying, ‘Thank you. You’ve changed my life.’ Normally I don’t hear that representing corporations.”

Burrell strives to advance the legal profession by ensuring it mirrors the population it serves. He co-chairs Dickinson Wright’s Diversity and Inclusion committee to oversee the development of the firm’s diverse lawyers and assist in the implementation of the firm’s diver-

PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

sity and inclusion programs. “Being able to mentor young lawyers and law students, give guidance to those coming up through the ranks, that’s most worthwhile,” Burrell said. “We need to make sure there’s a pipeline of people on their way up.” — Laura Cassar

e’s worked at the White House and for the Department of Homeland Security. Now, Chris DeRusha is leading cybersecurity for the state of Michigan, as its chief security officer. “This is my favorite job,” said the Newton, Mass., native. “It’s a privilege to be the chief security officer for a state. This is serious stuff.” DeRusha, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from James Madison University in Virginia and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University in New York, leads a division of 140 employees and oversees a $31 million budget. The group provides security services to 55,000 state of Michigan workers. DeRusha began his career with IHS International Consulting in Virginia, where he helped clients develop market-entry plans into China. At the DHS, he was lead adviser to the agency’s top cybersecurity official. In 2015, DeRusha began serving as senior cybersecurity adviser at the White House, helping to implement the president’s national action plan, which included $19 billion in federal cybersecurity investments. In 2017, DeRusha followed wife and former Congressional candidate Fayrouz Saad, a Michigan native, to the state, where he took a post managing cybersecurity risks for Ford Motor Co. DeRusha began serving as Michigan’s acting chief security officer in November before being named to the permanent post in February. DeRusha, who also chairs the Governor’s Chief Security Officer Kitchen Cabinet and is a member of the Detroit Chief Information Security Officer Governing Board, said he feels fortunate to help lay the groundwork for U.S. cybersecurity practices. “We’re connected now,” he said. “With that connectivity comes a whole host of economic opportunities and also

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Since then, the company has focused on tenants it considers resistant to e-commerce. That’s where Sherwin comes in. “In the last 10 years since Agree launched the acquisition platform, it’s been very brick-by-brick. We have the capacity to take down larger transactions (like Sherwin), but the composition of those transactions isn’t typically our MO,” Cockerill said. “Sherwin is a top tier tenant, and these sale-leaseback transactions, there have only been a handful like it the last three years.” — Kirk Pinho

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a whole host of risks.” Asked to generally define what it means to him to be a “success,” DeRusha said it involves “leaving some positive footprints along the way.” “I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like I’ve found success, because I’ll just want to solve the next problem,” he said. “(But) public service is success. If you’re helping people in some way, I think you’re successful.” — Doug Henze

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Ward Detwiler Anya Eliassen Javier Evelyn

Anya Eliassen, 39 CFO, Oakland Community Health Network

“C

reativity” may not be an attribute most associate with CFOs, but Anya Eliassen considers it one of her best skills. As CFO of Oakland Community Health Network, Eliassen manages limited funds from ever-changing sources to provide care for the more than 27,000 people with mental illness, intellectual/developmental disabilities and substance use disorders the public agency annually serves. As one of Michigan’s 10 regional prepaid inpatient health plans, Oakland Community Health Network in Troy manages a $319 million annual budget from a mix of state general funds, Medicaid, the Healthy Michigan program, grants and local funding sources to operate more than 300 local service sites. “I’ve spent a lot of time (over the) last few years being creative within our funding sources. You have to think outside the box to get good value and develop funding methods” to pay for direct care providers, hospitals, housing services and internal administrative costs, said Eliassen. The organization is a leader among public mental health agencies in developing value-based contracting to providers and other organizations. Value-based contracting reimburses for services based on outcomes, quality performance measures and cost efficiencies. “Historically, health care pays on a fee-for-service basis. This doesn’t encourage good outcomes, just volume,” Eliassen said. “All health care is moving away from that.” Since work began on the new payment model in 2015, Eliassen said it has reduced hospitalizations, reduced the number of crisis interventions, provided stable housing and increased employment of people served. Managing a financial staff of 21, Eliassen de-

“Historically, health care pays on a fee-for-service basis. This doesn’t encourage good outcomes, just volume. All health care is moving away from that.” scribes her management style as engaged. “We don’t just work with numbers. We aren’t making car parts. We are impacting people’s lives. It is important to understand the clinical and programmatic aspect” of what the agency does, she said. Eliassen started her career in an entry-level procurement job at OCHN in 1999. After earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Baker College in 2008, she moved into a finance role at the organization. She earned her master’s in finance from Baker in 2013 and shortly after was

Javier Evelyn, 36

“We want you to never have to use our device, but if you have to, you can get an injection in 30 seconds.”

Founder, Alerje Inc.

avier Evelyn is allergic to pistachios, cashews, fish and casein — the main protein in milk. His life, and the life of roughly 32 million Americans, including 6 million children, are in the hands of the makers of epinephrine. Private insurance claims of anaphylactic food reactions rose 377 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to research by Fair Health Inc., a nonprofit that collects and analyzes data on privately billed health insurance claims. Meanwhile, the life-saving medicine epinephrine is in short supply. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first declared a shortage in May 2018 and it persists today. Evelyn set out to solve this problem by founding Detroit-based Alerje Inc. in 2016. The startup, which has raised more than $650,000 in funding, is working on a smartphone case that carries a slim epinephrine auto-injector. The case, paired with an app, will send alerts to 911 operators, parents, spouses or other caregivers if the auto-injector is removed from the case in an emergency. The mobile app will provide helpful lifestyle information, such as an allergen-safe recipe book and a label scanner that will alert the user to specific allergens. The need is real. Allergists at the Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2017 found that fewer than 40 percent of its patients carried epinephrine when they left the house, and of those who did, roughly half were carrying medicine that had expired. Alerje’s preliminary design is for an auto-injector 2 inches wide and less than a half-inch thick, roughly the size of an expanded smartphone battery, making it more comfortable to carry compared to other brands. For example, EpiPen, the most widely used auto-injector manufactured by Pennsylvania pharmaceutical giant PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

promoted to controller of costing in July 2013 and CFO in July 2014. She balanced it all with motherhood, raising two children while working and going to school. Eliassen also has been a mentor to young business executives through the Michigan Association of Rehabilitation Officers, a statewide leadership development program. She went through the academy in 2013 and now is the board’s treasurer. She has been an advocate for improving the state’s public mental health system. “This system supports hundreds of thousands of people every year with the sole focus of the necessary services and the quality of those services, not on profiting off taxpayer dollars,” she said. “I want to make sure the public mental health system stays public and (does) not get into the hands of for-profit organizations.” — Jay Greene

Mylan N.V., measures 6 inches in length. “The incumbents have built a device that’s made for when someone has a reaction; react, then ... find my device, then use it,” Evelyn said. “We’re from the school of proactive. We want to make sure you have the tools to not have to use the device in the first place. Our device is on you at all times. It’s a cohesive and 360 approach, be-

cause really, we (auto-injector makers) are all using the same medicine no matter who makes the device. We want you to never have to use our device, but if you have to, you can get an injection in 30 seconds.” So far, Alerje has launched its mobile app on Android and Apple’s iOS and is still in the process of getting the medical device approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which Evelyn hopes to accomplish in early 2020. The company is also in the middle of a seed-funding round, trying to raise an additional $2 million to $3 million to push the company’s product to commercialization by 2022, Evelyn said. Evelyn is a member of the inaugural Backstage Detroit accelerator for women and minority founders and serves on the Millennial board at Detroit’s First Independence Bank. — Dustin Walsh

Ward Detwiler, 35 President and CEO, SpinTech Inc.

ard Detwiler, a veteran of the tech startup community in Southeast Michigan, has just finished raising $1.2 million for SpinTech Inc., whose software sharply reduces the time patients with such suspected brain disorders as traumatic brain injury, dementia, stroke and Parkinson’s disease need to spend in MRI machines — and sharpens the imaging that results. He co-founded the company in 2017 with E. Mark Haacke, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Wayne State University. Detwiler said he is raising an additional $500,000 to close out the funding round, with the proceeds going to hire three or four more software developers, improving the software and getting FDA approval early next year to go to market. Currently, 40 medical sites globally are testing the software.

“We are working to raise awareness of environmental, economic and cultural issues facing the 33 million people living in the Great Lakes basin.” The company now employs five full time and four part time. Detwiler is also an avid sailor and outdoorsman and host of “Great Lakes Now,” a monthly show that launched on Detroit Public Television earlier this year. “We are working to raise awareness of environmental, economic and cultural issues facing the 33 million people living in the Great Lakes basin,” he said. “I grew up on, in and around the lakes, sailing, fishing, hunting and otherwise enjoying this beautiful place we live. In under an hour from Detroit, I can be in a duck blind in what feels like total pristine wilderness, which is not the sort of escape you get in most big cities.” He got an economics degree from Northwestern University in 2005, then got his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in 2012. He is an adviser to the Grosse Pointe Angels. “Ward is a very smart person and he’s got good common sense,” said Terry Cross, a veteran of the tech startup community and longtime angel investor. Cross was an early investor in SpinTech, helped raise its current round and is an adviser to the company. Cross said he met Ward at Detroit Techstars, where they were both mentors. “Ward’s a very agreeable person to partner with. He’s not arrogant, like a lot of startup people are. He’s very open to ideas, very cooperative and congenial.” From 2013-2016, Detwiler was associate director of innovations at the Henry Ford Health System, helping take 12 health care-related products to market. — Tom Henderson

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Mike Flores Dandridge Floyd Jocelyn Fuller Garlin Gilchrist

Mike Flores, 38

Jocelyn Fuller, 39

President, Board of Directors, Affirmations

VP of Creative & Marketing, Plum Market

hen Mike Flores first moved to Michigan in 1999, he says Ferndale LGBT center Affirmations “helped me understand who I was and gave me confidence in who I was.” “I was able to meet people like myself and meet other leaders who I could look up to and say, ‘That could be me one day,’” he said. Today, having led the team that rescued Affirmations from the near-certainty of closure in his role as president of the organization’s board of directors, Flores has very much become one of those leaders. He rose from board member to vice president to interim president at Affirmations all in 2017, while the organization was in dire financial straits. Flores said the center was operating at a deficit and “relying heavily on reserves that had been left behind by a very generous donor.” That left Affirmations with a $60,000 cash reserve and no secured future revenue when Flores was elected president of the board last year, the center’s 30th anniversary. He and the board temporarily cut some of Affirmations’ staff and services, giving them six months to avoid closing the center’s doors. Flores then recruited five new board members with much-needed skills ranging from finance to talent acquisition and re-engaged Affirmations’ donor base, raising $150,000 during the six-month period. The center has now added new staff, including executive director David Garcia, who was recruited from the Los Angeles LGBT Center. It also recently restored its normal operating hours. Flores said there’s much more to come. His goal is

“Even though ... a lot of advancements and movements have happened in the LGBT community in the last 30 years, a lot more still needs to happen to achieve full equality within our community.”

to increase the center’s annual revenue from this year’s projected $500,000 to $1 million and anticipates announcing new partnerships with other local LGBTQ+ organizations. “Even though ... a lot of advancements and movements have happened in the LGBT community in the last 30 years, a lot more still needs to happen to achieve full equality within our community,” he said. “To me it was very rewarding ... to be part of a community that really stepped up and said, ‘Affirmations continues to be important and we want to keep Affirmations open.’” Flores is also running for Ferndale City Council in this year’s election. —Patrick Dunn

ocelyn Fuller joined Plum Market as creative director before the first store opened in 2006. She was excited to put her studies at the College for Creative Studies to use by managing a brand. In her nearly 13 years with the specialty grocery store chain, Fuller has done it all — from brand strategy to communications across print, web, and social media to store design, packaging and the development of an app and rewards program. “I’m proud that this is a brand people identify with as quality and a lifestyle that you strive towards,” Fuller said of her work. “It’s exciting seeing a project I’ve worked on come to market. It’s a really cool process — from my head to reality.” The opening of Plum Market’s downtown Detroit location this July is what Fuller, a city resident since 1998, considers the pinnacle of her brand success. “It’s a huge accomplishment to me to open a market in my city,” Fuller said. “It’s really powerful to see that the brand I cultivated is received so well. It really means a lot to me.” As Fuller has grown within the company — she was promoted to vice president in 2014 — Plum Market also continues to expand with over 20 locations across the Midwest including Chicago and Indianapolis metropolitan areas. With the rules of natural grocery and retail space changing, Fuller said she is ready for whatever comes next. “I am currently focused on positioning the Plum

Dandridge Floyd, 37

Garlin Gilchrist, 36

Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations and Labor Relations, Oakland Schools

Lieutenant Governor, State of Michigan

hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a center

point. When United Way pitched a framework to Oakland Schools for a countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition as a way to improve academic achievement, Floyd — who experienced food insecurity growing up — knew firsthand the powerful impact it could have. To secure the needed funds, Floyd led a team that earned support from all 28 local districts to finance the program — despite the fact that a majority of them would see no benefit. “The local districts were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The biggest surprise was how quickly it happened. Education is a democratic system and democracy can be very slow, but this happened in six to seven months. That showed how committed people were to making sure the students of Oakland County have everything they need to be successful.” In a county where over 7,000 children suffer from hunger, and only two in five eligible students access a school breakfast, Floyd said a common misperception is that “Oakland County is rich.” “That makes this program all the more important, because if that is the bias or the thought process people have about Oakland County, then these kids would have never gotten help.” In a groundbreaking public/nonprofit partnership between the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, Oakland Schools and United Way, Oakland County is Better with Breakfast was born. “I’m impacting lives now,” Floyd said. “I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.” — Laura Cassar PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

“I’m impacting lives now. I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.”

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hen Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked Garlin Gilchrist II last summer whether he’d consider being her running mate, the first thing he did was research the duties and responsibilities of Michigan’s lieutenant governor. “The Constitution doesn’t tell you much,” said Gilchrist, who has a computer science background in the private and public sectors. In evaluating whether he wanted to jump from a job as founding executive director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan into the unknown waters of statewide elected office, Gilchrist concluded he had the skills and life experiences to be “a good complement” to Whitmer, whose background was largely in elective office. “Now, a year in, I think that our partnership is pretty strong,” Gilchrist said. “And one of the reasons is we do have these kind of non-overlapping sets of experiences professionally, life experiences, we live in different places.” Gilchrist took an unusual path to becoming Michigan’s first African American lieutenant governor. Most lieutenant governors are former legislators. Gilchrist had never before held elected office and had to learn on the job how to preside over the Senate. A native Detroiter, Gilchrist grew up in Farmington, earned a computer science engineering degree at the University of Michigan and, like many in his generation, left the state during the economic decline of the early 2000s. He spent four years in Redmond, Wash., working for software giant Microsoft before moving to Washington, D.C., and getting into the political advocacy business at MoveOn.org on the tech side. He later directed social media for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. In 2014, Gilchrist came home to Detroit, moving his young family to Corktown and joining Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration in a job focused on overhauling the city’s archaic pre-bankruptcy information technology systems. As a side hustle, he founded a strategic assess-

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Market brand as a fully scalable business model that meets the growing needs of a multitude of communities,” she said. “Whether full-service stores, fast-casual dining experiences with condensed retail collections, or franchise models, positioning the brand as an accessible, quality-driven lifestyle answer for health and wellness will help us grow to a national presence.” — Laura Cassar

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“It’s exciting seeing a project I’ve worked on come to market. It’s a really cool process — from my head to reality.”

“Now, a year in, I think that [his partnership with Gov. Whitmer] is pretty strong. And one of the reasons is we do have these kind of non-overlapping sets of experiences professionally, life experiences, we live in different places.”

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Architecture and Design | Arts and Sciences Business and Information Technology | Engineering ment and consulting business called Impetus Strategies LLC. His clients included the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and Wayne County Community College District. In 2017, Gilchrist made a run for city clerk. He lost the race, but his surprising upstart campaign caught the attention of Michigan Democratic Party leaders as they began searching for new leadership.

In the Whitmer administration, Gilchrist has been focused on criminal justice reforms, improving internet access and digital literacy in urban and rural areas, and initiatives focused on improving economic mobility. “All of my activities are around connecting communities and enabling opportunities,” he said. — Chad Livengood

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 John Haji Ryan Hertz Gwen Jimmere Roslyn Karamoko

John Haji, 32

Roslyn Karamoko, 34

Founder, The Gentleman’s Box

CEO, Détroit is the New Black

othing puts a smile on John Haji’s face quite like a shout-out on social media from one of his customers. “All it takes to make me happy is seeing a guy wearing the socks or tie that they got from our box that month,” said the founder of subscription box company The Gentleman’s Box. The Gentleman’s Box caters to a community of roughly 40,000 men who receive lifestyle and fashion accessories on either a monthly or quarterly basis. Each box is topped off with the latest copy of GQ Magazine. The Gentleman’s Box generates close to $3.5 million in revenue annually, said Haji, who earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Grand Valley State University. He planned to become an exercise physiologist, he said, and didn’t take any business or marketing classes. After graduating, Haji worked as the assistant director of the Imports Center at The Suburban Collection, overseeing six dealerships. It was during that time that a female friend told him about her Birchbox subscription. The monthly women’s beauty box got the wheels in Haji’s head turning. “I thought that there needed to be something like that for men, like me, who worked 70 hours a week and didn’t have time to get to the store,” he said. Focusing The Gentleman’s Box on fashion was a no-brainer for Haji. “I was the guy who dressed for the job I wanted rather than the job I had,” he says. “I dressed in a shirt and tie when other guys would wear polos. And when I’d walk into the dealership my cowork-

“I was the guy who dressed for the job I wanted rather than the job I had. I dressed in a shirt and tie when other guys would wear polos.”

ers would ask me to lift up my pant legs so they could see my crazy socks.” Now that The Gentleman’s Box is in its fifth

year, Haji is excited about how the next five years will unfold. He’s also co-founded a trade association and has created an annual conference for subscription box companies. “More consulting and outreach is what’s on deck. The subscription industry is a bubble that has not burst yet, so I’m really looking forward to where things will go,” he said. — Jaishree Drepaul-Bruder

oslyn Karamoko’s work in Detroit’s burgeoning fashion scene fuses business and community organizing. Her company, Détroit is the New Black, is a brand — a recognizable one that you can catch on tote bags and T-shirts all over the city. But at its core, it exists to incubate and advance local brands and designers searching for the distribution that a brick and mortar space has to offer. “There’s nothing super new about this model — there are collectives all over the country,” Karamoko said. “I just think that there’s no one that looks like me doing it.” Prior to launching her first pop-up in 2015, the Seattle native worked as a retail buyer in New York and Singapore. Since then, the brand has operated in different spaces around the city, including the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery and Ponyride in Detroit’s Corktown, eventually settling in May in its first permanent flagship location in downtown Detroit on Woodward Avenue, next door to clothing store Madewell. “Every year the city has been different, every year the brand has been different, every year our location has been different,” Karamoko said. “It feels like the true nature of this city and a true expression of how uncertain all of this is.” Through applications, DITNB brings in local designers and brands on a quarterly basis. The company partnered with Pure Michigan Business Connect to launch the brand accelerator program. The company’s independent in-house label consists of casual denim, accessories, hats and more, along with lifestyle products such as candles and essential oils. Those items are mostly priced under $100.

Gwen Jimmere, 37 Founder, Naturalicious

n 2015, Gwen Jimmere, founder of natural hair care product company Naturalicious, became the first African American woman to hold a patent for a natural hair product. She was surprised when she learned of her trailblazing accomplishment. “I thought ‘Are you kidding me? No one else has done this?,’” Jimmere said. “It’s been surreal. Every Black History Month I get tons of media inquiries and invitations to speak at schools. Teachers have my picture up on bulletin boards next to people like Dr. Mae Jemison and Martin Luther King Jr.” Jimmere is happy to share her success story with young and old alike. It started in 2013, when she was laid off from a cushy corporate job at Ford Motor Co. The timing was terrible for Jimmere, who had recently left an abusive marriage and was the newly single mom of a 1-year-old. A messy divorce trial left her with just $32 in the bank. “I was forced into entrepreneurship,” Jimmere said. “I looked at my son and realized that failure was not an option. I needed him to know that when things fall apart we don’t just fall down. We make things happen.” And she made things happen in a big way by turning her personal hobby of making natural hair care products into a business that impacts over 36,000 women yearly. Naturalicious is now in 1,200 retailers nationwide, including Sally Beauty stores and Whole Foods. It also launched in the online Ulta Beauty store. “We get over 3,000 orders a month on our website alone, and that doesn’t include orders from retailers or salons,” Jimmere said. “This all started in my kitchen and now the company occupies a 3,700-square-foot facility” in Livonia. She stresses that her wins are wins for everyone. “The setback I had six years ago turned out to PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

be a setup that has allowed me to help so many others. I employ special needs workers on my production line. And our return customer rate is 74 percent in an industry where the average repeat customer rate is 11 percent to 18 percent. That means almost three quarters of our customers return and say that

“I was forced into entrepreneurship. I looked at my son and realized that failure was not an option.”

my products are transformative — literally life-changing — because our products save them so much time, frustration and money. “World domination would be nice in the long run,” Jimmere said, “but empowering people is also a big victory.” — Jaishree Drepaul-Bruder

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

“By consolidating our assets … we believe we can do more and better for people. And we have to.”

Ryan Hertz, 39

“There’s nothing super new about this model. ... I just think that there’s no one that looks like me doing it.”

President and CEO, Lighthouse and Spero Housing Group

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“That’s really the accessible piece of the business and [it] really invites people from all walks of life to participate in the brand experience,” she said. DITNB also houses international brands, such as pieces by Detroit native Tracy Reese, that may be looking to test a new market. Since its launch, DITNB has made well over $1 million in sales. In the future, Karamoko said she could potentially expand the retail co-op model she has built in Detroit to new markets. She may also launch a new brand, which she describes as a “series of dresses.”

“When I started the brand I was younger and in my 20s and so I was very performative of fashion and it was about labels ... but I’ve grown into a place where it’s just become my offering to the world.” — Anisa Jibrell

yan Hertz led South Oakland Shelter and Lighthouse of Oakland County through a merger this year. Now he heads up the merged Lighthouse. But if you ask him what he’s proudest of, he’ll tell you it was bringing SOS into affordable housing development. In July, the newly merged Lighthouse broke ground on a $15 million mixed-use project in Oak Park that SOS developed through its housing subsidiary, Spero Housing Group, with veteran housing developer Southwest Housing Solutions. “We were no longer content to offer shelter and food to those experiencing homelessness; we wanted to see people get back on their feet and start a new life,” Hertz said. Hertz joined SOS as president and CEO in 2010. He led its move from Royal Oak to new headquarters in Lathrup Village the following year and, in 2016, into launching a Detroit platform of HandUp, a San Francisco-based crowdfunding platform for the homeless. A year later, SOS acquired the platform to keep it operational. Under Hertz’s direction, over the past four years, 113 charities have raised about $1.5 million to help meet the needs of homeless individuals and to fund operations for nonprofits supporting them. Hertz formed the HandUp Detroit collaborative to share best practices among the nonprofits using the crowdfunding campaign and to spur collaboration on campaigns benefiting homeless services agencies across the region.

Even as SOS was developing the Oak Park mixed-use project with Southwest Solutions, Hertz was thinking about the next project. He approached Lighthouse of Oakland County to explore future housing development in the county. Those conversations evolved and culminated in the merger of the two in July. The merger was a response to the lack of capacity to respond to poverty in the county and region, Hertz said. “By consolidating our assets … we believe we can do more and better for people. And we have to.” — Sherri Welch

Congratulations to the 2019 class of Crain’s

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We appreciate your spirit of innovation and community engagement. We share these values at the College of Business and invite you to partner with us: • Work with students on a class consulting project • Partner with our Center for Innovation Research, iLabs • Participate in a professional development program

Learn more at umdearborn.edu/cob/business-community

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Tina Kozak Alexander Leonowicz Lisa Ludwinski

Alexander Leonowicz, 33

Lisa Ludwinski, 35

COO and General Counsel, Redbud Roots LLC

Owner and Founder, Sister Pie

n 2016, Alexander Leonowicz was a third-year associate at Royal Oak law firm Howard & Howard Attorneys PLLC struggling to peel off work from the firm’s partners. But after helping a friend with the legal paperwork to start a legal caregiver cannabis operation, he had an idea. He wanted to launch the state’s first cannabis practice group. It did not start off well. “I went to the boss and said, ‘Please don’t fire me, but I’ve got something here,’” Leonowicz said. “Several (partners) questioned the notion. Others openly criticized it and rightfully so. After all, the firm represented a large number of financial institutions, and I was at the very onset of my legal career. Our insurance partner fell out of his seat when I explained the need for a practice group focused on the business of cannabis and that I wanted it across all six of the firm’s offices.” But he found an ally in CEO Mark Davis, who helped push the idea to the firm’s other leadership. In late 2016, Howard & Howard launched the practice and grew from three to 13 attorneys, performing licensing application work in nine states and several acquisitions in the field. “The experience taught me an important life lesson: Trust your gut and always bet on yourself,” Leonowicz said. The early naysayers made Leonowicz a partner at the firm. Then he left. Leonowicz was hired earlier this year as the COO and general counsel for marijuana grower and retailer Redbud Roots. There he runs point on opening the company’s five retail storefronts in Traverse City, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Benton Harbor. The Traverse City store will open on Oct. 1 with the rest opening by May next year. While Redbud is located in Buchanan near the Michigan/Indiana border in Southwest Michigan, Leonowicz operates out of Commerce Township. But he’s rarely at the office. He also received an equity stake in the company. “(Leaving Howard & Howard for Redbud) was the opportunity to be part of something new and exciting in Michigan,” he said. “I wanted to take the skills I learned and apply to (my) own operation. So I’m out there figuring out how these retail stores are going to run, hiring employees and procuring product. The legal hat is to work with these cities on ordi-

“The experience taught me an important life lesson: Trust your gut and always bet on yourself.”

nances, making sure folks don’t opt out before I can open a store. It’s also about making sure you’re at each meeting. I spend a lot of time on the road.” Leonowicz said his goal at Redbud is simple: Make a product well and efficiently. “We want to be the guy that’s producing the best product in Michigan, not the necessarily the most,” he said. “In the current market, it seems to be all about quantity, not a good, reliable, safe product. That’s us.” — Dustin Walsh

Tina Kozak, 39 President, Franco Public Relations Group

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t’s a challenge to drive change in a business that has been around for 55 years. For Franco President Tina Kozak, finding that balance between “how it’s always been done” and moving forward has led to significant success for the public relations group — which has achieved double-digit growth in both revenue and employment under Kozak’s leadership. These increases, according to Kozak, came from an evolution in Franco’s offerings, reflecting the blurred lines between marketing and communication that is now public relations. “We are still a partner to our client to tell their story but with a variety of new ways and methods,” Kozak said. “We offer more of a reflection of the world we live in, more connected, more authentic. Today’s customer demands more targeted attention and authenticity.” In addition to public relations services, Franco now offers marketing, social media, advertising, analytics, crisis management and strategy and program management. To meet these expanded offerings, Kozak worked to bring on the necessary talent. The staff not only doubled from 15 to 30, but included new hires with PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

isa Ludwinski’s nationally recognized Detroit bakery, Sister Pie, is selling a new peanut butter-s’mores cookie that she concocted with a group of 8- to 13-year-olds. This is the 4-year-old cafe’s second year partnering with a nonprofit, after 2018 with Detroit Food Academy. For 2019 it chose Alternatives for Girls, which serves homeless and high-risk girls and young women. Among an array of efforts, Sister Pie has held classes with Alternatives for Girls participants and led meetings where Ludwinski and other staff taught them about flavor development. They worked together on a cookie that the bakery is now selling for $5, with $4 per sale going back to AFG. They raised $1,672 as of late August. Sister Pie spends time with young women in AFG amid its continued evolution. Ludwinski, a James Beard Foundation award finalist, started the business in 2012 out of her parents’ kitchen in Milford. She took entrepreneurship classes through what’s now Build Institute, joined FoodLab, used a shared kitchen and then worked toward opening what is now Sister Pie’s 950-squarefoot shop at the corner of Kercheval Avenue and Parker Street in West Village. Fifty-thousand-dollar Hatch Detroit award in hand, Ludwinski, who has a degree in theater arts from Kalamazoo College, opened in 2015. In the last couple of years, that corner has drawn another James Beard award nominee, butcher shop and restaurant Marrow; a planned $22.5 million mixed-use development; and other real estate investment. While recent spending can’t be attributed solely to one shop’s influence, Sister Pie is seen by some as a destination business that has helped anchor the area. After the launch last fall of Ludwinski’s cookbook, “Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big-hearted Bakery in Detroit,” she and her team are planning an expansion next year to a second, bigger location on Mack Avenue with a grocery section, breakfast-andlunch cafe, classrooms and kitchen space. They sought community input on what to include there. “We’ve always been pretty community-focused,” Ludwinski said. “We were able to take (our) original location and be like, ‘OK, now we’re here, what

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

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a variety of skill sets — from former journalists to data analysts. “I credit Tina with transforming Franco over the past five years and how she consistently exceeds our clients’ needs, while also positioning us for significant growth in the years to come,” said Franco CEO Dan Ponder of Kozak’s accomplishments. Kozak’s desire to work downtown is part of the reason she accepted the job with Franco 12 years ago. “Why I’ve worked so hard to accomplish these things in my little corner of the world is to make Detroit better, because I’ve loved the city for as far back as I can remember,” Kozak said. “When I look around and see the impact of the projects I’ve supported through my work at Franco I am proud of the role I play. I’m really proud of what we’ve done here to evolve the business, but I feel like I’m just getting started.” — Laura Cassar

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“We’ve always been pretty community-focused. ... We were able to take (our) original location and be like, ‘OK, now we’re here, what can we do to make this place welcoming and warm and inclusive to our neighbors?’ ”

can we do to make this place welcoming and warm and inclusive to our neighbors?’ And so now (with the second location), we’re saying, ‘Let’s take that one step further. How can we start the business with them in mind from the very beginning?’” — Annalise Frank

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“They’ve got the magic touch that makes me light up a room.”

Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang Nathan Martin Brian McKinney Palencia Mobley

Jason Mars, 36; Lingjia Tang, 38

Pa Mo

President and CEO, co-founder; COO and co-founder, Clinc Inc.

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ingjia Tang and Jason Mars are the wife-and-husband team that made big headlines in May when their Ann Arbor-based artificial intelligence company, whose technology allows companies to more easily interact with customers, closed on a venture-capital funding round of $52 million. They hope that Series B funding round will be a key to an initial public offering of stock by 2022 and continue to develop their AI with the goal of vastly improving how humans and computers interact — well beyond what Apple’s Siri can do, for instance. In 2017, Clinc raised an A round of $6.3 million, following seed funding of $1.2 million in 2016. The company was founded in 2015 by those two and Michael Laurenzano, the CTO, and Johann Hauswald, the chief product officer. Clinc developed and markets Finie, a Siri-like voice-controlled app originally intended for financial institutions. It has since expanded its customer base to include Ford Motor Co. and is targeting health care, travel and hospitality, the gaming industry and quick-service restaurants. The company claims that Finie understands what it calls unstructured and unconstrained speech and in-

S terprets semantics, intent and Both got their Ph.Ds from “The rate at tions. the underlying meaning of user the University of Virginia. queries, such as transferring “It’s been quite a crazy jourwhich we $500 from savings to checking ney,” said Mars, whose compahave been or asking for a replacement ny now employs more than credit card to be mailed. 100, including an office in LonTang and Mars have both able to don. “The rate at which we have been assistant professors at the been able to scale this busiscale this University of Michigan since ness, it’s nuts.” 2013 and run their own reAsked about a key to Clinc’s business, search group there, the Clarigrowth, Tang said: “I work exty-Lab, clarity being short for it’s nuts. ” tremely hard and surround mycross-layer architectures and self with the brightest minds in run times in 10 years. The group designs their respective fields.” As for her current the scalable architecture needed to supgoal? “Make Clinc THE choice for converport future artificial intelligence applicasational AI.” — Tom Henderson

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Nathan Martin, 38

Co-owner, Woodward Movement Creative

CEO Gay

or want of a T-shirt, an eight-figure business has grown. When Nathan Martin could not find a company to put his favorite tattoo on a T-shirt, he decided to take matters into his own hands. InkAddict was born in a Royal Oak basement in 2011. From that humble beginning, the artist-designed apparel company has grown into a worldwide brand selling in over 200 retail stores in more than 15 countries. “We have 131,000 Instagram followers,” Martin said. “Thousands of people all over the world are wearing us and tagging us. It’s all been word of mouth.” The referral-driven success didn’t stop there. Four years ago, Martin and his business partner Jim Doyon launched Woodward Movement Creative, a print and promotional company that now works with over 100 local companies. “When people saw what we did with InkAddict, they wanted that for their own brands,” Martin said. “We took our experience and grew it. We are the brand behind the brand.” In 2013, Martin and his business partner bought a 9,500-square-foot building on Woodward in Ferndale. InkAddict and Woodward Movement Creative occupy the back and the front 4,500 square feet are leased out. The combined businesses employ 12 people. Martin declined to disclose revenue but said the companies have generated sales in the double-digit millions. “The challenge has been managing the growth,” Martin said. “We found you can’t just throw employees at the problem. Sometimes less is better.” Although he’s made mistakes along the way, Martin said he’s most proud that he still has a great relationship with Doyon after 12 years — and that he doesn’t have to answer to anyone else. “It’s my own grit, my own will to succeed that gets me out of bed in the morning,” Martin said. “I haven’t had to call anyone ‘Boss.’” — Laura Cassar

“When people saw what we did with InkAddict, they wanted that for their own brands. We took our experience and grew it. We are the brand behind the brand.”

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Palencia Mobley, 39 Deputy Director and Chief Engineer, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department

he may be a self-professed “girly girl” who loves to shop (she recently modeled for a plus-size clothing company’s body-positive campaign), but what Palencia Mobley really loves thinking about is toilets. And sewer lines. And tap water. And, of course, her favorite subject, “asset management” of the entire system of water infrastructure she’s responsible for as deputy director and chief engineer at Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, a post she has held since 2016. After completing degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan and civil engineering from Wayne State University, Mobley worked in consulting before joining the mayor’s transition team in 2014. Moving to the public sector was a way to satisfy her desire to help people; she had long thought about going into teaching. And as a proud lifelong Detroiter, Mobley believes she is uniquely positioned to connect with residents. “Being a Detroiter allows me the ability to relate to our customers,” she said. “Even though I have a technical background, I’m able to explain things in colloquial terms they can understand.”

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Mobley believes her signaowned land into green infra“Being a ture accomplishment has been structure to manage stormwaher leadership in negotiating ter. Detroiter the establishment of the Great While some may think of allows me Lakes Water Authority, which water and sewer infrastructure was a critical piece of the city’s as mundane, Mobley marvels the ability bankruptcy exit. She’s also at it. pushed hard on reinvesting in “We just assume that when to relate to the city’s infrastructure. During you put on the tap, clean water her tenure, DWSD has tripled is going to come out and, when our the length of sewer piping it you flush the toilet, waste will customers.” leave your house and never upgrades annually, from 10-15 miles of upgrades in 2016 to come back,” Mobley said. “We over 47 miles in 2018. Next up is making don’t really understand how it works. For Detroit the greenest city in America by me, it’s about making that connection.” converting its vast reserves of publicly — Nina Ignaczak

Brian McKinney, 36

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Call (248) 879-2725 or visit broad.msu.edu/crains to get started.

“It seemed like the city was making a real commitment to be more inclusive and it seemed like a great opportunity and a segue for me to come home. And that’s kind of where Gayanga was birthed.”

CEO and Founder, Gayanga Co.

n May 2016, tech entrepreneur Brian McKinney attended Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s minority contractor fair at the Northwest Activities Center in search of an opportunity to leave the software development business he had established in Houston and get back home. He walked away with an idea to apply his fintech skills to the machine-and-labor intensive job of knocking down blighted houses in Detroit. “It seemed like the city was making a real commitment to be more inclusive and it seemed like a great opportunity and a segue for me to come home,” McKinney said. “And that’s kind of where Gayanga was birthed.” Gayanga & Co. is McKinney’s fast-growing demolition and infrastructure company based in Detroit that has data-mined its way into millions of dollars in demolition contracts. Launched in November 2016, McKinney and his team at Gayanga used Detroit’s open source data on past demolition contracts since 2014 to build a modeling tool for calculating pricing on bids. They also have used the city’s data to study ways to more efficiently raze homes and clear blighted property, such as clustering projects to limit the amount of fuel and machinery needed to complete multiple demolition jobs. McKinney sold his Houston-based financial software company Benjii in 2017 and used the profits to make capital investments in heavy machinery for Gayanga. Since Gayanga began demolition work for the city in September 2017, the company has won contracts for city-funded demolitions of 300 homes, posting $3.7 million in sales last year and projecting $10 million in revenue this year, McKinney said. “We use predictive analytics to track everything. We have GPS on every truck to see where every truck is going,” McKinney said. “And we look at our data

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versus our competitors’ data and (use) that to make bidding decisions, work we’re going to participate on” and to understand the health the marketplace overall, McKinney said. Gayanga is headquartered in Detroit’s New Center and has a workforce of 45 — almost three-quarters of its employees are city residents — and has a heavy equipment storage facility on the city’s west side. — Chad Livengood

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Jon Oberheide Devon O’Reilly John Perkovich

Jon Oberheide, 35

“I always just knew I had that innate curiosity and understanding of how systems work and how they could be broken.”

Co-founder and CTO, Duo Security

on Oberheide, co-founder of cybersecurity disruptor Duo Security, made his start in entrepreneurship as a middle schooler, showing up at houses to fix computers. Out of that grew FocalHost, a web-hosting company he ran with a partner from high school and into college. Before Oberheide launched the Ann Arbor startup purchased last year for $2.35 billion, FocalHost gave him a crash course in the minutia, from customer support and taxes to setting up a website. “(FocalHost) kind of solidified my interest in doing something on my own,” said Oberheide, who grew up in Troy. “Also, you know, through that time, we were not only learning how to secure our infrastructure at this company, but we also had a lot of free time to pursue security research ... I always just knew I had that innate curiosity and understanding of how systems work and how they could be broken. And that’s what I did for fun throughout high school and college and grad school.” Oberheide — CTO for Ann Arbor-based Duo under its new parent company, Cisco Systems Inc. — is known as a security expert and for his early pursuits on the “offensive” research side: hacking. He was a Crain’s 2018 Newsmaker alongside his Duo co-founder, Dug Song, with whom he first crossed paths while Oberheide was in high school, hacking into a network set up by Song’s former employer, Arbor Networks, while on a laptop in Ann Arbor. They officially met years later at University of Michigan, sharing the “divergent,”

creative approach to tackling security that comes (in part) from an offensive mindset, he said. They founded Duo in 2010. Now employing more than 800, it seeks to provide simpler, more intuitive online security in a complicated industry. Its tools offer clients authentication procedures and user access policies to prevent security

breaches and account takeovers. Oberheide said Duo still wants to “democratize” the industry, using the massive scale of Cisco. Not much has changed operationally since the West Coast networking giant bought Duo in October 2018 for around double what the fast-climbing startup was valued at the fall before. At the time, the purchase deal was believed to be the biggest in Michigan history for a venture-backed firm. — Annalise Frank

Devon O’Reilly, 33 Director of Entrepreneurship, Detroit Regional Chamber

or startups seeking help from the Detroit Regional Chamber, he’s the go-to guy. And Devon O’Reilly very much connects his fortune to theirs. “Success for me is success for Detroit,” said O’Reilly, who serves as director of entrepreneurship for the chamber. “My success will be very much tied to where this region goes in supporting entrepreneurs. We’re all a community here.” O’Reilly, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Michigan, has helped define the chamber position since taking the job in 2014. “They were looking for someone to create a space around entrepreneurship,” said O’Reilly, a Detroit native who was raised in Dearborn. “I’ve worked with entrepreneurs from all walks of life who are looking to grow their businesses.” A bit of an entrepreneur himself, O’Reilly helped found and run Reborn Magazine, a Dearborn lifestyle publication that operated from 2011 to 2014. At the time, he also provided marketing for state agency Michigan Works!, which connects job-seekers with companies that need them. At the chamber, initiatives he oversees include the Detroit Policy Conference, a gathering of business and community leaders aimed at promoting economic progress; the NeighborHUB grant program, which seeks to improve neighborhood spaces; and the Mackinac Future Leaders program, which provides scholarships for young leaders who want to attend the Mackinac Policy Conference.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEAR'S 40 UNDER 40 HONOREES. Thank you for your dedication to building brighter futures in the communities in which we do business. Delta Dental is building healthy, smart, vibrant communities…every day. We help organizations and businesses in southeast Michigan succeed by supporting initiatives that attract and retain talent, grow business, and make our cities and neighborhoods better places to live.

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

Re-

s his

John Perkovich, 35

“I’ve worked with entrepreneurs from all walks of life who are looking to grow their businesses.”

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O’Reilly also works with high-tech businesses working on things such as drone technology and electric batteries. “The startups aren’t making the cars, but they’re making a lot of the technology that’s going to be a part of these next-generation vehicles,” he said. Outside of work, O’Reilly volunteers with the U.S. Small Business Administration, helping business people with tasks such as business plan creation. He’s also on the Junior Achievement Rising Achievers Advisory Board, which focuses on let-

ting young people know there is opportunity in Detroit. “Detroit is a place (where) they can be whatever they want to be,” he said. — Doug Henze

ohn Perkovich oversaw Chicago-based Coyote Logistics’ growth in Michigan from a dozen employees when it entered the market six years ago to more than 200 now. That accomplishment is listed high up on Perkovich’s resume, but what he’s really proud of is the way he did it: by empowering his employees. As growth plans ramped up in 2014, the company ran smack into the region’s talent shortage. Perkovich was looking everywhere to fill IT and management positions and coming up empty-handed, until he had the idea of looking inward. Recognizing the potential of the company’s call center employees, Perkovich set up a pipeline to convert the hourly workers into higher-level positions. “We created an opportunity for employees that didn’t have a college education to come and work at a company that typically requires a four-year degree — to “We invest in our Ann Arbor to The Assembly Buildgive them the opportunity to sucing near Corktown, where it hopes ceed and for them to prove me people and technology. to add 300 new jobs over the next right,” he said. three to five years. It will operate in That has been one of Growing his team in Ann Arbor a 58,000-square-foot space owned also fulfilled a goal he set for him- the focal points of by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC. self not long after graduating from Detroit’s growing reputation as Michigan State University in 2008. a tech hub, and Ford Motor Co.’s Coyote’s strategy.” A bleak job market forced him to $350 million renovation plan for move to Chicago for work, but he always wanted to Michigan Central Station, convinced the company return to Michigan, and he wanted to bring jobs to make the move, Perkovich said. with him. “We invest in our people and technology,” he Perkovich’s next challenge is bringing jobs to De- said. “That has been one of the focal points of Coytroit. By October, the company aims to move from ote’s strategy.” — Kurt Nagl

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Robert Platt Luke Polcyn Timothy Ponton Portia Powell

Luke Polcyn, 34

Portia Powell, 35

Principal, Miller Canfield

Vice President — Manager of Municipal Banking Operations, Chemical Bank

ast summer, Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC attorney Luke Polcyn was tasked by his clients at the city of Detroit with a oncein-a-generation assignment: Assemble vast tracts of land for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to open a new automotive assembly plant in the Motor City. In the past half-century, there’s only been two new auto plants open in Detroit: Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant (1992) and General Motors’ Poletown plant (1985) straddling the Detroit-Hamtramck border. Polcyn was Detroit’s lead outside attorney in the massive economic development deal to get FCA to convert its Mack Avenue engine plants into an expanded facility where Jeep SUVs will be rolling off the assembly line by the fourth quarter of 2020. “Doing a project like this without eminent domain is of course a huge barrier to the certainty to doing the land assembly,” Polcyn said. FCA’s total investment in Detroit is expected to top $2.5 billion after the Auburn Hills-based automaker spends $900 million to modernize Jefferson North. But the deal hinged on securing deals with private and public landowners for 215 acres of land FCA needed surrounding the Mack Avenue and Jefferson North plants and meeting the automaker’s tight deadlines of starting construction by this summer. “That created little-to-no margin of error,” he said. Polcyn joined Miller Canfield in July 2017 as a principal in the law firm after working at the Detroit Land Bank Authority as the land bank’s lead

“Doing a project like this without eminent domain is of course a huge barrier to the certainty to doing the land assembly.” attorney for economic development transactions involving property the city had accumulated through tax foreclosures. Among the larger projects he worked on were the on-going Fitzgerald neighborhood revitaliza-

tion project and the agreement to redevelop the 18-acre Herman Kiefer Hospital Complex. “That role sort of kicked off my multi-year collaboration with folks in the mayor’s office,” Polcyn said. Polcyn’s other main clients and projects include the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy’s west riverfront Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park project and The Platform LLC’s plans to transform the former Joe Muer’s Seafood restaurant site outside of Eastern Market into a multifamily and retail/commercial mixed-use development. — Chad Livengood

Robert Platt, 38 Chief Investment Officer and incoming CEO, City Club Apartments

passion for hospitality and a manager-in-training program nearly 15 years ago ultimately landed Robert Platt in the driver’s seat of a $2 billion-plus multifamily real estate portfolio. Platt, the incoming CEO for Farmington Hillsbased City Club Apartments, on Jan. 1 will assume the CEO position from Jonathan Holtzman, the co-founder and current CEO who is taking a step back to focus on his Holtzman Wildlife Foundation and race car driving after decades in real estate. Platt, 38, will have a full plate, with three projects in varying stages of development in greater downtown Detroit for the 3-year-old company that he says had $121.3 million in revenue last year and about 250 employees, the majority of which are in property management. It’s the high point of a 15-year career that started at Holtzman’s former company, Village Green Cos., now based in Southfield. “I had no idea who they were or what they were at the time,” said Platt, a 2004 Michigan State University graduate. “I really liked the hospitality industry, but I determined after working at country clubs and restaurants, working until 2 or 2:30 a.m. wasn’t really my cup of tea. If I wanted to start a family, I would have to do something where the hours made sense.” So he entered Village Green’s manager-in-training program and worked his way up the corporate ladder, starting in property management and eventually landing in his current CIO position with City Club, which Holtzman and Alan Greenberg formed in 2016 after Holtzman split from Village Green. With CCA, Holtzman, Platt and Greenberg continued work on the 288-unit City Club Apartments CBD Detroit on the site of the former Statler Hotel near Grand Circus Park. The project, years in the works, is expected to see residents moving in around November, with full complePORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

“If I wanted to start a family, I would have to do something where the hours made sense.”

tion in February. It has 13,000 planned square feet of retail space with Premier Pet Supply taking one of the spots, along with what Platt described as a full-service French casual restaurant and a coffee and candy shop. Also in the works is a repositioning of the Elmwood Park Plaza at 750 Chene St. as City Club Apartments Lafayette Park, in which City Club is

buying out the current majority ownership and bringing in new equity. There is also a $15 million renovation budget for the 202 units, Platt said. A retail center next to the property is also being acquired with plans to tear it down and build a new common area and amenity space. As for the third project, City Club is in “very early stages” of negotiations with the Nyman family to do retail and multifamily on a portion of a seven-acre property they own at Woodward and Mack avenues near Midtown generally referred to as SoMA, or South of Mack Avenue, Platt said. Through all that work, Platt, who Holtzman recruited to join him at City Club, garnered high praise from his boss. “Rob is a highly intelligent and extremely talented young leader,” Holtzman said. — Kirk Pinho

hen Portia Powell started her first bank teller job when she was 19, she had no idea it would turn into a 16-year career. She also didn’t anticipate she would rise to her current role as a vice president of Chemical Bank, where she oversees operations for the company’s municipal banking department and $3 billion in assets. At the end of last year, Chemical Bank became the official bank of the city of Detroit and announced the move of its headquarters from Midland to downtown Detroit. But it wasn’t always so prominent in the city. When Powell was brought on board in 2015 as an assistant vice president and branch manager, the bank had only one branch in Detroit — and it was one of the lowest performing branches in the company. “Through the relationships I built, and a dedicated team, we were able to turn that around in just over two years and rank in the top two banking centers across all of Chemical Bank’s branches,” she said. “Chemical Bank had a strong commitment to Detroit and they allowed me bring my own commitment to the city to my job.” Her turnaround of the Detroit branch gave Chemical the “momentum” it needed to compete for the City of Detroit’s banking business, she said. Powell has a personal mission to empower people from metro Detroit because she herself is a Detroiter. “I grew up in Detroit, I lived in Detroit for the majority of my life, and I graduated from Detroit public schools. I’ve lived in probably some of the city’s worst neighborhoods, so I know what lack of financial literacy and resources looks like,” said Powell, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Wayne State University.

Se ronm dow ple last “I one thin my c — Ja

Timothy Ponton, 37 Owner, Stonefield Engineering & Design / SheWolf Pastificio & Bar

hen Timothy Ponton decided to return to Detroit after a decade in New York City, he felt he was finally in a place where he could make a real impact by shaping the communities he grew up and lived in. Coming home to affect change was not something Ponton planned to do alone. “Moving back in 2014 included me challenging as many talented people from metro Detroit who left during the recession to return home to impact the rebuilding of our city,” Ponton said. These efforts led to his purchase in 2011 of Gratiot Central Market and in 2014 of Antietam restaurant, both on Gratiot in Eastern Market. Although Antietam has since closed and Ponton is no longer an owner of the building, Ponton has plans in the works for Gratiot Central Market with his nonprofit Detroit Kitchen Terminal. Ponton envisions a culinary job training school at the market. One of the happiest homecomings for Ponton was the return of his childhood friend Chef Anthony Lombardo from Washington, D.C., to open with him SheWolf Pastificio and Bar. The goal of the James Beard-nominated restaurant is to educate diners on authentic Italian food. Ponton said watching his friend realize a lifelong dream was a personal delight. Helping people is always a goal for Ponton. “My greatest professional achievement is challenging, motivating and training young professionals at Stonefield Engineering and Design to accomplish goals they never dreamed of reaching at such a young age,” said Ponton, who prides himself in offering a transformational work environment with no titles or hierarchy in what is traditionally an oldschool field.

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

CANNABIS REPORT Coverage of an emerging industry in Michigan

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Seeing someone who grew up in the same environment, and who has weathered the city’s ups and downs, has been a deal-sealer for many of the people that Powell has built relationships with in the last few years. “It’s been meaningful for folks to see that someone like them really wants to help them. I definitely think that’s what has been the biggest contributor to my career success so far,” she said. — Jaishree Drepaul-Bruder

“My greatest professional achievement is challenging, motivating and training young professionals at Stonefield Engineering and Design to accomplish goals they never dreamed of reaching at such a young age.”

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As owner of Stonefield, Ponton has grown the company from three employees 10 years ago to 140 employees at seven offices nationally today. Current

projects include the Midtown West development on the former Wigle Recreation Center site, civil engineering for the historic Gotham Hotel site in the Sugar Hill Arts District and work on the Eastern Market Gateway project, in addition to constructing and designing hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail and thousands of residential units. “Creating economic opportunities for as many people as possible, that’s what I wake up to do every day,” Ponton said. — Laura Cassar

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Summer Ritner Tiffany Sanford Greg Schwartz

Summer Ritner, 39

“Older folks who remember [the Belle Isle Aquarium] from the 1950s; their appreciation and stories about when they were kids is super cool. People are really excited about it.”

Chief Operating Officer, Belle Isle Conservancy and Director, Belle Isle Aquarium

s she was wrapping up her last semester of law school in Oregon in 2012, Summer Ritner had a dream about moving to a place she’d never been before: Detroit. “It was such an optimistic omen,” she said. “As soon as I woke up, I sat in my bed, got my laptop out and started googling Detroit.” The native Californian, who had never been to Michigan, arrived in 2012 and set up in Hamtramck, where she lived for a year before buying a house in West Village. She worked for a property management firm and then, in 2013, took over as director of operations for The Heat and Warmth Fund, where she stayed until joining the Belle Isle Conservancy in 2015. Ritner has a bachelor’s in psychology and statistics from California State University, Sacramento, and a J.D. from Willamette University College of Law. Ritner started building an operations team for the fledgling conservancy. Meanwhile, volunteers had reopened the Belle Isle Aquarium in 2012, but few of the tanks held exhibits, public hours were sporadic, and the building, which opened in 1904 and is the oldest aquarium in North America, was in dire need of repair. So in addition to her operations role, Ritner took on the aquarium. She helped lead the restoration of the glass tile ceiling and the gallery skylights, which had been covered over in the 1950s, replaced outdated electrical and plumbing systems, and established consistent public hours. She also began thinking about sustainability; for example, a geothermal study she’s initiated may end up keeping costs low decades from now. Today, most of the tanks contain exhibits, and more than 3,500 students and 200,000 people visit

Tiffany Sanford, 39 Chief Medical Officer, The Wellness Plan Medical Centers

annually. Admission continues to be free. Ritner says her greatest joy is talking with Detroiters visiting the aquarium for the first time

since their childhood. “Older folks who remember it from the 1950s; their appreciation and stories about when they were kids is super cool,” she said. “People are really excited about it.” — Nina Ignaczak

Greg Schwartz, 38

“My dad is my biggest cheerleader. ... He pushed me not to take no for an answer.”

Co-founder and chief operating officer, StockX

f at first you don’t hit a home run, swing for the fences again. That’s the cliche, but it worked for Greg Schwartz. Schwartz founded UpTo Inc., which in 2012 launched an interactive calendar app for iPhone and Android that allowed friends, family and co-workers to share their schedules and make group plans for such things as sporting events, concerts or where to meet for drinks or dinner. Funded by Dan Gilbert’s Detroit Investment Partners, UpTo was slow to gain traction in the marketplace, and in March 2015 Schwartz was mulling an offer from a San Francisco firm that was buying up underperforming but promising tech companies and had offered him a job in California if he sold the company. “Dan Gilbert came to me on (a) Friday and said, ‘Before you make a decision to move to California, I want to run something by you,’” Schwartz said. That “something” was an online marketplace for high-end collectibles, starting with luxury sneakers. The company has since branched out into luxury handbags, watches and streetwear. “The next Monday morning I showed up at Dan’s office with a couple of my people from UpTo and some ideas,” said Schwartz, who turned down the offer to sell UpTo’s technology; the company is still operating today. StockX launched in February 2016, and has since grown beyond anyone’s imagination. The company will have revenue of more than $1 billion this year. It employs more than 500 in Detroit and more than 800 worldwide. Sellers send their items to authentication centers to be verified as

PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

iffany Sanford, M.D. became chief medical officer at the Wellness Plan Medical Centers in Detroit in 2016 — at the peak of a national opioid crisis. Sanford knew the Wellness Plan’s opioid policy needed to change. “When I came on board we had a controlled substance policy, but it was not getting to the root of the issues we were seeing in the community,” said Sanford, an internist. “A lot of patients were diverting the controlled substances we were providing.” In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. In Michigan, opioid deaths increased 20 percent in 2016 and 14 percent in 2017 to about 1,941 deaths. Numbers of prescription over-

bona fide, then the items are “None of us thought form of products on the site, Greg shipped in StockX boxes to buyers. cultivates a culture at StockX that The company has authentication this could happen encourages every team member to centers in Detroit, New Jersey, Aribring forth ideas, regardless of title so quickly. We are all or experience level,” said Gilbert. “A zona, London and, later this year, the Netherlands. fourth generation Detroit entrepreIn June, the company raised a incredibly excited by neur, he has planted a permanent funding round of $110 million, the flag on the city’s startup ecosystem.” how it has scaled.” largest venture capital round in state Schwartz’s great-grandfather, history, which gave it a valuation of Albert Schwartz, opened a clothmore than $1 billion. That made it, in the vernacular ing store called Albert’s in Detroit. His grandfaof the VC world, a unicorn. ther, Ernie Schwartz, grew the business to 80 “None of us thought this could happen so stores in five states. His father, Mark Schwartz, quickly,” said Schwartz. “We are all incredibly exworked for Albert’s before it was sold, then startcited by how it has scaled.” ed a women’s apparel boutique called Scott “Whether an idea is brought to him for a nationGregory that had several locations in metro Deal advertising campaign or an entirely new plat- troit. — Tom Henderson

doses and deaths have been dropping the past couple years, but the state still ranks 13th highest nationally at 21 deaths per 100,000. Sanford and her team developed a new policy in which patients and providers sign a “controlled substance contract” to make sure patients are actually using their medications to control chronic pain. It requires patients submit to urine testing before and after pain medication is prescribed. The policy prompted a 57 percent decline in opioid prescriptions from 2016 to 2018, dropping from 6,525 to 2,798 last year. Sanford also developed pain management training to educate providers and staff about alternative methods for treating chronic pain, such as water therapy, physical therapy and acupuncture. She secured a $150,000 federal grant to pay for the program from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. As CMO, Sanford oversees 32 employees and manages a budget of $3 million. The Wellness Plan, which became a federally qualified health center in 2010 and now has six locations, sees about 73,000 visits annually, an 84 percent increase the past decade. Sanford, who earned her medical degree from Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, said she ran into doubters on her path to becoming a doctor. But she always could rely on her father, John Thomas Sanford, to give her encouragement and set her straight. “My dad is my biggest cheerleader. He overcame so much as black man growing up in the city of Detroit, having a disability (cerebral palsy). ... He pushed me not to take no for an answer,” she said. “He is still there for me.” — Jay Greene

HELP YOUR EMPLOYEES BECOME BETTER LEADERS

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T S A L TO K E WE TE A N I NOM

Crain’s Leadership Academy provides promising leaders the tools they need to reach the next level in their professional development. Use the Academy to: ■ Supplement your internal training programs with

additional experiences.

■ Groom your emerging leaders for greater responsibilities. ■ Help your employees expand their networks and get access to local leaders.

SESSION DATES: Wednesday, Sept. 25 – 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2 – 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4 – 1 - 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11 – 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

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If you’re ready to help your employees become better leaders, nominate them for participation in our fifth cohort today. Contact Keenan Covington at kcovington@crain.com or visit crainsdetroit.com/leadershipacademy.

40 40

UNDER

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9 Alissa Sevrioukova Gabrielle Sims White Matthew Walters Dan Ward

Gabrielle Sims White, 32

“Frequently, I have been in a room where I am the only woman or the only person of color. I’ve tried to use the experience I’ve had to try to serve as a resource.”

Partner, Honigman LLP

Matt Walters, 30 Deputy Group Executive, City of Detroit Mayor’s Office

att Walters moved back to Southeast Michigan thinking he wanted to open a restaurant along Detroit’s east riverfront. The Milford native had spent nearly three years floating around the wine industry, starting with a back-breaking 90-hour-a-week job on a vineyard in South Africa, then working at a large-scale winery in California’s Sonoma County, followed by a stint as a wine sales representative in Chicago. Then, in the fall of 2013, he volunteered on Mike Duggan’s campaign for mayor, which led to a posi-

“I didn’t know anything about municipal government.” tion on the new mayor’s transition team and then a full-time job in the administration working under veteran economic development attorney F. Thomas Lewand, Duggan’s group executive for the Jobs and Economy Team. In early 2014, while Detroit was still mired in bankruptcy court and Duggan’s power was limited under an emergency manager, the Jobs and Economy Team consisted of Lewand and Walters. “I didn’t know anything about municipal government,” Walters admits. But now he does. Walters is one of Lewand’s two principal deputies and has played a major behind-the-scenes role in shepherding some of Detroit’s biggest economic development projects in a generation: J Ford Motor Co.’s $740 million redevelopment of Michigan Central Station and establishment of an autonomous vehicle tech campus in Corktown J Dan Gilbert’s development of a skyscraper at the site of the former J.L. Hudson’s department store on Woodward Avenue; development of the Monroe blocks; expansion of One Campus Martius; and rehabilitation of the Book Tower and Book Building J Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ $2.5 billion investment in converting its Mack Avenue engine plants into a new Jeep assembly plant and modernization of its nearby Jefferson North Assembly Plant J The Detroit Pistons’ new corporate headquarters and training facility in New Center Each real estate development deal was layered with complex challenges involving financing, taxes, construction permitting and community impact. “Matt can take on any problem or tricky situation and will not stop until it is figured out,” Lewand said. — Chad Livengood PORTRAITS BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

hen it comes to making your mark on the world, significance beats success, says Gabrielle Sims White, who’s had her share of both. “Significant looks at impact,” said the 32-year-old Honigman law firm partner. “Knowing that I have made a difference in the business of my clients tangibly … and knowing I have been a resource for women and minorities is more important to me.” The Detroit native, who holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Michigan and a juris doctor degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., cut her teeth at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York. There, she achieved one of her favorite professional accomplishments. “I worked on one of the biggest IPOs of 2013,” she said — for Zoetis, an animal health company spun off by Pfizer in a $2.2 billion IPO. “It was what I ate, drank and slept for a year. We were able to get the IPO done with a small team.” Sims White came home to Detroit in 2015 as a Honigman associate and was named a partner in 2017. She is the youngest-ever member of the firm’s board of directors. Specializing in public companies, she does everything from helping to raise capital in public markets to putting together executive compensation plans. “The best thing about being an attorney is seeing the work I have done really make a difference in the lives of people,” she said. That ranges from affecting business image to keeping the doors open. While she’s helping clients, she’s ever mindful of ways to help women and minorities in her industry.

“Frequently, I have been in a room where I am the only woman or the only person of color,” Sims White said. “I’ve tried to use the experience I’ve had to try to serve as a resource. I was able to get to where I am because I had people reach out and help me on my journey.” She is paying it forward both with legal profes-

Alissa Sevrioukova, 34

“We’ve planted thousands of trees in partnership with ReLeaf (Michigan). ... It engages our employees in a way you don’t really see through work.”

Public Affairs Chief of Staff and Corporate Citizenship Manager, DTE Energy Co.

lissa Sevrioukova calls it a purpose-driven mindset: marrying occupational endeavors with community benefit. “Whatever work you’re in — how do you do that while being good for society at large?” asks Sevrioukova, the public affairs chief of staff and corporate citizenship manager for utility DTE Energy. Sevrioukova, who emigrated with her family from Russia in the early 1990s, is the force behind the Force for Growth program, DTE’s corporate citizenship office. “Over the last two years, that is what I’ve been building out from scratch,” Sevrioukova said. “That has been really amazing to see the program flourish. We’ve gotten some of the best (corporate citizen) scores we’ve ever gotten from J.D. Power.” Sevrioukova created the Force for Growth program management office, leading the annual planning for the initiative, establishing and overseeing its $3 million budget and settings its performance benchmarks. The program includes an employee volunteerism component, which Sevrioukova manages. Workforce participation has grown to 50 percent from 11 percent in the past three years, she said. Employees have volunteered for everything from delivering meals to the homebound just before Christmas to cleanup of local waterways. “We’ve planted thousands of trees in partnership with ReLeaf (Michigan),” she said, referring to the nonprofit group founded by arborists. “That has been amazing to see the (involvement) of our workforce. It engages our employees in a way you don’t really see through work.” DTE also recently launched a program to reincorporate formerly incarcerated individuals back

sionals and the community at large. Sims White helped launch the Honigman Academy, the first law firm program of its kind in Detroit, to teach high school students basic legal concepts that could help them in academia and everyday life. She is also active in other service organizations in the city of Detroit, including the Youth Leadership Academy and The Links, Incorporated, and is a board member of CARE House of Oakland County. — Doug Henze

into the workforce as tree trimmers. About 20 now are in training. In June, DTE was recognized as one of “The Civic 50” by Points of Light, a volunteerism nonprofit that annually recognizes the 50 most community-minded companies in the U.S. DTE was

the only Michigan company and the only utility to make the list. For Sevrioukova, who holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and master of public administration degree from Columbia University in New York, support of volunteerism doesn’t end at work. She serves on the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit’s New Wave Committee for young professionals and recently joined the board of Reading Works, which works to improve adult literacy rates to ready participants for the workforce. — Doug Henze

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

Dan Ward, 35

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily have to be an expert, but if you ask enough questions and you are interested enough, genuinely enough, you will learn an incredible amount.â&#x20AC;?

Co-founder and president, Detroit Labs

an Ward started at Quicken Loans with a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in history and a passion for technology â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and left with the knowledge and skills to start one of Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most successful new tech companies. While working as a desktop engineer supporting Quickenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s executive team, Ward developed a close relationship with Dan Gilbert. Ward said he was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;sponge,â&#x20AC;? soaking up everything Gilbert did â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and learning from his inquisitive spirit. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily have to be an expert, but if you ask enough questions and you are interested enough, genuinely enough, you will learn an incredible amount,â&#x20AC;? Ward said. Ward took that attitude into his own web and mobile services company, Detroit Labs. He admits that even when he started the company in 2011, he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to code. But he and his three co-founders have built a company thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been profitable every year since it started and has now grown to employ 160, with clients ranging from Chevrolet to Jimmy Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Ward chalks that success up to another value he learned from Gilbert: thinking differently about the dominant paradigms of business. Ward rejected a traditional hierarchical structure for Detroit Labs, structuring the business to be â&#x20AC;&#x153;as flat as possibleâ&#x20AC;? from day one. He said thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s changed a bit as the company has grown, but the â&#x20AC;&#x153;transparencyâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;candidnessâ&#x20AC;? behind it have remained. Detroit Labs holds a twice-monthly comprehensive meeting, including updates on all current projects and financials, that all employees are invited to. Ward and his team have also worked to give employees a sense of career progression within the flattened organizational structure, created a special division to support employees who work onsite with clients and launched a threemonth apprenticeship program to develop new talent. Ward said he and his co-founders have always sought to â&#x20AC;&#x153;create an environment that we wanted to work at.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;You need some rules and some order and whatnot,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But we very much want to provide an environment where people like to come in every single day, have some say in the organization, and help define our future and their future.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Patrick Dunn

Celebrate with the 40s

eet the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brightest young leaders at one of the best networking events of the year: a joint celebration of Crainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 20 in their 20s and 40 under 40 on Thurs., Nov. 21, at The Roostertail in Detroit. Tickets and more information available at crainsdetroit.com/celebration.

YOUR FUTURE IS CALLING. PICK UP. The top companies want the top people. 6JCVĹ¨U YJ[ [QWĹ¨NN Ć&#x2019;PF 9CNUJ ITCFWCVGU KP PGCTN[ GXGT[ (QTVWPG EQORCP[ KP /KEJKICP 2TGRCTKPI [QW HQT UWEEGUU KU YJCV 9CNUJ KU CNN CDQWV +VĹ¨U YJGTG CECFGOKE GZEGNNGPEG ECTGGT DWKNFKPI CPF CP QWVUVCPFKPI GORNQ[OGPV TCVG EQOG VQIGVJGT VQ RTQRGN [QWT ECTGGT HQTYCTF

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How we chose them

he 2019 40 Under 40 honorees were selected by Crainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Detroit Business editors and reporters based on their career accomplishments, impact in their field and contributions to their community, and to reflect the diversity of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business community. Most candidates were nominated by peers or colleagues, but some were chosen by the newsroom.

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Crain’s People on the Move showcases industry achievers and their companies to metro Detroit’s business community. Guarantee placement in print, online and our e-newsletter today! Advertising Section

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ARCHITECTURE

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ACCOUNTING

ARCHITECTURE

TAX Planning Group

AXT Company

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ACCOUNTING

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Davis Design

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CONSTRUCTION

BEST BUILD

INSURANCE

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George Group

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CONSTRUCTION

Don James hasIte volo officte Moris Law mpossitatint volut Time hasIte fugiaec Shela tibus, sumqui temposa volo officte tint volut se et ndianti onserrumende mpossita tibus, doles doles cus, sumqui quaeceres erro fugiaec ndianti aut quia volorehendam temposa et ende moloratem netseaperibus onserrumcus quaeceres erro cus,nditis dicta nem ligenda doles doles aut dam endantiaesed quos doluptur quia volorehen aperibus m cus net sitatur eproviduste volende molorate nditis ligenda riatum verum ipicatenis nem expel dicta doluptur quos sed doluptatiunt volupta quam, endantiae ste volende ommolup Quiaeperi auda eprovidu sitatur tatur? ipicatenis pa cus in repudionem et verum expelquamus riatum quam, volupta aut velluptam videlic ieniet doluptatiunt i auda Quiaeper tatur? hariam vero cus, audit ommolup em quamus et optatquatem expla doluptatur pa cus in repudion videlic ieniet autatqui dolori ut facepro aut velluptam hariam vero cus, audit r optatquatem expla doluptatu autatqui dolori ut facepro

INSURANCE

LEGAL

Ground Up

Marble Agency

CallaLEGAL LLP

Singletree LLP

LAW

LEGAL

Carol Strong hasIte CE JennINSURAN Stone hasIte Tina Bond hasIte Bella Jones hasIte Michael Banks hasIte voloCONSTRU officte CTION Singletree LLP volo officte volo officte volo officte volo officte ACCOUNTING Calla LLP mpossitatint volut mpossitatint volut mpossitatint volut mpossitatint volut mpossitatint volut Marble Agency Michael Banks hasIte fugiaec tibus, Up fugiaec tibus, sumqui fugiaec tibus, fugiaec tibus, sumqui fugiaec tibus, sumqui Ground Jones hasIte Bella volo officte Jon & Jon Co. Bond hasIte sumqui temposa Tinandianti temposa sumqui temposa temposa ndiantitint volut temposa ndianti officte volo hasIte mpossita Stone Jenn ndianti onserrumende se et onserrumende se et ndiantimpossitatint volut onserrumende se et sumqui onserrumende se et volo officte Carol Strong hasIte fugiaec tibus, officte volo volut tint doles doles cus, quaeceres erro doles doles cus, quaeceres erro onserrumende se et doles doles doles doles cus, quaeceres erro doles doles cus, quaeceres erro mpossita sumqui tibus, fugiaec volo officte temposa ndianti mpossitatint volut quia volorehendam aut quia volorehendam cus, quaeceres erro quia quia volorehendam autse et quia volorehendam aut fugiaec tibus, aut ndianti temposa ende mpossitatint volut sumqui tibus, onserrum fugiaec moloratem cus net aperibus moloratem custemposa net aperibus volorehendam moloratem moloratem cus net cus, aperibus sumqui se et ende quaeceres erromoloratem cus net aperibus onserrumaut fugiaec tibus, doles ndianti doles temposa erro dicta nem ligenda nditis dicta nem ligenda nditis cus netdoles aperibus dicta dicta nem ligenda nditis dicta nem ligenda nditis quaeceres ndianti cus,nem doles dam aut sumqui temposa ende se et quia volorehen onserrum se et doles dolesligenda nditis endantiaesed ende aut et endantiaesed quos doluptur endantiaesed quos doluptur endantiaesed quos doluptur se onserrum dam ende net aperibus endantiaesed quos doluptur quia volorehen quaeceres erro ndianti onserrum moloratem cus doles cus, s erro quia quaecere s erro sitaturdoles eproviduste volendeaut sitatur cus, eproviduste volende quos doluptur sitatur volendenditis sitatur eproviduste volende net aperibus sitatur eprovidusteligenda cus m molorate doles doles cus, quaecere dam dicta nem volorehen aut moloratem eproviduste volende dam riatumquia verum expel ipicatenis nditis riatum volorehen verum expel ipicatenis riatum riatum verum expel ipicatenis dicta nem ligenda quos doluptur riatum verum expel ipicatenis quia volorehendam aut net aperibus m cusquam, endantiaesedquam, dicta nem molorate aperibus doluptatiunt volupta doluptatiunt volupta quam, verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, cus net sed quos doluptur doluptatiunt volupta endantiae moloratem cus net aperibus eproviduste volende ligenda nditis sed doluptatiunt sitatur nem Quiaeperi dictatatur? endantiae nditis ommolup auda volende ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda ste ligenda nditis sitatur eprovidu doluptur dicta nem ligenda verum expel ipicatenis sed quos doluptur sitatur ipicatenis pa cus inriatum pa cus endantiae in repudionem quamus et pa cus in repudionem quamus et ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda repudionemvolupta quamusquam, et pa cus in repudionem quamus et quos expel verum riatum volende unt endantiaesed quos doluptur ste doluptati sitatur eprovidu ste volende quam, aut velluptam videlic ieniet aut velluptam videlic ieniet riatum pa cus indoluptati repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet aut velluptam videlic ieniet eprovidu unt volupta tatur? Quiaeperi auda sitatur eproviduste volende expel ipicatenis ommolup verum ipicatenis expel hariamriatum vero cus, audit hariam vero cus, audit aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit hariam vero cus, audit Quiaeperi auda et verum tatur? ommolup riatum verum expel ipicatenis in repudionem quamus volupta quam, unt doluptatur pa cus et doluptati volupta quam, hariam vero cus,inaudit unt quamus optatquatem expla optatquatem expla doluptatur optatquatem expla doluptatur em doluptati quam, pa cus repudion videlic ieniet optatquatem expla doluptatur Quiaeperi auda doluptatiunt volupta velluptam tatur? Quiaeperi auda autatquiommolup dolori ut tatur? facepro ieniet autatqui aut autatqui dolori ut facepro optatquatem expla doluptatur dolori ut facepro audit autatqui dolori ut facepro i auda ommolup videlic Quiaeper et velluptam tatur? aut quamus cus, em ommolup et hariam vero quamusautatqui pa cus in repudion dolori ut facepro quamus et pa cus in repudionem cus, audit vero doluptatur hariam expla ieniet tem pa cus in repudionem videlic optatqua ieniet velluptam aut r aut velluptam videlic optatquatem expla doluptatu aut velluptam videlic ieniet autatqui dolori ut facepro vero cus, audit audit hariam cus, vero facepro ut hariam r autatqui dolori hariam vero cus, audit r optatquatem expla doluptatu r optatquatem expla doluptatu optatquatem expla doluptatu autatqui dolori ut facepro autatqui dolori ut facepro autatqui dolori ut facepro

For more information, contact Debora Stein at dstein@crain.com • or submit directly to CrainsDetroit.com/people-on-the-move Ask about our new 6x and 13x bulk commitments.

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

SPOTLIGHT New CEO at Bedrock

Matt Cullen has been named the new CEO of Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC real estate company and a longtime Gilbert confidant is on the way out in the second high-profile executive departure in recent months. Jim Ketai, 58, is also leaving as chairman of Bedrock, which he founded with Cullen childhood friend Gilbert in 2011, to “pursue other opportunities,” the company said in a news release. He follows Dan Mullen, the former executive vice president of business development, who left June 7. Cullen, 63, assumes the CEO duties on Sept. 1, replacing Bill Emerson, 56, who will return to Gilbert’s Detroit-based mortgage giant Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Holdings as vice chairman. Cullen is CEO of Jack Entertainment, the Detroit-based gaming company owned by Gilbert, who is the billionaire founder and chairman of Quicken Loans. Cullen will be replaced in that role by Mark Dunkeson, who is also joining Bedrock as president and COO. Cullen and Emerson said in a Thursday morning interview that the timing of the leadership changes aligns with Jack Entertainment’s dis-

Advertising Section

position of properties around the Midwest, including Greektown Casino-Hotel in downtown Detroit, which sold for $1 billion earlier this year.

Yolles takes helm of revamped ad agency

The former chief marketing officer of United Shore Financial Services is leading a newly revamped 25-employee ad agency in Bingham Farms. Barbara Yolles left the now Pontiac-based mortgage lender for another CMO position at The Money Source Inc. in New York in 2017. Now she has shifted to CEO and owner of Ludwig+, which is relaunchYolles ing as an ad agency under Yolles after her husband, Bill Ludwig, started it in 2015 as a consultancy. Ludwig, the former chief creative officer and CEO for Detroit-based agency Campbell Ewald, has moved to the role of creative chairman, according to a news release. They call their firm “interdisciplinary,” saying they distinguish themselves by delving into “all aspects of an organization ... from new products and services to call center scripts,” Ludwig said in the release. They have seven clients, including 21st Century Oncology and Orlans Group.

DEALS & DETAILS MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS Meritus Communities LLC, Farmington Hills, has acquired an all-age 320-site manufactured housing community in Grand Rapids. Website: meritusmhc.com J

EXPANSIONS J H.W. Kaufman Group, Farmington Hills, a network of insurance companies, is expanding its subsidiary RB Jones, provider of specialty risk coverage, as it partners with ProSight Specialty Insurance, Morristown, N.J., an insurance company, to become the administrator for its marine solutions and excess energy niches. Websites: hwkaufman.com, rbjonesinsurance. com, prosightspecialty.com

MOVES Credibly, Southfield, a small business fintech lender, has moved from 1250 Kirts Blvd., Troy, to a 18,000-square-foot facility at 25200 Telegraph Road, Suite 350, Southfield, as part of a growth plan to increase its Michigan headcount by more than 50 percent. Website: credibly.com J

NAME CHANGE Northeast Guidance Center, Detroit, provider of behavioral and primary health care services, has changed its name to Northeast Integrated Health. Phone: (313) 3081400. Website: neguidance.org

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

REAL ESTATE

JOB FRONT POSITIONS AVAILABLE

2,280 ACRES

ENGINEERING

2,280 ACRES FOR SALE DOUBLE EAGLE RANCH North Central Michigan TheDoubleEagleRanch.com Call Kyle: 248-444-6262

Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, Inc. seeks a Sr Manager, Powertrain E/E & Projects in Redford, MI to manage, supervise and build engineering teams. Job code: RMI573806. Mail resume: Attn: HR Dept, 309 N Pastoria Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94085. Must reference job title and job code.

Suzanne Janik: 313-446-0455 - sjanik@crain.com REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

Requests for Proposals are being accepted for: Employment Etiquette Services Responses Due: September 4, 2019

| WordPress Website Services

Responses Due: September 16, 2019

Work Readiness Training Services | Graphic Design Services Responses Due: September 20, 2019

Responses Due: September 16, 2019

Requests for Quotes are being accepted for: Computer Lab Space

Responses Due: September 6, 2019 DESC, a non-profit corporation, A Michigan Works! Agency, in cooperation with the Mayor’s Workforce Development Board (MWDB) serves as the fiscal and administrative entity that provides public workforce development programs and services for the city of Detroit to employers and job seekers. More information on these opportunities are available at the following website: https://www.descmiworks.com/opportunities/rfps-and-rfqs/ To request a full RFP package, please email DESC at procurement@detempsol.org. Qualified applicants must submit the following information via email: Company Name, Address, Office Phone Number, Contact person’s name, Title, and Valid Email Address. Email Subject Line should include: Employment Etiquette RFP Request or Graphic Design RFP Request or Work Readiness RFP Request or WordPress RFP Request or Computer Lab Space RFQ, as appropriate. Mayor’s Workforce Development Board Cynthia J. Pasky, Co-Chairperson David E. Meador, Co-Chairperson

Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation Board Calvin Sharp, Chairperson Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation Terri Weems, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer

An equal opportunity employer/program. Supported by the State of Michigan, Talent Investment Agency. Auxiliary aids and services available upon request to individuals with disabilities. 1-800-285-WORK. TTY: 711.

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CALENDAR THURSDAY, SEPT. 5

UPCOMING EVENTS

Army Futures Command: Forging the Future of Warfighting with Business Partners Big and Small. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Detroit Economic Club. Gen. John “Mike” Murray, commander of Army Futures Command, will discuss how the Army relies on collaborative partnerships with industry leaders based on modernization priorities regardless of business size. The Masonic. $45 members, $55 guests of members. Website: econclub.org

For the Health of America: A Vision for the Future of Health Care. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sept. 10. Detroit Economic Club. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association President and CEO Scott Serota shares insights on the challenges facing the health care system today — and the steps health insurers and their partners are taking to build a stronger health care system for the future. Ford Field. $45 members, $55 guests of members. Website: econclub.org

Connect with Suzanne Janik at sjanik@crain.com for all your recruiting needs. *The Media Audit

Visit our WEBSITE: www.crainsdetroit.com/classifieds for more classifieds advertisements, contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

MOTAWI FROM PAGE 3

From origins as a solo artist, Motawi is now head of an operation with $3.3 million in sales and 14 percent profitability this fiscal year — its highest yet for both categories. Sales rose 22 percent over the previous year and profitability rose 79 percent. This past year Tileworks sold 15,362 square feet of tile. Production is down from 2011, when the company sold 16,282 square feet. But a move to install more tile in-house and stop selling installation tiles wholesale to showrooms has “increased profitability significantly,” marketing coordinator Rebecca Jackson said in an email. Motawi Tileworks self-distributes to 344 locations in more than 14 states and Canada. Locally, it sells at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Greenfield Village in Dearborn and the Ann Arbor Art Center, among others, according to its website.

‘Ann Arbor history’ Motawi started her business in 1992, making tiles out of a garage, and first sold at a farmers’ market in Ann Arbor. Her brother Karim Motawi became involved in the garage days, but she bought him out around 2009. Nawal trained and worked in the late 1980s at Pewabic Pottery, the nonprofit Detroit ceramics studio and school that also produces art tiles. To the untrained eye, Motawi’s tiles may remind one of Pewabic’s. “But I’ll never be able to sell a piece of Detroit history,” she said. “I’m Ann Arbor history at this point.” Motawi considers herself a Pewabic “protégé,” but sees their tile styles as different, citing examples including Pewabic’s focus on relief tiles — most of which Tileworks has dropped — and how Tileworks creates multicol-

MOTAWI TILEWORKS

Motawi Tileworks kiln-fires its art tiles in Ann Arbor after pressing the clay into tile shape with a plaster mold.

ored pieces, whereas Pewabic doesn’t as often. Also, Motawi is manning a for-profit company. The popularity of the art form lies in the intersection of decoration and practicality. It is a durable, technical art form with origins in 9,000 BCE, around when ceramic products became prolific in Europe and the Middle East, according to the American Ceramic Society. Glazed pottery production started later, around 3,000 BCE, in Mesopotamia and its introduction as an art form came centuries later in Greece. Now, “traditional ceramics” are “ubiquitous,” according to the society. The global glass and ceramics industry hit $800 billion in 2018 and is expected to range up to nearly $1.1 trillion in 2023. As in all manufacturing, technology continues to evolve, with the introduction of 3-D printing for ceramics in recent years and use of nanotechnology to introduce less conventional materials to make, for example, transparent ceramics, the ACS said on its website. Tileworks, however, keeps things simpler. At its 13,000-square-foot studio west of downtown Ann Arbor, tile designs are first etched into wax by a machine to make master rubber molds. Those are used to produce plaster molds. Workers then machine-press clay into shape. They fire tiles in kilns and hand-glaze them before a last firing. The company makes art tiles for individual display, as well as simpler installation tiles as part of larger decorative murals or backdrops in homes or public buildings. “The art tiles take more time so we make a little less volume, but sell more dollars worth,” Motawi said. She employs three installation designers, and oversees individual tile design. Some of the designs are based on work licensed from Frank

SILVERDOME FROM PAGE 1

This summer, the Grow Detroit’s Young Talent program partnered with…

14 foundations and philanthropic partners | 67 employers | 548 worksites 20 Industry Led Training Providers | 83 youth and community partners …to provide summer work experiences for 8,281 Detroit youth. From everyone at GDYT

THANK YOU

for giving our city’s youth opportunities that will shape their future career paths and change their lives.

BE A PART OF GDYT IN 2020! Jobs for Detroit youth and funding support welcomed! Contact GDYT Executive Director Marie Hocker at mhocker@detempsol.org / (313) 788-7212.

The property owned by Toronto-based Triple Properties Inc. Seefried Industrial, whose president and CEO, Rob Rakusin, did not return an email last week seeking comment, has developed distribution centers for Amazon. com Inc. totaling at least 7 million square feet in Birmingham, Ala.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Salt Lake City, according to its website. It is also working on one totaling 855,000 square feet in Gaines Township in west Michigan, MiBiz.com reported last year. It also developed a large facility for the internet retail giant that opened this year in Romulus. The news follows a series of steps forward in plans to turn name-brand properties like the Silverdome, Palace of Auburn Hills, Summit Place Mall and Ford Motor Co. Wixom assembly plant site into new uses after being demolished. Earlier this year, the 110-acre Palace property, the former home of the Detroit Pistons, was sold to a joint venture (PAH Real Estate LLC) between Livonia-based Schostak Bros. & Co. and Pistons owner Tom Gores. The purchase price was $22 million; the joint venture took out a mortgage of more than $18 million to pay for the site, according to Oakland County records. As summer turns into fall, debris is all that remains of the Summit Place Mall on the Waterford Township/Pontiac border after months of demolition that began earlier this year. Arie Leibovitz, a Southfield-based

MOTAWI TILEWORKS

Ann Arbor-based Motawi Tileworks, which employs more than 40, hand-glazes its art tiles.

Lloyd Wright, Yoshiko Yamamoto and others. The Ann Arbor studio features a gallery open to the public and also sells through its website at motawi. com. Recent large projects include making donor tiles for a University of Michigan endowment fund and for a commemorative piece by Stickley Furniture Inc. Tileworks declined to release details on the contracts. Tileworks owns its clay supplier, Rovin Ceramics, which sells clay and pottery tools mostly to schools and other organizations. It acquired Rovin in 2011 because the company would have closed otherwise. At the manufacturing hub, Motawi employs 40 — “about as many as we can fit in the building,” she said. Asked about expansion, she said it’s something she sees for the future but it “means going into debt all over again.” “My eyes are open,” she said. “I’m sniffing around, as it were.” Annalise Frank: (313) 446-0416 Twitter: @annalise_frank developer who heads up Ari-El Enterprises Inc., is working on what is being branded as the Oakland County Business Center, which could be a series of buildings totaling hundreds of thousands of square feet. The Royal Oak office of brokerage firm JLL is marketing the property to potential users for the estimated $63 million project on the 74-acre site. To the southwest, the new owner of the former Ford Motor Co. plant site in Wixom, which is the target of a $150 million development across 182 acres with 1.66 million square feet of new warehouse space, received state incentives to move forward. The county’s inner-ring is seeing progress on large sites too, with demolition completed earlier this year on a 95-acre chunk of the former Hazel Park Raceway at 10 Mile and Dequindre roads. New York City-based Ashley Capital has built a 575,000-square-foot building on a 36-acre part of the property, and plans nearly 1.5 million square feet of space across two new buildings on the larger portion. The first building is expected to be ready for occupancy later this year. And in early August, the Southfield Sun reported the city entered into a pair of purchase agreements for more than 90 acres of the former Northland Center property: one with AF Jonna Development LLC for retail on about 10.4 acres, and another with an entity called Northland Renaissance Place Development LLC, registered to Adam Jahnke, an attorney in Bloomfield Hills. Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

COMPANIES FROM PAGE 3

“... The political reality is that the business sector is unpopular in many circles, and some of that unpopularity is due to things like the shenanigans in financial markets that contributed to the Great Recession and to the role of pharmaceutical companies in the opioid epidemic, etc.,” said Charles Ballard, an economist and professor at Michigan State University. “It makes sense for companies to try to frame things.” The shift comes amid growing concern over wealth inequality, the environment and political strife that includes strict regulation plans from Sanders and Warren to rejigger American capitalism. The Business Roundtable CEOs are suggesting a form of collective capitalism to possibly stave off these attacks on big business or even correct the ills of American society. But, ultimately, however well-intentioned and resolute the CEO group is changing for the good of civilization, can it be anything more than a symbolic gesture? A statement from the Business Roundtable doesn’t change corporate law — which states company boards and executives owe fiduciary duties to the corporation and its stockholders only. The old way of doing business is under assault for good reason. Michi-

gan has fallen victim to rapid union decline (from more than 1 million union members in 1989 to fewer than 625,000 today), wages that haven’t kept up with rising costs and most new jobs created have been low wage in recent years (61 percent of jobs in Michigan pay less than $20 per hour). Meanwhile, corporate profits after taxes have continued to rise to $1.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2019 from $277 million during the same quarter in 1989. Those profits now account for 8 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product versus 5 percent 30 years ago. This also led to a massive boon for the same CEOs who signed the Roundtable letter. Last year, public companies in the U.S. began disclosing the difference between their CEOs’ compensation and that of their median workers. Among the 25 highest paid CEOs in Southeast Michigan, including Barra and Hackett, the average ratio is 372-to-1, meaning for every dollar the average employee earns, the CEO earns $372. Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die. But who decides what “society” wants from its companies? How are these CEOs held accountable to their statement? Lobbyists and politicians move stock markets and company directions with aplomb often enough that it’s a pretty small leap to believe they’ll do the same here. How are these CEOs ensuring the common person, worker or consumer, has a voice in this at all?

On whether this is a symbolic move to appease pressure from the political left, University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers believes I’m a bit of a misanthrope. “This strikes me as a cynical view. It may be right, but there’s no doubt it’s cynical,” Wolfers wrote in an email. “Generally speaking, I prefer to give people credit for doing the right thing, and it seems that the BRT’s statement reflects a genuine concern among many stakeholders — CEOs, staff, customers and the broader public — about the role of the modern corporation. The idea that corporations benefit from the society within which they’re embedded is obvious, as is the observation that they can shape that society. The BRT recognizes the reality that many people see a sense of reciprocal obligation.” But David Sowerby, managing director and portfolio manager for Ancora Advisers LLC in Bloomfield Hills, believes CEOs designating what’s as important as shareholders is dangerous. “As a long-term investor, we’re always looking for companies where management behaves correctly, simply does the right thing,” Sowerby said. “Those companies aren’t just shareholder focused. They do the right thing for the community and exhibit good business practices. But that is about the duty to shareholders, not the CEO’s personal passion — whether that’s dogs or cats or the environment. This is a slippery slope.

DATA

“We analyze it for them,” said Vattikuti, pointing out that a lot of information also is available from social media sources. “We have the tools, the platforms. We’re providing them with insight (and) we’re able to do it from 30 percent to 40 percent faster.”

Second act

Harnessing data Altimetrik’s business isn’t just about the auto industry. The company also helps health care companies connect with patients and retailers cater to customers. “Clothing companies want to understand (which) colors and fabrics customers are looking for,” he said. “We’re (also) doing work for a lot of big payment companies, big banks.” Altimetrik’s tools enabled a global agribusiness leader to better track production, waste and efficiency and a large bank to develop a digital platform to launch new products faster, according to the company.

Dustin Walsh: (313) 446-6042 Twitter: @dustinpwalsh growth for Altimetrik. Another will be selling to businesses the software products Altimetrik develops. “We are packaging what we have,” Raj Vattikuti said. “Next year, we’ll have good growth in that.” The company hopes 25 percent of its revenue comes from selling software — a way to grow the business without adding headcount. “That’s where our nonlinear growth will come from,” he said. “That’s the future of the company.”

FROM PAGE 3

For Vattikuti, Altimetrik is the latest business venture in a technical career that started in 1985. That’s when Vattikuti, who came to the United States from India in 1974 as a computer engineering master’s student at Wayne State University, founded Complete Business Solutions. “It was mainly an information technology company,” Vattikuti said of the company that would be renamed Covansys in 2001. “The first 10 years, we took nothing but troubled projects.” Vattikuti sold the company, which had clients ranging from IBM to Toyota, in 2007 to California-based Computer Sciences Corp. for $1.3 billion. At that time, the company had grown to 8,000 employees. “I thought it was better served with a big company,” Vattikuti said.

What starts off sounding very good ends up becoming more governed with unintended consequences that disrupt shareholder concerns. The shareholder is not always some fat cat. It’s someone’s 401K or a public pension plan.” Sowerby’s point is that when society deems business practices unfair or improper, companies have to adapt. Otherwise consumers spend elsewhere and, thus, harm profit. A more cogent response to the ever-changing demands from business is to increase shareholder diversity. Only 50 percent of American households hold any stock at all, directly or through funds like 401Ks, pensions, etc. This CEO group could quite easily use their political clout to change tax laws to encourage more share ownership to average Americans. Or support mandatory 401K plans for all employees. This could alleviate some of the societal ills causing the backlash against big business by making more average Americans beneficiaries of the strong market. Stronger antitrust rules would also spur more competition and create more opportunity for the same average constituency. While we all want more “socially conscious” companies, hearing a CEO say, “I’m from the company, I’m here to help” should be met with skepticism.

Other ventures BRETT MOUNTAIN

Abhinav Vattikuti, Raj Vattikuti, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Jacques Nasser at the ribbon cutting for the Altimetrik Collider.

The power of harnessing consumer data is evident in the success of companies such as Amazon — which has shaken the foundation of brick-andmortar retail — and on-demand entertainment provider Netflix, Vattikuti said. “Netflix analyzes the data (about what customers watch) and produces new shows,” he said. For Altimetrik, building a data compilation business started slowly, Vattikuti said, because industry hadn’t yet embraced the change. “We initially struggled,” he recalled. “It started as a concept six years ago, and now we’re seeing the fruits of it. We’re very excited about it.” The company has grown to about 2,500 employees globally, with the bulk of its work in the United States, Vattikuti said. Other markets — Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Singapore and India — account for about 8 percent to 10 percent of Altimetrik’s business. Vattikuti forecasts $125 million in revenue for Altimetrik this year, with 40 percent to 50 percent growth annually. “We have a chance to get to $300 million to $400 million,” Vattikuti said. “We’ve got solid leadership to manage this.” Part of the leadership team is Abhi-

nav Vattikuti — Vattikuti’s son — who left the nonprofit world about 1½ years ago to join the company. Recently returning to Detroit from New York, he’s managing the Altimetrik Collider. “The collider space — the one we opened in Detroit — is the first of additional (locations) we’re looking to open,” Abhinav Vattikuti said, adding that Altimetrik chose the city because of its growing tech culture. “Detroit was the most attractive to us — seeing what’s going on. My role as manager is the national rollout. We want to be touching all the areas where we have clients.” That includes California’s Bay Area and the New York/New Jersey market, he said. “Many of our clients work in technologies that weren’t around three to four years ago,” Abhinav Vattikuti said. “We think we can be very helpful … for companies scaling up.” The collider helped one client prioritize a list of goals, while another customer needed assistance developing a presentation to bring in investors, he said. “Capabilities-building is what we’re doing,” he said. “Our work is not really a product. It’s crafting a solution.” The collider is one path to future

After the 2007 sale of Covansys, Vattikuti, then 56, looked for other ways to spend his time productively, including helping the region that gave him his start. “I did not want to retire,” Vattikuti said. “I wanted to focus on more entrepreneurial (and) I wanted to do something for the Michigan community.” That came in the form of operating the Vattikuti Foundation, which he and wife, Padma, set up in 1997 to make donations to nonprofit groups for charitable, educational, literary and scientific work. In 2001, the foundation gave a combined $40 million to William Beaumont Hospitals in Royal Oak for cancer research and to Henry Ford Health System in Detroit for prostate cancer research. “We were the first one to do prostate surgery using robots,” Vattikuti said, adding that the technique has been expanded to Europe and India. Vattikuti’s philanthropy led him to invest in a health care company he later sold to medical products supplier Stryker. Also a real estate investor, Vattikuti said his current venture likely will be his last. But at 68, he’s not looking to call it quits anytime soon. “It’s more fun than anything else,” Vattikuti said. “I have some good leaders coming in and if they do more and more, I can do more at the high level. For me, there is no such thing as retirement. When you retire, you die.”

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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 // S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 9

THE WEEK ON THE WEB

RUMBLINGS

Cobo is now TCF Center

Founders’ sale a sign of tough times brewing

AUGUST 23-29 | For more, visit crainsdetroit.com

etroit’s riverfront convention center was officially renamed TCF Center on Tuesday, the result of a yearslong movement to disassociate the facility with the racially charged real estate development policies of a 1950s mayor and the first sale of its naming rights. TCF Bank, which recently merged with Chemical Bank to form Michigan’s largest bank by deposits, bought the 22-year naming rights to Cobo Center for $33 million from the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority. “Today a name from the past comes down from these walls, and we proudly replace it with a name that stands for community and inclusion and a powerful future for everyone who is associated with it,” TCF Bank Executive Chairman Gary Torgow said at a news conference at the convention center announcing the name change. The renaming of Detroit’s 59-yearold convention center marks the end of former Mayor Albert Cobo’s name on the convention hall he worked to develop in the late 1950s. Cobo’s legacy as mayor is marked by racially charged housing policies and the demolition of African American neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal. Those housing policies of the 1950s are blamed, in part, for the racial tensions that spilled over in Detroit’s disastrous 1967 riots. “Today’s been a long time coming but is a good day in the city of Detroit,” Mayor Mike Duggan said. “The pain caused in that time still reverberates in this city today. So I thought it was essential that there be a name change.” “From now on this center will bear the name of an institution committed to rebuilding this city in a way that includes everybody,” Duggan added. TCF Bank’s purchase of the naming rights of the convention center marks the newly merged bank’s first major step toward creating a large presence in Detroit, including construction of a planned 22-story headquarters on Woodward Avenue. TCF Bank is the title sponsor of the Detroit Free Press’ annual Detroit-Windsor marathon in October, a race that Chemical Bank and its predecessor, Talmer Bank & Trust, have sponsored since 2011. And the bank is carrying out a $5 million investment in Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood that Torgow initiated last year under the Chemical Bank brand. “I want to make sure everyone understands ... this is not a stadium-naming deal,” TCF Bank CEO Craig Dahl told Crain’s. “There’s tons of stadiums being built and they’re all getting sponsors. This is really a transformational community change and it’s supported by our bank. And that’s a wonderful differentiation from the strictly dollars-and-cents of the branding that goes on in a lot of them.”

BUSINESS NEWS J Priority Health and Total Health Care plan to merge in a deal making Detroit-based Total Health a wholly owned subsidiary of Grand Rap-

CHAD LIVENGOOD/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The new TCF Center sign was unveiled last week as Cobo Center was renamed after 59 years of carrying the name of former Detroit Mayor Albert Cobo.

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

$800,000

Cost of the upcoming construction project to make Detroit’s Spirit Plaza permanent

$9.2M

Series A funding secured by Houghton-based tech startup Orbion Space Technology

Total acreage of five Art Van properties being sold in Southeast Michigan

ids-based Priority, company officials said. The proposed deal must gain state approval to become final, potentially later this year. It would create a $4.4 billion company, which would be the second largest after the Michigan Blues. J STORE Capital Corp. is selling five of its Art Van Furniture LLC-leased buildings, including three in Southeast Michigan, to fund more development for the Warren-based furniture and mattress seller. The firm is seeking $56.55 million for the properties, which sit on approximately 26 acres. J Comcast Corp. is completing $1 million worth of expansion and renovation at its Midtown Detroit store and business office. The Philadelphia-based telecommunications giant remodeled and modernized its 1,800-square-foot Xfinity store off Woodward, which now sells cell phones for the first time since it opened in 2015. J Las Vegas Stone & Flooring Inc. is projecting to double business this year after moving into material supply and opening a 6,000-square-foot showroom in Detroit that brings the flair of Sin City to the Motor City. The showroom at 11343 Schaefer Highway on Detroit’s west side marks the company’s dive into retail/wholesale. J Lawrence Technological University in Southfield will kick off its first full football season in its newly ex-

panded outdoor athletic stadium next week. Lawrence Tech relaunched its football program last year after a 70-year hiatus, competing as an independent team. J Detroit will begin making downtown Spirit Plaza permanent this week. An $800,000 construction project at the public park will begin Sept. 4, according to a news release from the city. Work is expected to be complete in early October. J A company in Houghton that developed a new plasma thruster to propel satellites into space has raised $9.2 million in an early round of venture capital financing. Boston-based venture capital fund Material Impact led the Series A funding round for Orbion Space Technology. J Nolan Finley’s stint at 910AM Superstation ended abruptly last Tuesday. Finley is being replaced by Coco, formerly a host at Detroit hip hop station WJLB. The Nolan Finley show was on air 7-9 a.m. Monday-Friday for two years. J Businesses owners in the southwest part of Detroit are looking forward to the completion of the city’s latest $5.4 million streetscape construction project — for more than one reason. A resurfacing of Bagley Street between 24th Street and the West Fisher Service Drive began two weeks ago, closing off two blocks of a main Mexicantown commercial strip to vehicle traffic. At the same time, there are disruptions on the business-dense Vernor Street as crews update lighting on a stretch of road that leads up to Michigan Central Station.

RESTAURANT NEWS J The owner of Rojo Mexican Bistro in downtown Birmingham is proposing three new restaurants up the road in the former space of Mitchell’s Fish Market Seafood Restaurant and Bar. The new establishment would be called Shift, Sidecar and Slice — “three distinct restaurants” composed of an American eatery, rustic pub and traditional pizza parlor. J Restaurant group Union Joints is reigniting its plan to remake an old bus garage in Birmingham’s Rail District. Lincoln Yard is another new-American restaurant concept from the Clarkston-based group known for opening eateries in unique locations such as a car repair shop and church.

ast week, Grand Rapids’ Founders Brewing sold a majority stake of the company to Madrid-based Mahou-San Miguel Group. The deal took Spain’s largest brewer from the 30 percent stake in Founders to a reported 90 percent stake, buying out a horde of smaller shareholders that have bootstrapped the craft brewer since its founding in 1997. The transaction is likely to be a boon for those investors in an industry that is facing a major slowdown after a decade of unparalleled growth. As noted in last week’s issue of Crain’s, the brewing industry is becoming more difficult, economically, and selling a majority stake now may have been the best option for Founders’ minority shareholders. The industry is young enough where transitioning ownership from one generation to the next hasn’t largely happened, therefore there’s no concept of how successful that will be. A

transaction allows investors and owners to sidestep that risk as the industry becomes more challenging. As Crain’s reported last week, 15 breweries have closed in Michigan since Aug. 20, 2018, as beer sales have slowed nationally. The industry is facing a market saturation rate and overall malaise toward new beers as retail shelf space is overrun with craft brews. Brewers are faced with the option to either scale back and try to dominate the local market from its taproom and regional distribution, or expand nationally and beyond. Detroit’s Atwater recently abandoned plans to expand into North Carolina and Texas and expand distribution across the Continental U.S. from just 15 states today. The cash infusion, the details of which were not disclosed, allows Founders to take the opposite path, to continue its expansion and chase more profits across the U.S. and beyond.

DETROIT RISING DEVELOPMENT

A $6 million companion development to Detroit Shipping Co., a food hall and event space in the Cass Corridor, is planned with retail and office space.

Detroit shipping container complex, part 2, coming soon A nother amalgamation of shipping containers is set to rise in the south part of Detroit’s Midtown. The developer that rehabbed 21 of them to make a food hall plans to add around 50 more to the mix in a $6 million companion project. Detroit Rising Development announced Thursday its designs for a three-story building with office, “micro-retail” and possibly a brewery next door to Detroit Shipping Co., the restaurant hub and event space that opened in June 2018. The planned 21,000-square-foot structure at 444 Peterboro St. near Cass Avenue is nearly twice as big as the original. It’s owned separately from Detroit Shipping Co., but with some common partners, founding partner Jon Hartzell said. Pending City Council approval of an approximately $360,000 land sale, Hartzell said he expects to start the 10-month construction process in November. “Ultimately, we need more office, walkability, day crowd in the area,” Hartzell said. “We looked at the land and did probably five to six iterations

and mixes. Residential, residential-retail, more outdoor, and the answer for us, the best use at this time, was office and retail.” The so-called 444 Building would offer space for around 16 small retailers, a cafe and two anchor tenants on its ground floor. The third floor is reserved for a larger, 6,800-square-foot tenant, while the second floor is planned with 17 private office spaces and shared common areas. The two-story, $3.1 million food hall in what’s also called Cass Corridor is split into two main sections. The indoor space houses its restaurants and the other is geared toward live events and private parties. These market-style establishments with various food stalls to choose from and shared common spaces have garnered more publicity in recent years. But Detroit’s other recently opened food hall, Fort Street Galley, has seen some stumbles. It lost two out of four of its restaurant tenants in less than seven months, and replaced them with concepts from alumni of Galley Group, the food hall’s Pittsburgh-based operator.

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