TWENTY IN THEIR 20S INSIDE: MEET THE EXTRAORDINARY YOUNG PEOPLE WHO MAKE UP THE CLASS OF 2020. PAGES 10-17
THE CONVERSATION
Doing more than their share: How Michigan banks punched above their weight on PPP small-business help. PAGE 3
State medical society president: ‘Coronavirus is where my mind is right now.’ PAGE 22
CRAINSDETROIT.COM I MAY 4, 2020
COPING WITH COVID-19
Advocates push for data as crisis hits nursing homes Not all nursing homes have reported COVID-19 data as state tries to assess impact BY ANNALISE FRANK
Shirley Bacholnik didn’t have much to do besides lay in her nursing home room and think about how she may die without seeing her family again. “It just spread and there’s nothing
Tales from the (child care) front: Juggling in the Age of COVID
anybody could do,” the 69-year-old resident of ShorePointe Health & Rehabilitation Center in St. Clair Shores said. “We had no choice but to sit here and take it.” Bacholnik watched as the coronavirus spread through the nursing home on Jefferson Avenue near the
lakeshore, eventually making her one of the more than 50,000 confirmed U.S. COVID-19 cases in longterm care facilities. The pandemic has taken an outsize toll on the vulnerable population of live-in facilities for the elderly like nursing homes. The state of Michigan
Need to know ` State of Michigan releases data on COVID-19 cases in nursing homes ` Data lacks context needed describe how hard-hit these facilities are ` Detroit tests all nursing home residents
Business of child care suffers crisis of its own BY DUSTIN WALSH
The worn-down corners of toy cars and cherry-scented markers are hardly touched, but cleaned twice as often. The doors are locked and everyone is dressed to play cops and robbers, but with no cops because everyone is wearing a mask. At Learning Tree Child Care Center in South Lyon, nothing is as it was before COVID-19. Learning Tree’s five locations across metro Detroit see a total of 25 kids daily, down from near 700 before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “Stay Home” order on March 24 closed day cares to nonessential-employed parents — they are allowed to remain open to serve essential workers and first responders. Children are met at the door, getting a health questionnaire and temperature check before entering the building. While most day cares around the country — roughly 60 percent — are closed, according to an April 10 survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center and Morning Consult, Learning Tree and others remain open. Learning Tree Child Care Center in South Lyon has remained open but with far fewer children . | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
VOL. 36, NO. 18 l COPYRIGHT 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
NEWSPAPER
See NURSING HOMES on Page 18
For day cares — and parents — a waiting game
Our days begin with a negotiation. Before our 2-year-old son wakes up, we pour some coffee, open our laptops and try to figure out whose job is more imAmy portant that day. ELLIOTT We consider BRAGG whose 10 a.m. call needs real attention, and who can half-listen to a conversation while manning the Roku remote and trying to translate our son’s demanding yelps into precisely which “5 Little Monkeys” video on YouTube he wants to watch. Whose deadlines will gnaw harder in the middle of the night if not met? Which of us owes the other a little extra time this week? We split up the day into roughly two-hour blocks, but sound carries in our small house. Every day, my husband’s co-workers overhear me say things like, “It’s time for mom to go pee on the potty, do you want to come too?” See BRAGG on Page 20
on April 24 began reporting resident testing figures for nursing homes. Advocates have complained of a lack of adequate data as the coronavirus crisis hits nursing homes especially hard.
See DAY CARE on Page 20
FARMERS TO FAMILIES Food Box Program sets out to create distribution program from scratch in weeks, aims to enlist food-service giants in ambitious plan to feed hungry. PAGE 3
NEED TO KNOW
OUTDOOR MATTERS
THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT ` CONSTRUCTION SET TO RESUME THURSDAY THE NEWS: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to reopen Michigan’s construction industry May 7 after a six-week shutdown caused by the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The governor signed an executive order Friday loosening her stay-at-home order for the industry. WHY IT MATTERS: Commercial and residential construction in Michigan came to a standstill March 24 when Whitmer deemed that part of the sector nonessential during the coronavirus pandemic. Road building and construction of critical infrastructure such as health care facilities have been allowed to continue during the shutdown.
` STATE OF EMERGENCY EXTENDED TO MAY 28 THE NEWS: Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday extended Michigan’s state of emergency for 28 days to May 28, an hour after the Senate passed a resolution authorizing Republican legislative leaders to take the governor to court over her executive authority and actions taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Late Thursday, Whitmer also signed another executive order extending the closure of public accommodation businesses such as bars, movie
theaters, fitness centers, libraries and museums through May 28. Like her original March 16 closure order, dine-in service at restaurants is prohibited, but carryout and drivethrough service is allowed.
WHY IT MATTERS: The moves come amid rancor in Lansing that included armed protesters contesting the governor’s stay-home order gathering inside the Capitol building.
` ONE-QUARTER OF STATE LABOR FORCE UNEMPLOYED THE NEWS: Jobless claims in Michigan last week fell to the lowest level since the employment purge began amid the COVID-19 outbreak. But the 80,465 unemployment claims filed for the week ending April 25 were still higher than previous recessions’ record totals. Despite weeks of unemployment system troubles, the state has paid out $2.73 billion in benefits to more than 1 million people, Jeff Donofrio, director of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, told Crain’s.
WHY IT MATTERS: Since March 15, more than 1.26 million in Michigan have filed for unemployment. That’s more than a quarter of the total labor force in Michigan.
` S&P CUTS DETROIT’S CREDIT OUTLOOK THE NEWS: S&P Global Ratings revised its outlook on Detroit’s credit rating down a notch amid the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The credit rating is an indicator of the city’s financial footing. S&P changed the outlook on its BB- issuer credit rating on Detroit from “stable” to “negative,” though it kept the BB- rating it gave last February, a tick up toward investment grade for municipal bonds. WHY IT MATTERS: With $348 million in expected revenue shortfall over the next year and a half, Detroit — like other cities — is facing financial pressure due to the health crisis and the economic contraction it’s created.
` UNITED WAY ROARS PAST $10M COVID-19 GOAL THE NEWS: United Way for Southeastern Michigan has surpassed its $10 million goal for the COVID-19 emergency response fund it launched in mid-March, raising $11 million to support the region’s most vulnerable populations and the nonprofits
Memorial Day camping out at state parks ` Memorial Day camping traditions at Michigan state parks have been officially canceled this year. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources plans to reopen rustic state forest campgrounds June 10, followed by state park campgrounds and marinas on June 22. With Gov. Gretchen Whitmer keeping a stay-at-home order in place through May 15, the springtime work that goes into reopening campground facilities along with planned capital improvements is being pushed to late May and early June, said Ron Olson, chief of the DNR’s parks and recreation division. “We don’t want to delay it,” Olson said Thursday. “We want to get back in business with folks to enjoy it, but it has to be measured.” The June 10 and June 22 reopening dates are tentative and DNR’s campground restart plan “hinges” on how long the governor restricts travel to mitigate spread of COVID-19, Olson said.
The Harrisville State Park campground in Alcona County won’t reopen until June 22. | MICHIGAN.ORG
serving them. But it’s not stopping there, given the ongoing and growing need, United Way said in a news release. WHY IT MATTERS: The COVID-19 Com-
munity Response Fund moves dollars to organizations working directly to help individuals and families access food, shelter, health care and other critical resources, including personal protective equipment.
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REAL ESTATE
NONPROFITS
May rent concerns hit landlords, tenants Property owners brace for what’s next BY KIRK PINHO
The Rose family has seen its share of national and global turmoil and tragedy during its nearly century in the residential real estate business: a world war, the Great Depression, 9/11. But Warren Rose, the third generation to helm what is now the seventh-largest apartment company in the country, Edward Rose & Sons, likely has never seen anything so quickly and thoroughly upend the multifamily real estate industry as the COVID-19 pandemic. With May rent payment concerns barreling down on landlords and their tenants, Rose, the CEO of the Bloomfield Hills-based firm his grandfather started in 1921, says property owners are on their heels, bracing for what this month and those that follow bring. “The industry is a little more concerned about what is going to happen in May because we have a whole month of shutdown,” Rose, whose company employs about 2,600, said in an interview last week. The first coronavirus cases in Michigan were announced March 10, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began shutting the state down in a series of executive orders starting within a week. Edward Rose & Sons quietly owns and operates more than 66,000 residential units, placing it behind only Germantown, Tenn.-based MAA (100,031 units owned); Chicago-based Equity Residential (80,624 units); Arlington, Va.-based AvalonBay Communities Inc. (79,866 units); Miami-based Starwood Capital Group (75,409 units); King of Prussia, Pa.based Morgan Properties (70,052 units) and New York City-based Related Cos. (69,369 units), according to the most recent rankings of ownership portfolios by the National Multifamily Housing Council, an industry trade group based in Washington, D.C. No other Michigan company is on the largest ownership list. See RENT on Page 19
Gleaners Community Food Bank has increased distribution to the pantries, shelters and soup kitchens it serves year-round to help them meet rising demand. | GLEANERS
Farmers to families
Food Box Program sets ambitious goal to begin deliveries in mid-May BY SHERRI WELCH
The Farmers to Families Food Box Program builds on state-funded food support. | GLEANERS
A new emergency food assistance program announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in mid-April is expected to begin deliveries of dairy, meat and produce purchased from the country’s farmers by mid-May — just a month after it was announced. That’s the date stated in the request for proposals issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for private distributors vying to help deliver the perishable food. The timeline is aggressive, but it matches the need. Demand for emergency food assistance has skyrocketed since the pandemic began with the closures of schools, senior centers and businesses and the voluminous unemployment fil-
More inside COVID-19 Heroes: Pope Francis Center erects tents for short-term heat and shelter, provides food, medical care. Page 7
ings that have followed. The program also promises to bring new business for distributors that have been stung by the closure of restaurants. The USDA is working as quickly as possible to start the program, known formally as the Coronavirus Farm Assistance Program, a USDA spokesman said in an emailed statement. “The purchase and distribution of produce, dairy and meat products will be able to begin in approximately 2 weeks.” But it’s an ambitious goal “to stand
up a federal food assistance program and have food delivered to the communities in need within a month,” said Phil Knight, executive director of the Food Bank Council of Michigan. “We’re going to do everything on our end to make it work because people need the food.” The $19 billion Coronavirus Farm Assistance Program or Farmers to Families Food Box Program is tapping distributors that have lost business as a result of COVID-19 amid school, restaurant, hotel and other closures and food supply chain interruptions to purchase $3 billion in fresh produce, dairy and meat get the perishables meat and get it to foodbanks and other 501(c)3 nonprofits that serve the hungry. See FOOD on Page 19
FINANCE
Michigan community banks punched above their weight in PPP BY NICK MANES
Small and midsize banks in Michigan have played an outsized role in lending to struggling small businesses during the coronavirus crisis. Michigan-based banks contributed $4.6 billion toward potentially forgivable loans in the federal Paycheck Protection Program for ailing small businesses in the first two weeks of April, according to a data analysis by the East Lansing-based Community Bankers of Michigan trade association. Between April 3 and April 15, the initial two weeks of the $349 billion program aimed at blunting econom-
Many small businesses have been forced to close by the measures being taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic. | NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
ic pain from the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan companies received 43,438 loans totaling almost $10.4 billion, according to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Of that, banks headquartered in Michigan allocated between $4.6 billion and $4.7 billion in PPP loans, according to the Community Bankers data. The top-line SBA number takes into account all banks, credit unions, financial technology companies that could lend, and other types of lenders. The figures, which the trade group says include all but two Michigan-based banks, account for 45 percent of the dollars loaned in the state. Meanwhile, Michigan-based banks,
which includes community banks and some larger banks with regional footprints such as Detroit-based TCF Financial Corp. and Troy-based Flagstar Bancorp. Inc., accounted for 49 percent of the total number of loans granted to Michigan companies. The average loan size for all loans in Michigan was $239,000 and the average for Michigan banks was $218,000. At the end of 2019, banks operating in Michigan held assets of about $181 billion, according to figures from the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. See BANKS on Page 21 MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 3
REAL ESTATE INSIDER
The 110-room Courtyard Detroit Pontiac/Auburn Hills is just one of the region’s hotels that closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has cratered the hospitality industry nationwide. | COSTAR GROUP INC.
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We may have hit the bottom of the hotel market, but how long that lasts is anyone’s guess. Data released recently by STR, a hotel-industry Kirk analysis firm with PINHO its North American headquarters in Tennessee, suggests a mild improvement in hotel occupancy, rates and revenue. For two straight weeks, March 29-April 4 and April 5-11, occupancy remained virtually unchanged at 22.4 and 22.3 percent, respectively. Then, April 12-28, it crept up to 25.5 percent. Good news, right? Not so fast, says Stacey Nadolny, managing director and senior partner in the Chicago office of HVS, a Westbury, N.Y.-based hospitality research company. “We are seeing a slight increase in occupancy, not because more people are traveling, but because hotels are closing, which decreases the supply denominator against the number of total occupied rooms,� she said. “With the expectation that the stayat-home order will be extended beyond May 1, this will continue to affect area hotels.� Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has extended the stay-home order to May 15. Data provided by STR shows that there were 309,624 available room nights (44,232 rooms total) the week of April 12-18, unchanged from the prior April 5-11; however, that’s down slightly from the 314,160 room nights before the pandemic (44,880 rooms). There was an uptick in rooms rented, going from 69,105 April 5-11 to 78,890 April 12-18. Nadolny also said that Detroit and the Metro Detroit region’s status as one of the COVID-19 pandemic’s hardest-hit areas in the country will likely make the hotel market depths more protracted.
“Travelers will be more hesitant to visit COVID-19 hot spots around the country,� she said. “This is going to extend the hotel recovery for major urban markets, as well as markets that depend on conventions and meetings and group business.� Nationally, occupancy and daily rates were up from April 5-11 but Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights, cautioned against becoming optimistic of that being indicative of a recovery on the horizon. “Rather, more demand can be attributed to frontline workers,� Freitag said. “A perfect example, the most noticeable occupancy level (33.3 percent) came in the New York City market, which has welcomed an influx of workers from the medical community.�
“WE ARE SEEING A SLIGHT INCREASE IN OCCUPANCY, NOT BECAUSE MORE PEOPLE ARE TRAVELING, BUT BECAUSE HOTELS ARE CLOSING, WHICH DECREASES THE SUPPLY DENOMINATOR AGAINST THE NUMBER OF TOTAL OCCUPIED ROOMS.� — Stacey Nadolny, managing director and senior partner, Chicago office of HVS
In the metro Detroit market, there were slight bumps in daily rates (up to $65.30 from $64.93 the week prior) and revenue per available room (up to $16.64 from $14.49 the week prior). STR says the region’s hotel market pulled in $5.15 million April 12-18, up from $4.49 million the week prior. That’s down more than 71 percent, compared to about $18.2 million a year ago. The April 12-18 figures are still
worlds away from pre-pandemic levels. The week of March 1-7, the market was 62.2 percent occupied with average daily rates at $99.18 and RevPAR at $61.72. The first two cases of coronavirus were announced March 10 and the hotel industry has been battered weekly ever since. The American Hotel & Lodging Association said last week that the hotel industry costs $194.9 billion per year to operate and that only 47 percent, or $91.8 billion, is covered under the Payment Protection Program through the federal CARES Act. The association is asking for an expansion of the program. Businesses and nonprofits up to 500 employees can apply for the loans, which are for things like payroll, rent and utilities. No less than 75 percent of the potentially forgivable loan — which can be up to $10 million — must go toward payroll, the association says. Payroll ($70 billion) accounts for just 36 percent of the national operating costs, according to the association, which also says that the industry is expected to not fully recover to 2019 revenue levels until 2022.
RHP purchases Oakland Township property Farmington Hills-based RHP Properties has purchased the Woodlands Estates manufactured housing community in Oakland Township, the company said in a Monday press release. The property has 375 home sites and brings RHP’s manufactured housing portfolio to 260 properties with over 65,000 home sites across the country. It’s RHP’s 18th property in Michigan. The purchase price was not disclosed. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
CARING FOR KIDS SPONSORED CONTENT
Advocating for the health and wellness of children and families Host Larry Burns, President and CEO The Children’s Foundation
Advocating for the health & wellness of children and families
About this report: On this monthly radio program, The Children’s Foundation President and CEO Larry Burns talks to community, government and business leaders about issues related to children’s health and wellness. The hour-long show typically airs at 7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month on WJR 760AM. Here’s a summary of the show that aired April 28th; listen to the entire episode, and archived episodes, at yourchildrensfoundation.org/caring-for-kids.
Dr. Robert Davies, President, Central Michigan University
Larry Burns: What’s the current situation at Central Michigan University as it relates to the COVID-19 crisis? Robert Davies: Our main goal is to keep CMU open and operational. I am extremely proud of the way that our faculty moved to remote learning—literally within two days. This was possible because last year we had the polar vortex and after having to cancel class for many days, the faculty approached us with the goal to have a system in place that allows us to quickly move to remote learning. We are doing everything we can to flatten the curve and keep our community healthy. We make decisions based on fact and data and focus on living up to our leadership standards that put students first. Burns: What are you doing to stay connected to students and one another? Davies: We have empowered and engaged technology in new and aggressive ways. We’re doing a lot of meetings through WebEx. Our students are extremely adaptable to social media. I do have the honor and privilege of not only being president of the university, but also a parent of one of our students. She is now at home but continuing to engage with her fellow classmates in creative ways. For example, a Netflix group allows them to watch movies together even though they are scattered throughout the country. Our faculty is doing the same thing.
I just received a video from one of our dance professors who is teaching dance to a group of ten students remotely. We’re now looking at future decisions and the use of technology as a strategic differentiator for our university. Burns: Do you have any sense of how this is impacting your athletic department? Davies: The focus of Associate Vice President and Director of Athletics Michael Alford and the coaches is entirely on the student athlete. Right now they’re making sure that students are maintaining academic progress as well as continuing to train individually for their sports. I’m on a conference call with the Mid-American Conference presidents on about a weekly basis. We’re building contingency plans for all sorts of different makeups. Athletics is an important part of the American culture but we are also very attuned to the fact that we need to do this safely. We will follow the guidelines of the MAC and the NCAA. Burns: What are you most excited about in regards to CMU and Southeastern Michigan? Davies: The growth and the commitment that CMU has in Detroit is long-standing. I’m looking forward to expanding in Detroit and working with K-12 organizations, nonprofits and business entities. We have the 777 Woodward location as the hub for activities to engage potential students and to be the home for students when they return to Detroit for internships and for our alumni. We are developing partnerships with Detroit Police Athletic League (Detroit PAL) program and other nonprofit organizations to support efforts in Detroit. I look forward to being a leader in that area.
Mark Hilinski, Co-Founder, Hilinski’s Hope
Larry Burns: Tell us about your foundation and some of the things you’re most proud of. Mark Hilinski: Hilinski’s Hope was founded a couple of weeks after my son Tyler committed suicide to shine a light on and reduce the stigma of mental illness by talking about it. The reason we put it together so quickly was that we had a need to focus our energies on something that would help other people. Our focus is on student athletes, not to exclude anybody, it’s just to focus where we think we have more impact. To date we’ve visited over 40 schools in the country—colleges, universities and high schools—to bring our story to them. Burns: What are some of the things that you’re doing? Hilinski: There are a few programs that we bring to schools. We work with Step UP!, which is an NCAAapproved bystander awareness program. If someone is struggling but can’t ask for help, we try to train their teammates and classmates on how to spot and address some of the issues they may see. Another program is Behind Happy Faces. Mental health advocate Ross Szabo devised the Behind Happy Faces curriculum to teach us to deal with our own mental health issues. He uses it to impart effective coping skills and help us recognize the difference between being anxious and being clinically diagnosed with an anxiety disorder—that’s an
important facet. We also tell Tyler’s story as an opening to bring awareness to suicide and mental health. Burns: With COVID-19 isolation some may be suffering from mental issues. What can we do in this odd time we find ourselves in? Hilinski: Kids depend on scheduling and without that structure they are left with a lot of time on their hands. This downtime with COVID-19 really does force families together and gives parents an opportunity to dig a little deeper to see how your kids are handling the crisis that we’re in. Not just in their general daily lives, but to parlay those conversations into deeper mental health questions and offer help to your family members. I think that’s an opportunity that we have during the COVID-19 crisis. Hilinski’s Hope also developed a podcast hosted by Dr. Josie Nicholson, a sports psychologist at the University of Mississippi. Each episode addresses different issues as professional licensed mental health practitioners see them and provides some guidance. It’s not a lecture series, it’s not anything but a conversation about student athletes and how to address their mental health. Larry Burns: Any advice for a parent or grandparent facing things that they’re just not sure how to deal with? Hilinski: The advice that we give constantly is trust your gut. Don’t be afraid to talk, don’t think you can cause somebody to have a mental illness by asking how they’re doing. Don’t wait, don’t think it’s going to get better on its own. It could be very innocuous and simply a phase people are going through, but talk, ask the questions. Be specific. And don’t let go.
Luanne Thomas Ewald, Chief Operating Officer, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital
Larry Burns: How is the environment in Ann Arbor with the COVID-19 crisis? Luanne Thomas Ewald: It is an amazing group of people and I’m in awe of the things that they do every single day. As we entered this crisis, we started screening visitors. The security team is really on the front line as families and visitors come into the hospital—we know in these times that that’s very difficult. Most children’s hospitals have a family-centered care environment. We’ve had to go down to one parent at the bedside. It’s been difficult. Our social workers, our security teams and our environmental service workers have come together to focus on the kids. We see those stories in the media; I’m lucky I get to see them firsthand every day. Burns: What have you done as it relates to adults you’re taking care of? Thomas Ewald: Everyone is jumping in to help. It’s just been wonderful to see the physicians and the nurses on the pediatric side really step up to help their adult counterparts when they can. What we’re doing now is working with the Michigan Hospital Association and the state of Michigan and others to really see if we need to also create more capacity within the state. We have been working over the past couple of weeks to do the analysis, to look at plans to make sure that people in our state are taken care of when they need to be taken care of.
Burns: Mott and The Children’s Foundation purchased 200 blood pressure monitor devices for expecting moms. How is that working out? Thomas Ewald: This crisis has forced us to look at processes that could be done from home—having women monitor their blood pressure from home is one of those things. Our team is continuing to distribute blood pressure monitors to our pregnant moms. We’re trying to make sure that everyone is safe and not having to expose themselves to coronavirus in a hospital setting. Burns: What are some things you’re looking forward to getting involved in at Mott? Thomas Ewald: Forging relationships is a top priority. We need to make sure kids throughout the state are being taken care of by the wonderful Michigan protocols—Mott protocols. Last year Michigan Medicine signed a partnership agreement with Sparrow Medical Group. We want to continue relationship building with existing partners like Allegiance, Jackson and Bronson. Those are some key partners for us. Secondly, we are figuring how we are going to help make an impact on adolescent and pediatric mental health in this state. Those are the two big areas. We know that something big and bold needs to happen in that space. If we’ve learned anything through this crisis—the impact of eHealth, telemedicine and telepsychiatric care—is that those components can help us provide the care that our kids and adolescents need in the state of Michigan. I think that’s our responsibility. We have to find some answers.
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How a Troy company with roots more than a century old is helping patients Elba Labs’ products target ventilator-associated pneumonia BY NICK MANES
Elba Laboratories Inc. typically works in the development and manufacturing of products in a wide of range of industries, such as health and beauty, skincare and athletics. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has raged, that’s all gone out the window. Instead, the Troy-based company is ramping up development and manufacturing of its oral care products, which it has been making for over a decade, that are designed to be used on intubated patients in need of a ventilator to breathe. The Centers for Disease Control over the years has increased its standards for patients on ventilators because of the likelihood they will catch ventilat o r- a s s o c i a t e d pneumonia, which can occur if germs enter the tube helping the patient breathe and then get into the lungs. Froehlich Now, given the rise of COVID-19 and the strong need for ventilators for patients with severe cases of the respiratory disease, Elba Labs executives say they’ve felt the need to double down on that part of the business while moving everything else to a back burner. Company executives told Crain’s that with a recent update from hospital respiratory care vendors Elba Labs supplies, the demand for the oral care products has risen 350 percent in recent months. The company, deemed critical by the state, said it’s also hired college students to work in its facility to help meet the demand. “The product that we’re making saves lives,” said Michael Froehlich, Elba Labs’ owner and CEO. “It’s very, very important.” The need for ventilators to assist COVID-19 patients with their breathing has been stressed by health officials and top elected leaders. General Motors, for instance, has been awarded a $489.4 million federal contract to manufacture 30,000 ventilators by the end of August. Through a contract with Seattle-based Ventec Life Systems, GM said it would ship 600 ventilators in April. The governors of New York and California in April sent Michigan a combined 150 ventilators. Despite officials stressing the need for the breathing machines, state data from late last week showed that Michigan had a total of 2,072 ventilators available, mostly in Southeast Michigan and other more populated areas of the state. The onset of ventilator-associated pneumonia is largely preventable, according to experts. The CDC lists myriad ways that health care providers can prevent the infection, including keeping a patient’s head raised between 30 and 45 degrees and cleaning the inside of a patient’s mouth on a regular basis. “It’s to the point where we consider it a medical error” not to take such measures, said Dr. Scott VanEpps, an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and
The oral care kits made by Elba Labs in Troy used on patients on ventilators. | ELBA LABS
the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. “The more ways we put devices in people, the more we put them at risk,” said VanEpps. “So things like the oral product are a way to counteract that unintended consequence.” While his company doesn’t make the in-demand machines themselves, Froehlich said the work the company does with its oral care product is about making preventative health care products.
“THE PRODUCT THAT WE’RE MAKING SAVES LIVES.” — Michael Froehlich, Elba Labs’ owner and CEO
“It’s like a fire extinguisher for viruses,” he said, noting that he believes the oral care product would be found in any hospital in the country that’s currently treating COVID-19 patients. The company has about 60 employees, 15 of whom are temporary, and revenue in the range of $15 million. While Froehlich has owned the company since the late 1990s, its origins actually date back well over a century to the period just after the Civil War. The company now known as Elba Labs began as the Mark Allen Co. in 1866 and is believed to have been the 16th incorporated business in the state, according to Steve Tille, a for-
mer owner. In an email, Tille said formal incorporation documents no longer exist, so the history of the company is based on stories and memory. Throughout the decades and numerous changes in ownership, the Mark Allen Co. has operated as a seller and distributor of branded cosmetics and as a government contractor selling toothpaste. The Mark Allen name was sold to Tille in 1996, who went on to turn the company into a medical supplier before selling to Froehlich. Froehlich said that his acquisition 20 years ago of the medical supply company Med-Pak, is what led Elba Labs to make the oral care product that’s now fueling much of the company’s growth. “Yes, it was a growth by acquisition,” he said. While far from celebrating his company’s growth due to a public health crisis, Froehlich acknowledged that it’s not likely to last forever, noting he expects a contraction in the third quarter. But he said it’s created an opportunity to better assess how his company operates and how it might run in a post-COVID-19 world. “We’ve had to assess the type of business that we’re doing, the reasons that we’re doing that,” said Froehlich. “And what will emerge is even a leaner, more efficient, and more focused company after this pandemic.” — Bloomberg News and Reuters contributed to this report.
COVID-19 HEROES
Caring for Detroit’s homeless during the pandemic Pope Francis Center erects tents for short-term heat and shelter, provides food, medical care BY SHERRI WELCH
Closing the Pope Francis Center, a downtown Detroit day center for the homeless, in mid-March was a tough but necessary decision as the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the region. But the Rev. Tim McCabe, executive director of the center, had a message for the homeless as the center closed. “I made a promise we wouldn’t leave; we would be there through this,” he said. “They are a population that already feels vulnerable. When this hit, they were feeling abandoned.” It’s a promise homeless shelters across the city and entire region have made, working to ensure their clients have somewhere to call “home,” even if just for a bit. Options for the homeless have dwindled as restaurants and casinos and the restrooms that were an option closed, along with many service and food providers. As he locked the center’s doors and politely turned away volunteers to keep both them and clients safe, he began thinking about how he could continue to help the homeless. He and seven employees erected eight 20-foot-by-40-foot tents in the parking lot of the center’s home,
Pope Francis Center employees erected eight tents that include heaters and chairs so homeless people can rest and warm up in the mornings. | ST. FRANCIS CENTER
Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church on St. Antoine between Larned and Jefferson Avenue. He included propane heaters and chairs spaced apart from one another in each tent so people could rest and warm up in the mornings, six days a week. “It wasn’t great, but it was a little bit of heat and shelter from the elements,” as Michigan nights contin-
ued to dip below freezing, he said. McCabe and his team began providing pre-packed, sealed continental breakfast at 7 a.m. each day and a hearty lunch at 9 a.m. Every day more people show up, he said, with those in line reaching 500 per day last week. Pope Francis Center buys food from Atlas Wholesale Food Co. to
prepare meals, but sometimes it’s not enough. Sandwiches prepared by Milano Bakery and Cafe each day help fill the gap. Ford Motor Co. Fund picks up the tab. “When we run out of food, it’s a godsend to have those to hand out, and we make soup,” McCabe said. Clients have also been able to continue to receive basic wound care and other medical care, along with temperature checks and other COVID-19 screening. That’s due to Dr. Asha Shajahan’s dedication. Despite working 12-hour shifts at Beaumont Grosse Pointe and seven-day work weeks, she’s continued to come downtown at least once a week to care for the people coming to the center. “When I heard that many of the services offered for the homeless had to close in order to control the spread of the virus, I knew there would be many who would be in need of medical services,” especially since the homeless would be disproportionately affected by the virus, Shajahan said. “ ... There is a temporary need and I’m here to serve people whether on the inpatient, outpatient or in the community.” In the last six weeks, McCabe and his team have set up portable bathrooms, handwashing stations and a mobile shower housed in a trailer
McCabe
Shajahan
near the tents. That’s added up to about $85,000 in incremental costs for the small center, which operates on a $1.3 million budget. “As word got out we were doing this, people just started giving,” both cash and in-kind donations of coats, hats, hand sanitizer, hygiene products and other needed items from the center’s Amazon wish list. McCabe said. Sponsors of the center’s canceled annual gala, Ford, DTE Energy Co. and Magna International, shifted their support to provide a total challenge grant of $250,000 for gifts made between May 1 and May 10. “So many people are making sure the less fortunate are taken care of, and we’re just one little part of that,” McCabe said. “It’s heartwarming to see.” Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
OVER 37 YEARS REFINING THE BUSINESS AVIATION EXPERIENCE During these trying times, the entire Corporate Eagle team is working every day to provide our Southeast Michigan members uninterrupted safety, security and freedom. Our commitment to excellence is unwavering. MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 7
COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
GOP, Democrats trade places COVID-19 crisis reveals in emergency powers fight what myopia has cost us In Michigan’s not-sodistant past, the governor and Legislature came together to address a real emergency that threatened the life and livelihood of its largest and most defining city. And they did so in the Chad face of lawsuits, protests at LIVENGOOD the Capitol and a voter referendum rejecting their approach to preventing a disaster. Opponents of the emergency manager law the Legislature passed and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed in December 2012 called it the “dictator law” because it temporarily suspended the right of self-governance in Detroit. It also saved Detroit. Even Democrats can no longer dispute that the emergency manager law giving Detroit a clean financial slate in bankruptcy has changed the Motor City’s trajectory for the better. Fast forward nearly eight years, and there’s another struggle over power in Lansing involving the lives and livelihoods of Michigan residents. This time it involves a Democratic governor using emergency management laws to navigate the worst public health crisis in a century. Businesses have been shut down by fiat. The governor has restricted commerce and daily freedoms that are in the DNA of a state that invented mobility. One in four workers has been sent to the unemployment line. All of the economic carnage from the coronavirus pandemic has been a result of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s strategy to save lives and prevent an outbreak from breaking a health care system not built for pandemics. And people are still dying by the dozens each day from COVID-19. But like the labor unions that decried the powers vested with emergency managers to cancel their hard-fought contractual benefits, the protesters of Whitmer’s actions using emergency management laws want to go to court. Those protesters this time are the Republicans who control the Michigan Legislature. Lawmakers held an extraordinary session Thursday to pass a resolution authorizing GOP leaders to sue Whitmer over her use of the emergency powers that previous Legislatures in 1945 and 1976 saw fit to grant male governors to protect the lives and livelihoods of residents in times of disaster. Republicans seem more concerned this time around about government overreach than they were a few years ago when they were installing emergency managers in primarily African American cities. (No analogy is perfect: While Detroit was a success, Flint was an unmitigated manmade disaster, proof that installing bean counters will not ensure the water gets treated properly.) The truth is, the fight in Lansing over the governor’s management of this crisis has become more political than philosophical. Republicans now resist the heavy hand of government that they imposed just a few years, while Democrats support the suspension of normal governance that they vehemently opposed in 2012. Whitmer was among those
BY MONA HANNA-ATTISHA
Whitmer
Shirkey
Democrats just a few short years ago as Senate minority leader, shouting from the sidelines about the heavy hand of Rick Snyder. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey has admitted he’s not very good at politics — and it has certainly shown at times. Shirkey has recently shifted from referring to Whitmer as “our governor” instead of the more condescending “my governor” label. Now he’s calling Whitmer a “dictator,” the same way opponents of the emergency manager law Shirkey voted for maligned Kevyn Orr when he came to Detroit to slash $7 billion of debt in bankruptcy. This kind of over-the-top and disgraceful rhetoric from the Senate majority leader will only serve to bring back Michigan’s reputation for dysfunction and tribalism. Shirkey’s rhetoric only serves to feed the fringe protesters who congregated without masks at the Capitol on Thursday, carrying inflammatory signs about the governor like “Tyrants Get The Rope.” Under the Legislature’s rules, they couldn’t carry that sign inside the Capitol. But Shirkey allowed men with rifles in the Senate gallery. After initially encouraging the protests, Shirkey condemned those who "used intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and feed rancor." Whitmer has been largely unfazed by Shirkey’s antics, though her office still wants to play politics in the midst of the pandemic, fueling distrust from the Legislature’s rank and file. Optics actually matter. The bush league move last week by Whitmer’s office leaking internal communications between Shirkey’s staff and her advisers did more harm than good. The trust it shattered was between the professionals who work behind the scenes to keep state government going, even when the executives are fighting in public. Whitmer is a Lansing insider; she should understand relationships matter. The challenge is resisting the instincts of the political hacks in her ear who play for social media victories. There’s a long game that has to be played here — mitigate further death and destruction of lives and mitigate an economic depression that would takes years to climb out from under. There’s a budget deficit of upwards of $3 billion barreling down on all three of them. If they thought the last eight weeks were painful, the next eight will be doubly difficult slashing budgets amid 20 percent unemployment. Just like Detroit in 2012 when the governor and Legislature moved strategically to save the city from collapse, the stakes in this time of emergency couldn’t be any higher. Contact: clivengood@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @ChadLivengood
Over a month ago, I had the acute symptoms that are all too familiar now: fever, aches, headache and a dry cough. Along with it came enormous anxiety. Despite all our training, physicians aren’t immune from fear. I worried that I had contracted a possible death sentence, that I could become another number in the growing tally of sick and dead. Maybe it was just a cold, I kept telling myself. Denial can help with anxiety sometimes, but it makes everything else worse. But being a good doctor means facing reality. Physicians are trained to listen to patients, ask open-ended questions, pick up clues in physical exams, perform labs and imaging, consult with experts in subspecialties and use the best available science. We are taught to consider what could be the most life-threatening diagnosis, the one we cannot afford to miss. Sometimes a diagnosis is simple. The 2-yearold girl in day care with a fever and spots on her palms and soles? She probably has the coxsackie virus. The 70-year-old man with a history of high blood pressure who suddenly can’t speak and has one-sided facial paralysis? Pretty likely, he’s had a stroke. Other times, we stumble. Even a good doctor can succumb to diagnostic myopia. We see what is directly in front of us, but fail to acknowledge the invisible threats, things that often make us feel uncomfortable. Two weeks before my symptoms presented, I was in New York City for a clean water advocacy event. It was early March. My youngest daughter had never been to the Big Apple, so we made it a family trip. My husband and I are both doctors and public health professionals and were concerned about the coronavirus, but nobody knew that New York was ground zero for the deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years. My symptoms worsened. I started to worry more. Besides the ill-timed trip, my husband and I live and work in metro Detroit. I am a health care worker. A coronavirus infection was a probable diagnosis. Still, I hoped it wasn’t. Then I lost my sense of smell and taste. That was weird — and ominous. Denial became more difficult. The RNA nasal swab came back positive. Easy diagnosis, right? No. As days passed and the hospitals in Detroit and New York City began swelling with COVID-19 cases, it became obvious that even with well-honed diagnostic skills, and a swab that confirms suspicions, myopia or nearsightedness had been a factor in this pandemic. Many underlying risk factors had been ignored for years. Things we chose to ignore. Things we didn’t want to see. Poverty. Poor air quality. Lack of clean water. Racism. Lack of access to healthy food and health care. There are upstream threats — root causes — that put my patients, my community, and all of us, at risk. As a nation, we spend a lot of our resources on a broken health care system. But we spend very little on public health. This doesn’t impact only the poor and underserved. It affects us all. When families in Detroit and Flint are denied
Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited for length or clarity. Send letters to Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48207, or email crainsdetroit@crain.com. Please include your complete name, city from which you are writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes. 8 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MAY 4, 2020
Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., is an associate professor of pediatrics and human development at Michigan State University and helped identify that lead from Flint’s water system was showing up in the bloodstreams of the city’s children. running water to wash their hands, this doesn’t just jeopardize their health — it exposes all of us to illness. We are all vectors. Their health is our health. Their diagnoses are our diagnoses. After years of cutting programs that could lift up these communities — and lift up our society as a whole — we are now seeing the brutal effect of decades of nearsightedness. We are only as healthy as the least among us. It shouldn’t have required a physically isolating pandemic for us to realize how interconnected we are. The privileged among us spend lockdown in comfortable homes, while our essential workers — bus drivers, grocery store clerks, security guards and nurses — are keeping our state running. These are the very MANY same people who are often denied basic liv- UNDERLYING ing wages and robust RISK FACTORS health care benefits, high quality and af- HAD BEEN fordable education, IGNORED FOR paid-family leave and the right to speak up at YEARS. THINGS work, especially about WE CHOSE TO health and safety. What’s the underly- IGNORE. THINGS ing diagnosis of the WE DIDN’T WANT crisis? Our blind eye to inequities. Our chron- TO SEE. ic dismissal and underfunding of the broad umbrella of public health due to the austerity-driven, pro-business, anti-science and anti-regulatory spirit of the last 40 years. This myopia has stripped local, state, and federal budgets of public health infrastructure and caused thousands of Americans to die, including almost 4,000 Michiganders. My COVID symptoms have passed, but my anxiety continues. My heart breaks. We have suffered so many preventable losses. It didn’t have to be this way. Myopia must become a thing of the past, especially now, when our continued vigilance in the midst of the crisis meets the twin headwinds of distrust and despair. It’s not time for Band-Aids and blinders. We need to open our eyes and begin planning for a future where we all can thrive.
Sound off: Crain’s considers longer opinion pieces from guest writers on issues of interest to business readers. Email ideas to Managing Editor Michael Lee at malee@crain.com.
OTHER VOICES
COVID-19 silver linings: New opportunities for Midwest BY JOHN AUSTIN
Midwestern states are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 job loss. We have relatively fewer wellpaid professionals collecting a salary working at home, but more idled John Austin manufactur ing directs the workers, and unMichigan employed shopEconomic keepers, waitressCenter. es, barbers and dental hygienists who rely on these workers’ paychecks. While still early to see many silver linings for the Midwest, the pandemic-driven growth in health and medical solutions may well prove to be one such opportunity. As detailed in the recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs report, “A Vital Midwest: The Path to a New Prosperity” the industrial Midwest still has many economically struggling communities. But we also have world-class companies, universities, scientists, engineers and skilled workers who provide a powerful innovation and production base, positioning the Midwest to be a bigger player in a host of emerging sectors like new mobility, clean energy and smart water solutions. And no sector will likely grow more post-pandemic than medical research, products and services; and no region is better positioned to develop and deliver these health solutions than the Midwest. Health-related products and services, medical instruments, tools and equipment were already, pre-coronavirus, a huge domestic and global business. In 2017, these fields accounted for more than 17 percent of the US economy, directly employed 1.2 million people, and exported $90 billion worth of goods and services. Right now the pandemic is driving a big push to ensure necessary medical tools and equipment are ready at hand and domestically produced. There will likely be dramatic growth in production of face masks, tests and treatments. New technologies like automated bots for medicine delivery and test collection will be fast-tracked. We’ve seen an immediate explosion in telemedicine, and will likely see other big changes in health delivery that will permanently reshape and turbocharge new business and job opportunities. These developments mean a chance for the Midwest to reclaim our place as the country’s innovation center, and cement our role as the region that uniquely knows how to design, make and deliver desperately needed goods and services. Our researchers and firms have years of experience in large scale product development and production, and competencies to quickly move an idea or technology from discovery — to testing, prototyping, engineering, manufacturing and distribution. Just look at where the recent action has been as America worked frantically to develop and deliver new tests and treatments, and ventilators, masks and medical equipment for frontline workers. In Michigan, General Motors converted its supply chain, with unrivaled competencies in product development, engineering and precision manufacturing, to make tens of thousands of ventilators almost overnight. Ford Motor Co. followed suit, after initially
The shift by researchers, innovators and large industry in the Midwest to meet the challenge of COVID-19 mimics the region’s effort during World War II. Then the steel, auto, plastic, rubber, chemical and coal industries turned from churning out consumer products to making the planes, tanks and jeeps that made us the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Mobilizing the talents, energy and innovation genius of the region’s people and businesses to meet challenges of today — including health security — can, as decades before, create new good jobs in the Midwest and accelerate America’s rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. Courtney Hylant contributed.
professionals, the Midwest will do this work. The action will be in and around top hospitals, medical research complexes and universities, which the Midwest has in abundance. We have seven of the best 25 research medical schools in the country and 15 of the top 50. Moreover, in 2019 the University of Michiganranked second in NIH funding. These institutions also train and educate 26 percent of the nation’s STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) degree holders annually — which will allow us to ramp up quickly the basic science, treatments, medical equipment and tools needed in a pandemic-menaced world.
working to churn out desperately treatments and vaccines. Henry Ford needed products like tweezers and Health System in Detroit is managing the trial of hydroxychloroquine, the small screwdrivers. Kalamazoo’s medical equipment anti-malaria drug often touted by Presmaker, Stryker Corp., quickly deRIGHT NOW THE PANDEMIC IS DRIVING A veloped a lowcost, emergency BIG PUSH TO ENSURE NECESSARY MEDICAL response bed to help health care TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT ARE READY AT providers meet HAND AND DOMESTICALLY PRODUCED. the need for care, quickly producing 10,000 beds a week. ident Donald Trump as a corona cure. And should the nation, spooked by The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the Cleveland Clinic have the prospect of future pandemics, bequickly expanded their own testing gin pouring money into health and abilities to supplement overwhelmed medical R&D, as well as the education labs, and are leading work to develop and training of scientists and medical
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elitsa Jean-Charles became an entrepreneur after she crafted a Rapunzel figurine out of aluminum foil, clay and hot glue. The CEO and founder of Healthy Roots Dolls wanted young girls of color to see themselves reflected in toys. She was first convinced by her peers’ response when she reimagined the classic, long-haired fairy tale character as brown, with “kinky, curly hair,” in a 3D illustrations class at the Rhode Island School of Design. Jean-Charles, 25, said she wanted to address social issues through art, and became focused on beauty standards for black women — “how black women are expected to be and how they are perceived.” “I realized it has to happen at an early age,” she said. “And so I was drawn to children’s media.” Healthy Roots sells cute toys, JeanCharles said, but its mission is empowerment for girls who don’t often see themselves and their natural hair reflected in media. She said she aimed to respond, with her compa-
ny, to a long history of racism and bias for white dolls over black dolls — a culture in which black women “are taught that in order to be beautiful they have to change their hair and have fair skin ... When young black girls can't find dolls that look like them as they are.” Since founding Healthy Roots Dolls in 2015, Jean-Charles has raised more than $500,000 in capital. She said the Detroit-based doll company has generated “six figures” in sales. Zoe, the first Healthy Roots doll model, is manufactured in Hong Kong and has specially designed hair that can be washed and styled with hair products. The manufacturer would send Jean-Charles various textures and sewing patterns for to review to perfect the hair fibers. Healthy Roots has also partnered with Procter & Gamble to sell the 18inch, vinyl-bodied doll with P&G’s My Black is Beautiful hair care products. Jean-Charles, who was born in
Canada and grew up in New York, first fleshed out her business idea and acquired mentors in the Brown University Social Innovation Fellowship while in college. She took that $4,000 grant and turned it into $50,000 with a Kickstarter campaign. She also worked as a waitress and college security guard, and graduated with a degree in illustration in 2016. Jean-Charles became a Venture for America fellow for the start-up sector experience. She then produced the first Zoe doll in 2018. A separate Venture for America accelerator program led Jean-Charles to Detroit, where she took part in another accelerator, Backstage Capital’s, and won $125,000 in two grants through the Quicken Loans Detroit Demo Day contest in 2019. Healthy Roots is now in a “growth phase” and looking to hire, JeanCharles said. She said the coronavirus outbreak might affect this, but her goal is to start selling accessories for Zoe before the 2020 holiday season. — Annalise Frank
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CEO and Owner, Bea’s Detroit and Bea’s Squeeze a cafe and outdoor space, was finally ready to open for business in March. The cafe was the last to secure a permit before the pandemic hit, and Bea’s Detroit had to shut down just as it was getting started. Wolnerman found herself once again having to make lemonade from lemons. “Our whole concept is all about bringing people to work together closely under one roof, which is definitely not something that could happen,” said Wolnerman. So Bea’s Detroit ran a virtual meeting called “Don’t Bea Afraid” on March 20 to help establish a support network for small businesses. More than 50 small business owners and 3,000 viewers popped into the livestream. Wolnerman knew she had lemonade of a different sort. And so began Wolnerman’s next business venture: the BeaHive, a “virtual coworking community” that exists to serve the local business community as they work remotely and face down economic uncertainty. For a fee of $20 per month or $200 per year, members gain access to a private Facebook group and weekly programming designed to uplift and cultivate collaboration through
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Beatrice Wolnerman, 28 ea Wolnerman is no stranger to turning lemons into lemonade. She did exactly that in 2018 while converting a 4,000-square-foot former meatpacking plant in Eastern Market into Bea’s Detroit, a co-working and co-creating space. Looking for a way to connect with potential tenants while the project was under construction, Bea and her husband Eli Wolnerman came upon an odd, 600-squarefoot triangular parcel of land for sale about 5 feet above the Dequindre Cut. They bought it for $5,000. Soon enough, the pop-up lemonade stand Bea’s Squeeze was born. Runners and cyclists would stop to buy a lemonade, chat and learn about Bea’s Detroit. The lemonade was such a hit that the Wolnermans decided to spin it into a separate business venture. They now distribute two flavors — classic and pink rose — in grocery stores and restaurants in Michigan and Ohio, and just signed a contract to distribute to the regional grocery chain HyVee, which serves parts of the Midwest. With the lemonade business taking off, the coworking space, which features 15 open workshop spaces, several private offices, open seating,
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facilitated networking with a “hive mate,” educational content and interactive, fun competitions. “It’s definitely lonely working from home,” said Wolnerman. She’s hopeful that by building a virtual support network during this difficult time, the community will want to stay involved and join the brick-and-mortar space once it reopens. Wolnerman credits her mom, an entrepreneur who launched and operated her own printing business, as her biggest influence. Her partner and husband is her other main source of support. “My mom has been my biggest mentor. She started her own business when she was my age, grew it to be a successful printing company and recently sold it and retired. She’s been a great example to me my whole life,” Wolnerman said. “And then my husband is my partner. I’m more of the creative, out-of-thebox ideas, face of the company, and he’s behind the scenes with all the numbers, making things work.” “I’m very lucky to have a lot of great people in my life. I’ve always been encouraged to follow my dreams.” — Nina Ignaczak
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THE CLASS OF 2020
ADI SATHI
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ntroducing Crain’s 2020 Twenty in their 20s. Here you’ll find the typical roll call of accomplishments beyond their years, impressive feats of leadership, startups with incredible promise. You’ll find something more, too: an inspirational cohort of young people responding with grit and grace to the coronavirus pandemic. The startup CEO who is now using his tech to deliver bread to the hungry. The compliance specialist who now dons PPE to screen hospital visitors. The co-working space owner who has launched a virtual support network for her community. Their lives, their businesses and their worlds are upside down, but they’re doing what they can to keep going and give back. To maintain safe social distancing, we decided not to send a photographer out for portraits and asked this year’s honorees to submit selfies instead. We think they really captured this moment, and look great, too.
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Yelitsa Jean-Charles, 25 CEO and Founder, Healthy Roots Dolls
Sheila Fredricks, 28 Project Manager, Barton Malow Co.
Beatrice Wolnerman, 28 CEO and Owner, Bea’s Detroit and Bea’s Squeeze
Maria Willett, 28 Chief of Staff, City of Rochester Hills
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Asia Rawls, 29 IT Project Analyst, Magna Exteriors
TeQuion Brookins, 29 Director of Operations, McGregor Fund
Sergio Rodriguez, 27 Co-founder and CEO, ToDoolie Inc.
Ramy Habib, 29 Co-president, EnBiologics Inc.
Justin Onwenu, 23 Organizer, Sierra Club
T.R. Hollis, 26 Sponsorship Manager, Quicken Loans Kiara Tyler, 28 CEO, Kalm Clothing LLC Christopher Stefani, 29 Associate Director, Lawrence Technological University’s Detroit Center for Design + Technology PAGE 14 Mimi Schwartz Miller, 28 Relationship Manager, Schwartz & Co. Nicholas Kristock, 29 Executive Director, Fleece & Thank You Hannah Mae Merten, 28 Senior Strategy Manager, Bedrock LLC
CRAIN’S 2020 TWENTY IN THEIR 20S
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CONGRATULATIONS
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Jacob Sierocki, 26 Corporate Compliance Specialist, Henry Ford Health System
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National Director, Asian Pacific American (APA) Engagement Republican National Committee
Josh York, 27 CEO and Founder, York Project PAGE 17 Fares Ksebati, 28 Founder and CEO, MySwimPro Adi Sathi, 29 Chief of Staff, Young Republican National Federation and State Commissioner, Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission
Mimi Schwartz Miller Crain’s 2020 Twenty in Their 20s
Kirsten Hardy, 28 Project Manager, AKT Peerless Environmental Services
THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 11
CRAIN’S TWENTY IN THEIR 20S
TeQuion Brookins, 29 Director of Operations, McGregor Fund
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eQuion Brookins set out on a course to become a pharmacist but pivoted to business after earning her bachelor’s in biochemistry and molecular biology from the College of Wooster. It’s no surprise she was eventually drawn to business and finance. She was raised by entrepreneurial parents who both hold business degrees, and she spent much of her childhood trying out business ideas. Brookins was working at Flagstar Bank and pursuing her MBA and a master of science and finance at Walsh College when an entry-level position opened up at the McGregor Fund in 2013. She took the finance assistant job and began attending every profession-
al development opportunity, webinar and conference she could. In her free time, she read through the fund’s files. Brookins was promoted to finance and grants management associate in 2014, then finance and operations officer in 2017. She took on responsibility for designing the grants management processes, cybersecurity plans and proprietary line of business applications or IT platforms for grants management and the fund’s intranet. Two years ago, she was named director of operations for McGregor, becoming the first African American in the fund’s 94-year history to hold a director-level role and the youngest ever. In that role she now also oversees human resources, risk management, facilities and nonprofit compliance.
“I’ve seen some of the same struggles in my own family that the grantees that we support have,” said Brookins, a native Detroiter. “I am committed to our mission and making sure we are able to help as many people as possible.” Beyond her role at McGregor, Brookins has provided about 15 small, minority-owned and women-owned businesses with operational assessments, referrals and help developing business plans and websites, trademarking and logos. Last year, she founded a national nonprofit, the Minority Freedom Community Fund, to provide the same types of technical business assistance to minority communities around the country, along with financial support and education. — Sherri Welch
Jacob Sierocki, 26 Corporate Compliance Specialist, Henry Ford Health System
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acob Sierocki has grown in many ways since he first began working in the health care industry as a coordinator in the emergency department at Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, at age 17. Now, Sierocki, 26, is at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. After four years he has risen to the rank of corporate compliance specialist, auditing reimbursement claims to government and private payers. But he does much more within the eight-hospital integrated system and also the wider Southeast Michigan community. Sierocki is president of Henry Ford’s Pride Employee Resource Group, one of the system’s 10 employee resource groups. Pride ERG advocates for LGBTQ employees and patients to increase opportunities and access to care. “I have managed several complex,
systemwide projects and initiatives and made huge strides towards increasing access to care for LGBTQ patients,” Sierocki said. In mid-March, Sierocki also volunteered to help screen patients for fevers, coughs or other coronavirus symptoms coming into Henry Ford Hospital. Fully gowned with mask and gloves, he said the most difficult moments are when he must enforce the hospital’s strict rules for visitation and prevent people from entering the hospital to keep health care workers and patients safe from further spread. The COVID-19 outbreak has changed his life and job in many other ways. “We have been just as busy or busier in our department,” Sierocki said. “We have added to our work plan and are anticipating doing a lot more one or two years from now.”
Sierocki is considered a subject matter expert for advanced practice provider billings for such staff as nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified registered nurse anesthetists. As president of the 265-member Pride ERG, an elected post that he will hold until December, Sierocki advocates for the hospital system’s LGBTQ employees, as well as its patients. “We sometimes field patient complaints about care they received. Maybe it wasn’t appropriate or they were offended. We take those concerns to the leadership team, and we advocate for those patients,” Sierocki said. He also created Henry Ford’s first list of preferred providers who are culturally competent to treat LGBTQ patients. “We get a ton of support from our leadership team. It is what has made us a leader in LGBTQ (issues) and diversity as well,” Sierocki said. “It is a core value that HFHS has and goes through the entire organization. They understand what this community faces.” — Jay Greene
Ramy Habib, 29 Co-president, EnBiologics Inc.
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fter graduating from high school in 2009, Ramy Habib came to Detroit from Egypt to attend Wayne State University, intending to become a doctor. Though he later decided being an M.D. wasn’t for him and got his master’s in biomedical engineering, he has found another way to heal. Habib and Sean Carroll, whom he met in grad school, co-founded EnBiologics Inc. in 2016 after they took a clinical immersion course at the Detroit Medical Center. There, they saw burn patients being treated with silver nitrate, which is effective but very painful. In Egypt, ointments made with honey have been used to treat burns and wounds for thousands of years, and Habib and Carroll thought there might be a business in developing and selling a honey-based ointment here. Habib, a co-president, works
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full time at EnBiologics. Carroll, also a co-president, works part time. They went through the 10-week DTX Launch Detroit accelerator in 2016, winning $1,000 and support services. They also became tenants at Detroit’s TechTown, where they set up a lab and made and packaged their ointment. At the DTX accelerator, they changed their business model, following advice that getting FDA approval to treat humans could take years and upwards of $1 million. They targeted the pet-care industry instead. In 2017, they won $5,000 in the Warrior Fund competition at WSU and got a grant of $50,000 from the WSU’s Anderson Institute to fund animal studies at Michigan State University, a study also financed with an award of $38,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s Small Company Innovation Fund. Last year,
EnBiologics won $75,000 for their second-place finish at Detroit Demo Day. Today, their ointment, called HoneyCure, is used in 240 animal hospitals, vet clinics, animal groomers and is sold in pet stores in the U.S., Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. It is available in a range of sizes, with a one-ounce tube retailing for $18 and a 16-ounce jar retailing for $150. It is also available at amazon.com and chewy.com. Habib said they did $52,000 in revenue last year and were projecting about $200,000 this year, which will be reduced as a result of COVID-19. “It’s a very cool company,” said Ned Staebler, president and CEO of TechTown. “These are hungry, young aggressive guys. Ramy is, first of all, full of enthusiasm, and he’s incredibly hard working. And the fact he was able to make such a big pivot early, to the pet market, shows he’s wise beyond his years.” — Tom Henderson
THE CLASS OF 2020
T.R. Hollis, 26 Sponsorship Manager, Quicken Loans
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s the point man for Quicken Loans Inc.’s branding of the Rocket Mortgage Classic — the rapidly executed and wildly successful inaugural PGA Tour event in Detroit — T.R. Hollis thought he knew pressure. Then came year two. The sophomore iteration of the golf tournament will go on despite the coronavirus pandemic, according to organizers. It has been rescheduled for July 2-5 and will be played without fans at the Detroit Golf Club. It would be among the first professional sporting events to take place in the country since the outbreak began. Coupled with the event being one of the most important marketing platforms for the Detroit-based online mortgage giant, and Hollis has a
whole new challenge — one he’s proved capable of handling. “Really, we’re just facing the unknown,” Hollis said. “This year, the challenges are just going to be different. (We are) facing the unknown with positivity and hope.” Hollis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Michigan State University in 2015, is sponsorship manager for Quicken Loans and responsible for a marketing budget of $50 million per year, most of which is directed at the golf tournament. The Rocket Mortgage Classic was a longtime vision of Quicken Loans founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert. Hollis was tasked with executing it. He juggled everything from sales and marketing to government relations and fi-
nance, all while coordinating with sponsors, including tournament ambassador and golf star Rickie Fowler. “There were moments when I was working late at the office and wasn’t sure how this event was going to turn out,” he said. It turned out to be the most awarded event on the PGA Tour, raising more than $1.1 million for local nonprofits. Hollis is now charged with devising a strategy to make the same impact with a fanless event. He’s also leading the tournament’s shift in messaging, which will focus on supporting a city hit hard by the coronavirus. “We’re still going to put on a show. We’re still going to make a huge impact for communities. But it’s going to be in a different way,” he said. — Kurt Nagl
Kiara Tyler, 28 CEO, Kalm Clothing LLC
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ichael Rizik is an attorney in Grand Blanc. Early in 2018, Kiara Tyler found him in a Google search for trademark attorneys, and he made an appointment for her to come in and talk about her business, Kalm Clothing LLC. At the time, she was selling her designs out of the trunk of her car at shows around the Midwest. “The more I listened to her, I had this sense she might be the one person in a lifetime that has her preternatural sense for business. I said ‘Who are you? Where did you come from?’” Rizik told Crain’s in 2018. “She’s a creative, driving force. She’s someone five years from now, everyone will know. She’ll be another Vera Wang. She’s the only one I’ve met starting a business who is as good as her.” Tyler, a Flint native who did track and field at Notre Dame College in Ohio, founded Kalm in 2015 after returning to Michigan. She struggled to make a living as an entry-level parale-
gal and decided to make some money on the side. After her first venture making storage boxes for sneaker collectors fizzled, she tried her hand at designing a line of clothes. She released her first item for sale on Oct. 15, 2016. In 2017, she earned more than $100,000 in revenue out of the trunk of her car and began mastering social media. Soon, high-profile athletes and influencers were showing off her wares. Rizik introduced her to David Ollila, the president and chief innovation officer at Skypoint Ventures, a venture capital firm in Flint, and president of 100K Ideas, a program to help would-be entrepreneurs that is based in the Ferris Wheel Building, a co-working and incubator space next door to Skypoint. “I have not met a more natural entrepreneur, one with more spirit and more determination,” Ollila said. A for-profit investment arm of 100K
Ideas called 100K Ventures launched in December 2018. Based in Flint, it targets area entrepreneurs and attracted several high-profile investors, including basketball player and Flint native Draymond Greene; Michael Strahan, a former NFL star and now a TV personality; and broadcaster Soledad O’Brien. Last year 100K Ventures chose Kalm for its first investment, of an undisclosed amount. And in February, Tyler made the fashion big-time, showcasing her clothes at the New York Fashion Week. Tyler had projected sales this year of about $250,000, a figure that will be impacted by the effects of the coronavirus, and recently hired her first two full-time employees. Tyler has been going to schools in and around Flint, preaching the joys of entrepreneurship. “Lots of kids think they have to get away from Flint to make it. I want to get them out of that mindset,” she said. — Tom Henderson
Christopher Stefani, 29 Associate Director, Lawrence Technological University’s Detroit Center for Design + Technology
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s with architecture, the key to a successful career is a solid foundation. Few understand that concept quite like Christopher Stefani, associate director of Lawrence Technological University’s Center for Design + Technology in Detroit. Stefani started the role in 2017 after four years working in various capacities for the university, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture and master of architecture with distinction. After being promoted to oversee the Southfield-based university’s public-facing programs in Detroit, Stefani went to work building out revenue streams for the school and reinforcing its footing in the city. He developed the center’s space rental and co-work programs, which together have grossed more than $100,000
in revenue. He secured in-kind sponsorships of products totaling more than $100,000 from Michigan-based furniture companies Haworth Inc., Herman Miller Inc. and Steelcase Inc. He also developed the center’s brand by leading the creation of its web presence and marketing strategy. But Stefani’s proudest pursuit is a little more personal. Heading up the center’s K-12 outreach work, he helped establish its partnership with the Detroit Public Schools Community District. It began as a single art class at Denby High School in 2015 and grew into a shared-campus, dual-enrollment program at a growing number of schools in the district. “I think that education and the ability we have to plug into the schools to offer credit and the discovery of design
and technology, and the potential that holds for the youth, is massively important,” he said. “What kids can do is amazing. It’s just that simple.” It wasn’t so simple for Stefani, who came up through the special education system and struggled with attention and learning issues, including Attention Deficit Disorder and dyslexia. Not until college did he figure out he didn’t have an inability to learn; he just learned differently. Stefani is determined to use his experience to help Detroit students connect the dots faster. His approach appears to be working — 60 percent to 70 percent of the dozens of students who have participated in the program have gone on to college. “I think giving them the power to think critically and giving them the power to think creatively opens so many doors and really empowers them no matter where they’re coming into the course,” he said. — Kurt Nagl
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CRAIN’S TWENTY IN THEIR 20S
Mimi Schwartz Miller, 28 Relationship Manager, Schwartz & Co.
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imi Schwartz Miller has found the “perfect combination” of working in the finance field in her family’s longtime business. As a relationship manager and director of marketing at Birmingham-based Schwartz & Co., Schwartz Miller’s working life is more than just working in the firm’s institutional services group. It also amounts to something of a family reunion every day of the week. “I grew up kind of watching my dad and his brothers all work for my grandpa as part of the family business,” said Schwartz Miller, 28. “And so that always had been kind of subconsciously, I think, something that I was working towards attaining just because we’re
a very close knit family,” she said. “I have a kind of respect for my dad, a lot of respect for my uncle. So it was something I always admired and I thought was very cool when I was little, that everyone worked together and had kind of this great working relationship and a great family dynamic.” Schwartz Miller’s husband Matt also works in the company, heading up its investment banking practice. In her role within the firm’s institutional services group, Schwartz Miller manages over $1.2 billion in assets and has helped to source 15 new clients, she said. That’s led to a 20 percent growth in overall revenue over her three-and-a-half years at the firm.
A Southeast Michigan native and 2013 graduate of the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, Schwartz Miller cut her teeth working outside the family business, previously in New York City for Swiss multinational investment bank UBS. Still, working in the family business was her ultimate goal. “(Finance) is the field that I was most interested in; had there not been a family business, it’s the field that I would have pursued anyway,” she said. “But the family business aspect of it obviously was very compelling and kind of in the fabric of my upbringing, and what motivated me to pursue that in school. And ultimately, to come back and work with my family was always the game plan for sure.”— Nick Manes
Nicholas Kristock, 29 Executive Director, Fleece & Thank You
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t wasn’t until he landed in Michigan after spending two years in Australia that Nicholas Kristock figured out what he was meant to do with his life. Kristock had moved to the Land Down Under to play professional soccer for the Logan Lightning Football Club in Brisbane after earning an MBA with a focus in entrepreneurship and human resources from Oakland University. The soccer offer would buy him some time, he thought, to figure out his purpose. When he wasn’t playing soccer, he began volunteering, first with a mobile laundry service for the homeless. Then he got involved with Make a Wish, working to help make terminally ill children’s dreams come true. But it wasn’t until he found a text from his twin sister Tara, a pediatric oncology nurse, waiting for him after landing back in Michigan that things began to click. That text, urging him to make a fleece blanket for a hospitalized child, led him to discover that
only a sixth of the roughly 30,000 children hospitalized in pediatric units at Michigan hospitals each year were given a special, custom blanket to comfort them. That set him on a path to found nonprofit Fleece & Thank You and for-profit Empathy 313 LLC to market an application that lets children view and respond to a video message from the creators of the no-sew fleece blankets they receive. Five years later, Kristock and his team have raised just shy of $1 million to purchase materials for blankets. Through hundreds of events with corporate teams, scout troops and other groups, the nonprofit has turned out 70,000 blankets for children in the pediatric units at 22 Michigan hospitals. “I knew in addition to the color and comfort they don’t get when going into the hospital … they needed the connection as well,” Kristock said.
He worked with Saline-based Fanzoo Technology to develop an app that enables children receiving the blankets to pick up a video message from the blanket’s maker. Kids can send a message back by entering the code on the blanket’s tag on Fleece & Thank You’s website. The nonprofit has free use of the platform, called KindKatch, Kristock said. With backing from investors, he is now beta testing the technology with other nonprofits that see value in connecting donors to the impact their donations make. The company is pre-revenue, he said, noting nonprofits will be offered monthly subscriptions to use it. The same platform is now being turned to help support front-line hospital employees battling COVID-19. Fleece & Thank You is now hosting a page on its website to enable people to send hand-written messages of support and thanks to health care employees at the 22 Michigan hospitals it serves. — Sherri Welch
Hannah Mae Merten, 28 Senior Strategy Manager, Bedrock LLC
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annah Mae Merten wasn’t even a month into her new job with Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC when Amazon.com Inc. announced it was launching an international competition to land its so-called second headquarters, which the billionaire mortgage and real estate mogul’s team was tapped to lead. It’s been nonstop for the 28-yearold Denver native ever since. Most recently, the University of Denver graduate, who came to the city through Venture for America, has been project managing a team of about a dozen on the Detroit Center for Innovation, the planned $750 million redevelopment of the former Wayne County Consolidated Jail site at Gratiot Avenue and I-375 into a graduate school campus for the University of Michigan. Merten helps manage the proj-
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ect’s diverse group of partners from the educational, private and public sector including University of Michigan, Stephen Ross’ New York City-based Related Cos., the city, Wayne County and others. She is also responsible for designing fundraising materials and helping advocate for a site plan sensitive to the property’s history as part of the Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods. “We’ve really been intent on making sure that whatever we develop is able to kind of connect to that history, and even more importantly, thinking very broadly, we care about seeing a site plan that feels very open to the public,” Merten said. “We’re not trying to build a campus that feels closed.” Merten is also a transit advocate, and is part of a team within the Rock
Ventures LLC portfolio of companies that helped get the parent company to fund public transportation options for its employees, including the QLine streetcar system and buses through the Detroit Department of Transportation as well as the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation. “Hannah came to us from her home state of Colorado after seeking out urban development firms throughout the country, as her interest and passion for impactful urban projects pre-dates her move to Detroit to join our mission,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Hannah Mae is a natural leader, and has a unique ability to infuse any project she touches with a human element that truly makes her work shine.” She is also pursuing a graduate certificate of real estate development at the University of Michigan. — Kirk Pinho
THE CLASS OF 2020
Sheila Fredricks, 28 Project Manager, Barton Malow Co.
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heila Fredricks has put her fingerprints on one of the biggest construction projects in recent memory in Detroit and is now leading another. At 28, the project manager for Barton Malow Co. is heading up construction on the Marygrove College P-20 initiative, an effort to create a new $50 million educational campus on the college’s campus in northwest Detroit serving more than 1,000 children and young people when it reaches full capacity. Fredricks joined the Southfield-based construction company as an intern and worked her way up, and she has no intention of slowing down. “I aspire to continue to grow my ca-
reer with Barton Malow in the Detroit area,” she said. “Specifically, I envision my long-term career focus to be on expanding the industry to meet the needs of underserved communities.” Ryan Maibach, president and CEO of Barton Malow, said Fredricks’ talent in construction was beyond her years and that she was given duties at a young age that few others would be trusted with. “We are very grateful Sheila is on her team and very excited to see what her future holds,” Maibach said. “She has a remarkably bright future.” Among those duties: Coordinating the construction of more than 60 food service areas in the $862.9 million Little Caesars Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit
Pistons that opened in September 2017. For that, she says she had to coordinate 82 city health department inspections over 10 full days with 16 people. The result: All approved, all opening on time. From there, she returned to her native Florida for a Barton Malow role building the $108 million Atlanta Braves spring training facility. Now the Florida State University graduate is back in Michigan, overseeing the Marygrove effort, which includes completely renovating a pair of buildings and constructing a new $15 million early childcare center. Ninth-graders began classes last fall at the School at Marygrove, which is operated by the Detroit Public Schools Community District. — Kirk Pinho
Maria Willett, 28 Chief of Staff, City of Rochester Hills
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ome young girls dream of being a princess and living in a castle. Maria Willett dreamed of building the castle. “Take Snow White, for example,” says Willett. “She’s helping her friends. She is leading in a way that doesn’t seem very obvious. I realized it wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to be in the castle, but I wanted to build the castle and be a part of that change.” Willett’s career so far in local government and education has seen her building castles — and making change — in a number of ways. These days, she serves as chief of staff to Rochester Hills’ Mayor Brian Barnett. There, you might find her designing a playground for the community’s disabled or connecting elderly citizens to people willing to shop for them. One day is rarely like the next, and Willett likes it that way. She’s passionate about engaging millennials in local government, and goes out of her way to recruit young
people into city projects. At the city’s museum, for example, she recruited young members of the community to find ways to engage them as stewards of their community’s history. “There are so many people in leadership that are older, and we’re starting to see those people retire,” she said. “And when that happens, do you have the next generation engaged and ready to take on those leadership roles? So that’s really what I was concerned with — how are we engaging people in their 20s and 30s?” Willett also plays a role on the national stage. Barnett is the current President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and Willett worked closely with the conference in 2019 on legislation requiring universal background checks for gun purchase. She and Barnett traveled to Dayton, Ohio, after the 2019 mass shooting to offer support for Mayor Nan Whaley in the aftermath. Also in 2019, Willett coordinated a
leadership summit that brought mayors across the nation to Rochester Hills and Detroit, not only raising the city’s profile nationally but bringing the often divided region together to do it. “Collaboration and relationships are so important,” she said. “We are not just islands — we are intrinsically connected in perpetuity.” Building on those connections has been an important part of Willett’s work in the city since the coronavirus pandemic hit. She’s found herself coordinating calls with experts and mayors across the country, organizing check-in calls on the city’s elderly population and finding places to order hand sanitizer in bulk. She’s proud of the work the city has done to flatten the curve, and feels like she is in the right place at the right time. “I think no matter what I do with my life, I want to help people,” she said. “I want to know that I’ve made a positive impact in people’s lives, as much as I can.” — Nina Ignaczak
Asia Rawls, 29 IT Project Analyst, Magna Exteriors
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sia Rawls is tasked with improving efficiency via web application of employees across 20 divisions at the world’s largest auto supplier, Magna International. Luckily, the 29-year-old former 400m NCAA All-American qualifier and All Mid-American Conference sprinter at Eastern Michigan University isn’t afraid of hurdles. “I get excited about the challenge in IT,” Rawls said. “There’s so many different ideas to manage and you have to be innovative as well as think about the ethics behind those designs and how they function. But working with applications is the beauty of my job — the challenges are unlimited, but so is the creativity.” At Magna, one of her recent goals has been to help the company’s production workers understand and interact with the artificial intelligence
systems increasingly being integrated on the shop floor. Implementing software-driven training, Rawls performed assessments to gauge adoption and acceptance. That work has grown to include five different automakers and their plants. Prior to joining Magna, she served as the director of software education and training at Trumble Inc., where she created a learning management system for Fiat Chrysler’s Trenton Engine Pant, training up 200 workers. The most daunting task, of course, is helping workers understand that new technology isn’t an enemy. “People were in fear of people losing their job when artificial intelligence entered the factory, but so many things we have today we didn’t have years ago,” Rawls said. “I am constantly stressing they will learn something different, but technology won’t com-
pletely take over. We will always need someone to work a tool and software and that’s what I am teaching them.” Rawls, now a tried-and-true Detroiter after growing up on the move in an Army family, is a running instructor for We Run 313, a year-old running club with more than 500 members formed in the city. She also serves on the board of the Judith Diane Jackson Scholarship Fund. Rawls plans to deepen her roots in the city to “push Detroit forward.” “Whether it be through innovation or running or health, I’m plant based and vegan, I want to be involved in Detroit,” she said. “Everything I am interested in encompasses the new Detroit we all want to see. So I plan to keep grinding every day.” After earning her bachelor’s from EMU, Rawls earned an MBA and a master’s in computer information systems at University of Detroit Mercy. — Dustin Walsh
MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 15
CRAIN’S TWENTY IN THEIR 20S
Sergio Rodriguez, 27 Co-founder and CEO, ToDoolie Inc.
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nce his core business dropped to zero revenue due to the spread of COVID-19, Sergio Rodriguez quickly saw an opportunity to pivot to a new model, using the bones of what was already in place. Rodriguez, 27, is the co-founder and CEO of ToDoolie Inc. He started the gig economy marketplace that connects homeowners with college students seeking work doing routine chores like raking leaves and cleaning garages after putting himself through Wayne State University doing much of that work. The company had closed on a $425,000 fundraising round and was accepted into the prestigious Techstars Chicago accelerator program. But in the age of COVID-19, with
much of ToDoolie’s core business shut down, Rodriguez has pivoted the company toward a new model: providing in-need families in metro Detroit with fresh bread. The entrepreneur’s mother, Sabina Valenzuela, already an accomplished baker, has been baking fresh loaves and Rodriguez’s company has been delivering it using the same technology platform it already had for linking up homeowners and those looking for work. “Whatever we’re doing, whether we’re selling bread or matching students and homeowners, the business is the same,” said Rodriguez. “It’s a service and logistics platform. It’s algorithms and it’s gig economy. So we’re actually using the exact same
technology for bread delivery that we were using for student labor.” The loaves are delivered by student workers using ToDoolie’s existing technology platorm, said Rodriguez. Such a profound shift begs the question of whether ToDoolie will eventually pivot back to its core business of connecting those college students and homeowners. Rodriguez said that at this point it’s too early to tell, but he said the bread delivery is growing and at this point it’s serving a need. “What we do know is that (bread delivery) is growing 60 percent weekover-week, we have the technology to power it and it’s a market need,” said Rodriguez. “Whether this will exist when COVID is over, we don’t know. But it’s a service that clients are asking for at this point.” — Nick Manes
Justin Onwenu, 23 Organizer, Sierra Club
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isasters have been a recurring theme in Justin Onwenu’s short career. It started when he was a student at Rice University in Houston, Texas. With a strong interest in health care, he was planning to head to medical school after graduation when Hurricane Harvey hit in August of 2017. Onwenu, who had just graduated and was president of his class, began working with one of his professors doing rapid response work with the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative at Rice. “We began to uncover a lot of health disparities and environmental and housing issues that came up because of the hurricane,” he said. Onwenu got an up-close view of what happens in communities with poor access to health care, food security and housing in the aftermath of a natural disaster. After a year, he decided to head back to his hometown of Detroit, where he knew he could
put his skills to use addressing health disparities caused by polluted air and water. Onwenu took a job as an organizer for the Sierra Club. It wasn’t long before he found himself in rapid response mode again, when a dock along the Detroit River owned by Revere Dock LLC that was thought to contain uranium collapsed into the Detroit River in December 2019. The site was found not to be radioactive, but the disaster increased the risk of releasing other toxins including PCBs into the river. Onwenu helped coordinate the community response, ensuring marginalized voices were heard in demands on city and state officials. Then in March, a new kind of disaster: the coronavirus pandemic, which hit Detroit’s black community hard. Onwenu set to work organizing a metro Detroit COVID-19 response including a Facebook group and coordination of mutual aid efforts across the city.
His leadership has made him a sought-after adviser. In the past several months, Onwenu has been invited to participate in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Environmental Justice Advisory Task Force and the Democratic National Committee’s Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis. “It does feel weird in a lot of ways to get so much attention,” he said. “I think the role of an organizer is to uplift the experiences of communities. I’m definitely honored by the recognition. but I also want to make sure that the importance and the urgency of the work is highlighted.” Onwenu sees a clear link between environmental health and the disasters he’s faced in his short career. “Government’s fundamental role is making sure people are safe,” he said. “This is something, especially around the environment, that I don’t think gets talked about enough. So, I’ve been trying to bridge those gaps.” — Nina Ignaczak
Josh York, 27 CEO and Founder, York Project
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osh York went from screen-printing T-shirt designs for his college band to running a social enterprise that sells clothing while it provides essentials to those experiencing homelessness. York, 27, started the York Project in 2012. He created his own apparel brand and decided to employ the then-popular Toms Shoes model of giving away one product for every one you sell. Now the Detroit-based York Project has donated more than $104,000 in both money and essentials kits filled with items such as toilet paper, socks, underwear and bottled water. York is also growing the more profitable side of his enterprise, the business-to-business-focused Soft Goods Detroit, which does private-label manufacturing for brands such as Shinola/Detroit LLC and Chips Ahoy cookies.
16 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MAY 4, 2020
York Project donates its essentials kits the third Saturday of the month in Midtown at a park at Charlotte and Fourth streets, alongside nonprofit P.B.J. Outreach Inc. York said the company aims to donate 150 kits per month, using volunteers to hand them out. York Project opened a store and manufacturing facility with jewelry maker Rebel Nell in August in Detroit’s Northwest Goldberg neighborhood. It also has a store at Twelve Oaks Mall. He said approximately 40 percent of York Project’s manufacturing is done in Detroit. He wants to bump that up to 80 percent, and hire more Detroiters. But the biggest challenge is cost: sometimes it’s just plain cheaper to source an already-sewn product from overseas than to ship in the fabrics and sew it themselves. “The most challenging financial thing to work through has been mak-
ing clothes in Detroit,” York said. York declined to disclose revenue figures but said the company’s revenue has doubled each year the last three years. The biggest pivot of late, though, has been in response to the coronavirus outbreak. York Project is making cloth face masks, sending face mask home sewing kits to volunteers and plans to start sewing medical gowns. “We were thinking, ‘We’ve got all this scrap fabric we have left over from our manufacturing, why don’t we make masks and donate them?’” he said. The apparel maker is now working through 24,000 mask orders, with some donated to homeless shelters or made for hospitals including Henry Ford Health System and Beaumont Health. York Project got a $25,000 state of Michigan grant to update its machinery for the purpose. — Annalise Frank
THE CLASS OF 2020
Fares Ksebati, 28 Founder and CEO, MySwimPro
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ares Ksebati combined his passions for swimming and entrepreneurship into a growing technology startup for swimmers. Ksebati founded MySwimPro Inc. in 2014. The mobile and wearable application gives people access to coaching expertise to improve their swimming skills. Ksebati is a three-time U.S. Masters swimming champion. But it was his love for Southeast Michigan’s startup community — plus his hunch that swimmers were an underserved market in the fitness app space — that led him to launch his company. “It wasn’t really like, ‘I want to start a swimming company,’” said Ksebati. “It was more, ‘I’m really interested in entrepreneurship, I see this problem
and I’m a domain expert in it.’” MySwimPro has been downloaded more than 1 million times, and the company’s subscription model netted it $1 million in revenue in 2019. The company employs 12 people who are fully remote and globally distributed. Now COVID-19 has closed nearly all swimming pools, so the company has implemented a “hard pivot” that maintains the same “core value proposition” that its users had previously sought from the app, said Ksebati. Now the app is less about workouts in the pool and more focused on swimmers who want to improve their overall health and wellness. “We’re serving the same audience
through the same subscription model ... all of the fundamentals are pretty much the same,” said Ksebati. “But we’re doing it through at-home workouts. So we didn’t have any of this stuff a month ago. In the last month, we filmed 200-plus unique workout videos.” While Ksebati has found a new opportunity for his company, he’s also quick to acknowledge that the whole fitness industry is likely to face struggles in the near-term. His company, however, he believes is well-suited to face those challenges. “The market has shifted,” he said. “So we’re kind of in between. We’re on the side of the swimming pool has disappeared temporarily, but we can still serve an audience. We’ve built a brand over the last five years, so people trust us.” — Nick Manes
Adi Sathi, 29 Chief of Staff, Young Republican National Federation | State Commissioner, Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission
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ith a passion for making a difference in the world, Adi Sathi, took a nontraditional path into politics. Getting there was the hard part. “But the journey itself is something I’m proud of,” Sathi said. The first step devastated his parents. After helping with the reelection campaign of a dormmate’s mother, and attending an election party filled with exciting power brokers, Sathi realized that being a doctor was not the only way he could make a difference. He left his medical school pursuits at Wayne State to study political science at the University of Michigan. Sathi didn’t wait long to start making change. At UM, he championed an initiative called Medical Amnesty, allowing those age 21 and under to seek medical attention without legal ram-
ifications for being a minor under the influence. After working with all 15 public universities and mounting a statewide campaign, the initiative, House Bill 4393, was presented in the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2012. At age 22, Sathi felt like he had a big moment, one he believes saved lives. The size of that impact hit home in 2018 when Sathi was a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Public Policy. “In telling my story I asked if anyone in the audience had personally benefited or knew someone that benefited from HB 4393 and nearly every person in the room raised their hand.” From that policy victory, Sathi was all in. He was elected as the executive director of the Association of Big Ten Students and served on Michigan’s
11th Congressional District Republican Committee at age 23, one of the youngest of the 25-member board. After working on campaigns including U.S. Congressman Dave Trott and State Representative Kathy Crawford, Sathi was elected vice chairman of Coalitions for the Michigan Republican Party, a role he held through 2017. Each experience and success has led to another for Sathi, who is currently chief of staff to the Young Republican National Federation. But what he is most of proud of is the opportunity to be a “proud voice for the Asian Pacific American community” in roles like his four-year term as a state commissioner on the Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission and as the Sig 1 Subcommittee chairman. During the coronavirus pandemic, Sathi and MAPAAC have been working with the state and federal government to help fight racism against Asian Americans. “The opportunities I’ve had are more than most people have in a lifetime, and I’m just getting started.” — Laura Cassar
Kirsten Hardy, 28 Project Manager, AKT Peerless Environmental Services
A
self-proclaimed “Excel Nerd,” Kirsten Hardy landed in the perfect place after graduating from college in 2013. Her position at AKT Peerless was the ideal marriage of her interests in the environment and urban planning. That in itself seemed serendipitous, but then she was assigned the task of updating the company’s archaic system to structure, analyze and track brownfield tax incentives for real estate development projects from their inception to project completion. Hardy’s love and expertise of Excel led to the creation of a “monster” workbook so comprehensive, and yet easy to use, that the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Michigan Department of Envi-
ronment, Great Lakes & Energy adopted its format as the required template for all brownfield tax increment financing applications submitted for state review and approval. “I am proud of my work and what I do,” Hardy said. “I’m the first female on my dad’s side of the family to go to college, get a degree and put it to work. I’m making my own road.” From her entry-level starting job, Hardy continued to rise within the company. Her recent accomplishments include helping secure $130 million in brownfield tax increment financing for the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority and the city of Detroit, with the funds helping to
prepare the 387- acre project area for the Fiat Chrysler Automobile Mack Engine Plant expansion. The $1.6+ billion project represents the first new auto manufacturing plant in the city in decades and is expected to create thousands of new jobs for Detroiters. Hardy collaborated with state and local government agencies to navigate this first-ever project through the qualification process. Now, she’s moving on to a new challenge. Hardy has recently started a new job as development project manager with Detroit-based Detroit Rising Development, the real estate development firm behind the Detroit Shipping Co. project. There, she plans to continue to pursue her passion for Detroit’s revitalization. “I want to go bigger,” Hardy said. “I want to move beyond my area of expertise.” — Laura Cassar
MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 17
NURSING HOMES
ilies and do the right thing.” Less than 1 percent of tested resident and employee populations with Southfield-based American House Senior Living Communities were positive for COVID-19, said Dale Watchowski, president and CEO. Between about 70 senior housing communities across the county, the company employs about 2,500 and has 4,200 residents, Watchowski said.
From Page 1
Bacholnik tested positive around three weeks ago and has been asymptomatic, according to her daughter, Dawn Beigler. Still, Bacholnik says she has felt trapped in a facility that didn’t know how to handle the pandemic — a crisis during which deaths in long-term care facilities have accounted for more than a quarter of the total in 23 states publicly reporting, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Crain’s reported last month and earlier this month on cases climbing at nursing homes in metro Detroit. At that time, however, many homes weren’t releasing data on case loads. Now the state is, though it is not reporting figures that would add needed context: number of deaths, total nursing home residents and the number who have recovered. Also, the data pertains only to nursing homes. The state has said it plans to begin reporting on other long-term care facilities. Melissa Samuel, president and CEO of the Health Care Association of Michigan, said the organization representing nursing facilities has advocated for the state listing the number of recovered patients alongside current cases. “Right now I think the focus really needs to be on testing. Without (more) testing, we don’t know if it’s an accurate report,” said Alison Hirschel, managing attorney of the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative. Some facilities not reporting and whether or not cases that get moved to hospitals are counted has added to the confusion. “Getting that accurate portrait is important because we have to target our scarce resources where they’re needed most,” she said. Samuel said the state is working on how to do widespread nursing home testing. Detroit in recent weeks instituted an effort to test all 2,000 residents at 26 nursing homes — the “center” of the battle, as Mayor Mike Duggan put it. Twenty-six percent of those in Detroit nursing homes tested positive, with 233 residents dying as of Friday. Ninety-one percent of Michigan nursing homes, or 442, have reported data to the state as of Thursday. They reported 2,907 current cases. The figure isn’t apples-to-apples comparable to the state’s total figure for all Michigan residents who have been confirmed infected: 42,356 as of Friday. The metro Detroit region accounts for approximately 75 percent of nursing home cases as of Thursday, with Wayne County accounting for more than a third. Twenty-seven nursing homes reported more than 30 confirmed cases, including 13 in Wayne County. Two tied for the highest number of cases, 68: Westland Convalescent & Rehab Center in Westland and Ambassador Nursing and Rehab Center in Detroit. As experts remind, confirmed case counts are not necessarily a reliable measure of case loads because they rely on testing capabilities. The more tests performed, the more positive cases. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on April 15 ordered long-term care facilities to report all presumed positive cases to the state health department, as well as inform employees and residents of cases.
‘Nothing anybody could do’ Bacholnik and her daughter worried when ShorePointe’s isolated coronavirus unit found its way to Bacholnik’s floor. The facility has 44 18 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MAY 4, 2020
Testing moves forward
Pat Buist (right) and other family members of nursing home residents Martha and Ken Kuiper display banners outside their window at Holland Home Raybrook in Grand Rapids for holidays they are celebrating apart. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, nursing home residents have been separated from family members on the outside. | COURTESY OF PAT BUIST
Michigan nursing homes with cases of COVID-19
Parents and grandparents
The table shows the nursing home facilities in Michigan reporting the highest number of current positive COVID-19 cases as of April 30, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Of 486 facilities statewide, 91 percent have reported, for a total of 2,907 cases. The count does not include patients or staff who have recovered or died or take into account the total number of residents at each facility. Also, higher rates can be reflective of higher testing capacity or of facilities accepting COVID-19 patients from nearby hospitals.
Nursing homes, though, say they’re doing everything they can to keep a vulnerable population safe. “We understand these are your parents and grandparents,” Samuel said in late April during a city of Detroit news conference. In response to the state releasing the number of COVID-19 cases in nursing facilities, the health care association sent a statement requesting more testing and personal protection supplies. It also said facilities have ramped up staff screening and infection control protocols. Workers, including those with union SEIU Healthcare Michigan, have complained of dangerous working conditions and a lack of personal protective equipment. “The availability of PPE is still a challenge and that is unacceptable,” Samuel said in the April 24 statement, though the challenge has eased slightly from several weeks ago at the height of the storm. Optalis CEO Patel called staffing one of the biggest challenges of the pandemic. Hirschel called it a chronic industry problem. “Under-staffing in nursing homes has been an extraordinarily longstanding problem and of course it’s exacerbated in this crisis,” Hirschel said. “We’re seeing facilities really struggling to meet the most basic staffing needs.” Optalis operates Bacholnik’s nursing home, along with three others in the region. Patel said the company formed a COVID-19 task force in February and worked hard to prepare for the pandemic. Optalis is following government guidance on safety protocols and sharing information, and doing its best to work with families, Patel said. While floor-level staff likely wouldn’t know the number of cases in a building, executives do. “You could never really fully prepare for this, obviously, but we were somewhat ready in anticipation,” he said. “We facilitate everything we can to make it a little bit more … comfortable situation for everybody.” Mike Perry, CEO of Brighton-based NexCare Health Systems LLC, said some of his company’s 18 facilities in Michigan are showing more cases because more testing is being done. When it comes to transparency, he said, “we want to work with our fam-
County
Facility name
Wayne Wayne Wayne Wayne Macomb Wayne Wayne Macomb Macomb Wayne Kalamazoo Shiawassee Wayne Macomb Oakland Wayne Wayne Alpena Livingston Macomb Oakland Macomb Oakland Wayne Oakland Wayne Wayne
Ambassador Nursing and Rehab Center Westland Convalescent & Rehab Center Imperial Healthcare Centre Fairlane Senior Care and Rehab Center Lakepointe Senior Care & Rehab. Regency A Villa Center Beaumont Rehab & Continuing Care - DBN Advantage Living Center - Warren Shorepointe Nursing Center SKLD Livonia Medilodge of Kalamazoo Durand Senior Care and Rehab Center Rivergate Health Care Center Fraser Villa SKLD - West Bloomfield Heartland Health Care Center Livonia NE Heartland Health Care Center - Dearborn Medilodge Alpena Caretel Inns of Brighton Autumn Woods Residential Health SKLD - Bloomfield Hills Pomeroy Sterling Skilled Rehab Evergr+B492een Health & Living Center St. James Nursing Center West Bloomfield Nursing Center Regency Heights Nursing Center Detroit Riverview Health and Rehab Center
Cases as of April 30
SOURCE: MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
cases of COVID-19, according to data reported Thursday. The facility operated by Novi-based Optalis Healthcare has a 200-person capacity, though it isn’t full, according to CEO Raj Patel. Beigler said she asked nurses about the number of cases and was told they couldn’t say. Bacholnik was concerned that staff didn’t have masks at the beginning of the outbreak, she told Crain’s. Beigler, a Michigan native who now teaches in Tennessee, said her mother felt like she was “left for the wind, not really being cared for” in her room despite her COVID-19-pos-
68 68 67 58 50 49 48 44 44 41 40 40 40 39 38 37 36 35 35 35 35 34 34 34 33 32 32 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS GRAPHIC
itive status, with her mother feeling she wasn’t being heard and her questions weren’t being answered. Beigler’s sister and niece visited Bacholnik, holding up a sign that said “We love you grandma” toward Bacholnik’s third-floor window, according to Beigler. Nursing homes have widely limited visitors in a bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus. The grandmother said it took her days to cope with the sadness that remote visit induced; she also discussed her final wishes with her daughters. “You can die and never see them again,” the grandmother said. “It’s a chance you take.”
After Detroit tested all of its nursing homes, it is turning its focus to other long-term care facilities, such as assisted living and adult foster care homes. Testing of 37 out of approximately 100 of those facilities in the city started Wednesday, according to Denise Fair, Detroit’s chief public health officer. Detroit is also requiring all nursing home staff get tested for the coronavirus by May 11. Facilities with younger, more independent residents or smaller groups are less likely to be hit as intensely, Samuel said. However, she said, it’s “difficult to gauge” their actual case load as of yet. “The smaller the facility the better, because you have limited staff and consistent staff,” said Liisa Vaara-Lewis, a social worker and case manager with the Probate Pro, a division of Darren Findling Law Firm PLC in Royal Oak. Some of her wards are in nursing and rehab facilities. In larger long-term care facilities, “you have so many direct care workers in and out, in and out ... These staff members, they do the best they can but it’s really impossible,” she said. “You don’t know who lives or dies. It’s scary.”
Far from over Despite the horror for many, some nursing home residents are finding a little levity. Pat Buist of Grand Rapids Township said she and several family members stood outside the window of their parents’ rooms at Holland Home Raybrook in Grand Rapids for the couple’s birthdays and their 69th wedding anniversary April 8. They came with banners, balloons and cookies in tow. “We can’t visit and that’s the hard thing,” Buist said. “But we’re all very pleased with the care they’re receiving there.” But the pandemic is far from over. Wayne County is now responding to what it calls an “alarming” spike in cases in long-term care facilities by beginning a round of compliance monitoring that started last weekend. The county had observed approximately 20 out of 60 facilities as of Wednesday, looking for compliance with CDC guidelines during the pandemic, according to county Health Officer Carol Austerberry. She said they’d seen fewer than 10 checklist items in which CDC guidelines not being followed during inspections so far. As of early Thursday afternoon, 11 percent of the county’s 7,544 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were in nursing homes, according to the county health department. Nursing home residents account for 39 percent of deaths. The data excludes Detroit, which has its own health department. “Certainly we saw this happening, but like I say, it all just really peaked and blossomed last week,” Austerberry said. “... The one thing I’ve learned about this disease is one week to the next, what’s the priority, things are so fluidly moving. That is the honest-to-goodness truth.” Contact: afrank@crain.com; (313) 446-0416; @annalise_frank
RENT
From Page 3
It is also the 16th largest apartment manager, with Southfield-based Village Green Cos. (37th) and Farmington Hills-based Beztak Cos. (50th) also ranked. Rose said his company is financially positioned to grow its portfolio and will seek out distressed assets for purchase as overleveraged owners struggle with depleted revenue streams. “To the extent that they’re out there, we will be looking for those opportunities,” Rose said.
Relief requests low Nationally, 91.5 percent of renters made a full or partial rent payment April 1-26, according to data on 11.5 million apartments compiled by the National Multifamily Housing Council. That’s down 4.1 percentage points from that same period last year, and 3.1 percentage points from March 1-26. Similar data for the Detroit area was only available through the middle of April through RealPage, which said that 83.5 percent of renters had paid through April 12, down 8 percentage points from that same time last year. Saab Grewal, director of asset management for West Bloomfield Township-based developer and manager Singh Development Co., said about 50 residents of its roughly 3,500 apartments in Southeast Michigan requested to participate in a relief program that allows them to pay half their April rent and spread the balance out across the remainder of their lease term. “We didn’t have many residents opt into the hardship program and we didn’t really have a tremendous amount of nonpayers to begin with, but going into May, we expect the number to double,” Grewal said. Likewise, Rose said a small chunk — 500 or more across 66,000 or so units — of its communities’ residents requested rent relief. Kevin Dillon, senior managing director in the Southfield office of Berkadia Real Estate Advisors LLC, said May and June rent collections were worrisome at the outset for some landlords but the challenge might not be as great as originally expected. “Residents either have jobs or seem to be getting unemployment of approximately $962 per week. This in many cases is more than what they typ-
ically make,” he said. Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services Inc., a national real estate company with a local office in Southfield, also Warren Rose noted last month in a report that increased unemployment benefits will help mitigate what otherwise could be a major blow to the industry, although some asset classes are likely to face challenges. “Lower-tier space may be burdened by the fact that their tenant base is more likely to be affected by job losses April 2020 and 6,financial hardship, whereas mid-tier space might be better suited to maintain cash flow,” the company said in its report. “Additionally, upper-tier space has a strong ability to avoid losses from missed rental payments as more tenants are able to work from home and have savings built up; however, newly built luxury apartments will find it difficult to build a tenant roster over the short term.”
February 2020 stable Market17, tightness December 2, 2019 The housing council reported last month conditions unlike anything seen since the Great Recession. Its “market tightness” index — which indicates vacancy and rent increase levels — are at roughly the same levels they were in January 2009. The rankings aren’t that far off today than they were more than 11 years ago on sentiment relative to the sales, debt and equity markets, either. But the long-term impacts to the industry are still not known, Rose said. “The fog of war has not lifted, and we’re not sure how things will settle out quite yet,” he said. “We have deals that are still in the pipeline for new land. We have construction that’s still ongoing. We’re still proceeding with that. We’re still out looking at new markets. We haven’t really changed our goals.” But in all likelihood, Grewal said, no one will be unscathed as unemployment and other economic factors continue to ripple through the economy. “We most likely have a tough couple years ahead of us. All of us will be impacted greatly before we are through this,” said Grewal. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
FOOD
From Page 3
Bids from the companies vying to distribute food were due last Friday, Knight said, and winning bids are set to be announced May 8. Food is supposed to start landing in communities just one week later. Nearly two dozen companies contacted the council last week to find out how much of the federally purchased food its seven food bank/rescue members can distribute as they developed competitive bids that were due to the USDA last Friday, he said. They include subsidiaries of Sysco Corp. and U.S. Foods, goliaths of the food-service industry and large contractors to schools and restaurants. Companies like Gordon Food Service and Reinhart Foodservice, which have pared back operations amid restaurant and hotel closures, are also vying for the federal contracts, along with retail distributors like Lipari Foods, dairy distributor Dean Foods, Mastronardi Produce and Little Caesars. “We don’t have any say in who gets these bids, but we’re hoping some of these Michigan companies win some of these bids,” Knight said. “Chances are they’re going to have already worked with us and know how to do that.” Th2020 e Farmers to Families Food Box May 4, Program builds on other federal food support expected to come through the CARES Act but not until later in May or in June, Knight said. That delay and one or more key distributors ceasing operations in the face of supply chain interruptions led the Food Bank Council of Michigan to broker an agreement with the state to purchase shelf-stable foods.
A delivery of state-purchased food from Meijer arrives at Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan. | GLEANERS
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS Under that pact, that state is sourcing $3.6 million in shelf-stable food through Meijer Inc. at cost for distribution through Michigan’s seven regional food banks and rescues. The state and federal governments are stepping in as demand for emergency food continues to rise. Between March and April, Michigan food banks and rescues distributed 41 percent more food than the RAIN’S D ETROIT sameCperiod last year.BUSINESS For comparison, during the week before the governor’sCMarch 24 stay-at-home RAIN’S D ETROIT BUSINESS order, the Food Bank Council of Michigan network distributed 439,368 pounds of food, Knight said. For the week of April 20, the statewide network distributed 741,080 pounds of food, up nearly 69 percent from before the pandemic. Demand is on the rise as waves of need hit emergency food distributors, Knight said. The first wave of need came from students and families who rely on free and reduced-cost meal programs in the schools, and the sec-
ond from the state’s elderly as many senior meal sites and programs stopped operating. A third wave of need is now hitting with folks who’ve never needed the emergency food network before, like employees of small businesses, restaurants and bars, parrking garages and other service industries, and gig and contract workers, Knight said. Those people are in a tough spot because they made too much money prior to this the pandemic to be eligible for any federal assistance like SNAP, but they’re not working now. “So where do they go to make ends meet?CTh ey’re coming to the food RAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS bank,” he said. Knight projects demand for emergency food assistance will have a long tail as people return to work in stages and take time to catch up on expenses. “We’re prepared for this to last through the summer,” Knight said. Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
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MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 19 WEDDING SERVICES
CRAIN’S READERS
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DAY CARE
From Page 1
To survive, the center laid off more than 100 of its 130 employees, maintaining only six in-class teachers and 10 to develop and implement online curriculum and clean buildings. Its founder and owner, Carol Gatewood, maintained the laid-off employees’ health insurance. Like parents across the state, and the country, Learning Tree and the entire child care system are barely hanging on until it’s safe for the kids to come back. As of now, day cares will be able to reopen to the regular public on May 16 under Whitmer’s current executive order. But with masks required and temperature testing and fear of continued spread of the virus, it’s unclear whether students will return.
Day cares darken Most day care centers around the U.S., however, chose to shutter during the crisis. Roughly 60 percent of day care centers “are fully closed and not providing care to any children at the moment,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center survey. Worse yet, 41 percent of child care supply could be lost in Michigan without tremendous federal support, according to an analysis by the Center for Progress using National Association for the Education of Young Children data. That translates to a capacity reduction of about 280,000 day care openings for kids. Deerield, Fla.-based The Learning Experience consolidated its seven metro Detroit centers into its Farmington day care center for the 25 kids it cares for daily, down from 876 before the outbreak. The company has worked withits franchisers to secure Paycheck Protection Program loans — authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to provide small business loans to companies retaining workers — and other programs to ensure the centers are financially viable through the pandemic. “We’ve partnered with our landlords and the teachers so we can keep moving forward,” said Stephanie Retherford, regional vice president of operations for The Learning Experience. “All of our locations are independently owned and operated franchises, so we’ve spent our time coaching our operators about being intelligent with their funds and helping them apply for as many grants and loans as possible.”
BRAGG
From Page 1
Our son has recently figured out how to open the door to my office, so sometimes he barges in like the KoolAid man, climbs up on my lap and asks me and my colleagues on Zoom for “more monkeys!” I make most of our meals. My husband cleans up. I do bathtime, he does bedtime. Most nights I work a late shift to catch up. We are lucky: our jobs are flexible, our bosses understanding, everyone knows we are doing the best we can. But it hasn’t changed the fact that we are both trying to fit our pre-pandemic 40+-hour per week workloads 20 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MAY 4, 2020
The Learning Experience has been able to keep 62 percent of its 130 centers across the U.S. open during the COVID-19 pandemic, Retherford said. Michigan began accepting grant applications late last week for a $130 million fund to aid child care providers. The program, funded with $100 million from the federal CARES Act relief package and $30 million from the state’s child care fund, will distribute $1,500 for inhome operations and $3,000 for child care centers. Additional funds will be made available to child care providers based on size and need, the governor said in a press releae last week. The state is also continuing its typical subsidy payments to day cares for low-income families regardless of whether those students are attending during the stay-athome order. But child care subsidies from the state have fallen dramatically in recent years. In 2007, Michigan provided child care subsidies to 57,268 families. By 2016, only 17,047 families were given child care subsidies, which are paid directly to daycares. This isn’t because Michigan families suddenly earned out of the program, but because the state raised the threshold for provider participation in 2008 when it determined it wasn’t accurately tracking subsidies paid for some home-based care providers. This meant fewer providers accepting subsidies and fewer families enrolling. And with the average cost of day care for an infant at $10,287 annually, or $857.25 per month, the subsidies and new state and federal funds won’t last long with the loss of 96 percent of students at Learning Tree and 97 percent of students at The Learning Experience. Each day the centers are closed, they are losing money, said Karen Ballard, a regional director at Learning Tree. “Like everyone else, we’re taking it day by day,” Ballard said. “A lot of privately owned centers aren’t going to make it through this.” The loss, however, isn’t likely to be evenly distributed, as in-home day care centers remain most under financial pressure. Since Dec. 31, 2017, the state lost 821 in-home day cares, down to 3,968 in-home day cares, according to data from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The slack has largely been picked up by the state’s 4,521 larger, more expensive day care centers, which have an average capacity of about 74 students, compared to just eight for inhome day cares. into … I’m not counting, but it’s a lot less time than that. And we are competing with each other for that time. We have figured out how to be loving and kind about it; these days we are pretty good at taking turns losing our cool. But when it is all stripped away, we are in a resource war. There is an undercurrent to these negotiations that we rarely discuss: whose job would it hurt more to lose? My husband outearns me by a measure that just about tracks with the average gender pay gap between working mothers and fathers. And if I lost my job, well, think of the day care savings! We’d be OK. But I always expected to stay in the workforce after motherhood; it’s how I was raised, and what I want for my-
Clair Glass of Learning Tree leads a virtual program called “Come Grow With Us ... At Home,’ using video conferencing. The program includes three hours of content and engagement with students with an option for two one-on-one sessions per week. | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S
Growing online Learning Tree retained six teachers for classroom instruction, but another 10 to launch an online curriculum. The curriculum was free as the center worked out the kinks, but starting May 4, Learning Tree will charge for the virtual program called “Come Grow With Us ... At Home.” The tuition-based program includes three hours of content and engagement with students via video-conferencing program Zoom for $130 per week, with an option for two one-on-one sessions per week with teachers for an additional $50. “This (stay-home order) went from two weeks to a month to, we don’t know, something more longterm, so we had to really adjust what we were doing,” said Andrea Brown, a regional director at Learning Tree. “The online program is something we can do to support the costs we have with the small team
that is working.” But with summer approaching, day care centers are chomping at the bit to get students back and get greater access to school-age kids for summer camp programs. Schools are closed for the year, so if Whitmer allows day cares to reopen on May 16, day cares can potentially launch summer programs a full month early to recoup some of the lost revenue during shutdown. “We definitely want those schoolage kids,” Ballard said. “If that starts a little bit earlier than normal, we’ll be ready. Our day camps will look a bit different since we likely won’t be taking field trips, but we’ve got lots of ideas. We are huge on (science, technology, engineering mathematics) and plan to encourage more of those activities. All of our centers have great playgrounds. We might not be able to take field trips, but we’re going to make sure kids have a memorable, fun-filled summer.” Amy Elliott Bragg’s son, and millions of other children, have received an early and unplanned education in the world of work as their parents juggle. | AMY ELLIOTT BRAGG
self. The thought of losing or leaving my job is an abyss I don’t like to stare into. But these days the abyss
has moved into the neighborhood, and now I wave hi to it on my morning walks.
Parents in quandary But whether parents send their children back to day cares or summer camps remains unknown. Alex Christenson now shares an ad hoc office with his wife, Lauren, an
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“WE ARE FINDING WAYS TO KEEP EVERYONE SAFE AND HELP PARENTS GET WORK DONE AND ALLOW KIDS TO HAVE FUN EXPERIENCES.” — Stephanie Retherford, regional vice president, The Learning Experience
In the absence of a robust support system — without national paid parental leave or guaranteed paid sick leave, with limited financial support for the steep expense of early child care, and with school schedules that don’t map to most parents’ working days — working parents have always had to just bubblegum it together. It’s been difficult, but doable, for us, but we’re privileged; the road is much steeper for single parents, small business owners, gig workers, care workers, parents who work more than one job to make ends meet. Now, the pandemic is testing the weight of the whole built-fromtoothpicks system — and it is not holding up. As long as we live with
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interior designer. The 38-year-old senior recruiter for staffing firm Conexess Group LLC in Plymouth is also managing in shifts homeschooling a first-grader and a preschooler. “We’re just playing man-to-man defense to make it through the day,” Christenson said. “Everything is a constant gray area. There’s no clear beginning and end to work anymore
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COVID-19, parents like me — moms especially — will ask ourselves if we can really keep trying to make working full time with no child care work. Some of us will leave the workforce, for a while. Some of us might not come back. Or our child care won’t come back, leaving us stranded. There are bright spots in this mess: We really don’t miss our commute. It took me weeks to see the joy through the stress, but now I do genuinely love the extra time I get to spend with my kid. And I feel more like myself at work these days, when, during our daily Zoom stand-ups, my toddler sits in my lap trying to figure out how earbuds work and my colleague’s older kids make bunny-ears in the background or offer
and the kids aren’t happy either, really. I’m just not sure how sustainable this all is.” The Christensons are an average family in the wake of COVID-19, thrust Christenson into a new crossbred disaster of full-time parent and employee. Or the 1.26 million unemployed, who are adjusting to the financial needs of the family while now also securing normalcy for a child’s schedule upended. Christenson signed both kids up for summer programs through their day care in Plymouth only weeks before the stay-at-home order hit in March. But, now, with a father-in-law with multiple sclerosis and his father a cancer survivor, his desire to get kids back into a “normal” routine is hampered by safety concerns. “I want to go back to a normal day, but there’s just no clarity on anything,” Christenson said. “But reading the news every day, it’s hard to be even hopeful about when it’s safe to send our kids back. That’s a big part of the stress of it all.” Other parents have expressed apprehension about returning their children to school or day care due to the new restrictions and protocols that will be enacted until COVID-19 is eradicated. Besides daily temperature checks, students over 2 years old are given a mask at The Learning Experience and taught extensive hand-cleaning regimens. “There’s an undercurrent of fear and desperation for all parents right now,” said Brooke Miller, founder of Ferndale-based Pure Honey Group LLC, doing business as Honey Space for Moms. “Day cares that aren’t changing their approach to deal with the new levels of anxiety, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypochondria, etc. that’s exploding, I don’t know how well they are going to fare when this is over. I do think we’re going to see a home school explosion.” Miller, a licensed psychotherapist, operates a therapist office, yoga studio and a co-working space all catered for mothers. The center also has a day care-like function where staff watches children for moms working or receiving services. Miller believes her model will become more popular and traditional day cares may suffer. “People are realizing there may be more flexibility for parents than we previously thought,” Miller said. “There may be fear or discomfort in sending them to day cares, but that two hours of hard focus at a co-worktheir opinions on the days’ news. None of us has had a haircut or worn makeup in eight weeks. We have honest moments about how hard all of this is. Things are not getting easier, but I am starting to get over the feeling that I should, or even could, find a way to make it easier. It is not a solvable problem. My husband and I will continue our negotiations until we feel it is safe to send our son back to day care, or until one of us — most likely me — decides to take some time off to care for our kid. That time could come soon. Or it could come next year. We have another one on the way, which will change the equation for the risks we are willing to take, but also for
ing space with a drop-in day care may be easier to tolerate.” But day care demand is expected to return, albeit slowly, said Kristyn Buhl-Lepisto, executive director at Kalamazoo-based KC Ready 4, a nonprofit supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to provide subsidies and promote universal pre-K learning in Kalamazoo County. “We do not anticipate the demand will decrease for childcare, but the re-entry back to center-based care will likely be slow,” Buhl-Lepsito said in an email to Crain’s. “We have several programs who are anticipating reopening soon but there are so many challenges to navigate and anxieties from families, that it’s hard to figure out how long it will take for enrollment to increase again to ‘normal’ levels. The other side of this is that private providers have been incredibly hard hit financially ... So finding care could potentially even become a bigger challenge down the road. I think, if anything, this crisis has illuminated just how important consistent, reliable, and quality care is for working families.”
Weathering the storm Learning Tree and The Learning Experience limp along, in hopes of better days and eased restrictions. “We’ve seen how many different communities handle (reopening) because we’re in several states,” Retherford said. “We typically err on the side of caution. But we have do have some new schools in the works and we plan on following through on those plans.” Twenty-nine states currently allow day cares to remain open to anyone willing to attend, including Wisconsin and Indiana. The Learning Experience has already launched its summer camp program in Washington state, which was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., but is limiting class sizes to 10 students, Retherford said. “We are finding ways to keep everyone safe and help parents get work done and allow kids to have fun experiences,” Retherford said. Brown is confident in Learning Tree’s ability to weather the ills of the coronavirus as well. “We’re a group of really optimistic and driven people leading this company,” Brown said. “We all lived through 2008-2009 and were successful and offered high quality services. We’re not just a day care. We truly help families and I think they’ll come back.” Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh how badly we will need the support. One of our son’s favorite songs right now is “Bear Hunt,” in which a pair of adventurers encounters a series of obstacles: a field of tall grass, a rushing river, a patch of mud. The refrain they sing has taken on new meaning for us in these times: We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We’re just gonna have to go through it. Mostly we think it’s a message of resilience, but I’m not sure what we’ll find on the other side, in the cave, with the bear. Amy Elliott Bragg is special projects editor for Crain’s Detroit Business.
BANKS
ident and CEO of Ann Arbor-based Arbor Bancorp Inc., said “the power of community banking really From Page 3 showed through in this whole proData compiled by Crain’s shows gram.” The top executive of Bank of Ann that of the 25 largest banks in Michigan by deposits, 10 are headquar- Arbor commended local banking tered outside the state and they ac- institution’s “ability to be nimble count for around $157.4 billion in and responsive” in both funding total deposits. That means Michi- rounds of the program. Marshall, whose bank was gan banks with a combined roughly $24 billion in deposits accounted among those closed from accessing for nearly half of the PPP lending in the portal during the eight-hour pethe state. riod, said he believes most of his “Banks in Michigan did a great customers have been served at this job,” said Michael Tierney, presi- point. dent and CEO of the Community “We’re still seeing demand, but at Bankers association, who noted the much smaller frequency,” he said. long hours required for the of- “When (PPP) was unveiled, we ten-manual work that banks had to were just rocked, as most were.” While data on individual banks’ do in the early days of the program. “Banks worked late into the night PPP lending has not yet been reand into the weekend.” leased, some institutions have done To that end, data released so. TCF, for example, said this week Wednesday evening by the SBA in its earnings release that as of backs up the role that small lenders April 23 it had loaned $1.2 billion have played in the PPP. under the program. The second tranche of funding — Marshall with Bank of Ann Arbor $310 billion — kicked off last Mon- said he expects his bank to top out day morning. By Wednesday eve- at about $273 million in total loans. ning, 960,000 loans had been In a sign that the bank was able to approved totaling nearly $90 billion implement processes to more effifrom 5,300 lenders, according to ciently process loans, Marshall said the SBA. that in the two weeks of the first Of that total, about 61 percent of round the bank approved 583 loans, approved loans came from lenders and in the first two days of round with less than $10 billion in total as- two the bank had approved more sets. When including middle-sized than 700. lenders of between $10 billion and While the program is viewed as $50 billion, 82 percent of PPP loans unique lifeline and very much were by either a needed during small or medi- “WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT a time when the economy has um-sized lendbeen ground to er. Those lend- WHAT GOT DONE, YOU HAD a halt due to the ers had also A YEAR OR 15 MONTHS’ spread of the processed deadly coronaaround 70 per- WORTH OF LENDING THAT cent of the total WAS DONE IN LESS THAN virus, it’s also $90 billion, acbeen marred by cording to the TWO WEEKS. IT WAS AN controversies. SBA figures. During the INCREDIBLE FEAT BY THE The average first application PPP loan stands GOVERNMENT AND BY period in early at under April, several BUSINESSES TO TRY AND $95,000, aclarge banks cording to SBA DO THIS.” struggled to get Regional Ad- — Michael Tierney, president loan-processministrator Rob and CEO, Community Bankers ing systems up Scott, who overand running. sees the Great Lakes region. Most notable among them, at least “Small businesses create two out in Southeast Michigan, has been of every three net new jobs and the Dallas-based Comerica Inc., MichiPPP is helping those here in the gan’s second-largest financial instiGreat Lakes Region keep their em- tution by total deposits. ployees on payroll,” Scott said in a Earlier this week, a spokesman statement. “This is allowing hard- for the bank’s Michigan operations working Americans to keep their said Comerica was accepting PPP jobs and the small businesses vital applications via its online portal to our local communities and na- and had received more than 15,000 tional economy to be positioned for applications across its five-state re-opening as soon as they are able.” footprint. The spokesman, Matthew Earlier Wednesday, the SBA for a Barnhart, declined further comperiod of eight hours blocked access ment on how many loans have been to its portal to all lenders of more approved and how much money than $1 billion in size, in an effort to had been disbursed to customers. make loans available to the smallest While acknowledging the ongobusinesses and lenders. ing challenges with the program, Tierney notes that small business Tierney with the Community Banklending requires, to an extent, a per- ers association is also quick to note sonal touch, something sources the sheer scope of the PPP and the have said smaller banks are better fact that it went from inception to able to provide. actual policy and a lifeline to sink“The (first round) banks really ing businesses in just a matter of had to focus on customers and weeks. prospects they knew,” he said. “They “When you think about what got still had to follow all the bank secre- done, you had a year or 15 months’ cy requirements, which require worth of lending that was done in them to know all the owners of any less than two weeks,” Tierney said. business they’re going to make a “It was an incredible feat by the govloan to. It’s a lot of background work ernment and by businesses to try and they didn’t have a lot of time and do this.” and they had so many customers that required them to do it.” Contact: nmanes@crain.com; Echoing that, Tim Marshall, pres- (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes MAY 4, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 21
THE CONVERSATION
New state medical society president: ‘Coronavirus is where my mind is right now’ MICHIGAN STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY: S. Bobby Mukkamala, M.D., a Flint otolaryngologist and longtime advocate for expanded public health investment and insurance coverage, was installed as president of the Michigan State Medical Society for the 2020-2021 year in a virtual ceremony. Mukkamala has been doing more telemedicine with his patients than ever before as his office has been temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Mukkamala, 49, shares an office practice in Flint with his wife, Nita Kulkarni, M.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist. An outspoken advocate for public health issues in his hometown of Flint, Mukkamala was an early voice expressing concern with the Flint water crisis and the high levels of lead leaching into the drinking water. | BY JAY GREENE ` Crain’s Detroit Business: What will be your role as MSMS president this year as we deal with the effects of coronavirus? Mukkamala: My initial role as MSMS president will be undoubtedly to help our members get back to practicing medicine in a way that’s safe and financially viable. Many of our members haven’t been able to go into their offices to see patients. I’ve been going to the office for a few hours a week to see emergency ear, nose and throat patients. If I didn’t see them they would likely end up in an emergency room, which is the last place they want to be, especially the elderly patients. Across the state, many physician practices are in the same boat. The health care sector, just like every other sector, is devastated economically because of COVID-19, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get back on its feet.
screened to make sure their cancers are not coming back. I am supposed to see them every couple months. Some of that has been delayed. So when we get back, what does it look like to be able to take care of those patients when we are still dealing with an infectious disease that we haven’t eradicated? I will be following the guidance from the American Academy of Otolaryngology. What is the best way to make sure that the scope that I have to put into the larynx of this patient does not risk transmitting this virus from one patient to the other? There are scientific answers that are needed as far as disease transmission. But then there’s also the overall protection that we need with personal protective equipment for our patients in our office to make sure that we can do this in the right way.
` How has this impacted your practice? I practice with my OB-GYN wife (Nita Kulkarni). We have a common waiting room. It’s a matrimonial combination as opposed to a clinical one. Her patients go in one direction, and my patients go in another. We employ 11 people. One is a part-time audiologist and the rest are full-time clinical and clerical staff that we share. One was tested positive and she was on a 14-day quarantine and has since tested negative. She’s going to be coming back next week. We made a conscious decision that we were going to continue to employ our staff even though we are at 10 percent to 15 percent of the volume. The past several weeks they’re doing things like organizing, fixing up little things, those long-term to do lists that we never seem to get time to do. We didn’t feel comfortable laying them off.
` Besides dentists, ENTs have probably the most potential for exposure because you are looking inside people’s mouths, noses and ears all day. You can mask, but patients can’t because you are diagnosing them. Do you feel more exposed and how will you protect yourself when you reopen? The original cases in China were airwayrelated or ear, nose and throat-related cases. There were 14 people in an OR around this ENT patient, and all 14 of them actually ended up testing positive. The nose and airway where we are inserting a swab in their nose to diagnose them is where there is the highest viral load, the nasal pharynx, or the back of the nose. That’s an area that I’m looking at face to face every day in my practice. It’s a high-risk occupation in the wake of COVID-19. And it’s going to change significantly how we manage those patients going forward. We don’t exactly know how yet.
` What about safety when patients return? What needs to be done so you, your staff and patients can feel protected and safe? I would love to be able to start taking care of my patients. I have had neck cancer patients who are supposed to get
` Is MSMS talking with the state Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer about when physician practices can reopen and under what conditions? Yes, we sure are. We had conference calls ... with Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the chief medical executive for the governor, on
this issue. We’ve also talked to some Senate leadership (in late April) about what it’s going to look like when we reopen the elective health care side of this. Ideally, we want to get to the point where testing is so available that everybody will know their status. Do they have (COVID-19) or not? Maybe they are asymptomatic? We are obviously a long way from getting to that point where everybody knows their status. In anticipation of more elective surgeries, I want to know my status. I have health care workers in my office, and I want to know their status. We just have to assume that everybody is either susceptible or a carrier of that disease. ` Should patients be tested before they come in for an appointment? How will you manage your appointments? I need to rely on our public health colleagues to tell me how best to do it. To me, what makes more sense is to have a particular day or several days of the week to bring in patients who have tested positive as opposed to having separate areas and rooms within a office to treat everybody. For coronavirus-negative patients or those without symptoms, the next day we sterilize the heck out of everything and they come in for appointments.
In other words, what does it look like then to talk to a patient about their dizziness that they have been putting off for two months? Is it a stroke or an inner ear problem? I am afraid we will see people who became sicker because they waited to come to see physicians or the emergency department. When a patient like that is in my office, obviously, we both are going to have masks on. We’re going to maintain that 6-foot social distance until the time comes where I have to look in their ears. I hope we won’t delay care until we get to that point (where there might be problems in waiting). We have to figure out how to deliver care without knowing who’s positive.
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` What do you expect to see when people who have put off care come to see you?
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NBA owners help small business community in Detroit AS THE NBA SEASON HANGS IN LIMBO after being suspended more than a month ago because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Detroit Pistons teamed with the Brooklyn Nets to do some good for the city of Detroit. Joe Tsai, owner of the Nets and co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is donating 350,000 KN95 masks and 100,000 medical goggles to the city. Tsai said he called Pistons Vice Chairman Arn Tellem and asked if Tellem could coordinate distribution of the supplies. “It came together very fast in a 22 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MAY 4, 2020
Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai
very short period of time,” Tsai said, adding that the supplies should delivered by Monday. The donation will help not only first
responders and bus drivers, but also entrepreneurs who will need PPE to resume work in the coming weeks, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said. “This is going to help the small business community,” the mayor said. “This is going to be a big part of restarting our economy.” At the beginning of the month, the Pistons pitched in with a handful of other companies for a $350,000 grant to Forgotten Harvest to help feed the hungry during the coronavirus crisis. The organization is also working with the state on PSAs pro-
moting social distancing. Tsai’s Alibaba showed interest in choosing Detroit for a distribution center in 2017 when it hosted its Gateway ’17 event in the city. Asked about those discussions on Thursday while videoconferencing in for the news conference, Tsai said the company is “still evaluating the possibility.” Duggan, in turn, floated the fact that Detroit is planning to repurpose part of the Coleman A. Young International Airport for private industrial or distribution use.
Crain’s Detroit Business is published by Crain Communications Inc. Chairman Keith E. Crain Vice Chairman Mary Kay Crain President KC Crain Senior Executive Vice President Chris Crain Secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong Chief Financial Officer Robert Recchia G.D. Crain Jr. Founder (1885-1973) Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. Chairman (1911-1996) Editorial & Business Offices 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732; (313) 446-6000 Cable address: TWX 248-221-5122 AUTNEW DET CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS ISSN # 0882-1992 is published weekly, except the third week in December, by Crain Communications Inc. at 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732. Periodicals postage paid at Detroit, MI and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 07925, Detroit, MI 48207-9732. GST # 136760444. Printed in U.S.A. Contents copyright 2020 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial content in any manner without permission is prohibited.
SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVAL:
THE BASICS May 7 | 4 p.m. SPONSORED BY
The COVID-19 crisis has wreaked havoc on small businesses as Michigan's stay-at-home order forced widespread closures and layoffs. Though government help is available through the federal CARES Act and other sources, many business owners have struggled to connect with the resources they need. This webinar will explore what businesses can do to successfully reopen, or next steps if they're faced with permanent closure.
MODERATED BY:
Nick Manes
Finance and Technology Reporter, Crain’s Detroit Business
PANELISTS INCLUDE:
Pierre Batton
Vice President of Small Business Services, DEGC
Brian Calley
President, Small Business Association of Michigan
Kyle Sasena
First Vice President, TCF Bank
‘Tember Shea
Venture Portfolio Manager, Invest Detroit Ventures
Ned Staebler
President & CEO, TechTown
REGISTER: crainsdetroit.com/smallbizwebinar
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