THE CONVERSATION
Employment: Kapstone seizes growth opportunities in aerospace, energy. PAGE 3
Recently retired attorney Denise Lewis on diversity, development and Dan Gilbert. PAGE 38
Kapstone Employment Services cofounder Tammy Turner
CRAINSDETROIT.COM I OCTOBER 26, 2020
POLITICS
Amid a pandemic, lawmakers get fewer free lunches with lobbyists
ELECTION 2020
Several critical issues now facing Michigan will be of national importance in 2021. We asked journalists and thought leaders to explain why.
Lobbyist-paid meals for legislators down 62% through July; firms ponder strategies for 2021 BY CHAD LIVENGOOD
The Essay Issue Anna Clark: The state of Michigan’s cities | PAGE 25 Rick Haglund: The automotive economy faces the future | PAGE 26 Dustin Walsh: How tariffs harm manufacturing and agriculture | PAGE 26
A steep decline in lobbyist-paid lunches and dinners for Michigan lawmakers this year because of the coronavirus pandemic has altered the way the state's advocacy industry gets access and information to decision-makers in the halls of power. Meals and drinks paid for by multiclient lobbying firms, corporations, industry groups or individual lobbyists is on pace to be at its lowest level since the Great Recession ended in 2010, according to public disclosures of lobbying expenditures in the first seven months of this year. The coronavirus pandemic has upended the way registered lobbyists communicate and interact with the Legislature's 148
members and key officials in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration. Much like other professional services, communication has moved to Zoom video conference call screens — mostly wiping out the time-honored tradition of dinners and schmoozing in Lansing's finer dining establishments. “No one is doing lunch anymore — very rarely, once or twice," said Matthew Miner, CEO of Capitol Strategies Group Inc., a multiclient lobbying firm in Lansing. Through July 31, lobbyist expenditures for food and beverages were under $220,000. Much of that spending came in the first quarter of the year, before the public health emergency prompted an immdiate halt to business travel, large group meetings and restaurants were shuttered in the spring. See LOBBYISTS on Page 36
Eric Freedman: Why the Detroit River is a bellwether of environmental quality | PAGE 28
INSIDE
50
Laura Berman: Women in politics need to play the long game | PAGE 29
NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING
Nia Winston: Labor, equity and the pandemic | PAGE 30
A who’s who of movers, shakers and influencers. PAGES 12-22
TECHNOLOGY
Ann Arbor AI company Clinc looks to upscale under new CEO NEWSPAPER
VOL. 36, NO. 43 l COPYRIGHT 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BY NICK MANES
With a new chief executive and a growing focus on serving the financial services sector, AI startup Clinc Inc. still has some “phenomenal” problems to overcome, according to new CEO Jon Newhard. The Ann Arbor-based company has gained buzzworthy attention in recent years as its Siri-like voice-controlled software has been put to use
in mobile-banking applications. However, the company has found both high times and low in the last 18 months. In May 2019 the company netted more than $50 million in new funding, and then in February this year Clinc found itself under the microscope as its co-founder and then-CEO Jason Mars left the company amid allegations of inappropriate behavior. Now, with a laser-eyed focus on
expanding within the financial services sector — particularly banking institutions — Newhard said he sees a bright future for the company. With Clinc possessing “great technology,” it would have been easy to get “spread ... too thin,” the 51-yearold said. So instead, the decision to focus on providing software to banks was an intentional one. See CLINC on Page 36
NEED TO KNOW
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IMPROVE, JOBLESS CLAIMS DROP THE NEWS: Michigan’s unemployment rate dropped in September to 8.2 percent, down from 8.9 percent in August. Jobless claims also plummeted by about two-thirds last week from the previous week. But pandemic-related layoffs remain high, and the number of job holders fell in 16 of Michigan’s 17 regions between August and September. WHY IT MATTERS: The numbers show large numbers of workers leaving the labor force and more people working second jobs as the coronavirus pandemic grinds on. Roughly 65,000 people, or 1.3 percent of the labor force, left the workforce in the state in September.
CEOS: STOP SUING OVER COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS THE NEWS: A coalition of 32 health care, labor, higher education and business executives called on Michigan political leaders last week to cease litigation over public health orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus amid a resurgence that’s starting to be felt in some hospitals across the state. WHY IT MATTERS: The letter comes nearly three weeks after the Michigan Supreme Court upended Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s management of
the public health crisis, invalidating a law she used to issue broad executive orders without input from the Legislature. The business leaders have called for a legal cease fire, asking that public health and workplace safety orders issued by the Whitmer administration be allowed to stand without challenge in court or by legislation.
State and local funding streams include Medicare, Medicaid, infrastructure, housing and other social services programs. Detroit has the lowest response rate of cities with more than 500,000 residents, behind Philadelphia. The pandemic as well as an Oct. 13 Supreme Court decision that allowed the Trump administration to end Census operations early may have played a role in low response rates.
Entrepreneurs win $1 million Detroit Demo Day competition More than $1 million in awards was up for grabs in the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Detroit Demo Day. This was the fourth year of the pitch event and the first in which all 17 finalists received a portion of the prize money. Dana White, owner of Midtown salon Paralee Boyd, earned the $200,000 top prize.
WHITMER SIGNS PANDEMIC LAWSUITS PROTECTIONS
DETROIT CENSUS COUNT LAGS 2010 RATE THE NEWS: At the close of the 2020 Census, Detroit’s response rate is 51 percent — lagging the 2010 rate of 53.6 percent, which it aimed to beat. The self-response rate does not include answers gathered by Census takers, so the final response rate will be higher, but it’s still not the showing city leaders hoped for. WHY IT MATTERS: Census counts impact state and national political representation, as well as $1.5 trillion in federal funding levels for states and cities in need of money like Detroit.
THE NEWS: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday signed into law legal protections for Michigan businesses and other employers that are sued by infected customers or workers despite having followed all coronavirus safety protocols. WHY IT MATTERS: The protections are intended to give employers peace of mind that “if they act responsibly and invest time and money to follow public health protocols, they will be protected from lawsuits related to this pandemic,” said a sponsor of the bills, Republican Rep. Graham Filler of DeWitt.
PENSKE REPORTS RECORD PROFITS THE NEWS: Penske Automotive Group Inc. reported Thursday that its third quarter was the most profitable quar-
Karissma Ye of Gildform won the top $75,000 in the Start category at Detroit Demo Day. | ELI LINDAUER, ROCKET MORTGAGE
ter in company history. Bloomfield Hills-based Penske, the second-largest new-vehicle retailer in the U.S., said third-quarter net income more than doubled to $247.6 million. Revenue fell 0.1 percent to $5.97 billion.
WHY IT MATTERS: Penske’s third-quarter gains “were primarily driven by same-store retail automotive revenue and margin expansion, coupled with expense reductions,” CEO Roger Penske said in a statement.
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WORKFORCE
Kapstone Employment sees growth opportunities
REDEVELOPMENT
WHEN THE CITY’S NOT COMING TO HELP
Industries include aerospace, energy BY CHAD LIVENGOOD
A Detroit-based staffing company that started as a specialized recruiter for engineering jobs projects $1 million in revenue this year — and its founders are pursuing new opportunities in different workforce sectors. Kapstone Employment Services, founded by human resources veterans Kerry Buffington and Tammy Turner, has grown to 10 full-time em- Buffington ployees in its downtown Detroit office. The company also has opened an office in Orlando in an effort to tap into to workforce needs of Florida’s aerospace and enter- Turner tainment service industries, Turner said. The upward growth trajectory of the startup might not have materialized had the two entrepreneurs not tweaked their business model, which was initially focused solely on recruiting engineers. Their initial focus on recruiting and placing engineers for direct hire and getting paid a commission for the work yielded early success, followed by slower demand for the service, Turner said. “We said to ourselves, ‘We’re not going to make it, we’re not going to last if we don’t come up with a different strategy,’” Buffington said in an interview on the Detroit Rising podcast. That different strategy led Turner and Buffington to branch out into temporary staffing and hourly wage job placements. See KAPSTONE on Page 37
Nonprofit Dream of Detroit’s project director, Mark Crain, takes Crain’s on an early morning tour of the area on the city’s west side where it is renovating homes and aiming to build sustainable neighborhood growth. | ANNALISE FRANK/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Dream of Detroit privately takes on neighborhood redevelopment BY ANNALISE FRANK
The dozen-block neighborhood where nonprofit Dream of Detroit has invested nearly $1 million isn’t near the top of the city of Detroit’s priority list. Mayor Mike Duggan has officially visited Dream’s redevelopment area near the intersection of the Lodge and Davison freeways twice in recent years, according to the nonprofit’s project director Mark Crain, and after one visit a speed hump got installed. But it is not among the 10 multineighborhood areas the city has targeted for public-private investment efforts through its Strategic Neighborhood Fund. The 32-year-old Crain says the neighborhood not a “victim” — it hasn’t pursued funding from the organizations running SNF and been turned down. However, like some
“WE HAD TO TEAR OUT HALF THE KITCHEN CEILING TO FIX THE PIPE FROM UPSTAIRS.” — Dawud Clark, Project Homecoming house manager
other parts of the city dotted with vacant lots or derelict commercial properties with phantom owners, its economic development has been largely ignored and is in the hands of residents and advocates. So how is development building outside the bounds of government-led strategies? The 6-year-old community organizing group rooted in Islam offers one example. With private financial backing from individual donors and foundations, Dream of Detroit is undertaking a chain of activities aimed at empowering and improving the economic health of a community anchored by the longtime Muslim Center Mosque and Community Center at
1605 W. Davison St., just west of Highland Park. Dream of Detroit — or Detroit Revival Engaging American Muslims — has overseen rehabilitation of 13 properties in the neighborhood. It also combines redevelopment with job training, entrepreneurship, returning citizens’ services, events and placemaking for an overall vision of sustainable growth. The latest Dream of Detroit program coming to fruition is Project Homecoming. Set in a renovated five-bedroom house, the transitional home offers lodging, community, and job and entrepreneurial training to Muslim men
returning from time incarcerated. With employment tied to reduced recidivism and formerly incarcerated Americans facing a 27 percent unemployment rate as of 2018, per the Prison Policy Initiative, the re-entry house is not only a way to help individuals get back on their feet. The project is also a piece of the wealth-building and economic development puzzle in neighborhoods of a city with 30.6 percent of residents living below the poverty line as of 2019, per U.S. Census Bureau surveys. Dream of Detroit has hired a house manager and expects to get its first resident before the end of the year, after having raised nearly $50,000 in a crowdfunding campaign since June 2019 for the approximately $100,000 project. See DREAM on Page 37
COURTS
Old Mission wineries sue township over ‘unconstitutional’ ordinances BY DUSTIN WALSH
2 Lads Winery sits on a 60-acre bluff overlooking the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay toward the Kewadin Casino on the mainland. Its rows of red grapes span the sunrise side of the peninsula. The scenic and serene plot of land is ripe for weddings. But the winery is barred from hosting nuptials or even selling merchandise emblazoned with its logo due to Peninsula Township ordinances. The
vineyard can’t even collaborate with vineyards outside the 27.8-squaremile peninsula. Last week, 2 Lads joined 9 other wineries and the peninsula’s winery association in suing the township alleging the municipality’s local ordinances violate state law and the U.S. Constitution and hamper the wineries’ ability do business, costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue. “We all know that beautiful wine dinners overlooking this bay and this
hillside are desirable,” said Chris Baldyga, owner of 2 Lads and president of the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula Association. “We know so many local chefs and interesting food trucks; people that I’d love to host and do small interesting events with that we have to turn down and refuse. They limit what we can sell in our tasting rooms and where we can buy our fruit. We’ve suffered from these illegal ordinances.” See WINERIES on Page 34
2 Lads Winery overlooks the east arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. | 2 LADS WINERY OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 3
Dickie McCamey Expands Presence in Detroit Office
REAL ESTATE INSIDER
The firm recently added Gregory I. Thomas and Michelle A. Thomas as Principals, and Kevin G. Thomas as an Associate
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This small sliver of land near Little Caesars Arena has a $1.8 million asking price, or the equivalent of $25 million per acre. | KIRK PINHO/ CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Eye-catching price sought for sliver of land near Little Caesars Arena Looking to capitalize on its proximity to Little Caesars Arena, a property owner is seeking the equivalent of approximately $25 million per acre for a Kirk small chunk of vaPINHO cant land. The parcel at 2939 Park Ave., about a block and a half north of the home of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Pistons, is being listed for $1.8 million for its 0.07 acres. Of the Detroit commercial real estate experts I emailed the last several days about this — appraisers, brokers, developers — none had specific examples of land in the metro region in
“WHAT’S DRIVING THE PRICE IS THE LOCATION RIGHT IN THE MIDST OF WHAT WE ANTICIPATE TO BE SOME ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE CASS CORRIDOR AREA.”
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recent years being sold at $25 million or more per acre. City property data says the land, which measures 31 feet wide by 105 feet deep, is jointly owned by Allen Early and Jonathan Adams. The listing broker is Rashad Elabed of Downtown Realty. Early said last week Adams had owned the property “for some time” and that he came in as part of the ownership group about eight years ago. It had been a boarding house but caught fire in what he said is suspected arson five or six years ago and had to be demolished. “What’s driving the price is the location right in the midst of what we anticipate to be some additional development in the Cass Corridor area,” Early said Thursday morning. “The hope is that the Alhambra
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(100 Temple St.) as well as the Fort Wayne Hotel (408 Temple St.) will be redeveloped. It’s primarily the location there, also next to the business school.” (Plans to redevelop those two vacant and boarded-up buildings were announced by the Ilitch family in May 2017 but have been sidelined amid overall slow progress on the planned residential development in the District Detroit area.) The remaining parcels on the block on which it sits — on the west side of Park Avenue between Charlotte Street to the north and Temple Street to the south — are otherwise owned entities tied to either the Ilitch family or the late Detroit developer Joel Landy, who died in August. A competing broker thinks the price is inflated. “Why not $50 million an acre? Why not $100 million an acre?” said Vincent Mazzola, a broker with Detroit-based O’Connor Real Estate who has a building at 2949 Cass Ave. for sale at $2.8 million not far from the 2939 Park listing (he said the listing was “not getting much action”). “At this pricing, you could purchase any piece of land in the city. Why take it to market? Who wouldn’t sell at this
price? What does the seller and broker’s pro forma look like? Does it call for a 100-story tower on a 3,000 SF footprint with no parking before a pro forma would start to make sense? Development in the city of Detroit continues to be hindered by three major issues: cost of construction, tax reassessment, and the sellers/brokers who have unjustified pricing expectations that are not based on reality.” The listing may be the latest eye-catching asking price for property near the arena, although not the first. In 2017, the owner of dilapidated house at 2712 Cass Ave. sought $5 million for it and then $4.79 million, the Detroit Free Press reported. The owners of that house have been in Wayne County Circuit Court for over a year in a court battle with the city, which has sought to condemn the property. Nicole Simmons, press secretary for Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, said in an email that the Cass Avenue property’s owner has been issued permits to repair its roof but “she had a falling out with her contractor and released the contractor from the job.” “She is now renewing her permits then looking for a new roofer to complete the repairs,” Simmons said. “The court case remains open.” Records from CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service, say that only a handful of properties in its database have sold for more than $25 million or more per acre, although those need to be taken with a grain of salt since all of them have or had buildings on them at the time: The former Varsity Shop building in downtown Birmingham at 277 Pierce St. That sold in 2016 for $3.15 million, according to CoStar, for 0.11 acres, or the equivalent of $28.38 million per acre, although it also included the 8,400-square-foot building sitting on it. Bloomfield Hills-based Kojaian Management Corp. was the buyer; the company plans to tear the building down for a mixed-use development. The Great Frame Up property, also in downtown Birmingham at 215 Peabody St., sold for $1 million, or $25 million per acre, according to CoStar. It is 0.04 acres. The current Wahlburgers property in Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood sold in February 2012 for $1.65 million for the 2,600-square-foot building and the 0.06 acres of land on which it sits. That’s $27.5 million per acre. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
REAL ESTATE
New tallest building planned for Brush Park, 4 others get tax credits City of Detroit says projects would create, preserve 282 affordable housing units BY KIRK PINHO
A 111-foot residential building, which would become the tallest in Detroit’s Brush Park neighborhood, is among those getting federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. Detroit-based American Community Developers’ proposed Brush + Watson development in the Brush Park enclave just outside of downtown is tagged at $65 million with 310 residential units, including a 10-story building that would surpass the nearby Carlton Lofts building’s 92 feet at 2915 John R. An anticipated 163 of the 310 residences across the three-building development with about 8,000 square feet of commercial space would be deemed affordable, according to a news release. It received $1.5 million in 9 percent LIHTC through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and the developer is aiming for another $650,000 in 4 percent credits upon the close of financing. It’s one of five projects in the city, totaling $122.9 million in development and redevelopment costs, to get the tax credits, according to the release. The city says 282 units of affordable housing are being created or preserved through the LIHTC awards. The LIHTC program has been around since the mid-1980s. The federal government allocates the credits
The proposed Brush + Watson development by Detroit-based American Community Developers. | COURTESY OF THE CITY OF DETROIT
each year to states, which then award them to developers to sell to investors to raise equity for housing projects. The city has for years sought to keep housing affordable as rents have increased with new commercial real estate interest from developers and new city dwellers amid a shift toward dense urban living the last 10-15 years. However, keeping housing prices affordable for the city’s longtime residents has been a challenge for developers as gaps between rents and debt service payments have made financing difficult. Rising construction costs have also proven a challenge.
According to the city, the other projects receiving the tax credits are: ` The Jim Holley Residences at 9001 Woodward Ave.: Named after the Historic Little Rock Baptist Church pastor, the development would bring 60 new affordable apartments for seniors and 5,000 square feet of commercial space. Project cost: $17.8 million. Other incentives: $2 million in federal HOME funds. Developer: MHT Housing, Bingham Farms. Construction timeline: 14-15 months, starting in the spring. ` Left Field at the Fisher Freeway Service Drive and Cochrane Street:
60 units in the first phase, 48 of which are affordable at 30 percent to 80 percent AMI. Project cost: $15 million. Developer: American Community Developers, Detroit. Construction timeline: Work to begin in the summer. Tax credits: $1.2 million, 9 percent credits. ` Midtown Square at 93 Seward: 73 existing units to remain affordable after renovations. Developer: Develop Detroit, John Stanley. Project cost: $18.5 million. ` Friendship Meadows II at 1003 Leland St.: 52 existing units to remain affordable after renovations. Develop-
er: Robert Beale. Project cost: $6.6 million. The Left Field project has been considered part of a broader plan that the city is pursuing in its effort to secure up to $30 million in federal grant money through the Choice Neighborhoods program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Earlier this year, five groups applied to be what’s known as a Housing Implementation Entity. “The Choice Neighborhoods initiative looks for shovel-ready proposals, meaning plans that have the first phase funded regardless of a successful Choice award,” said Julie Schneider, deputy director of Detroit’s Housing and Revitalization Department. “The Left Field development would be the first phase of our Choice Neighborhoods housing plan if we are awarded the grant, but is not dependent upon the award of Choice.” The Choice Neighborhoods project envisioned involves turning a large swath of publicly and privately owned land around Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood into new mixed-income market-rate and affordable housing totaling about 500 units. If it happens, it would take place over five years across a smattering of properties. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 5
HEALTH CARE
Hospitals say they’re better prepared with PPE than spring, but supply chain uncertain BY JAY GREENE
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Eight-hospital Beaumont Health, the Southfield-based system that treated more COVID-19 patients than any hospital in Michigan, is on its way to stocking personal protective equipment in its warehouses for up to 90 days in preparation for a second surge of the pandemic. That’s what Beaumont estimates is needed to care for 1,200 hospitalized patients, the number of people the system cared for during the pandemic’s peak in early April. “We have been preparing for a second surge now for four months and learned a lot as we climbed the hill and then came down the backside of the curve,” said Melanie Fisher, Beaumont’s supply chain director. “We’ve spent the last few months building up our inventory (of PPE) days on hand. We are anticipating less than the 1,200 (hospital patients) we had in the peak.” Beaumont currently has 161 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, up 15 percent from 140 on Oct. 1. In 2019, Beaumont used 50,000 N95 masks the entire year. But at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, those 50,000 masks lasted fewer than 10 days, Fisher said. “Those are the wild fluctuations in burn rates that we’ve seen during this COVID journey that no one really could have predicted,” she said. “We created a daily report on burn rates for high PPE categories (masks, gloves, gowns, face shields and other eye protectors) and monitor it on a daily basis.” Most other health systems in Michigan have improved their PPE supply chains to a three- or fourweek supply, based on their predictions of COVID-19 patients this fall. But executives acknowledged they have been placed on a limited PPE allocation from their supply distributors and could be reduced further at some point if coronavirus spread worsens. Jay Fielder, division director at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for emergency preparedness and response, said the state has built up a warehouse of up to 90 days of PPE supplies for emergency distribution to health care providers. The exception is gloves, which are in short supply. “We’ve been doing everything we can to try to amass a cache of PPE in
For more information, contact Debora Stein at dstein@crain.com or submit directly to
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A supply of N95 masks. | BLOOMBERG 6 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
preparation for what we’re expecting to be a second wave of C O V I D - 1 9 ,” Fielder said. “We’ve looked at burn rates and have information from hospital sysHisscock tems and all types of entities that report to us and are in a pretty good situation.” Fielder said Michigan has one major warehouse in Lansing and two dozen other regional storage areas for local providers. “Those who have really struggled are the smaller buyers. Independent hospitals and nursing homes have had a more difficult time getting materials regularly,” said Fielder, adding that the state is working more closely to keep those providers supplied. Over the past decade, hospitals began reducing the amount of supplies on hand in inventory to four days to a week to cut costs and increase efficiencies, said Michael DeLuca, executive vice president of operations and co-founder of Prodigo Solutions, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based inventory supply chain consulting firm. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are looking at increasing specific supplies such as N95 masks, gowns and gloves, DeLuca said. “Not only did hospitals not take it (pandemic) into consideration, but the national strategic stockpile was woefully unprepared” to serve as a backup, DeLuca said. “Group purchasing organizations played a role. All these decisions were driven by money. They were looking at the financial stats more” instead of anticipating a possible worldwide pandemic like COVID-19, he said. Dave Mazurkiewicz, CFO with McLaren Health Care in Grand Blanc, acknowledged the 15-hospital system’s strategy was to keep expenses low. He said the system continues to maintain normal supplies of PPE at hospitals, but now it is bulking up on PPE in central warehouses. “It’s business as usual. I don’t want to build 15 warehouses,” one for each hospital to store 90 to 180 days of supplies, Mazurkiewicz said. “I am trying not to spend money when I don’t have to.” See PPE on Page 34
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Nurse Leslie Batschke of Mid-Michigan Health in Midland logs COVID-19 patient information. She is part of the health system’s coronavirus testing team. | MID-MICHIGAN HEALTH
Are hospitals ready for a possible second wave of COVID-19 patients? BY JAY GREENE
Hospitals in Michigan are gearing up for what appears to be the “start of a second wave” of COVID-19 patients as evidenced by a 188 percent increase in hospitalizations over the last four weeks in all regions of the state. “We continue to be concerned about the hospitalization rates. Many are outside of Southeast Michigan” in the Upper Peninsula, northern and western Michigan, said Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive, last week. “We are working with hospitals to make sure they have ventilators and staff to be able to support patients. We are seeing increasing hospitalization rates, but we believe they still have it under control and we will monitor it.” To avoid the shortages in personal protective equipment health systems saw in the early weeks of the pandemic in April, many supply chain managers have altered their approach in stocking supplies, moving from a five- to seven-day inventory before COVID-19 hit in March from about three weeks to up to 90 days at Beaumont Health, the hardest hit hospital from COVID-19 in Michigan. But some experts are questioning whether the U.S. has done enough since April to improve its supply chain of N95 masks, surgical masks, respirators, gloves, gowns and face shields to weather a similar fall surge of coronavirus. Rob Handfield, professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State’s Poole College of Management in Raleigh, said hospitals are in better shape with PPE than earlier in the pandemic, but demand for PPE from other industries could leave them short if there is a strong COVID-19 surge. “The problem hasn’t disappeared. There are still shortages of N95 masks and nitrile gloves” because they are used in food preparation and a variety of industrial settings, said Handfield, who is conducting a national PPE survey.“There is a bottleneck there. The problem is the demand is
outstripping the supply.” While hospital executives and state officials say they now have a sufficient supply of PPE, several health care executives, including Watson Khaldun and Brian Peters, president of the Michigan Health and Hospitals Association, are warning that ER visits and hospitalizations are creeping upward to troubling levels. Since July 2, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and suspected cases have risen 283 percent to 1,209 on Oct. 21 from 315 hospitalizations, the low-water mark, a Crain’s analysis shows. Total COVID-19 deaths in Michigan have reached more than 7,100 with seven-day mortality averages doubling in the past month to 15 per day. Hospitals also are seeing more patients showing up at emergency rooms displaying mild symptoms and being sent home to recover. People with COVID-related ER visits also have risen 123 percent the past several weeks from 554 to 1,239 on Oct. 22, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services coronavirus database. “This is not an isolated trend. In fact, all regions in the state are seeing more individuals who need hospital care for COVID-19,” including Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, Peters said. “There are now more COVID-19 hospitalizations (in the Upper Peninsula) than during the spring surge.” Hospitals in Michigan are more prepared this fall for a second wave of COVID-19 infections and the crush of patients that it could bring than they were in the spring. But Peters said a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19 could again overwhelm hospital resources. “All of our hospitals have surge plans,” Peters said. “If there is in fact a second surge later in the year, and we hope we don’t have to deal with that ... we’re in a better place now in terms
of personal protective equipment, supplies.” During the first wave of coronavirus infections in the spring, hospitalizations reached nearly 4,000 inpatients with COVID-19, triggering surge capacity issues for some hospitals in Southeast Michigan. As of Oct. 20, Beaumont had 161 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, an increase of 15 percent from 140 since Oct. 1. Beaumont also said it has 39 suspected COVID-19 patients. Henry Ford Health System had 79 COVID-19 confirmed hospitalized patients as of Oct. 19, a 21 percent increase from 65 on Oct. 14. At the height of the pandemic, Henry Ford had more than 700 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. MDHHS says Henry Ford Health had 140 suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients as of Oct. 19.
Fast growth outstate Increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations appear to be growing at a faster rate at hospitals outside of Southeast Michigan — increasing 78 percent since Oct. 5, a Crain’s analysis shows. Some 42 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations are in metro Detroit. At Mid-Michigan Health in Midland, the six-hospital system has seen a 133 percent increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations to 21 patients Wednesday up from nine patients on Oct. 1, said Lydia Watson, the system’s chief medical officer. Watson said Mid-Michigan also has 28 suspected COVID-19 inpatients it is treating as positive cases until test results come back negative. “There are more people positive, but they are not as sick. The question is, is it because the virus has mutated, maybe more contagious, but not as virulent?” Watson said. “On top of that, we know a lot more of the virus. We have been dealing with it since March and are intervening with Remdesivir or convalescent plasma, less ventilators, and are not seeing as many deaths.”
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See READY on Page 34 OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 7
COMMENTARY
Voting yes on Prop 1 is good for outdoor spaces, businesses
Jeff Donofrio, director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, has been named the new president and CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan. | MICHIGAN GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
COMMENTARY
CEO change could signal new direction for business leaders The state’s largest, and arguably most powerful, corporate roundtable may usher in a new progressive approach under newly appointed CEO Jeff Donofrio. For the past 11 years, Business Leaders for Michigan has tossed around the weight of its members, seats held by CEOs of Michigan’s biggest companies, behind splashy policies designed to make Michigan business more competitive. Past successes include convincing legislators to replace the Michigan Business Tax with a flat corporate tax in 2011 during Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, helping frame legislation for the Good Jobs for Michigan tax incentive program and helping establish the Ypsilanti Township-based autonomous vehicle testing site, the American Center for Mobility. BLM organized around home runs, large economic development strategies that are now becoming outdated. Donofrio assumes the role of leading group on Nov. 30 and is a stark contrast from previous leaders. Donofrio’s background in workforce development has long been about small ball; about incremental change. The reality is economic development THE REALITY IS has evolved in recent ECONOMIC years. Disasters like Foxconn in Wisconsin DEVELOPMENT proven the limHAS EVOLVED IN have itations of incentivizing companies with RECENT YEARS. smaller tax bills. Creating and maintaining jobs is about smarter policy that encapsulates an ecosystem from an education pipeline to worker training and retraining. At the city of Detroit where he served as executive director of workforce development, Donofrio shepherded in the community agreement with Fiat Chrysler that resulted in the hiring of 4,100 Detroit residents. The automaker is obliged to employ at least 3,850 Detroiters at its new Mack assembly plant. Donofrio negotiated the labor side of that deal and worked to provide funding for the city’s screening efforts when he arrived at the
Dustin
WALSH
state as the director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Now, of course, the FCA deal included a $108 million land swap with the city and a whole host of tax incentives from the state, which can be argued as problematic. But getting those sorely needed jobs in the city to Detroiters is paramount. Mayor Mike Duggan also tasked Donofrio with finding employment for 240,000 Detroit residents. The city surpassed 233,000 jobs, partly in thanks to a strong economy, prior to COVID-19. Donofrio’s work was designed around peeling back hurdles that prevented Detroiters from qualifying for good jobs. He helped recruit Quicken Loans to get employee volunteers to digitize hundreds of thousands of pages of education documents for residents. Lear Corp. donated the scanners. Employers were then able to verify education attainment quickly and allow Detroiters to meet job requirements. Donofrio also led the city’s efforts against driver responsibility fees, which hamstrung residents from employment. His team found 76,000 Detroiters, or 18 percent of adults, had outstanding fees. In March 2018, Snyder signed legislation forgiving those fines. This isn’t to disparage the work of BLM. It’s been an advocate for increased funding for schools, sustainable revenue models for local government and jobs retraining with the longterm goal of making Michigan a “Top 10” state. But hopefully Donofrio can guide BLM’s members toward short-term gains. If the group can use its weight to influence legislators toward goal-oriented retraining and investment pathways, then the state might have a fighting chance against the long tail of the pandemic recession.
During these uncertain times, we have been forced to rethink how we work, live and connect with loved ones. Many of us have turned to our state’s parks and outdoor recreation areas to stay healthy and socialize while keeping safe. Alisha Bell, The pandemic has chair, Wayne only reaffirmed the value County of our state’s outdoor Commission spaces as one of its stronand board member of gest assets. In the spring Detroit and summer, we saw reRiverfront cord attendance on Conservancy campgrounds, trails and and the many of our beloved outMichigan door spaces. Environmental Despite the renewed Council attention to the importance of our state’s vast outdoor resources, many Michiganders may not be aware of a state trust fund that has been quietly preserving our state’s beautiful parks, trails and public lands for decades. This November, Michigan voters will decide on ballot Proposal 1 Trevor Lauer, whether or not to expresident and pand the Michigan NatCOO DTE ural Resources Trust Energy Fund (MNRTF), which has been funded for decades by royalties from oil, gas and mining leases on state-owned lands at no cost to taxpayers. Proposal 1 has widespread and bipartisan support, including over 30 of the state’s leading environmental and conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, Michigan Environmental Council, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, Michigan United Conservation Clubs and many more. Environmental, conservation, business and community leaders all agree that voting yes on Proposal 1 will allow the MNRTF to continue its legacy of supporting land conservation and public recreation. Since 1976, over $1.2 billion in trust fund grants have been awarded for public lands across all 83 counties in Michigan. Right
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 | OCTOBER 26, 2020
here in Detroit, the trust fund has been instrumental in the revitalization of the riverfront, connecting our community with trails like the Dequindre Cut, reinvesting in our crown jewel Belle Isle, and turning the abandoned Globe Building into the Outdoor Adventure Center so thousands of children and families can develop a deeper appreciation for nature and the outdoors, especially the families who can’t visit them in person right now. Currently, there is a cap on the amount of royalties the trust fund can receive — and that cap has been reached. Proposal 1 will remove the funding cap, ensuring that all future oil, gas and mining royalties will continue to support both our state’s conservation efforts and recreational access without spending any state taxpayer money. When we invest in outdoor spaces, we invest in our local economy. From tourism to construction, key sectors of our economy benefit from robust outdoor recreation. In fact, of the $25.7 billion of tourism spending in the state in 2018, 15 percent came directly from recreation. This economic impact increases exponentially when you consider these visitors’ spending on food, transportation, retail, lodging and more directly in our local communities. Not only do these trust fund-supported sites attract visitors, they are also a huge draw for talent that continue to bolster our economy moving forward. By protecting lands and building parks, MNRTF investments attract visitors and new residents, enrich neighborhoods, and support our state’s economy — from the tip of the Keweenaw to the Detroit riverfront and everywhere in between. This year, it is crucial that we vote yes on Proposal 1 so we can continue to conserve our great state’s natural beauty today and for future generations. Passing Proposal 1 will ensure that these investments continue to benefit our communities, our economy, and our overall health for decades to come. We ask you to join us in voting yes on Nov. 3 or on your absentee ballot.
MORE ON WJR ` Listen to Crain’s Group Publisher Mary Kramer and Managing Editor Michael Lee talk about the week’s stories every Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. Mondays on WJR 760 AM’s Paul W. Smith Show. The Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund has been used to reinvest in Belle Isle in Detroit.
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
MPSC should rein in Consumers Energy on solar power BY JOHN RICHTER
Since 2008, “net metering” policies enabled homeowners and small business in Michigan to install solar energy systems with a predictable credit for extra electricity that is fed back to the electric grid. This electricity is credited at the same rate that we buy electricity from the utility. But in a current rate case, Consumers Energy is trying to reduce that credit to about half of the retail rate. Consumers wants us to buy electricity for 16 cents per kWh, but only pay eight cents for energy exported to the grid, and then Consumers Energy will sell that exact same electricity to your next-door-neighbor for the full 16 cents per kWh. That isn’t fair. On top of this, Consumers Energy is asking for a whopping 14 percent increase in electrical rates for residential customers, while reducing the rates of industrial customers by 6.7 percent. A Coalition of Renewable Energy supporters has requested the Michi-
gan Public Service Commission con- Commission to turn down this 14 perduct a Value of Solar study to proper- cent rate increase and to treat solar ly value the excess energy generated owners fairly by conducting this Value by solar owners, similar to what has of Solar study to determine the real value of solar energy and to make been done in Minnesota. The coalition consists of the Great Consumers Energy pay this amount for the extra Lakes Renewthat able Energy AsSOLAR ENERGY THAT IS SENT electricity solar owners sociation, Ecolexport to the ogy Center, the TO THE GRID SAVES ALL grid. Environmental RATEPAYERS MONEY. This coalition Law & Policy submitted testiCenter, the Solar Energy Industries Association and mony that Consumers Energy is deliberately undervaluing the solar enVote Solar. The Great Lakes Renewable Energy ergy that is put back on the grid. Will Association and other groups are call- Kenworthy of Vote Solar stated that ing upon the Michigan Public Service “Michigan residents shouldn’t have to
rely on inherently biased Consumers Energy data that shortchanges solar producers. It’s the PSC’s responsibility to provide a fair and accurate accounting that serves all Michigan residents.” Solar energy that is sent to the grid saves all ratepayers money because it reduces the need for Consumers Energy to fire up expensive power plants during high demand times. But Consumers Energy denies this, which is why the Public Service Commission needs to conduct a Value of Solar study so it can determine the true value of solar energy. Consumers Energy states it supports renewable energy. But the real-
ity is that Consumers only supports large scale solar that they own or control and not solar that homeowners, farmers or small business install to reduce their high electric bills. If Consumers Energy truly believes in Michigan’s clean energy future, it should also support the right of homeowners and business to install solar and to pay them a fair price for the electricity they put back on the electrical grid. John Richter is a policy analyst for the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association and an alternative energy instructor at Macomb Community College.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
A thank you to Jim Hackett TO THE EDITOR: This month, Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett said goodbye to Ford Motor Co., a company he led since 2017. I am writing to share my thanks for Jim’s visionary and principled leadership during his tenure. He is leaving Ford with it looking toward a future that combines mobility with a shared sense of belonging to a community. Under his direction, Ford did not merely make promises or generalized statements about corporate civic virtue; it took action. From restoring the Michigan Central Train Station to investing in Wagner Place in Dearborn’s west business district, Hackett kept his word and has shown confidence in Michigan’s future. His overseeing of Ford Smart Mobility and his promotion of “living streets” will positively impact both our region and the world. I am especially excited about Ford’s testing of autonomous vehicles on Michigan Avenue, which will not only connect Detroit to Ann Arbor but also tighten the bond between Ford Motor Co. and the University of Michigan. The holistic view of the world and the promotion of shared mobility and user-centered design will be an important feature in the urban environments of the future. Jim Hackett’s vision for disrupting surface transportation systems in a way that puts people and civic life at the center is one that I hope stays with Ford Motor Co. He was correct in making the expansion of shared access and the improvement of the lives of people a priority. Tapping into his company’s roots, his promotion of cities and urban communities by creating connected transportation systems has laid an innovative foundation for Ford Motor Co. to succeed for another century. It is one that I think would make Henry Ford proud. Thank you, Jim, for all the great work you have done. Domenico Grasso Chancellor University of Michigan-Dearborn
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OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 9
LEOSAGE IMAGES
SMALL BUSINESS
SWEET SUCCESS
Good Cakes and Bakes owner April Anderson recently completed a full redesign and expansion of her Detroit bakery’s kitchen.
Detroit bakery owner finds silver lining in coronavirus pandemic
BY JASON DAVIS
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, Good Cakes and Bakes owner April Anderson was ready. Anderson, who opened the shop in 2013 at 19163 Livernois Ave. in Detroit, said the first two weeks of the shutdown were slow, mostly because regular customers and others weren’t sure if they should be eating out. The bakery saw a 52 percent dip in sales over the first few weeks of the pandemic. “Nobody was sure how to react to (the pandemic),” said Anderson, a 47-year-old Detroit native. Things turned quickly, though. Anderson and her staff began to focus on online orders and deliveries. From March 17 to Sept. 4, the shop, which specializes in organic baked goods and offers retail items and a space for community events, filled 20 online and 80 call-in orders each day. The company delivers as far west as Ann Arbor and as far north as Shelby Township.
10 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
“I THINK THE GAIN WE’VE SEEN IS BECAUSE WE WERE ABLE TO PIVOT SO QUICKLY AND WE ALREADY OFFERED DELIVERY AND WE ALREADY HAD A WEBSITE.” — April Anderson, Good Cakes and Bakes owner
Having an already established online presence was key, Anderson said. “We’d been working to get up and running online for two years,” said Anderson, who during the pandemic put some of her products in local grocery stores to increase sales. “When we first opened, there wasn’t a lot of walkable traffic, so we needed to be able to get to our customers in other ways.” That foresight is what kept the business afloat during an uncertain time,
Anderson said. Good Cakes and Bakes has stayed busy throughout the pandemic. The business did not lay off any of its nine employees, Anderson said, though two left after contracting COVID-19. Detroit resident Tracy Cone, who has worked at the bakery for four years, said she didn’t notice a slowdown in production even as it was forced to shift its business model for a while. “It felt like we were 10 times busier just based on the number of online orders and deliveries,” Cone said. “I learned a lot of different aspects of the business, too. I was out making deliveries and not just taking orders inside the bakery. I had no idea the reach the business has.” Cone, 20, is a junior at Michigan State University. Upon her return home in May, she had a job waiting for her. Cone recognizes how fortunate she was given the current state of affairs.
“I know a lot of people wanted to work but nobody anywhere was hiring,” Cone said. “We’ve all worked really hard during (the pandemic). I think it shows by how well the business has performed. “One important thing is that (April Anderson) assured us she’d keep us all safe. She really cares about all of the employees and we care about her, too.” Good Cakes and Bakes was able to bank the cash from online sales and deliveries to help cover operational costs. A $62,000 Small Business Association Paycheck Protection Program loan covered salaries and allowed Anderson to give her staff more hours. Payroll is a big part of expenditures, Anderson said. She said she starts her employees at $15-$18 an hour. The bakery, now with two of its own delivery trucks, has brought on two new employees and ships nationally via Goldbelly. See BAKERY on Page 11
FOCUS | SMALL BUSINESS
BAKERY
From Page 10
“We didn’t miss a beat,” said Anderson, who has seen a 10 percent bump in business over the last seven months despite going from being open five days a week to three. “Our retail staff was down at the beginning, but our bakers continued to work a full schedule and now we’re able to keep them at full-time hours. “With a lot of other businesses being closed, we were filling orders for a lot of companies that were feeding frontline workers. I think the gain we’ve seen is because we were able to pivot so quickly and we already offered delivery and we already had a website.” That presented an issue, however. The Good Cakes and Bakes kitchen was just 250 square feet — enough space for one person to work. To keep up with demand, Anderson and her staff needed more space. So Anderson, who owns the space with her wife, 57-year-old Michelle Anderson, set out to do a complete remodel, including increasing the size of the kitchen to 790 square feet. That allows four bakers to create at the same time. “We’ve been in this space for seven years. The kitchen was small,” Anderson said, adding the business closed for five and a half weeks during the remodel, which cost $75,000. “In order to have a larger kitchen, we thought we were going to have to open another location. But when (the
Good Cakes and Bakes co-owners April and Michelle Anderson perform a ribbon cutting at an Oct. 17 reopening. The bakery during the pandemic shifted to online orders and deliveries and is allowing customers back into the space for the first time in seven months. | LEOSAGE IMAGES
pandemic) happened, we realized we had a lot of unused real estate.” There’s still plenty of space for community-based events and for seating. “The pandemic just gave us an opportunity to sit back and re-evaluate our business model and how we were using the location,” Anderson said.
Anderson, who made a point to not take on any debt during the pandemic, earlier this year applied for and received $194,000 in grants, with a portion covering the cost of the remodel. The remainder of the funds went toward building the company’s online marketing presence and production.
During the pandemic, Anderson has faced limits on how much of a particular item she could buy, while also increasing costs. For example, prior to the pandemic, Anderson could purchase 60 pounds of butter at a time. Early on in the health crisis, she could only get a maximum of 25 pounds. For a short time, Anderson
paid higher prices in order to get ingredients in a timely manner. Anderson is excited to welcome customers back into the store after a grand reopening Oct. 17. With its bigger kitchen area, the shop is now able to offer sandwiches and salads, Anderson said. Good Cakes and Bakes will also offer cooking classes for adults and children, she said. “It’s more than a bakery,” Cone said of the shop that remained busy from open until close during its reopening. “We make a lot of sales, but it’s a place where people can meet and discuss different things and feel safe.” Anderson said she recognizes the impact the pandemic has had, especially on Black and Brown people. Her mother and grandmother were hospitalized with COVID-19. Her father contracted the illness, too, but was asymptomatic, Anderson said. Even with all of that, the small-business owner has been able to find a silver lining. “The last few months have definitely been a blessing for our business,” said Anderson, adding the shop will host and facilitate discussions related to social issues. “We realized we were doing some things wrong that were costing us money. Now we’re streamlining a lot of our processes, and we’re able to cut labor costs by having four bakers work at once. It feels like the sky’s the limit now.” Contact: jason.davis@crain.com (313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981
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OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 11
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There hasn’t been a lot of lawmaking this year in Lansing. With the Legislature’s post-election lame duck session just weeks away, the people who influence and inform decision-makers for a livBut make no mistake, lobbyists are staying gainfully employed. The coronavirus pandemic, ensuing business shutdowns and the ing are gearing up for what could be a marathon couple of weeks maklong road to reopening the economy have kept the capital city’s lobing new laws and spending taxpayer money in December (depending by corps busy. on the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, of course). Registered lobbyists at big law firms like Dykema and Clark Hill, This 50 Names to Know in Lobbying guide is a selection of professionals representing trade groups, major corporations, law firms, trade associations like the Michigan Realtors and multiclient lobbyChad ing firms like Karoub Associates and Capitol Services Inc. have had multiclient lobbying firms, sole proprietors and risLIVENGOOD long-established their hands full navigating myriad COVID-19 executive orders from ing stars in this business. the governor, legislation countering the governor’s actions, as well as public To be fair, we limited the multiclient firms to up to two lobbyists each — health orders and workplace rules issued by state agencies. because there was no shortage of lobbyists to choose from. 12 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
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50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Micah Babcock
Becky Bechler
Andrea Cascarilla
Delbert Chenault
Ken Cole
Director of Government Operations
Managing Partner
Senior Legislative Director
Government Affairs Director
Lobbyist/Owner
Small Business Association of Michigan
Public Affairs Associates
Acuitas LLC
Clark Hill PLC
`Why she should be on your speed dial: Becky is a 27-year veteran of Lansing’s lobbying corps with clients and deep connections in both Southeast and West Michigan. One of her main clients is the Health Care Association of Michigan, the trade group representing nursing homes and long-term care facilities. During the pandemic, she has worked to secure $20 million state in funding for nursing facilities to purchase protection equipment, retain employees, improve infection-prevention practices and purchase technology to connect residents with loved ones. In 2015, working for Kent County, Becky convinced lawmakers to transfer governance of the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids from the county to a regional authority. Becky’s other clients include General Motors Co., Trinity Health, the Michigan Funeral Directors Association, the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network and the Motion Picture Association. Bechler joined PAA in 1993 and became one of the firm’s two managing partners in 2014. The other managing partner is Bill Wortz. ` How to reach Becky: Email: bechler@paaonline.com LinkedIn.com/in/ rebecca-bechler-1494b110
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Andrea has more than three decades of experience in the Capitol, specializing in lobbying on appropriations, education, clean energy, health care and business licensing and regulatory issues. Since 2013, Andrea has been a lobbyist at the multiclient firm co-founded by Kevin Korpi and Sarah Hubbard. Andrea spent 24 years working for Democratic politicians in the House and Senate before joining the firm. Last year, she led a grassroots advocacy campaign to beat back a regulatory rule change that would have prevented licensed professional counselors from diagnosing and treating mental illness and substance use disorders. Her major clients include Johnson Controls Inc., the Detroit Regional Chamber, Henry Ford Health System, the Detroit-Wayne County Health Authority and the Hope Starts Here early childhood education initiative in Detroit. Andrea also is an elected Delta Township trustee in suburban Lansing. ` How to reach Andrea: Email: acascarilla@acuitasllc.com Twitter: @ACascarilla LinkedIn.com/in/ andrea-cascarilla-2a78a0b
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Del has worked in politics, state government and lobbying for nearly 30 years. Since 2007, he’s been Clark Hill’s onthe-ground government affairs director in Lansing, serving multiple clients with legislative and regulatory issues in fields that include health care, telecommunications, transportation, energy and K-12 education. His current clients include Total Health Care and Priority Health, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Lyft, K12 Inc., 7-Eleven Inc., the Detroit Public Schools Community District and Midland Cogeneration Venture. Del’s past lobbying work includes expanding school choice laws, securing increased funding for at-risk students in Detroit, the 2013 passage of the Healthy Michigan program extending Medicaid health insurance to low-income adults and the Legislature’s 2016 update of the state’s renewable energy standards. ` How to reach Delbert: Email: dchenault@clarkhill.com LinkedIn.com/in/delchenault
Governmental Consultant Services Inc.
Rodney Cole Sr.
George Cook III
Mark Cook
John Davis
Brandon Dillon
Director of State Government Affairs
Director of Legislative Affairs
Vice President of Government Affairs
President & Co-Owner
CEO
DTE Energy Co.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Kheder Davis & Associates Inc.
The WinMatt Group
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Energy policy is almost never a settled matter in Lansing. Rodney is DTE Energy’s day-to-day presence in the Capitol, managing public policy and advocacy activities and building relations for the D etroit-bas ed utility company with members of the governor’s administration and among a constantly churning group of legislators. His focus is creating and implementing state-level energy policy that supports DTE’s goal of being coal-free by 2040. Rodney previously led DTE’s local government relations team for Wayne County, building relationships with city and township elected officials (some of whom are now in the Legislature). He joined DTE Energy in 2006, working in human resources and supporting the company’s gas utility and non-regulated gas businesses, electric distribution operations and its corporate services and information technology areas before moving into government affairs in 2012. ` How to reach Rodney: Email: Rodney.Cole @dteenergy.com LinkedIn.com/in/ rodney-cole-8179191
` Why he should be on your speed dial: George is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new day-to-day lobbyist in the Capitol after the governor promoted her previous legislative liaison, Jen Flood, to deputy chief of staff in charge of legislative affairs. He joined the governor’s staff last week after more than nine years in government affairs for Toyota North America, where he was a registered lobbyist from 2015 to 2018. George’s specialties in public policy work for Toyota include a focus on advanced vehicle technologies, safety and infrastructure policy, dealer franchise laws and workforce development policy. Before joining Toyota, George spent six years working in state government affairs for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute trade group for HVAC manufacturers. He got his start in politics as an aide in the Ohio Senate. ` How to reach George: Email: CookG4@michigan.gov Twitter: @GeorgeWCookIII LinkedIn.com/in/ george-w-cook-iii-3309592a
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Mark is the top lobbyist for Michigan’s largest health insurance company, which has a powerful voice for health care and insurance laws and Medicaid appropriations under the Capitol dome. Mark has been with Blue Cross for more than 20 years, leading a government affairs team that looks out for the company and its customers’ interests at the state and federal level. Mark was heavily involved in getting the Legislature to pass a 2013 law that converted BCBSM to a not-for-profit mutual insurance company, a sea change in how state government regulates the Blues. He also played a leading role in reforming the small group insurance market in Michigan. Prior to joining Blue Cross, Mark worked in former Gov. John Engler’s administration and as an aide to three Republican state senators. ` How to reach Mark: Email: mcook@bcbsm.com LinkedIn.com/in/ mark-cook-17352748
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Over three decades, John has built a lobbying practice specializing in health care and medical industry issues that intersect with the Legislature and state government regulatory agencies. His specialty areas include navigating the certificate of need process for hospital capacity licensing and regulations and general health care industry consulting for hospitals and medical clinics. John’s clients include pharmaceutical giant Merck, McLaren Healthcare, Covenant Healthcare, Orchard Laboratories, the Michigan Head and Spine Institute, Michigan Institute of Urology and the Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners and the Harbor Oaks Hospital for behavioral health in New Baltimore and its parent company, Acadia Healthcare. Outside of health care fields, John also represents telecommunications giant Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink). John’s business partner is veteran Lansing lobbyist Noble Kheder, who founded the firm in 1983 and remains its chairman. John joined the firm in 1991. They have offices in Lansing and Bloomfield Hills. ` How to reach John: Email: john@kheder.com
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Brandon has parlayed a career in politics into a full-time lobbying and political consulting business (WinMatt stands for Winning Matters). He was Michigan Democratic Party chairman in 2018, when Democrats swept the statewide offices of governor, attorney general and secretary of state and narrowed the GOP’s majority in the House of Representatives by five seats. Brandon is a former three-term state rep from Grand Rapids and a former two-term Kent County commissioner. His firm’s lobbying clients include Detroit-based Meridian Health and its parent company, Centene Corp.; data center giant Switch Inc.; electric car startup Lucid Motors Inc.; the Avondale, Berkley, Brighton and Clarkston school districts; CenTra Inc., the Warren-based trucking business owned by the Moroun family; and the Morouns’ Detroit International Bridge Co. that owns and operates the Ambassador Bridge. ` How to reach Brandon: Email: brandon @winmattgroup.com Twitter: @BrandonDillon75 LinkedIn.com/in/ brandon-dillon-7b318511
` Why he should be on your speed dial: At SBAM, the top two executives, CEO Rob Fowler and President Brian Calley, are the brand-name representatives for the organization. But Micah Babcock is the dayto-day lobbyist at the Capitol for SBAM and its more than 28,000 members. He works on legislative and regulatory issues that include taxes, workforce development, cybersecurity, labor law, energy, health care and economic development. Micah started at SBAM in 2017 as a grassroots coordinator and policy adviser. He previously worked in campaign fundraising and finance compliance for the Michigan House Democratic Caucus and its members’ campaign committees. He got his start in lobbying as an intern at Government Consultant Services Inc. ` How to reach Micah: Email: micah.babcock@sbam.org LinkedIn.com/in/micah-babcock
`Why he should be on your speed dial: For the past 21 years, Ken Cole has been the city of Detroit’s lobbyist, working for five different mayors. Ken has been in multiple lobbying battles over the years for Detroit’s share of state tax revenue-sharing, maintaining the city’s income base, changes to property tax laws, as well as legislation authorizing the creation of the Detroit Public Lighting Authority, the QLine streetcar and the regional authority that governs TCF Center and the 2014 legislative package that helped settle Detroit’s bankruptcy. Ken also lobbies for the Wayne County Community College District and helped the college secure its first-ever state capital outlay appropriation for a $42 million campus on the city’s northwest side. Ken’s other clients include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, AT&T Michigan, Consumers Energy, Auto Dealers of Michigan, Republic Services, the University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine, the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority and the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association. ` How to reach Ken: Email: cole.k@gcsionline.com LinkedIn.com/company/gcsi
OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 13
50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Heather Drake
Amy Drumm
Rob Elhenicky
Christine Estereicher
Dan Farhat
Vice President of Corporate Government Relations & Public Affairs
Vice President of Government Affairs
Partner
President
Michigan Retailers Association
Kelley Cawthorne
Director of State Relations, Civic Engagement and External Affairs
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Amy is the day-to-day representative for Michigan’s largest trade group representing retail stores. She focuses on public policy related to taxes, regulations for retailers, labor policy and highly regulated industries like grocery stores and retail pharmacies. She’s been MRA’s top lobbyist since 2016, after a succession of promotions at the association. Her top lobbying accomplishments include the 2014 passage of the Main Street Fairness legislation that required online retailers to collect sales and use taxes and the 2019 passage of legislation creating a new threshold for sales tax collection among small retailers. Amy previously worked in the House of Representatives from 2009 to 2012 and for the Michigan Republican Party in the 2008 cycle. ` How to reach Amy: Email: adrumm@retailers.com Twitter: @adrumm LinkedIn.com/in/amydrumm
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Since 2002, Rob has been one of the top lobbyists at the multiclient firm founded by longtime Lansing insider Dennis Cawthorne and former Attorney General Frank Kelley. He became a partner in 2005. In representing retail giant Walmart, Rob is credited with organizing the coalition of retailers that spent years lobbying the Legislature to repeal Michigan’s item-pricing law that required a price tag on single items for sale in supermarkets. The Legislature eliminated item-pricing in 2011. His other clients include the American Chemistry Council, the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, alcoholic beverage giant Diageo and the Michigan Wine Producers Association, the latter of which he’s lobbied on behalf of for laws allowing producers to ship wine directly to customers. ` How to reach Rob: Email: relhenicky @kelley-cawthorne.com LinkedIn.com/in/ rob-elhenicky-3697321
The Auto Club Group (AAA Michigan)
`Why she should be on your speed dial: On issues of Michigan’s unique auto no-fault law, Heather is a go-to person at the Capitol from the auto insurance industry standpoint. The Legislature’s 2019 overhaul of the nofault law came after years of lobbying for changes to the 1970s law by Heather and others in the auto insurance industry. She also counts laws for seat belt enforcement, passenger restrictions for inexperienced drivers and strengthening Michigan’s distracted driver laws among her career accomplishments at AAA. She’s been with AAA since 1996 and was promoted to the vice president level of the Dearborn-based insurer in 2013. While Heather serves as AAA’s primary lobbyist in Lansing, she also directs lobbying activities in other states where The Auto Club Group does business. Heather’s portfolio includes overseeing media and public relations, community outreach and corporate philanthropy. ` How to reach Heather: Email: HKDrake@ autoclubgroup.aaa.com Linkedin.com/in/heather-drake
Capitol Strategies Group Inc.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
`Why she should be on your speed dial: Christine is a 23-year veteran of the Auburn Hillsbased automaker, starting her career with Chrysler Corp. in Washington. She leads a government affairs team that represents FCA and its vehicle brands before state, county and municipal government on economic development, infrastructure issues and legislation impacting the auto business — from emissions and environmental issues to tax law, dealer franchise laws and autonomous vehicle development. She recently led a two-year negotiation with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the city of Detroit to secure an incentives package for FCA’s $4.5 billion, multiyear investment in Southeast Michigan plants, including Detroit’s first new auto assembly plant in nearly three decades. Since 2017, Christine also has led the FCA Foundation. ` How to reach Christine: Email: christine.estereicher@ fcagroup.com LinkedIn.com/in/ christineestereicher
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Dan is a longtime health care industry lobbyist with multiple clients in different areas of that field, including the Michigan State Medical Society, where he got his start in government relations work representing physicians and their interests before the Legislature and executive branch. In nearly 30 years in the lobbying business, Dan has been involved in major revisions of the state’s insurance code, the passage of the state’s Patient Bill of Rights law, reforming Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance law and the recent passage of bills addressing COVID-19 liability and reining in the practice of surprise billing. He also lobbies on state funding for Michigan State University. His other clients include the Michigan Association of Insurance Agents, Muskegon-based Access Health Inc. and UV Angel, a Grand Haven-based ultraviolet light technology company. ` How to reach Dan: Email: dfarhat@csgmi.com LinkedIn.com/in/ daniel-farhat-041a764a
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50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Barbara Farrah
Jared Fleisher
Jen Flood
Autumn Gillard
Patricia Herndon
Lobbyist/owner
Vice President of Government Affairs and Economic Development
Deputy Chief of Staff
Government Relations and Advocacy Manager
Executive Vice President of Government Affairs
Trinity Health
Michigan Bankers Association
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Autumn represents one of the largest Catholic hospital systems in the nation in Lansing, lobbying for both the Mercy Health and Saint Joseph Mercy Health hospital systems. Public policy issues for hospitals run the gamut from home health care to funding for behavioral health services and the Medicaid insurance program for low-income adults. She was involved in the passage of an interstate medical licensure compact that allows physicians to use an expedited licensing to practice across state lines. Autumn has been lobbying for Trinity Health since 2017. Prior to that, she was a policy adviser and grassroots coordinator at the Small Business Association of Michigan and a legislative assistant at the multi-client lobbying firm Acuitas. ` How to reach Autumn: Twitter: @GillardAutumn LinkedIn.com/in/ autumn-gillard-7a4224100
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Patricia is a 26-year veteran of the government relations business and has been the MBA’s top lobbyist and political strategist since 2016 when she was promoted to the executive ranks. She joined MBA in 2011 after 17 years on the government relations team at State Farm Insurance. For the past three years, Patricia has been the MBA’s representative on the National Cannabis Banking Coalition, working on cannabis banking and hemp banking compliance and communications. Patricia also manages the bankers association’s state and federal political action committees (MiBankPAC), directing campaign contributions to candidates the group supports. ` How to reach Patricia: Email: pherndon @mibankers.com LinkedIn.com/in/ patricia-herndon-51241215
Governmental Consultant Services Inc.
Quicken Loans Inc.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Barbara has spent three decades working in and around local and state government. She’s been a lobbyist at GCSI since 2009, representing corporations, municipalities, trade associations and nonprofit organizations before the Legislature’s appropriations committees and working on a large portfolio of issues, including economic development, energy, gaming, health care, higher education, insurance, manufacturing, procurement, tax policy, telecommunications, transportation and infrastructure. Barbara represented the Downriver community of Southgate in the Michigan House from 2003 to 2008, chairing the House Regulatory Reform Committee in her final term. She served on Southgate’s city council from 1991 to 2002. From 1992 to 2002, she worked in Wayne County’s environment department during the McNamara administration. ` How to reach Barbara: Email: farrah.b@gcsionline.com Twitter: @barbie56201 Linkedin.com/in/ barbara-farrah-56201
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Jared hasn’t been around Michigan politics very long, but he knows his way around the halls of power in Lansing and Detroit pretty well. Jared is a Los Angeles-born, Washington, D.C.trained lobbyist who first got connected with public policy in Michigan in 2014 through the backers of the QLine streetcar project in Detroit. One of those backers was Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, who hired Jared full time in 2016 to be the mortgage company’s in-house lobbyist. Since then, Jared has played a role in some of Michigan’s biggest policy initiatives: Financing the QLine, the failed 2016 transit tax vote, new tax breaks for Gilbert’s transformational brownfield redevelopment projects in Detroit and overhauling Michigan’s auto insurance law. It was the no-fault reform legislation where Jared made his mark, helping pull together Democrats and Republicans in 2019 to make wholesale changes to the law aimed at lowering the cost of car insurance. He was a Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree this year. ` How to reach Jared: Email: JaredFleisher@ rockcentraldetroit.com
`Why she should be on your speed dial: There’s a rule of thumb in Lansing: In order to make law, you have to have 56 House members, 20 senators and the governor’s signature. And to get the governor on board, you’ve got to go through Jen Flood first. Jen is one of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s three deputy chiefs of staff, managing the governor’s legislative and public policy agenda. She’s a go-to contact for multiclient, corporate and trade group lobbyists who are trying to get budgetary earmarks or a specific public policy change carved into state law. Jen was previously Whitmer’s legislative and public affairs director in charge of engaging stakeholders and building coalitions to help pass the governor’s agenda. Jen came to the Whitmer administration from the Dykema law firm’s Lansing office, where she worked as a government policy adviser. Before that, she worked at Byrum Fisk Advocacy Communications, in the Legislature and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s office. She was featured in the Crain’s 50 Names to Know in Government guide in 2019. ` How to reach Jen: Email: FloodJ1@michigan.gov Twitter: @jen_flood_ LinkedIn.com/in/jen-flood
Jim Holcomb
Sarah Hubbard
Stephanie Johnson
Mike Johnston
Sandi Jones
Senior Vice President for Business Advocacy and General Counsel
Principal
Managing Partner
Vice President of Government Affairs
Member
Acuitas LLC
Khoury Johnson Leavitt
Michigan Manufacturers Association
MHSA LLC
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Sarah has been a consensus-builder for Southeast Michigan business interests for the past quarter century. In 2010, she co-founded the multiclient government relations consulting firm Acuitas LLC with longtime friend Kevin Korpi after a 16-year run in lobbying for the Detroit Regional Chamber, where she was senior vice president of government relations. The Detroit chamber has remained one of her top clients in the decade that she’s been a multiclient lobbyist. Acuitas — the Latin word for insight, sharpness and perception — does direct lobbying, grassroots advocacy management and communications work. Sarah’s specialty areas include tax law, energy policy, infrastructure and health care. Her clients include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Authority Health, ITC Transmission, Johnson Controls Inc., Amazon, Walgreens, Eastern Michigan University and the University of Detroit Mercy. Sarah was a 2005 Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree. ` How to reach Sarah: Email: shubbard@acuitasllc.com Twitter: @S4Hubbard LinkedIn.com/in/s4hubbard
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Stephanie is a 20-year veteran of the Lansing lobbying corps whose clients are as varied as the Mental Health Association of Michigan and major labor unions such as the Operating Engineers Local 324 and Utility Workers Union of America. Her career highlights include rewriting Michigan’s antiquated horse racing statute, beating back legislative efforts to pre-empt local governments on land use zoning and securing state licensure for boiler operators and speech pathologists working in Michigan. Stephanie has been at the firm co-founded by Ronald Khoury (formerly known as Kandler Reed Khoury & Muchmore or KRKM) since 2015. She previously spent 15 years at the multi-client lobbying firm of Capitol Services Inc., where she was a managing partner. Her other clients include Canton Township, the Food Bank Council of Michigan, the Michigan State Utility Workers Council and Physicians for Fair Coverage. ` How to reach Stephanie: Email: stephanie@kjlteam.com LinkedIn.com/in/ stephanie-johnson-9463a2148
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Mike is the day-to-day lobbyist for a 1,700-business association of manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, bioscience, chemical, food and beverage, defense, electronics, furniture, medical, metals and plastics industries. MMA’s members include the Detroit 3 automakers, other OEMs and auto parts suppliers at all three tiers. Mike has been with MMA since 1999, and he was promoted to vice president of government affairs in 2008. His lobbying accomplishments include a legislative effort and the successful statewide ballot proposal to eliminate the personal property tax on manufacturing equipment and passage of the Non-ferrous Metallic Mining and Reclamation Act that spurred growth in nickel and copper mining in Michigan. He also has worked on environmental issues over the years, including the Great Lakes Compact, a multi-state regional agreement to guard against water withdrawals from the Great Lakes basin. ` How to reach Mike: Email: johnston@mimfg.org LinkedIn.com/in/ michael-johnston-36637710
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Sandi is one of the Capitol’s most prominent female lobbyists. Since 1996, she’s been lobbying for this multiclient firm formerly known as Muchmore Harrington Smalley & Associates. In 2003, she became part of the firm’s ownership structure. She specializes in appropriations, judiciary, criminal justice, mental health, long-term care, law enforcement and education issues. Sandi’s clients include a number of major nonprofits and cultural organizations in metro Detroit, including Focus:HOPE, the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, Dearborn-based ACCESS, the Arab American National Museum, the Charles H. Wright Museum, The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and the Holocaust Memorial Center. She also lobbies for the Michigan Fraternal Order of Police, the Detroit Firefighters Association and the Michigan Psychological Association, a trade group for psychologists. ` How to reach Sandi: Email: sjones@mhsa.com Twitter: @SjonesJill
Michigan Chamber of Commerce
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Jim has led the advocacy team at the Michigan Chamber since 2008 after nearly a decade of working in the Legislature. Jim and his team have had a hand in shaping a multitude of public policy issues, from the 2011 overhaul of Michigan’s business tax code to tort reform as well as appropriations, business insurance, economic development, transportation funding and property laws. Jim previously served as chief of staff to former House Speaker Craig DeRoche. Jim oversees the Michigan Chamber’s multiple political action committees that wield influence in state legislative races as well as statewide ballot initiatives. He also runs the Michigan Chamber Litigation Center, a nonprofit arm of the state chamber that defends public policies the chamber has advocated for in court. ` How to reach Jim: Email: jholcomb @michamber.com LinkedIn.com/in/jim-holcomb
16 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
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50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Rick Lantz
Andy Leavitt
Bret Marr
Erin McDonough
Melissa McKinley
Vice President & Chief Lobbyist
Partner
Member
Executive Director
Partner
Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana
Khoury Johnson Leavitt
MHSA LLC (formerly Muchmore Harrington Smalley & Associates)
Insurance Alliance of Michigan
Kelley Cawthorne
`Why she should be on your speed dial: Erin is a veteran of Lansing’s trade association management circles. Erin’s job representing Michigan’s auto and property insurance companies is her third leading a special interest group with issues before the Legislature and executive branch. In April, she became IAM’s new executive director just months before sweeping changes to Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance law that the group spent years lobbying for went into effect. Erin previously was president of the Michigan Oil and Gas Association, lobbying on behalf of the state’s oil and natural gas exploration, drilling, refining and transportation companies. Before that, she spent 10 years at the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the last five of which she was executive director of the environmental conservation group. IAM’s insurance carrier members include the Dearborn-based Auto Club Group (AAA), Frankenmuth-based mutual insurer Frankenmuth Insurance and the Lansing-based insurers AF Group, Auto-Owners Insurance and Farm Bureau Insurance. ` How to reach Erin: Email: erin@ insurancealliancemichigan.org LinkedIn.com/in/ mcdonough-erin-8329474
` Why she should be on your speed dial: The legislative process can be a game of inches. Melissa plays long ball. In her 15 years as a multiclient lobbyist, she counts among her major accomplishments a 10-year battle she waged on behalf of the Michigan Professional Fire Fighters Union against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to establish a medical fund for firefighters who develop cancer while on the job. That bill became law in 2014. Melissa specializes in lobbying on policy and licensing rules governing graduate medical education and health care professions, as well as appropriations in those areas of the state budget. Melissa’s clients include Wayne State University, the Michigan Primary Care Association, the Michigan Assisted Living Association and biopharmaceutical drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc. ` How to reach Melissa: Email: mmckinley@kelleycawthorne.com LinkedIn.com/in/ melissa-mckinley-2345446
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Rick has spent 23 years in government relations for Delta Dental of Michigan, the state’s largest provider for dental health insurance benefits. Delta Dental’s business matters before the Legislature include a range of health care policy issues, insurance industry regulations and Medicaid dental insurance coverage for adults and children. Delta Dental holds the majority share of a $650 million state contract for the Healthy Kids Dental program that’s shared with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Rick has been Delta Dental’s top lobbyist since 2018 after 21 years as manager of government relations for the Okemos-based dental insurer. He previously worked in government relations in the mid-1990s for the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce and got his start in public policy as an aide to former U.S. Rep. Dave Camp. ` How to reach Rick: Email: rlantz@deltadentalmi.com LinkedIn.com/in/ rick-lantz-21978923
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Andy made a quick ascent at this Lansing lobbying firm, becoming a partner in his early 30s after serving as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee and Senate Democratic Leader Jim Ananich, both of Flint. Andy made his mark in government managing the day-to-day response for both Kildee and Ananich during Flint’s water crisis. After the discovery of elevated levels of toxic lead in the city’s water and the bloodstreams of its children, Andy shepherded Ananich’s legislative agenda, which secured more than $200 million in relief aid for Flint’s residents. In February 2018, Andy joined the firm co-founded by veteran lobbyist Ronald Khoury (formerly known as Kandler Reed Khoury & Muchmore or KRKM) as it was reorganizing. Andy’s areas of expertise include financial services, agriculture, labor, workforce development, technology and municipal operations. His major clients include the city of Detroit, Microsoft and the Sam Bernstein Law Firm. ` How to reach Andy: Email: Andy@kjlteam.com Twitter: @AndyLeavitt LinkedIn.com/in/aleavitt
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Bret is part of a seven-lobbyist team that’s regarded in Lansing as one of the more influential and experienced multi-client firms in town. Bret’s specialty areas include business taxes and transportation policy. His clients include Ilitch Holdings and Marian Ilitch’s MotorCity Casino. During the state-ordered shutdown of businesses, Bret helped broker the deal with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office to allow MotorCity and Detroit’s other two casinos to reopen at 15 percent capacity in August after being closed for nearly five months. After serving as former Gov. John Engler’s legislative affairs director, Bret joined the firm in 2003 and became a member in 2015. Prior to serving for four years in the Engler administration, he was the top lobbyist for the Michigan Restaurant Association and worked as a staffer in the Michigan Senate. ` How to reach Bret: Email: Bmarr@mhsa.com Twitter: @Bret_Marr LinkedIn.com/in/bretmarr
Kevin McKinney
Matthew Miner
Chris Mitchell
Nicole Nystrom
Brian O’Connell
President & Owner
CEO
President & CEO
McKinney & Associates
Capitol Strategies Group
Senior Vice President of Advocacy & Public Affairs
Regional Director of State Government Relations
` Why he should be on your speed dial: For the better part of three decades, Kevin McKinney has been defending Michigan’s no-fault insurance law and unique benefits for severely injured motorists on behalf of drivers, doctors, hospital systems and postacute rehabilitation providers. In 2003, Kevin was one of the founders of the Coalition Protecting Auto No-Fault, a group consisting of medical providers, personal injury attorneys, brain injury centers and long-term care facilities. Auto insurance companies prevailed in the passage of no-fault reform in 2019, but CPAN is still lobbying for changes to the new law. In 2011, Kevin began lobbying for medical marijuana patients to establish state-level licensing of medical marijuana facilities and regulations for cannabis-infused products. The Legislature adopted those licensing and regulatory measures in 2016, the same year Kevin worked on the successful ballot campaign to legalize recreational marijuana. His clients include the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, Pfizer Inc., the Michigan Osteopathic Association and the Michigan Association of Orthodontists. ` How to reach Kevin: Email: kevin@ mckinneyandassociates.net
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Matthew has been a multiclient lobbyist in Lansing for a decade after spending 15 years working in the Legislature. He was chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop after serving as legislative director to the late Sen. Harry Gast, a longtime Senate Appropriations Committee chairman. Matthew co-founded Capitol Strategies Group in 2010 with his business partner Dan Farhat, a veteran Lansing lobbyist. Their practice includes lobbying and consulting in the areas of appropriations, cannabis regulations, energy, financial services, health policy, insurance, liquor licensing and general business issues. Capitol Strategies Group’s clients include DuPont Specialty Products, Calpine Energy, Hertz Rent-A-Car, Clear Rate Communications, McLaren Healthcare, the Michigan Association of Insurance Agents, the Michigan State Medical Society, the Midwest Independent Retailers Association, Michigan State University and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ` How to reach Matt: Email: matt@csgmi.com LinkedIn.com/in/ matthew-miner-7097036
18 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
Michigan Health & Hospital Association
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Chris is seen as one of the more prominent and influential health care industry lobbyists in Lansing. While MHA’s larger member hospitals have their own in-house lobbyists, Chris is often their go-to guy for strategy navigating the Legislature and executive branch. He frequently testifies before legislative committees on public policy matters affecting hospital regulations and licensure, Medicaid health insurance for the working poor and state appropriations to hospitals. Chris played a major role in negotiating a medical procedure fee schedule for hospitals to charge auto insurers for patients injured in motor vehicle accidents under Michigan’s new auto insurance law. Chris has been with MHA for more than 14 years, starting off as an administrative fellow and working his way up the ranks of the government affairs team. He became a vice president of the organization in 2014 and was elevated to the C-suite ranks in 2016 when he took on the title of senior vice president of advocacy. ` How to reach Chris: Email: cmitchell@mha.org Twitter: @Chris_Mitchell_ LinkedIn.com/in/ chris-mitchell-0b56a210
Midwest Strategy Group
`Why she should be on your speed dial: Nicole and the lobbying firm she founded in 2005 are typically involved in the passage of some of the most significant health care, economic and tax policy legislation. One of Nicole’s top clients is Quicken Loans Inc. and its founder, Dan Gilbert. That put her at the forefront of securing the transformational brownfield tax incentives Gilbert sought in 2018 for the construction of a new skyscraper downtown, renovation of the Book Tower and an addition to Quicken’s headquarters. Nicole was involved in Gilbert’s successful push for no-fault auto insurance reform in 2019. She also helped secure an economic development incentive package for Waymo to repurpose an old American Axle & Manufacturing plant in Detroit for production of autonomous vehicle technology. Nicole’s firm has 10 full-time lobbyists, more than 120 clients and also does political action committee management for state and federal candidates. Her clients include CVS Health, Facebook, the Michigan Association of Health Plans and the Michigan Municipal League. ` How to reach Nicole: Email: nystrom @midweststrategy.com LinkedIn.com/in/ nicole-nystrom-7378703
General Motors Co.
` Why he should be on your speed dial: As the state’s largest employer, General Motors holds a lot of sway at the Capitol when it comes to tax policy for ma nu f a c t u re r s and laws and regulations governing auto mobility, electric vehicles, auto safety, energy, intellectual property, environmental issues and economic development. Brian is a 27-year veteran of the Capitol, getting his start as a legislative aide in the House of Representatives and then serving seven years as chief of staff to a former longtime Senate Appropriations Committee chair, Shirley Johnson. Before joining GM in 2010, Brian was director of state government affairs for the pharmaceutical giant Wyeth Corp. He oversees GM’s government relations work in Michigan and 12 other states in a region that extends from Ohio to the Dakotas. Brian also works on issues affecting the Detroit’s automaker’s workforce, such as health care, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation insurance for workplace injuries. ` How to reach Brian: Email: Brian.OConnell@gm.com LinkedIn.com/in/ brian-o-connell-24905a9
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s about the importance of voice. Whether it’s a public health official or an underrepresented member of our society, there are voices all of us must hear and heed if we’re going to grow stronger as a state.
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mong those many diverse voices is one that should feel closer to each of us, and it’s one that comes from a local physician. Each of us looks to our health care providers for information, support and personal attention so when it comes to making important choices to preserve a person’s well-being, it’s quite often a physician’s voice that matters most.
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At the Michigan State Medical Society, it’s our job to aggregate the knowledge, experiences, views and voices of our state’s 15,000 physicians and amplify them within the state legislature,” said Benjamin Louagie, MSMS’ chief operating officer. “We work hard to represent them well, adding important perspectives to crucial public policy discussions and helping advance the health of our state as a whole.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, MSMS’ advocacy work took on additional significance.
S. BOBBY MUKKAMALA, MD, MSMS PRESIDENT
BENJAMIN LOUAGIE, MSMS CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
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MSMS’ members have learned a great deal since the first cases of coronavirus were diagnosed in our state,” said MSMS’ director of medical and regulatory policy, Stacey Hettiger. “Our state’s physicians have been dedicated to healing and sharing their challenges, opportunities and successes in battling this pandemic at all levels.
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MSMS member physicians are keenly aware of what works—and what doesn’t—in the fight against COVID-19 and are eager to help support sound public policy decisions now and in the future. As a result, MSMS is able to work closely with the governor, state agencies and the Legislature to ensure Michigan can move past this pandemic quickly and safely.
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We’ve often heard Gov. Whitmer say she is using science and data to make critical public policy decisions, and it’s our organization that helps bring this crucial research, knowledge and said MSMS experience to the table, President S. Bobby Mukkamala, MD.
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STACEY HETTIGER, MSMS DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND REGULATORY POLICY
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MSMS works to amplify physician voices and experiences not just during times of pandemic, but any time public health considerations are on the table.
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Indeed, MSMS is vocal on issues ranging from insurance coverage and regulatory requirements to physician education, professional liability, and public health and prevention. The organization has a long and distinguished history of advocacy on behalf of medical experts and the patients they serve. The organization’s growing advocacy team is led by Louagie and Hettiger in partnership with grassroots advocacy manager Scott Kempa, state and federal government relations specialist Mary Kate Barnauskas, and the lobbying professionals at Capitol Strategies Group.
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We couldn’t ask for a finer, more talented team of individuals to speak for our state’s physicians,” Doctor Mukkamala said. “They do a great deal of essential work for MSMS; and, have the benefit of the organization’s 156 years of speaking for our state’s physicians on their side.
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msms.org
50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Dominick Pallone
David Palsrok
Megan Petzko-Sweet
Melissa Reitz
Peter Ruddell
Executive Director
Government Policy Advisor
Principal
Michigan Association of Health Plans
Dykema
Senior Director of Government Relations
Co-Leader, Governmental Relations and Regulatory Practice Group
`Why he should be on your speed dial: If you’re trying to navigate an issue involving Medicaid or health insurance law in Michigan, Dominick is on a short list of experts you call. A 17-year veteran of Lansing, Dominick has been lobbying full time for managed-care health insurance companies since 2014. In 2017, he became the head of MAHP, advocating on behalf of 12 health insurers with a share of Michigan’s multi-billion Medicaid insurance programs for low-income adults and children. Prior to joining MAHP, Dominick was a partner at the multi-client firm Midwest Strategy Group, specializing in lobbying on appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services, a $28.5 billion budget and by far the largest in state government. Dominick’s members at MAHP include national commercial health insurers such as United Healthcare and Michigan managed care companies like Detroit-based Meridian Health and Troy-based Molina Health Plan. He got his start in Lansing as a clerk on the Senate Appropriations Committee. ` How to reach Dominick: Email: DPallone@mahp.org LinkedIn.com/in/ dominick-pallone-200b3269
`Why he should be on your speed dial: David has sat in almost every seat in the legislative process. He started out as a legislative aide in the House of Representatives and then became a chief of staff to then-Sen. Michael Bouchard. From there, he made the jump into the advocacy business, working on public policy issues for the Michigan Realtors and a group seeking greater investment in broadband internet. In 2002, David got elected to the House representing a district around Manistee. He served three terms before being term-limited. From the House, David joined the lobby corps as a Small Business Association of Michigan lobbyist before joining the Dykema law firm’s government relations team in 2012. David’s areas of focus have included business taxes, regional transit, water policy and autonomous vehicle regulations, and he’s been at the negotiating table of several rewrites of Michigan’s telecommunications and energy laws. His clients include M-1 Rail, the Great Lakes Water Authority, Toyota North America Inc., Health Alliance Plan, Nexteer Automotive, AutoOwners Insurance and SEMCOG. ` How to reach David: Email: DPalsrok@dykema.com LinkedIn.com/in/davidpalsrok
Tyrone Sanders Jr.
Beaumont Health
RWC Advocacy
Honigman LLP
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Megan is the day-to-day lobbyist for Michigan’s largest hospital system (by patient revenue and employee count). She lobbies for Beaumont Health on legislation intersecting health policy, health insurance, appropriations for hospitals and Medicaid, certificate of need issues for hospital bed capacity and administrative and regulatory policies set by the executive branch. Megan has worked on a number of health care policy changes in her decade of working in the government relations business, including the passage of a law mandating insurance companies cover treatments for autism, the 2013 Healthy Michigan law extending Medicaid health insurance coverage to the working poor and other Affordable Care Act legislation. Megan has been with Beaumont since 2016 and previously was a policy adviser for House Republicans and a policy analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. ` How to reach Megan: Email: Megan.Petzko-Sweet@ beaumont.org LinkedIn.com/in/ megan-petzko-sweet-a4a805106
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Melissa (formerly Melissa Cupp) has built a government consulting and lobbying practice around helping hospitals seeking Certificate of Need win approval from state regulators to expand bed space or build new medical facilities. She has secured CON approval for 25 ambulatory surgery centers across the state, including Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital and Ascension Providence Hospital in Novi, the only newly-licensed hospitals constructed in Michigan in the past two decades. For the past 15 years, Melissa has been engaged in every major public policy change to Michigan’s hospital-licensing law, which governs everything from bed capacity to building design. Melissa has been a lobbyist at RWC Advocacy since 1999 and the firm’s managing partner for the past decade. In August, she became the principal owner of the firm. Her clients include Ascension Michigan, Ciena Healthcare, Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System, MidMichigan Health, Spectrum Health System and Sparrow Health System. ` How to reach Melissa: Email: reitzm@rwca.com LinkedIn.com/in/ melissa-cupp-a9809729
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Peter literally got rid of the smoke-filled rooms in Lansing. He is credited with lobbying for the successful passage of Michigan’s landmark 2009 law banning smoking in restaurants, bars and workplaces. Two decades in the Lansing lobby corps, Peter specializes in education, health, workforce development, state appropriations and election law matters before the Legislature and regulatory agencies in executive branch. He joined Honigman’s Lansing office in 2018, co-leading the governmental relations practice with longtime Lansing insider Dennis Muchmore. Peter was previously a partner at RWC Advocacy, the government affairs law firm founded by another longtime Lansing insider, Rick Wiener. Peter’s clients at Honigman include Accenture, U.S. Steel, Delta Air Lines and Central Michigan University. His signature bow ties stand out in a crowd in the Capitol. ` How to reach Peter: Email: pruddell@honigman.com Twitter: @ruddellp LinkedIn.com/in/ peter-ruddell-b22b727
Noah Smith
Shelly Stahl
MoReno Taylor II
Brad Ward
Partner
Partner
Partner
Associate
Public Affairs Associates LLC
Capitol Services Inc.
Karoub Associates
Karoub Associates
Vice President of Public Policy and Legal Affairs
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Tyrone is a 23-year veteran lobbyist at one of Lansing’s oldest lobbying firms who specializes in gaming law and regulations, telecommunications and corporate law and state and local governmental procurement. As MGM Grand Detroit’s lead external lobbyist, Tyrone helped the casino operator win passage of new laws authorizing sports and online betting in Michigan. His career highlights include lobbying on behalf of the Ontario Truckers Association and Transport Canada to secure an agreement to construct the Gordie Howe International Bridge. He also was the lead lobbyist for a coalition that convinced the Legislature to require health insurance companies to cover autism therapies. Tyrone’s clients include DTE Energy, Kellogg Company, Waste Management, the Ascension Michigan health care system, the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, the Wayne County Airport Authority and the Oakland County Commission. Tyrone is an attorney and has been with PAA since 2004 after six years of lobbying for two AT&T predecessors, SBC Communications and Ameritech. ` How to reach Tyrone: Email: sanders@paaonline.com LinkedIn.com/in/ tyrone-sanders-jr-esq-1b314027
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Noah is typically in the middle of changes to criminal and civil law in Michigan. He recently worked on the successful passage of a series of bills signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that will create an automatic criminal record expungement system in Michigan, clearing some misdemeanors and some non-violent felonies from the records of residents. He lobbied for the sweeping changes on behalf of the incarceration reform group Safe and Just Michigan. Noah also represents the plaintiffs’ bar through the Michigan Association of Justice and the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan. His firm has a number of labor union clients. He directly represents the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights. His other clients include the Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems, the Michigan chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and two associations representing Michigan school social workers and psychologists. ` How to reach Noah: Email: nsmith@ capitolservices.org LinkedIn.com/in/noahsmith
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Shelly has been a multiclient lobbyist through four governors and a constantly churning Legislature. Karoub Associates is Michigan’s oldest and largest multi-client lobbying firm and is headquartered just steps from the Capitol. Legislators use Karoub’s first-floor event room and bar on Allegan Street to host fundraisers for their re-election campaigns and leadership committees, boosting the firm’s profile in Lansing’s competitive lobbying industry. Shelly’s lobbying practice includes a focus on public policy affecting gaming, economic development, K-12 and higher education, health care, transportation and workforce development. Her top clients include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Greektown Casino-Hotel, Wayne County, Michigan State University, Plante Moran, the Teamsters union, Apple Inc. and Anheuser-Busch. Shelly joined Karoub in 1997 and previously worked in campaign finance and fundraising for Republicans and former Gov. John Engler. ` How to reach Shelly: Email: sstahl@karoub.com LinkedIn.com/in/ shelly-stahl-73668b4
` Why he should be on your speed dial: MoReno has more than a decade of experience working in the Capitol and on political campaigns for Democrats. At Karoub, he helps manage the firm’s Southeast Michigan clients, which include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Central Transport, DTE Energy, Ford Motor Co., Greektown Casino-Hotel and Wayne County. The issues MoReno works on range from transportation and economic development to financial services, health care and preventing the proliferation of aquatic invasive species. He also represents the Michigan Waterfront Alliance, Junior Achievement and the County Road Association of Michigan, where he worked earlier in his career as a legislative coordinator. MoReno joined Karoub in 2019 after three years of political field work for Democratic candidates and organizations. MoReno’s national business clients include Apple Inc., Bank of America, Allstate Corp., Splunk Inc. and VOYA Services Co. ` How to reach MoReno: Email: mtaylor@karoub.com Twitter: @MRTaylor313 LinkedIn.com/in/mtaylorii
20 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
Michigan Realtors
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Brad is the chief lobbyist for Michigan’s trade organization representing 28,000 real estate agents, brokers and other professionals. He works on legislative and regulatory issues that intersect with real estate transactions, licensing, taxation, finance, environmental issues and land use. Ward has worked for the Michigan Realtors since 2001, starting as director of legal affairs and a liaison to local Realtor associations in mid- and northern Michigan. Since 2013, Ward has been the Realtors’ head lobbiyst and in-house legal counsel. He manages the association’s policy agenda and grassroots political network. ` How to reach Brad: Email: bward@mirealtors.com Twitter: @WardBrad LinkedIn.com/in/bradward2
POWERED BY THE SMALL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION ASSOCIAT A ION OF MICHIGAN AT
MainStreet Legislative Consulting provides powerful advocacy y assistance assistance to individual small businesses on legislative issues that personally impact their businesses.
www.SBAM.org/mainstreet
50 NAMES TO KNOW IN LOBBYING Timothy Ward
Brad Williams
Cathy Wilson
Deidra Wilson
Justin Winslow
President & Shareholder
Vice President of Government Relations
Executive Director of State Government Affairs
Vice President of Government Relations
President & CEO
Detroit Regional Chamber
Consumers Energy
McLaren Health Care Corp.
`Why he should be on your speed dial: Brad is the Detroit chamber of commerce’s dayto-day lobbyist at the Capitol, keeping tabs on everything from policy affecting manufacturers and hospitals to economic development and K-12 and higher education, where the chamber has focused much of its lobbying efforts in recent years because of talent deficits in the workforce. Brad is often a key player in getting Detroit-specific public policy through the Legislature. He was involved in the successful passage of the 2014 “grand bargain” legislation to get Detroit out of bankruptcy. He’s been a leading advocate for expanding mass transit options in Southeast Michigan and works on statewide transportation policy and funding issues. Brad also oversees the Detroit Chamber’s political action committee. Brad was a 2016 Crain’s 40 under 40 honoree. ` How to reach Brad: Email: bwilliam@ detroitchamber.com Twitter: @thebradwilliams LinkedIn.com/in/ brad-williams-830bbb33
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Cathy has been Consumers Energy’s principle lobbyist for the past 19 years, working with the administrations of four governors, all of their appointees to the Michigan Public Service Commission and an ever-changing Legislature due to term limits. All of that means continuous relationship-building, especially as the House and Senate’s energy policy committees turn over every two-tofour years. Cathy was at the negotiating table in 2008 and 2016 to win bipartisan support for the past two rewrites of Michigan’s renewable energy standards, policies that will guide Consumers’ goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Prior to joining Consumers in 2001, Cathy was deputy policy director under then-Gov. John Engler. ` How to reach Cathy: Email: catherine.wilson@ cmsenergy.com LinkedIn.com/in/ cathy-wilson-07981410
` Why she should be on your speed dial: Deidra is a veteran of shaping health care policy in Lansing. She’s been McLaren Health’s top lobbyist for the past five years after spending 11 years working in the government affairs shop of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, where she advocated for the successful passage of the 2013 law converting the Blues into a mutual insurance company. At McLaren, she handles hospital and Medicaid appropriations issues and public policy issues before the Legislature that affect the 14-hospital McLaren system. She oversees McLaren’s state and federal government relations division for Michigan, as well as McLaren’s health plan in Indiana, MD Wise. Deidra was a 2017 Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree. ` How to reach Deidra: Email: Deidra.Wilson@ mclaren.org LinkedIn.com/in/ deidra-wilson-4123b040
Michigan Legislative Consultants
` Why he should be on your speed dial: Tim has been part of the Lansing lobby corps for two decades after serving in former Republican Gov. John Engler’s administration and running Engler’s final re-election campaign in 1998. Tim ran his own lobbying firm for two years before joining Michigan Legislative Consultants in 2002. Tim’s partner in the nine-lobbyist firm is veteran lobbyist Brendan Ringlever. Tim’s clients include Altria Group Inc., State Farm Insurance Cos., Uber Technologies Inc., Tesla Inc., Rave Mobile Safety, Northern Michigan University and the Michigan Education Special Services Association, the East Lansing-based health insurance benefits administrator arm of the Michigan Education Association. ` How to reach Tim: Email: tim@mlcmi.com Twitter: @Trwjd1 LinkedIn.com/in/ timward5
Congratulations to
22 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association
` Why he should be on your speed dial: If there ever was a year where the hospitality industry needed a well-connected lobbyist, 2020 was it. Justin successfully lobbied for a liquor buyback program, providing shortterm financial relief for shuttered bars and restaurants that were sitting on thousands of dollars of inventory during the spring lockdown. He also advocated for passage of new laws allowing curbside sales of beer, wine and cocktails and the creation of social districts for outdoor alcohol consumption in public spaces. Starting at the Michigan Restaurant Association in 2011 as vice president of government relations, Justin was promoted to CEO in 2015. In 2018, he merged the restaurant group with Check In Michigan — a trade group for hoteliers — to form the MRLA . ` How to reach Justin: Email: jwinslow@mrla.org Twitter: @jlwinslow1 LinkedIn.com/in/ jlwinslow1
Our mission is straightforward: To provide leadership for the promotion and advocacy of high quality, affordable, accessible health care for the citizens of Michigan.
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Our members live this mission every day. They deliver innovative, high quality insurance to businesses, non-profits, Medicaid and individuals, boosting vital access to medical care and improving health outcomes.
We invite you to learn more about MAHP by joining our members at our 2021 Summer Conference, July 26-30 at the Grand Traverse Resort. You’ll meet leading experts in health insurance and health care trends, state policymakers, and suppliers of health care-related products and services at one of the state’s most important conferences. For more information, visit mahp.org/summer-conference.
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ELECTION 2020
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Six sharp points Several critical issues now facing Michigan will be of national importance in 2021. We asked journalists and thought leaders to explain why. The state of Michigan’s cities | PAGE 25 Automotive economy faces the future | PAGE 26 How tariffs do harm to manufacturing and agriculture | PAGE 26 The Detroit River is a bellwether of environmental quality | PAGE 28 Women in politics need to play the long game | PAGE 29 Labor, equity and the pandemic | PAGE 30
About Crain’s Forum Crain’s Senior Editor Chad Livengood is leading a monthly series of in-depth reports on major public policy issues and topics that relate heavily to the economy and quality of life in Southeast Michigan and the state as a whole. 24 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
In addition to the monthly reports, Crain’s Forum will have periodic virtual and live events focused on some of the topics. Crain’s has created an invitation-only Forum membership for companies and organizations keenly interested in sup-
porting policy discussions. Forum members participate in planning events and editorial board meetings on a wide range of subjects. Forum Members for 2020-21 include the Children’s Foundation, Consumers Energy
Co., the Michigan Association of Health Plans, the Michigan State Medical Society and the Small Business Association of Michigan. For more information about Crain’s Forum membership, contact Group Publisher Mary Kramer at mkramer@crain.com.
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ELECTION 2020 | NATIONALIZING MICHIGAN’S ISSUES CITIES
Michigan’s failures should inform a new national urban agenda
In the six years since Detroit emerged from bankruptcy, the city has jostled between improving public services and reimagining vacant land to water shutoffs, improperly inflated property taxes and an annual tax foreclosure process that exacerbates housing instability in the neighborhoods. | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
BY ANNA CLARK
Essential services
When it comes to cities, Michigan Public health precautions to temlearns its lessons the hard way. per the spread of the coronavirus A brief accounting of just the last made the question excruciatingly litfour years finds Detroit jolting beeral: What, if nothing else, must a city do? What is essential? tween the possibilities and perils of It turns out to be the stuff of life: post-bankruptcy. Alongside inFood. Water. Shelter. Safety. Health. creased core city investment, imA national urban agenda should proved public services and re-imag- Anna Clark is a mirror this. For example, while much ined parkland, there are water Detroit-based shutoffs, improperly inflated prop- freelance journalist is undone in resolving the Flint water crisis, the state adopted drinking water erty taxes and an annual tax foreclo- and author of the regulations that are tougher than nasure process that exacerbates hous- book, “The ing instability. Poisoned City: tional ones. Also, building on the exMeanwhile, Flint fought a water Flint’s Water and ample of Lansing, which quietly becrisis that poisoned people, de- the American came one of the first cities in the stroyed infrastructure and show- Urban Tragedy.” nation to un-poison its pipes, cities cased the limits of emergency manmust remove every service line made agement as a turnaround strategy of toxic lead over the next two decades. for poor cities. That’s good news for public health, Benton Harbor pushed back against the of course, but also for housing stability, infraclosure of its public high school and won structure resilience, education and economic another chance to rebuild, though it must development. A national urban agenda could do so while simultaneously navigating a make this Michigan-born policy a model — pandemic. and improve upon it to the point where no lead In Midland, privately owned dams that regu- at all is tolerated in our drinking water, given lators had long flagged for risky conditions fi- that no lead at all is safe for humans. Efforts to nally failed, unleashing a flood of biblical pro- eliminate lead in water infrastructure should portions. also be better integrated with lead remediation Which is all to say, Michigan has hard-won efforts in housing, schools and soil. That will esexperience that should inform a national urban pecially benefit older legacy cities. agenda — especially now, as COVID-19 and raSpeaking of infrastructure, the Midland dam cial justice protests reveal municipal precari- failure might be the most dramatic example of ousness in a new way. Call it common sense for the consequences of shortcuts and ineffective the common good: Those who are figuring out regulation, but it’s hardly the only one. And the our hardest problems have a chance to re-imag- stakes are greater than ever. ine our cities as more equitable, inclusive, viA changing climate is bringing higher tembrant, and sustainable than they have ever peratures and more precipitation to Michigan, been. which overwhelms aging pipes, worsens flood-
WHAT, IF NOTHING ELSE, MUST A CITY DO? WHAT IS ESSENTIAL? IT TURNS OUT TO BE THE STUFF OF LIFE: FOOD. WATER. SHELTER. SAFETY. HEALTH. ing and increases sewage overflow into our beloved Great Lakes. As Ann Arbor’s director of sustainability told me last year, the city gets 44 percent more rainfall than it did three decades ago — enough to fill 23 Michigan Stadiums. Many local leaders are already envisioning wiser ways to do stormwater infrastructure. Detroit, for example, integrates green infrastructure — which uses plants and soil to better absorb water and filter pollutants — into parks and road improvement projects. But with both policy and funding, cities need top-level support to adapt at scale.
Integrated purpose Michigan cities have struggled with the “what is essential” question for years, whether in court for municipal bankruptcy or at the hands of emergency managers dispatched to vulnerable communities. (Or in Detroit’s case: both.) Concentrated poverty and austerity function something like a decades-long pandemic. A national urban agenda should learn from leaders in Michigan’s hardest-hit communities who faced impossible choices. When it comes to essential services — that is, basic human rights — urban policy can’t exist in a vacuum, with intervention beginning and ending at the municipal borders. Even Michigan’s experiment with emergency management, which dispatched state-appointed administrators to shore up distressed cities, showed that, even when they had unusu-
al authorities, this wasn’t really possible. More often than not, EMs cycled in and out of the same communities, with the same chronic problems. The exceptions were when money problems were narrowly tailored — Allen Park’s failed movie studio deal, for example, compared to generations of disinvestment in Benton Harbor — or when there was a big outside intervention, as with Detroit’s bankruptcy. Michigan’s EM law remains on the books, but no community has had one appointed since the Flint water crisis revealed how risky it is to apply “an accounting solution to a structural problem,” as an interviewee put it in a recent study by University of Michigan assistant professor Sara Hughes. An urban agenda for the nation’s hardest-hit communities might instead consider opt-in emergency interventions, with empowered local leadership participating in the process. Interventions might also be scaled for the regional or county level, rather than for single cities, to better address cause-and-effect relationships in a metropolitan area. Better yet, an urban agenda will address root causes before they escalate as problems. In addition to investing in infrastructure and public health, that means embracing the Fair Housing Act’s mission to “affirmatively further” fair housing, and restoring the enforcement mechanisms that were recently eliminated. See CITIES on Page 28 OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 25
ELECTION 2020 | NATIONALIZING MICHIGAN’S ISSUES AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURING
What’s at stake for Michigan’s auto industry with the next presidency, Congress BY RICK HAGLUND
Michigan’s automakers and the hundreds of parts suppliers who support them have a lot riding on the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Decisions by the next president and Congress on trade, the environment, energy and public Rick Haglund health will have a huge spent nearly 25 impact on an industry years covering making a historic transMichigan business and the economy formation to electric vefor Booth hicles. Newspapers. He And while automakers now works as a have bounced back from freelance writer. the coronavirus pandemic more quickly than predicted, some say the industry — particularly small suppliers — and consumers will need continued financial aid into 2021 to head off another collapse. That could be especially critical if what appears to be a second round of COVID ravages the country this winter and shuts down the economy again.
“The first and most important thing the auto industry needs is federal action to support the economy,” said Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber. And the country, Baruah added, “needs to get a handle on the virus.” President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden have both emphasized the importance of a healthy auto industry as they seek attract voters in crucial manufacturing swing states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In their first debate last month, Trump and Biden sought to portray themselves as the industry’s savior. Trump took credit for billions of dollars in recently announced U.S. auto plant investments, while Biden claimed to have saved General Motors and Chrysler with a federal bailout as vice president during the Great Recession. While auto and parts manufacturing produce just 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in an economy dominated by services, the industry is still regarded as an American touchstone in a country that equates manufacturing with economic might and national security. “It was a big part of building the middle class, expanding peoples’ mobility and opening a bigger world of possibilities for American fami-
TARIFFS
The hard lesson of tariffs has been learned. It’s time to move on BY DUSTIN WALSH
President Donald Trump has used tariffs as a means to an end for the past three-plus years. The Trump administration sought to level the economic playing field and usher in new trade deals with perceived adversaries, mainly China Dustin Walsh covers the economy and Mexico. But the automotive inand workforce, dustry has struggled unmanufacturing der the trade regime — and cannabis General Motors, for industry issues for instance, said it lost $1 Crain’s Detroit billion due to higher Business. priced steel related to tariffs between March and September of 2018. Michigan farmers took a hit from retaliatory tariffs from China to match the U.S. effort. Soybean farmers in the state suffered a loss of nearly $110 per acre in the first half of 2019. Trump’s Department of Agriculture remedied those losses with nearly $50 billion in direct payments to U.S. farmers over the past 18 months. But the Nov. 3 election is unlikely to remedy the tariff troubles as it’s unlikely Trump will reverse course if reelected and Joe Biden’s camp refuses to rule out tariffs if the Democrat wins the presidency. “We would use tariffs when they’re needed, but backed by a strategy and a plan,” Tony Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama White House and a top trade adviser to the Biden campaign, said during a video chat hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last month. It’s unclear if Biden, who during the campaign claims credit for the package that bailed out General Motors, Chrysler and subsequently 26 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
Farmers have been somewhat spared from the trade wars — for the moment. But without normalized trade relations or agricultural subsidies, many more Michigan farms will go out of business. | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
their suppliers during the Great Recession, would seek to eliminate the current tariffs that are harming manufacturers. The point of the tariffs under the current administration was to increase domestic manufacturing, and thus jobs. However, there were 5,500 fewer automotive assembly and parts manufacturing jobs in Michigan between March 2018 when the first tariffs — on Canadian steel and aluminum imports — were announced and February of this year ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic impact. Conversely, there were 4,100 fewer manufacturing jobs on the whole during that same period. The original ham-handed goal of saving U.S. steelmaker jobs backfired as well. In December 2019, U.S. Steel Corp. announced a plan to indefinitely idle “a significant portion” of its Great Lakes Works production facility in Ecorse and River Rouge and issue layoff notices to 1,545 workers. The Trump administration used the tariffs as
an economic stick to force new trade deals, which largely has worked. But the effectiveness of those trade deals has been called into question. The U.S. and China signed a “mini-trade deal” otherwise called the Phase I trade deal in January in hopes of normalizing relations, and business, while the two countries work out a broader trade deal. But the Phase I stipulations weren’t panning out prior to COVID-19. Through March 2020, under the Phase I agreement, China’s imports of covered manufactured products from the U.S. were only $14.6 billion, well under the year-to-date target of $27.7 billion. Through August, China has made $47.6 billion in U.S. purchases, below the $56.1 billion target for the agreement. China has only acquired about 30 percent of its $36.6 billion purchase agreement for the year in U.S. agricultural products and 37.5 percent of its $110.8 billion purchase agreement for manufacturing goods, according to data
from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Farmers are somewhat being spared the pain from the trade wars. Roughly 36 percent of all net farm income across the U.S. in 2020 will come from the U.S. government to prop up farm products hit with retaliatory tariffs from China. Michigan farmers received nearly $453 million in ad hoc payments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this year alone. But, as I reported a few weeks ago, how long will tax dollars be used to offset the impact in what is seemingly a never-ending trade war? Either trade relations are normalized or the payments continue. Without one or the other, many more Michigan farms will go out of business. Foreign direct investment, a long-staple of job creation in Michigan from foreign automakers and suppliers looking to carve out a slice of the U.S. market, plummeted largely on the uncertainty of trade disputes. In 2019, foreign direct investment in the U.S. plummeted below $200 billion, the lowest total since 2006 and nearly $230 billion below 2015, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. and Michigan are now in the doldrums of the pandemic recession. More than 600,000 Michiganders are on some form of unemployment insurance assistance and the long tail of the recession is expected to drag into the middle of 2021 at least. Whomever assumes or resumes the office of the presidency next year will need to revisit the current tariff situation and assess whether there’s a better way toward free and open trade — a way that harms Michigan’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors less and finds common ground with allies and foes as the country and state are intertwined. Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh
lies,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. “It occupies this place in American economic lore.” The industry’s immediate challenge is to continue its recovery following a pandemic-induced sales collapse in April. Sales that month dropped to an annualized rate of 9.1 million vehicles, but bounced back to an annualized rate of 16.8 million cars and light trucks. That’s approaching the record annual sales rate of 17 million vehicles-plus that the industry has been running at for the past five years. Unlike in the Great Recession, automakers have not sought federal assistance. But many of
THE INDUSTRY HAD EXPRESSED SUPPORT FOR THE OBAMA RULES BECAUSE THEY WERE SIMILAR TO REGULATIONS IMPOSED BY CALIFORNIA AND OTHER STATES, IN EFFECT CREATING A NATIONAL STANDARD THAT AUTOMAKERS HAD LONG SOUGHT. their smaller suppliers that are critical to producing parts that keep assembly plants humming are facing serious financial problems from earlier COVID-related shutdowns. “Seventy-five percent of the firms in the supply base employ fewer than 100 people. They’re not faring well,” Dziczek said. The Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, a supplier lobbying group in WashingThe last Chevrolet Impala rolled off the production line at General Motors Co.’s Detroit-Hamtramck vehicle assembly plant on Feb. 27. The Poletown plant is being retooled to produce electric vehicles.
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“A great example of environment policy is when Trump announced his intention to roll back the Obama fuel mileage target and a lot of auto executives said, ‘We really didn’t ask for that,’” Baruah said. (The Detroit Regional Chamber promotes the state’s auto industry through its MICHauto unit.) Now the industry faces multiple standards again as California is sticking with its own higher standards. It and nearly two dozen other states, including Michigan, are suing the Trump administration over its effort to prevent California from enforcing its fuel economy standards. See AUTOS on Page 30
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ton, D.C., is pushing for a renewal of forgivable loans for suppliers under the Small Business Association’s Paycheck Protection Program. “We remain concerned that the supply base may need additional assistance this year and next year,” said Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs at MEMA. The auto industry also is looking for consistent fuel economy regulations crucial to making future product plans after Trump rolled back stringent Obama administration rules earlier this year. The industry had expressed support for the Obama rules because they were similar to regulations imposed by California and other states, in effect creating a national standard that automakers had long sought.
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OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS 10/12/20 5:05 PM| 27
ELECTION 2020 | NATIONALIZING MICHIGAN’S ISSUES ENVIRONMENT
Challenge for next president, Congress: Nationalize investment in G BY ERIC FREEDMAN
From his 11th-floor office in the GM Renaissance Center, Canadian Consul General Joe Comartin can see his neighborhood in Windsor and, below him, the Detroit River that forms part of the international border. Eric Freedman The Detroit River also is a journalism serves as a metaphor for professor and some of the complex endirector of the vironmental problems Knight Center for that Southeast Michigan Environmental confronts, problems the Journalism at next presidential adminMichigan State istration and incoming University. He was a 1994 winner of the Congress — regardless of party — will face. Pulitzer Prize for Running from Lake St. beat reporting at Clair — beset by reThe Detroit News. cord-high water levels and invasives such as zebra mussels — to Lake Erie — beset by toxic algal blooms — part of the Detroit River is a heavily contaminated binational Area of Concern, as is its tributary, River Rouge, and the nearby Clinton and St. Clair rivers. Comartin sees a need for a larger financial commitment from Washington for environmental initiatives, saying the next administration should adequately fund the 100-year-old International Joint Commission’s “fairly aggressive” water and air quality program along the border. He advocates increased funding by both governments to further control the invasive sea lamprey that continue to prey on commercially and recreationally valuable Great Lakes fish, and would like the U.S. government to follow Canada’s lead in toughening ballast water regulations for Great Lakes ships. As for climate change and air quality, the Michigan Manufacturers Association plans to closely watch Washington’s approach to carbon emissions, says John Walsh, its president and CEO. He notes Michigan’s carbon emissions have dropped every year for the past two decades, a movement he attributes to combined efforts by the federal and state governments and industry. “The goal for us is to find as much common ground as possible between federal laws and state laws,” he said. “There’s a lot of concern about a state like Michigan because of the amount of industry we have here,” he said, calling the issue “delicate” because emissions reach Southeast Michigan from Indiana and Canada. “A single state often can’t do it alone. If we’re
CITIES
From Page 25
Examples of exclusionary policies that seem neutral, but cause toxic separate-and-unequal patterns, are bans on Section 8 housing, or any kind of affordable housing, and prohibitions on multi-family dwellings. Inclusionary housing policies give all people a chance to be contributing members of the community. Unjust appraisals, assessments and tax foreclosures also cause both individual and collective harm, and it may take outside intervention to interrupt dysfunctional cycles in cities nationwide. Researchers from the University of Michigan and Rutgers University studied Detroit property records from 2005 to 2015 and found that in the foreclosure auction, speculative landlords who buy properties in bulk are weakening the 28 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
Canada’s top diplomat in Detroit wants to see the U.S. government follow Canada’s lead in toughening ballast water regulations for Great Lakes ships. | LARRY PEPLIN
plotting our own pathway in the state, it’s admirable, but it does add confusion for our members to meet with compliance,” Walsh said. A Trump administration priority has been eliminating environmental regulations. Courts have blocked or delayed many of those moves, but there’s been no congressional action to require tougher regulations. A second Trump administration is likely to continue that trend, while a Biden administration and a Democratic Congress would be expected to reinstate and strengthen those regulations. That poses a dilemma for businesses. “It’s a difficult one,” Walsh said. “Of course, we would like less regulation, but we want to be healthy. We do have good regulations. We’re just about right,” although some may need tweaking but not major changes. For example, the association wants Michigan to “stay even” with the federal government on new standards to regulate PFAS rather than having stricter state standards. “PFAS affect a number of our members” that have used them, are located near impacted waterways or whose employees are affected. One key question is whether the incoming administration and Congress will build on or impede Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s environmental initiatives. market by “allowing houses to fall into disrepair and eventually be demolished at the public’s expense.” Bulk buyers also correlated with inflated rents and higher eviction rates. More cities are more precarious now that COVID-19 has dealt a blow to municipal finances. “This sudden reversal of fiscal fortunes is unprecedented,” noted a recent report from the National League of Cities, while the breadth of hardship is comparable to “what cities reported during the depths of the Great Recession.” With balanced-budget requirements and revenue-raising restrictions, many cities are making severe cuts, rollbacks, layoffs, furloughs and hiring freezes. That makes them less capable of meeting essential needs. This makes strategies of interdependence more important than ever. “Government investment in the economy is exactly what is needed during downturns,” according to the NLC report.
RUNNING FROM LAKE ST. CLAIR — BESET BY RECORD-HIGH WATER LEVELS AND INVASIVES SUCH AS ZEBRA MUSSELS — TO LAKE ERIE — BESET BY TOXIC ALGAL BLOOMS — PART OF THE DETROIT RIVER IS A HEAVILY CONTAMINATED BINATIONAL AREA OF CONCERN. Earlier this month, for example, she announced a $500 million water infrastructure initiative. dubbed the MI Clean Water plan, to combine federal and money for replacing lead service lines, improving wastewater and stormwater systems, and removing raw sewage discharges. And last month, she signed an executive order to push Michigan toward carbon-neutrality by 2050, a move she says would combat climate change while creating green energy jobs. “We need to do this — particularly water infrastructure and how we manage water,” Michigan Environmental Council CEO Conan Smith said, citing an increase in catastrophic storms and rising lake levels. “We already know our water and sewer systems are insufficient to
handle 100-year floods with a frequency of less than 100 years.” Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that Great Lakes water levels remain high as fall storms approach and urged “anyone impacted by high water levels last fall to prepare for similar or worse impacts in the coming months.” Lakes St. Clair, Erie and Huron are substantially above their average levels. Smith says Washington should better protect Lake Erie as a source of drinking water, adding that there’s been “almost no substantive support from the federal government addressing nutrient pollution and algal blooms. That ought to be a national priority.” There is widespread consensus to maintain funding for the Obama-era Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The Trump administration tried to slash its budget, but reversed course amid bipartisan protests and recommended a slight increase in funding earlier this year. “We’ve had an enduring commitment across administrations and congresses,” said Daniel Eichinger of the Department of Natural Resources. “Finally the president got turned around.” He says, “As a general rule, the [congressional] delegations of all the Great Lakes states worked collaboratively to form a bloc or jugger-
Flint’s lead-tainted water crisis showcased the limits of state-imposed emergency management as a turnaround strategy for poor cities. | DALE YOUNG FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
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After RBG’s death, a turning point for women
Trailblazing U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Sept. 18 at age 87 after 27 years on the high court. | JAY GODWIN/LBJ FOUNDATION VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
naut in Congress on Great Lakes issues.” Now the challenge is how to “nationalize the need for investment in Great Lake issues,” Eichinger said, such as congressional appropriations for a system to block Asian carp from entering the lakes by penetrating the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, near Joliet, Illinois. Asian carp are a threat that keeps Deborah Lee up at night. If they gain a foothold in Lake Erie, they’d become 30 percent of the biomass of fish in the lake in 10-20 years, says Lee, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. She, too, advocates continued GLRI funding, noting that some money has gone to habitat restoration, cleaning up the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, promoting a blue economy, helping restore Belle Isle to a world-class urban park and connecting urban residents to nature. Meanwhile, Eichinger also wants Washington to “get over the positioning and posturing on climate change. It’s impacting not just the environment. It’s a threat to our economic system and a threat to human health that disproportionately impacts communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities.” “It’s a matter of environmental justice,” he said. Researchers in Michigan have suggested more intergovernmental collaboration, encouraged with revenue-sharing incentives, and also relying on counties to provide more public services. This can both reduce costs and improve outcomes. The good news is that the pandemic has made possible what once seemed impossible. Tax foreclosures were suspended. A tremendous pivot at all levels of government, in partnership with food banks, schools and philanthropists, worked to make sure people had enough to eat. Earlier this year, proposals by community organizers for a moratorium on water shutoffs on Detroit, on the grounds that it risked a public health crisis, were rejected by both the city and state — but, in the face of a public health crisis, policymakers changed their minds. In our cities, what is essential today will be equally essential tomorrow. A national urban agenda will put these life-affirming needs first.
BY LAURA BERMAN
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last month unleashed an outpouring of grief and remembrance. Her life and career demonstrated how much impact one person can have when she is focused, determined, Laura Berman is a and intent on change. metro Detroit Ginsburg was a femi- freelance writer nist, yes, but one who focused on political evolved over decades. and social issues. In the 1970s, as a lawyer, diminutive in size and steely in intellect, facing nine male justices who could not imagine gender equality, she chipped away at the status quo. In a series of carefully selected cases she argued, envisioning a final shape — a world of equality — the sitting male justices could not. “Keep your eye on the ball of equality and slowly kick it down the field” was her strategy, wrote Ginsburg’s biographer, Linda Hirshman. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, now an NBC News legal analyst and University of Michigan law professor, says: “She talked about her own life and career as being like a sweater. One stitch at time.” Now, her empty seat on the court, destined to be filled by conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett, represents a direct threat to that legacy. In Michigan political circles, there is concern that everything from access to health care, abortion, and women’s and minority rights protected by the 14th amendment could unravel like a sweater — not stitch by stitch but with a few well-directed tugs from an emboldened conservative high court willing to part ways with precedent. Lori Carpentier, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Michigan, views Barrett’s appointment “as terrible news” in terms of access to abortion, in a state where recent polls show a majority of voters, including self-identified Catholics, want to preserve that right. “If Roe goes down” she says, “we’ll be in a world of hurt.” But much as we can be fearful of gains lost, and clocks turning back, history suggests an-
other progression. Time does not march backward generally, and in Michigan, the last 20 years have seen a sea change in the position of women to influence and wield political power. The world that Justice Ginsburg entered after graduating first in her class at Columbia University Law School — incredulity from dozens of law firms that a woman might want a career, a seat at the table — is long gone. Those opportunities she helped secure are not easily dislodged. Even Amy Coney Barrett — a woman of ambition and keen intelligence, now ascending to the nation’s highest court — would not, could not, eradicate these gains. For “seasoned women,” as U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell describes those of us who came of age when discrimination was rife and abortion illegal, memories of past discrimination will remain keen. “We cannot take for granted the progress we’ve made. It may be more fragile than we realize and young women need to understand that,” Dingell says. There are emerging signs that they do understand, that young people and minorities are energized by a combination of political setbacks — especially the Donald Trump presidency — and opportunity. The 2016 presidential election included the most diverse electorate in U.S. history, in part because of the participation of young voters, unmarried women and racial and ethnic voters. And the 2018 elections witnessed a collec-
IN MICHIGAN POLITICAL CIRCLES, THERE IS CONCERN THAT EVERYTHING FROM ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE, ABORTION, AND WOMEN’S AND MINORITY RIGHTS PROTECTED BY THE 14TH AMENDMENT COULD UNRAVEL LIKE A SWEATER — NOT STITCH BY STITCH BUT WITH A FEW WELL-DIRECTED TUGS FROM AN EMBOLDENED CONSERVATIVE HIGH COURT WILLING TO PART WAYS WITH PRECEDENT.
tive roar from women voters. In recent elections, female legislators and judges have won decisive, and in many cases, unexpected victories. Most of Michigan’s highest officials, those elected statewide, are now women, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and even the current chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Bridget Mary McCormack. Five of the 14 members of Michigan’s Congressional Delegation are women, and that number may rise again in 2020. When U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, captured a gerrymandered Republican district in 2018, she emphasized issues that crossed partisan lines. Access to health care for all, she says, “is a pretty bipartisan value at this point.” Even abortion, has become a majority view in her district, where people may not openly advocate reproductive choice but, privately, want that option available. Preserving health care with protections for people with pre-existing conditions, is particularly important to women voters, Slotkin says. Pollsters attest to a widening gender gap, in which women favor Democratic candidates, especially Joe Biden over Trump, so strongly that Trump begged at a recent rally: “Suburban women, will you please like me?” In this election cycle, Michigan’s male officeholders are going to extraordinary efforts to demonstrate their empathy for women: From U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, who shared a heartbreaking story of his then-wife’s late term abortion, to U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, who sent out a campaign email in solidarity, male candidates are reaching out to women and their direct concerns. The gender gap, of women leaning Democratic, is at an all-time high. A conservative Supreme Court may well create challenges and obstacles to a history of increasing rights for women, African Americans and other minorities. But setbacks can also invigorate participation and innovative thinking, spurring a new generation of politically confident, ambitious women to run for political office, prepared to do battle. Or as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said: “So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune.” OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 29
ELECTION 2020 | NATIONALIZING MICHIGAN’S ISSUES LABOR
Black, brown hospitality workers need more than ‘empty platitudes’ BY NIA WINSTON
This year, America was forced to contend with three crises at once: a public health crisis, an economic crisis and the deeply rooted crisis of systemic racial inequality. The next administration, along with Congress, must prioritize a Nia Winston is sweeping agenda that president of the tackles all three crises Unite Here Local concurrently, not sepa24 hospitality rately, and the way to do workers union in that is by addressing Detroit and them as a labor issue. general vice First, I want you to president of the know exactly who is unUnite Here employed. When stay-atInternational home orders were first Union. issued in mid-March, interest in travel dropped substantially and gatherings in crowded spaces became limited if not fully barred. Months later, professional athletes returned after a long hiatus to play in ballparks and arenas that are devoid of fans. The entire hospitality industry — which is made up of a largely Black and brown workforce — was immediately brutalized by social distancing measures and subsequent closures of businesses. In April, the travel and leisure sector had the worst month in joblessness in history at 7.7 million, or 47 percent of its entire workforce. My union, Unite Here, represents over 300,000 hospitality workers in the United States and Canada, and at the peak of the pandemic, we had 98 percent of our membership out of work. I am the president of our Michigan affiliate, Unite Here Local 24, which saw just as much devastation. About 80 percent of our 7,000 members are still not yet recalled back to their jobs. They are casino workers, hotel workers, stadium workers, airport workers, airline catering workers and more, and they work in industries that have grown increasingly more important to Detroit’s renaissance and future. So, where does that leave us? The unemployment rate for Black people in the U.S. is almost twice as high as for white people. More alarming: fewer than half of Black adults currently have a job. By one measure,
Metro Detroit’s hospitality workers, seen here demonstrating in October 2018 outside of the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, have been hit especially hard by the economic turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic. | ANNALISE FRANK/CRAIN’S
Black women have faced the single largest drop in employment, and we are twice as likely to lose our jobs or income as white men. Amid all these job losses, we need a plan to protect and expand health insurance for all workers. An estimated 25 to 43 million workers are losing or have already lost their health insurance due to COVID-19-related unemployment. Those millions of people have lost access to critical health benefits just when they needed them the most — amid a once-in-a-century global pandemic. And who do you think are among those most impacted by this loss? I’ll tell you: Black workers are 60 percent less likely to have health insurance to begin with. The inability to access affordable health care has created a particularly dangerous situation, and it is one reason that the Black community is among the hardest hit by COVID-19. Black people are more likely than white people to die from the virus, and while we make up
THE ENTIRE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY — WHICH IS MADE UP OF A LARGELY BLACK AND BROWN WORKFORCE — WAS IMMEDIATELY BRUTALIZED BY SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES AND SUBSEQUENT CLOSURES OF BUSINESSES. IN APRIL, THE TRAVEL AND LEISURE SECTOR HAD THE WORST MONTH IN JOBLESSNESS IN HISTORY AT 7.7 MILLION, OR 47 PERCENT OF ITS ENTIRE WORKFORCE.
AUTOS
From Page 26
The California standards have split the industry. Ford, BMW, Honda, Volvo and Volkswagen have said they will stick with the California standards, while most others including General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota support the Trump administration’s mileage rollbacks. Automakers also are looking for clarity in energy policy as they move away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks to those that run on electricity. Trump has sent mixed messages about electric vehicles. “I’m all for electric cars,” Trump said in his debate with Biden. But he has criticized GM for its goal of switching completely to electric vehicles, and has repeatedly proposed killing a $7,500 tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles. The credits, which expire after an automaker has sold 200,000 electric vehicles, have run out for GM and Tesla. Biden said he would boost the industry by investing $400 billion to advance battery technology, constructing 500,000 charging stations across the country and converting the federal vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. Sales of hybrid and pure electric vehicle sales are a fraction of total U.S. sales, about 1 million this year, but are expected to hit 3.6 million in 2024, the 30 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
A worker demonstrates new tooling and equipment to support axle production for Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups at General Motors Co.’s Grand Rapids Operations in Wyoming, Mich. | JEFFREY SAUGER/GM
Center for Automotive Research estimates. About half of the “electrified” vehicles produced in the U.S. are built in Michigan assembly plants, Dziczek said. The only plant not producing a hybrid or pure electric vehicle is GM’s Grand River assembly plant in Lansing. The U.S. auto industry operates throughout
the world, but the industry is facing a backlash against globalism that already is changing how it operates. The industry supports the new United States Mexico Canada Agreement, which modernized the North American Free Trade Agreement. Experts say USMCA provides the industry with
just 13 percent of the population, we account for 34 percent of the cases. The options for laid off workers to protect their health care coverage are limited. One option that they have to keep their employer-provided health insurance is COBRA. Do you know how expensive COBRA is in general, much less for someone who recently lost their income? Lashanda Boyd is a member Unite Here Local 24 in Detroit. She was laid off from her job as a cook at Greektown Casino-Hotel and would have to cover $600 per month to maintain her health insurance. Without a job, that is an impossible price to pay, but so are the costs of her blood pressure medicine and critical doctor’s visits. What are workers like Lashanda supposed to do? Of course, it does not help that the Senate sat idly by as the enhanced $600 unemployment insurance expired in July, something that provided critical relief for Lashanda and millions of other American workers who became jobless this year through no fault of their own. The Heroes Act, passed by the House in May, also included funding for COBRA subsidies that would cover 100 percent premium payments for workers like Lashanda, alleviating some of the stress of the pandemic. When protests escalated over the summer around the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless other victims of police violence, so did the number of companywide emails, press statements and social media posts by major corporations and executives announcing that they believe that “Black Lives Matter.” But empty platitudes on the internet from employers and politicians alike are meaningless. What working people need is the protection of their rights in writing — and that comes from a union contract. All people of color, all working people do better when we are in unions. When Black, brown, Asian and indigenous workers belong to unions, there is less racial inequality. There is less income inequality. There is greater opportunity for advancement and training. We need the leaders of this country to believe that one job should be enough for all working people: enough to pay the rent, go to the doctor and retire with dignity. We need leaders who believe that creating more good union jobs and growing our movement is at the core of building strong families, strong communities and bringing greater equality to our society. stability in North American vehicle production. But more stringent domestic content provisions will likely raise costs for automakers. The agreement requires that 75 percent of a vehicle’s content be made in North America, up from 62.5 percent in NAFTA, to avoid tariffs. And 40 percent to 45 percent of that content must be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour. “USMCA is a free trade agreement that’s more restrictive than NAFTA,” Dziczek said. “It’s a turn toward more protection” in the region. How the next administration and Congress deal with China is a major concern to U.S. automakers because China has become the world’s largest new vehicle market. Having access to that market is crucial for U.S. automakers. Trump and Biden have promised to play tough with an increasingly authoritarian China and seek to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Trump has relied on punitive tariffs against Chinese goods, while Biden is promoting investments in U.S. industries and research to create jobs here. “The world is really grappling with how to engage in China,” Baruah said. “The thinking over the past 30 years-plus has been to engage them and make them part of the global network and engage in a capitalist way. I think we’re seeing now that strategy really needs to be rethought.”
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b zed as poss b e n order o serve he commun y she sa d “The same way we h nk o ron ne workers h s wen o ron ne nonprofi s” Hudson sa d The De ro -based agency s now undra s ng oward a second effor ha w suppor sus a nab y effor s nc ud ng d g a nc us on a commu-
n y schoo s mode w h wraparound suppor or s uden s and am es and a commun y n orma on exchange n deve opmen w h Henry Ford Hea h Sys em Sm h he exchange w be an on ne p a orm ha cen ra zes hea h and soc a serv ces da a o he p human serv ces and hea h care organ za ons be er serve hose n need The res ency und w ook o bu d sus a nab e sys ems o address nequ es ha have r sen o he oreron dur ng he pandem c Hudson sa d
“The h ngs s suppor ng are rea y necessary no on y o suppor our commun y n mes o cr s s bu we wan hese mode s o ack e hese d spar es head-on every day n ways ha are sus a nab e and as ng” she sa d Un ed Way has ra sed $6 8 m on oward he res ency und o da e Tha nc udes und ng ded ca ed o Connec 313 and ano her $900 000 rom Genera Mo ors Co Hudson sa d “We re s very much n he so aunch We re hav ng a number o exp ora ory conversa ons w h our oca und ng par ners and we ve been con ac ed by severa na ona par ners aga n ry ng o find ways o suppor our reg on”
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Fast Switch - Great AaDya Security, a Lakes which assumed Detroit-based startup, the name of FastTek today announced that Global, a womenJason Myers has been owned IT staffing and named Chief Product consulting company, Officer. AaDya closed Hlavin takes great pride in a $2.7M seed round and celebrating the launched Marzo4, an all-in-one advancement of two cybersecurity platform designed key executives: Nathan for small and medium-size Hlavin is appointed to businesses last month. Myers has Executive Vice President more than twenty years of of Automotive/ experience leading crossInternational/IT Speaks functional teams of engineers Services. In joining FastTek across multiple platforms. Most earlier this year, he brings nearly recently, he was the co-founder 18 years of industry experience. of Kibosh, a cutting-edge, Lisa Speaks is being promoted cloud-based parental controls to Vice President of Talent and cyber-security solution. Acquisition, from her previous “Jason’s unique background in position of Director of Recruiting cybersecurity, engineering and Operations. She has over four entrepreneurship is the perfect years with FastTek and over 26 combination for AaDya as we years of experience in recruiting continue to grow and scale,” and management. said Raffaele Mautone, Founder. “Both Nathan and Lisa bring innovative thought leadership TRANSPORTATION and strong industry knowledge”, says FastTek’s President and Why not? Pilot Freight Services CEO, Carey Pachla.
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UBS to open downtown Detroit office By Annalise Frank
October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
• UBS plans to open wealth management office in Detroit in mid-2018 • Office to include 6,000-squarefoot space30,nonprofits and civic October 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
UBS to open downtown Detroit office By Annalise Frank
groups • UBS plans to open wealthcan use free of charge • Bedrock-owned buildings
office in Detroit “I’m impacting lives now. management I know undergoing renovations in mid-2018 • Office 6,000-squarethe effect food insecurity had onto includeUBS plans to open an office in downfoot space nonprofits and civic Detroit in mid-2018, the company Annalise Frank growing groups meByand my peers up, andcan usetown free of charge announced Monday. • Bedrock-ownedUBS buildings Group AG’s U.S. and Canadian UBSan plans to open wealth this•was opportunity toundergoing make a renovations wealth management business, New Jermanagement office in Detroit sey-based Wealth Management change I wish an adult UBScould plans to open an office UBS in downin that mid-2018 Americas, to lease 13,000 square town Detroit in mid-2018, theplans company • Office to include 6,000-squarefeet on the connected sixth floors of have made for me.” announced Monday. foot space nonprofits and civic
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
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hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a center point. When United Way pitched a framework to Oakland Schools for a countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition as a way to improve academic achievement, Floyd — who experienced food insecurity growing up — knew firsthand the powerful impact it could have. To secure the needed funds, Floyd led a team that earned support from all 28 local districts to finance the program — despite the fact that a majority of them would see no benefit. “The local districts were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The biggest surprise was how quickly it happened. Education is a democratic system and democracy can be very slow, but this happened in six to seven months. That showed how committed people were to making sure the students of Oakland County have everything they need to be successful.” In a county where over 7,000 children suffer from hunger, and only two in five eligible students access a school breakfast, Floyd said a common misperception is that “Oakland County is rich.” “That makes this program all the more important, because if that is the bias or the thought process people have about Oakland County, then these kids would have never gotten help.” In a groundbreaking public/nonprofit partnership between the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, Oakland Schools and United Way, Oakland County is Better with Breakfast was born. “I’m impacting lives now,” Floyd said. “I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.” — Laura Cassar
PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S
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Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations and Labor Relations, Oakland Schools
T
UBS will lease 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 in two buildings: the Grinnell Building (center left) at 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center right) at 1529
Bedrock LLC
Bedrock LLC
buildings at 1515 Wood- Woodward Ave. Group AG’sneighboring U.S. and Canadian groups can use free UBS of charge ward Ave. and Fourteen metro Detroit employees don’t really have adequate resources wealth management business, New 1529 Jer- Woodward Ave. • Bedrock-owned buildings The twoManagement buildings built around 1900 are will move to the downtown office to or adequate office space to host dosey-based UBS Wealth undergoing renovations by Detroit-based will lease LLC 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 buildings: Grin- meetings or things nor events the or board start, but the office has the capacity toin two Americas, plans toowned lease 13,000 square UBSBedrock nell Building (center at 1515 Woodward andnew the Sanders Buildingalong (centerthose right) at 1529 Bush said. and are undergoing said left) lines,” hold another six toAve. eight staff memon in the connected sixth floors of renovations, Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All RightsUBS reserved. plans to open anfeet office downAve. for bers, Bush said. It will act as an extension John Bush, 60, WoodMichiganWoodward market head UBS’s investment in the new ofneighboring buildings at 1515 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD1134 town Detroit in mid-2018, the company UBS Wealth ManagementFourteen Americas.metro of fice will resources be “significant,” he said, as its the other wealth management offices. don’t really have adequate Detroit employees announced Monday. ward Ave. and 1529 Woodward Ave. “The real impetus open ato new The twoCanadian buildings built around 1900 arefor us “uniqueness Bush is based theadequate Birmingham office space to hostcomes do- at a price.” He said willto move the downtown office out to ofor UBS Group AG’s U.S. and office inBedrock Detroit is to support what’s owned by Detroit-based LLC he could or not yet provide an estimate but travels to to the others and will meetings nor events or board things start, but the goofficeoffice, has the capacity wealth management business, New Jering renovations, on in the city, ” saidhold Bush, a Detroit and are undergoing said on the be spending in thealong Detroit branch. those lines,” Bush said.cost of the build-out, as some another six to eight new stafftime memsey-based UBS Wealth Management nativemarket who grew City. “We John Bush, 60, Michigan headup forin Garden have yet The location have a UBS’s investment in the new of- to be finalized. said. will act asDetroit an extension fromBush Bedrock LLCItstarting around mid-2018 in twowill buildings: theless Grin- contracts Americas, plans to lease 13,000 square UBS will lease 13,000 feetbers, UBS Wealth Management Americas. really felt like we wantedofto have a physfice will be “significant,” hecompany said, as its the other wealth management offices. The plans to start its buildtraditional, more “urban” feelright) than 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center atthe 1529 feet on the connected sixth floors of nell Building (center left) at “The real impetus for us to open adowntown new ical presence to reinforce “uniqueness comes at a price.” saidnext year, depending Bush is based outothers, of the he Birmingham out processHe early said. New York-based architecneighboring buildings at 1515 Wood- Woodward Ave. office in Detroit is our to support go-particular vision what’s for this areatravels and toture he will could not yet an estimate office, but the firm others and will Cale on when renovations on the buildings Verderame design the provide ward Ave. and 1529 ing Woodward don’t really have adequate resources Fourteen metro Detroit employees on in theAve. city,”tosaid Bush, a Detroit reinforce our on Barton the cost of the build-out, as some be spending time inspace; the Detroit branch. are complete. Southfield-based Malow The two buildings builtnative around 1900 areup in adequate office space to have host dowill moveCity. to to the officelocation to or will who grew Garden “Wedowntown commitment contracts finalized. The Detroit have aon less based in Switzerland, employs Co. has signed as general contractor.yet to beUBS, owned by Detroit-based Bedrock nor events or board or things start, thea physoffice has the capacity really felt likeLLC we wanted tobut The company plans to start its buildtraditional, moreto“urban” than the outmeetings the city. ” have 60,000 across 54 countries. About 34 UBS feel plans to rent about half of the and are undergoing renovations, along those lines,” Bush said. early next year, depending hold six to eight new he staff memical presencesaid downtown toWealth reinforce others, said. New office York-based architecUBS another — 6,000 square out feetprocess — at no cost percent of them work in the AmeriJohn Bush, 60, Michiganour market head UBS’s investment the renovations new of- on the buildings bers, said. It will act an extension vision for for thisMparticular onin when tureasfirm Verderameto Cale will design theother a n aBush g e marea e n tand cas, according to a news release. UBS nonprofits and organizations, UBS Wealth Management will beMalow “significant,” he said, as its of the other also wealth management offices. ficeBarton to Americas. reinforce our Americas are be complete. space; Southfield-based Bush said. The space will called UBS Wealth Management Americas em“The real impetus for commitment us to open a new “uniqueness comes at a price.” He said is based thehas Birmingham to has Bush based signed on as Woodward general contractor. metro De- out ofCo. ploys 280employs in Michigan, 225 of whom Gallery. Its UBS, design and in artSwitzerland, office in Detroit is to support what’s go- office, but travels to theUBS heabout couldhalf not an estimate others and the city. ” 60,000 across 54 countries. 34 Detroit. plans towill rent will out of yet the provide troit offices in are basedAbout in metro aim to showcase Detroit’s history ing on in the city,” said Bush, on the cost the build-out, asthem somework in the Amerispending Detroit branch. UBS a Detroit Wealth B be percent office — 6,000 square at noofcost irm i n g h a time m , in the The wealth management business andfeet a— hub-and-spoke layout ofwill renative who grew up in Garden contracts have yet tocas, be finalized. M a n a gCity. e m“We e n t Troy, The Detroit locationtowill have a and less other according to a news release. UBS nonprofits organizations, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. really felt like we wanted to have a physAmericas also Hills, The plans to startManagement its buildtraditional, more “urban” Wealth Americas em- quarter of 2017 — a Bushfeel said.than The the space will becompany called Plymouth in the third “Some of theUBS organizations that op- billion ical presence downtown reinforce has tometro De- others, he said. New York-based outdesign process early year,280 depending architecploys in Michigan, 225 of whom Woodward Gallery. Its and art next John Bush erate and Dearborn. 7 percent increase over last year. and provide services in the city our vision for this particular area and troit offices in ture firm Verderame Cale when renovations onbased the buildings the on in metro Detroit. willwill aimdesign to showcase Detroit’s history are to reinforce our B i r m i n g h a m , space; Southfield-based complete. Malow arelayout The wealth management business andBarton a hub-and-spoke will reReprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. commitment to Troy, Farmington Co. has signed on as general UBS, basedis prohibited. in Switzerland, employs income contractor. recorded operating flectFurther the city’s road without system. duplication permission Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936of $2.13 Hills, Plymouth the city.” billion in About the third “Somehalf of the organizations that op60,000 across 54 countries. 34quarter of 2017 — a UBS plans to rent out about of the John Bush and Dearborn. UBS Wealth 7 percent and provide city work percentinofthe them in theincrease Ameri-over last year. office — 6,000 squareerate feet — at no cost services Management to nonprofits and other organizations, cas, according to a news release. UBS Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Americas also Wealth Management Americas emBush said. The space will be Detroit calledBusiness. UBS © 2019 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936 has metro DeWoodward Gallery. Its design and art ploys 280 in Michigan, 225 of whom troit offices in will aim to showcase Detroit’s history are based in metro Detroit. Birmingham, The wealth management business and a hub-and-spoke layout will reCRAINSDETROIT.COM I MARCH 9, 2020 I Troy, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. Hills, Plymouth THE CONVERSATION “Some of the organizations that op- billion in the third quarter of 2017 — a John Bush erate and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. and Dearborn.
Why not? Albert Berriz talks workforce housing, Ann Arbor and Cuba
Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. | BY KIRK PINHO Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936
MCKINLEY INC.: Ann Arbor-based real estate company McKinley Inc. saw the writing on the wall for its retail portfolio a few years ago and cut bait, turning its focus primarily to its large crop of tens of thousands of workforce housing units across the country. One of the people at the helm of that decision was Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, who came to America as a young boy fleeing Cuba and now steers a large company with a portfolio valued at more than $4 billion.
September 2, 2019 | crainsdetroit.com
`Crain’s Detroit Business: Can you talk a little bit about how the McKinley portfolio began and where it’s at today? Berriz: McKinley started in 1968 in Ann Arbor, and it was founded by (former U.S.) Ambassador Ron Weiser. It started in the student housing business and eventually transitioned into more traditional multifamily housing, and in addition to that, office and retail, as well. Today, we’re primarily a workforce housing multifamily operator. We have essentially disposed of our retail and office assets in an effort to really focus on multifamily and also focus on an asset class that I think is more in line with our current goal, which is to have a generational multifamily real estate enterprise and a pool of assets that really are long term in nature.
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` Explain workforce housing versus affordable housing. We’re not in luxury housing. Our residents are working. They’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and go to work. Our average rents are, for example, in Washtenaw County, about $1,100 to $1,200 or in Orange County, or Seminole County, Florida, $1,400 or $1,500. So these are affordable rents. And the difference between us and affordable housing is our buildings are not subsidized. They’re all market rate, and they’re all privately owned. The owners are not receiving any form of subsidy, nor are the residents. However, if you wanted to sort of assess residents and low-income housing tax credit deals compared to ours, they’re probably not too dissimilar, the median incomes. The McKinley residents in, let’s say, Washtenaw County, when you look at the numbers are probably not going to be too much different than what you would see in a traditional LIHTC deal. But again, our buildings, the primary differences, our buildings are market rate and they’re not subsidized any way.
trajectory was to where you are today in terms of the head of McKinley. I left (Cuba) compliments of Fidel Castro in early 1959 because of the Cuban Revolution. We had to flee. It was survival to leave the country at the time and my parents relocated to Miami. We were fortunate for that. We’re fortunate to have left alive, fortunate to have resettled in what is without question the greatest country on the planet. I was not born here. I was born in Havana and I emigrated as a Cuban refugee just before I was 4 years old with my parents.
`You were talking a little bit earlier about how McKinley got out of retail and office. What led to that decision and how has that reflected or shaped your business strategy? It was a risk profile that we were just not comfortable with. We are a generational business and so we look at our assets in
`What consumes your day outside of the office? My wife and I walk. We like to boat, so those are the two things. In our summers we live at Saugatuck, and it’s a great place to live. We’d live there year-round, but it’s a little too cold in the winter.
Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, McKinley Inc.
`Can you give thumbnail sketch of coming here and what your
Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2020 Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. #CD1156
October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S
UBS to open downtown Detroit office By Annalise Frank
October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
• UBS plans to open wealth management office in Detroit in mid-2018 • Office to include 6,000-squarefoot space30,nonprofits and civic October 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
UBS to open downtown Detroit office By Annalise Frank
groups • UBS plans to open wealthcan use free of charge • Bedrock-owned buildings office in Detroit “I’m impacting lives now. management I know undergoing renovations in mid-2018 6,000-squarethe effect food insecurity• Office had onto includeUBS plans to open an office in downfoot space nonprofits and civic Detroit in mid-2018, the company Annalise Frank growing groups meByand my peers up, andcan usetown free of charge announced Monday. • Bedrock-ownedUBS buildings Group AG’s U.S. and Canadian UBSan plans to open wealth this•was opportunity toundergoing make a renovations wealth management business, New Jermanagement office in Detroit sey-based Wealth Management change I wish an adult UBScould plans to open an office UBS in downin that mid-2018 Americas, to lease 13,000 square UBS will lease 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 in two buildings: the Grintown Detroit in mid-2018, theplans company • Office to include 6,000-squarefeet on the connected sixth floors of nell Building (center left) at 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center right) at 1529 have made for me.” announced Monday. foot space nonprofits and civic buildings at 1515 Wood- Woodward Ave. Group AG’sneighboring U.S. and Canadian groups can use free UBS of charge ward Ave. and Fourteen metro Detroit employees don’t really have adequate resources wealth management business, New 1529 Jer- Woodward Ave. • Bedrock-owned buildings The twoManagement buildings built around 1900 are will move to the downtown office to or adequate office space to host dosey-based UBS Wealth undergoing renovations by Detroit-based will lease LLC 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 buildings: Grin- meetings or things nor events the or board start, but the office has the capacity toin two Americas, plans toowned lease 13,000 square UBSBedrock nell Building (center at 1515 Woodward andnew the Sanders Buildingalong (centerthose right) at 1529 Bush said. and are undergoing said left) lines,” hold another six toAve. eight staff memon inthe connected sixth floors of renovations, Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All RightsUBS reserved. plans to open anfeet office downAve. for bers, Bush said. It will act as an extension John Bush, 60, WoodMichiganWoodward market head UBS’s investment in the new ofneighboring buildings at 1515 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD1134 town Detroit in mid-2018, the company UBS Wealth ManagementFourteen Americas.metro of fice will resources be “significant,” he said, as its the other wealth management offices. don’t really have adequate Detroit employees announced Monday. ward Ave. and 1529 Woodward Ave. “The real impetus open atonew The twoCanadian buildings built around 1900 arefor us “uniqueness Bush is based theadequate Birmingham office space to hostcomes do- at a price.” He said willto move the downtown office out to ofor UBS Group AG’s U.S. and office inBedrock Detroit is to support what’s owned by Detroit-based LLC he could or not yet provide an estimate but travels to to the will meetings norothers eventsand or board things start, but the goofficeoffice, has the capacity wealth management business, New Jering renovations, on in the city, ” saidhold Bush, a Detroit and are undergoing said on the be spending in thealong Detroit branch. those lines,” Bush said.cost of the build-out, as some another six to eight new stafftime memsey-based UBS Wealth Management nativemarket who grew City. “We John Bush, 60, Michigan headup forin Garden have yet The location have a less UBS’s investment in the new of- to be finalized. said. will act asDetroit an extension fromBush Bedrock LLCItstarting around mid-2018 in twowill buildings: the Grin- contracts Americas, plans to lease 13,000 square UBS will lease 13,000 feetbers, UBS Wealth Management Americas. really felt like we wantedofto have a physfice will be “significant,” hecompany said, as its the other wealth management offices. The plans to start its buildtraditional, more “urban” feelright) than 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center atthe 1529 feet on the connected sixth floors of nell Building (center left) at “The real impetus for us to open adowntown new ical presence to reinforce “uniqueness comes at saidnext year, depending Bush is based outothers, of the he Birmingham outa price.” processHe early said. New York-based architecneighboring buildings at 1515 Wood- Woodward Ave. office in Detroit is our to support go-particular vision what’s for this areatravels and toture he will could not yet an estimate office, but the firm others and will Cale on when renovations on the buildings Verderame design the provide ward Ave. and 1529 ing Woodward don’t really have adequate resources Fourteen metro Detroit employees on in theAve. city,”tosaid Bush, a Detroit reinforce our on Barton the cost of the build-out, as some be spending time inspace; the Detroit branch. are complete. Southfield-based Malow The two buildings builtnative around 1900 areup in adequate office space to have host dowill moveCity. to tothe officelocation to or will who grew Garden “Wedowntown commitment contracts finalized. The Detroit have aon less based in Switzerland, employs Co. has signed as general contractor.yet to beUBS, owned by Detroit-based Bedrock nor events or board or things start, thea physoffice has the capacity really felt likeLLC we wanted tobut The company plans to startacross its buildtraditional, moreto“urban” than the outmeetings the city. ” have 60,000 54 countries. About 34 UBS feel plans to rent about half of the and are undergoing renovations, along those lines,” Bush said. early next year, depending hold six to eight new he staff memical presencesaid downtown toWealth reinforce others, said. New office York-based architecUBS another — 6,000 square out feetprocess — at no cost percent of them work in the AmeriJohn Bush, 60, Michiganour market head UBS’s investment the renovations new of- on the buildings bers, said. It will act an extension vision for for thisMparticular oninorganizations, when tureasfirm VerderametoCale will design theother a n aBush g e marea e n tand cas, according to a news release. UBS nonprofits and UBS Wealth Management will beMalow “significant,” he said, as its of the other also wealth management offices. ficeBarton to Americas. reinforce our Americas are be complete. space; Southfield-based Bush said. The space will called UBS Wealth Management Americas em“The real impetus for commitment us to open a new “uniqueness comes at a price.” He said is based thehas Birmingham to has Bush based signed on as Woodward general contractor. metro De- out ofCo. ploys 280employs in Michigan, 225 of whom Gallery. Its UBS, design and in artSwitzerland, office in Detroit is to support what’s go- office, but travels to theUBS heabout couldhalf not an estimate others and the city. ” 60,000 across 54 countries. 34 Detroit. plans towill rent will out of yet the provide troit offices in are basedAbout in metro aim to showcase Detroit’s history ing on in the city,” said Bush, on the cost the build-out, asthem somework in the Amerispending Detroit branch. UBS a Detroit Wealth B be percent office — 6,000 square at noofcost irm i n g h a time m , in the The wealth management business andfeet a— hub-and-spoke layout ofwill renative who grew up in Garden contracts have yet tocas, be finalized. M a n a gCity. e m“We e n t Troy, The Detroit locationtowill have a and less other according to a news release. UBS nonprofits organizations, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. really felt like we wanted to have a physAmericas also Hills, The plans to startManagement its buildtraditional, more “urban” Wealth Americas em- quarter of 2017 — a Bushfeel said.than The the space will becompany called Plymouth in the third “Some of theUBS organizations that op- billion ical presence downtown reinforce has tometro De- others, he said. New York-based outdesign process early year,280 depending architecploys in Michigan, 225 of whom Woodward Gallery. Its and art next John Bush erate and Dearborn. and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. our vision for this particular area and troit offices in ture firm Verderame Cale when renovations the buildings the onDetroit’s in metro Detroit. willwill aimdesign to showcase history areonbased to reinforce our B i r m i n g h a m , space; Southfield-based complete. Malow arelayout The wealth management business andBarton a hub-and-spoke will reReprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. commitment to Troy, Farmington Co. has signed on as general UBS, basedis prohibited. in Switzerland, employs income recorded operating contractor. flectFurther the city’s road without system. duplication permission Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936of $2.13 Hills, Plymouth the city.” billion in About the third “Somehalf of the organizations that op60,000 across 54 countries. 34quarter of 2017 — a UBS plans to rent out about of the John Bush and Dearborn. UBS Wealth 7 percent and provide city work percentinofthe them in theincrease Ameri-over last year. office — 6,000 squareerate feet — at no cost services Management to nonprofits and other organizations, cas, according to a news release. UBS Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Americas also Wealth Management Americas emBush said. The space will be Detroit calledBusiness. UBS © 2019 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936 has metro DeWoodward Gallery. Its design and art ploys 280 in Michigan, 225 of whom troit offices in will aim to showcase Detroit’s history are based in metro Detroit. Birmingham, The wealth management business and a hub-and-spoke layout will reCRAINSDETROIT.COM I MARCH 9, 2020 I Troy, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. THE CONVERSATION Hills, Plymouth “Some of the organizations that op- billion in the third quarter of 2017 — a John Bush erate and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. and Dearborn.
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
Bedrock LLC
Bedrock LLC
Bedrock LLC
hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a center point. When United Way pitched a framework to Oakland Schools for a countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition as a way to improve academic achievement, Floyd — who experienced food insecurity growing up — knew firsthand the powerful impact it could have. To secure the needed funds, Floyd led a team that earned support from all 28 local districts to finance the program — despite the fact that a majority of them would see no benefit. “The local districts were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The biggest surprise was how quickly it happened. Education is a democratic system and democracy can be very slow, but this happened in six to seven months. That showed how committed people were to making sure the students of Oakland County have everything they need to be successful.” In a county where over 7,000 children suffer from hunger, and only two in five eligible students access a school breakfast, Floyd said a common misperception is that “Oakland County is rich.” “That makes this program all the more important, because if that is the bias or the thought process people have about Oakland County, then these kids would have never gotten help.” In a groundbreaking public/nonprofit partnership between the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, Oakland Schools and United Way, Oakland County is Better with Breakfast was born. “I’m impacting lives now,” Floyd said. “I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.” — Laura Cassar
a way that we never expect to sell them. We expect to invest in them so they last for long term, and we just couldn’t see that on retail. We saw a significant degradation of our rent rolls. We had buildings that were, let’s say, 70 percent to 80 percent investment-grade credit tenant composition and then we saw that we saw that quickly degrade. We just didn’t see a place where we could really have an asset class retail that would last for the long run. And then office in many ways, the same way. The way people are shopping and the way people are occupying offices today, the risk profile is very different than it was, let’s say, when we were making those investments 20 and 30 years ago, so for us, it was the right move. It’s paid off because, had we held many of the assets today, they would be significantly compromised. I think they would be worth a lot less. We started those sales about six years ago, and we sold a lot of that early on, so we sold them still at a time they were being valued significantly more than they would be worth today, in our opinion. And we sold some big buildings. I mean, these weren’t small buildings. We sold a 1 millionsquare-foot shopping center, for example, in Norfolk, Va., which is one of the largest power centers in the state of Virginia. So these weren’t small assets. So they were important for us to move them out at the right time, and for people that thought that was there was a good upside for them, so we actually sold them at good prices, and certainly we couldn’t have sold them at those prices today.
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Dandridge Floyd, 37
Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations and Labor Relations, Oakland Schools
T
`I don’t think it’s overblown to use the word “crisis” for Ann Arbor’s affordable housing situation. Give us your perspective on how the city should go about addressing it. I think it’s a supply issue. The reality is that Ann Arbor has not really welcomed solutions from the private sector and has only sought solutions from the public housing side or the community nonprofit side. And both of those groups, while I think they’re very well intentioned, don’t have the capital and the expertise to resolve the problem at the scale it’s needed. To put it in perspective, you know, the Washtenaw County study that came out had a need of about 3,000 units. And if you look at the cost per unit today, and let’s say $250,000 or $300,000 per unit to build a brand new unit today, you know, it’s an $800 million to a $1 billion problem, so I don’t think that’s a problem that gets resolved on the public side or on the community nonprofit side. You know, they have to go to places to seek capital and there just isn’t enough capital, nor do they have enough resources or expertise to resolve the problems. So the city I think, by and large, has attempted to do this in those ways because they really haven’t welcomed the private side. And there is a lot of expertise and there’s a lot of capital that could do this, from the private side perspective. It just hasn’t been the way that Ann Arbor operates, so you see what has happened in Ann Arbor year over year, decade over decade is there’s a lot of conversations about affordable housing, but there’s no solutions.
September 2, 2019 | crainsdetroit.com
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Dandridge Floyd, 37
UNDER
Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations and Labor Relations, Oakland Schools
` Explain workforce housing versus affordable housing. We’re not in luxury housing. Our residents are working. They’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and go to work. Our average rents are, for example, in Washtenaw County, about $1,100 to $1,200 or in Orange County, or Seminole County, Florida, $1,400 or $1,500. So these are affordable rents. And the difference between us and affordable housing is our buildings are not subsidized. They’re all market rate, and they’re all privately owned. The owners are not receiving any form of subsidy, nor are the residents. However, if you wanted to sort of assess residents and low-income housing tax credit deals compared to ours, they’re probably not too dissimilar, the median incomes. The McKinley residents in, let’s say, Washtenaw County, when you look at the numbers are probably not going to be too much different than what you would see in a traditional LIHTC deal. But again, our buildings, the primary differences, our buildings are market rate and they’re not subsidized any way.
`I don’t think it’s overblown to use the word “crisis” for Ann Arbor’s affordable housing situation. Give us your perspective on how the city should go about addressing it. I think it’s a supply issue. The reality is that Ann Arbor has not really welcomed solutions from the private sector and has only sought solutions from the public housing side or the community nonprofit side. And both of those groups, while I think they’re very well intentioned, don’t have the capital and the expertise to resolve the problem at the scale it’s needed. To put it in perspective, you know, the Washtenaw County study that came out had a need of about 3,000 units. And if you look at the cost per unit today, and let’s say $250,000 or $300,000 per unit to build a brand new unit today, you know, it’s an $800 million to a $1 billion problem, so I don’t think that’s a problem that gets resolved on the public side or on the community nonprofit side. You know, they have to go to places to seek capital and there just isn’t enough capital, nor do they have enough resources or expertise to resolve the problems. So the city I think, by and large, has attempted to do this in those ways because they really haven’t welcomed the private side. And there is a lot of expertise and there’s a lot of capital that could do this, from the private side perspective. It just hasn’t been the way that Ann Arbor operates, so you see what has happened in Ann Arbor year over year, decade over decade is there’s a lot of conversations about affordable housing, but there’s no solutions. `You were talking a little bit earlier about how McKinley got out of retail and office. What led to that decision and how has that reflected or shaped your business strategy? It was a risk profile that we were just not comfortable with. We are a generational business and so we look at our assets in
a way that we never expect to sell them. We expect to invest in them so they last for long term, and we just couldn’t see that on retail. We saw a significant degradation of our rent rolls. We had buildings that were, let’s say, 70 percent to 80 percent investment-grade credit tenant composition and then we saw that we saw that quickly degrade. We just didn’t see a place where we could really have an asset class retail that would last for the long run. And then office in many ways, the same way. The way people are shopping and the way people are occupying offices today, the risk profile is very different than it was, let’s say, when we were making those investments 20 and 30 years ago, so for us, it was the right move. It’s paid off because, had we held many of the assets today, they would be significantly compromised. I think they would be worth a lot less. We started those sales about six years ago, and we sold a lot of that early on, so we sold them still at a time they were being valued significantly more than they would be worth today, in our opinion. And we sold some big buildings. I mean, these weren’t small buildings. We sold a 1 millionsquare-foot shopping center, for example, in Norfolk, Va., which is one of the largest power centers in the state of Virginia. So these weren’t small assets. So they were important for us to move them out at the right time, and for people that thought that was there was a good upside for them, so we actually sold them at good prices, and certainly we couldn’t have sold them at those prices today.
trajectory was to where you are today in terms of the head of McKinley. I left (Cuba) compliments of Fidel Castro in early 1959 because of the Cuban Revolution. We had to flee. It was survival to leave the country at the time and my parents relocated to Miami. We were fortunate for that. We’re fortunate to have left alive, fortunate to have resettled in what is without question the greatest country on the planet. I was not born here. I was born in Havana and I emigrated as a Cuban refugee just before I was 4 years old with my parents. `What consumes your day outside of the office? My wife and I walk. We like to boat, so those are the two things. In our summers we live at Saugatuck, and it’s a great place to live. We’d live there year-round, but it’s a little too cold in the winter.
`Can you give thumbnail sketch of coming here and what your
Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, McKinley Inc.
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Laura Picariello
Reprints Sales Manager Phone: (732) 723-0569 Fax (888) 299-2205 Email: lpicariello@crain.com October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
By Annalise Frank
October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
• UBS plans to open wealth management office in Detroit in mid-2018 • Office to include 6,000-squarefoot space nonprofits and civic
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
By Annalise Frank
groups • UBS plans to open wealthcan use free of charge • Bedrock-owned buildings
office in Detroit “I’m impacting lives now. management I know undergoing renovations in mid-2018 • Office 6,000-squarethe effect food insecurity had onto includeUBS plans to open an office in downfoot space nonprofits and civic Detroit in mid-2018, the company me and my peers growinggroups up, andcan usetown free of charge announced Monday. • Bedrock-owned buildings
UBS Group AG’s U.S. and Canadian this was an opportunity toundergoing make a renovations wealth management business, New Jersey-based Wealth Management change that I wish an adult UBScould plans to open an office UBS in downAmericas, to lease 13,000 square town Detroit in mid-2018, theplans company feet on the connected sixth floors of have made for me.” announced Monday.
Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD1134
Bedrock LLC
`Crain’s Detroit Business: Can you talk a little bit about how the McKinley portfolio began and where it’s at today? Berriz: McKinley started in 1968 in Ann Arbor, and it was founded by (former U.S.) Ambassador Ron Weiser. It started in the student housing business and eventually transitioned into more traditional multifamily housing, and in addition to that, office and retail, as well. Today, we’re primarily a workforce housing multifamily operator. We have essentially disposed of our retail and office assets in an effort to really focus on multifamily and also focus on an asset class that I think is more in line with our current goal, which is to have a generational multifamily real estate enterprise and a pool of assets that really are long term in nature.
UBS will lease 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 in two buildings: the Grinnell Building (center left) at 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center right) at 1529
buildings at 1515 Wood- Woodward Ave. UBS Group AG’sneighboring U.S. and Canadian ward Ave. and Fourteen metro Detroit employees don’t really have adequate resources wealth management business, New 1529 Jer- Woodward Ave. The twoManagement buildings built around 1900 are will move to the downtown office to or adequate office space to host dosey-based UBS Wealth by Detroit-based will lease LLC 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 buildings: Grin- meetings or things nor events the or board start, but the office has the capacity toin two Americas, plans toowned lease 13,000 square UBSBedrock nell Building (center at 1515 Woodward andnew the Sanders Buildingalong (centerthose right) at 1529 Bush said. and are undergoing said left) lines,” hold another six toAve. eight staff memfeet on the connected sixth floors of renovations, Ave. for bers, Bush said. It will act as an extension John Bush, 60, WoodMichiganWoodward market head UBS’s investment in the new ofneighboring buildings at 1515 UBS Wealth Management Americas.metro of ward Ave. and 1529 Woodward Ave. fice will resources be “significant,” he said, as its the other wealth management offices. don’t really have adequate Fourteen Detroit employees “The real impetus open ato new The two buildings built around 1900 arefor us “uniqueness Bush is based theadequate Birmingham office space to hostcomes do- at a price.” He said willto move the downtown office out to ofor office inBedrock Detroit is to support what’s owned by Detroit-based LLC he could or not yet provide an estimate but travels to to the others and will meetings nor events or board things start, but the goofficeoffice, has the capacity ing renovations, on in the city, ” saidhold Bush, a Detroit and are undergoing said on the be spending in thealong Detroit branch. those lines,” Bush said.cost of the build-out, as some another six to eight new stafftime memnativemarket who grew City. “WeIt will act John Bush, 60, Michigan headup forin Garden have yet TheasDetroit location will have a less contracts UBS’s investment in the new of- to be finalized. bers, Bush said. an extension UBS Wealth Management Americas. really felt like we wantedoftothe have a physfice will “significant,” hecompany said, as its other wealth management offices. The plans to start its buildtraditional, more “urban” feel be than the “The real impetus for us to open adowntown new ical presence to reinforce “uniqueness comes at a price.” saidnext year, depending Bush is based outothers, of the he Birmingham out processHe early said. New York-based architecoffice in Detroit is our to support go-particular vision what’s for this areatravels and toture he will could not yet an estimate office, but the firm others and will Cale on when renovations on the buildings Verderame design the provide ing on in the city,”tosaid Bush, a Detroit reinforce our on Barton the costMalow of the build-out, as some be spending time inspace; the Detroit branch. are complete. Southfield-based native who grew up in Garden City.to“We commitment contracts have yet to beUBS, finalized. The Detroit location willsigned have aonless based in Switzerland, employs Co. has as general contractor. really felt like we wanted to” have a phys- traditional, more “urban” The company plans to start its buildthan the out about the city. 60,000 across 54 countries. About 34 UBS feel plans to rent half of the ical presence downtown reinforce others, he said. New office year, depending York-based architecUBS toWealth percent of them work in the Ameri— 6,000 square out feetprocess — at noearly cost next our vision for thisMparticular on organizations, when renovationscas, on according the buildings will design theother a n a g e marea e n tand ture firm VerderametoCale to a news release. UBS nonprofits and to reinforce our Americas are be complete. space; Southfield-based Malow also Bush Barton said. The space will called UBS Wealth Management Americas emcommitment to has metro Debased Co. has signed on as Woodward general contractor. ploys 280employs in Michigan, 225 of whom Gallery. Its UBS, design and in artSwitzerland, the city.” across 54 countries. 34 Detroit. UBS plans to rent will out about half of the 60,000 troit offices in are basedAbout in metro aim to showcase Detroit’s history UBS Wealth B i r m i n g h a m , them in the Amerioffice — 6,000 square at no cost percent wealth management business andfeet a— hub-and-spoke layout ofwill re- workThe M a n a g e m e n t Troy, Farmington cas, according to a news release. UBS to nonprofits and other organizations, recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. Americas also Hills, Plymouth Wealth Management Americas em- quarter of 2017 — a Bush said. The space will be called in the third “Some of theUBS organizations that op- billion has metro De- and Dearborn. 225 of whom Woodward Its design and art ploys 280 in Michigan, John Gallery. Bush erate increase over last year. and provide services in the city 7 percent troit offices in will aim to showcase Detroit’s history are based in metro Detroit. Birmingham, The wealth management business and a hub-and-spoke layout will reReprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Troy, Farmington recorded operating income flectFurther the city’s road without system. duplication permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936of $2.13 Hills, Plymouth “Some of the organizations that op- billion in the third quarter of 2017 — a John Bush erate and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. and Dearborn. Bedrock LLC
Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. | BY KIRK PINHO Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936
MCKINLEY INC.: Ann Arbor-based real estate company McKinley Inc. saw the writing on the wall for its retail portfolio a few years ago and cut bait, turning its focus primarily to its large crop of tens of thousands of workforce housing units across the country. One of the people at the helm of that decision was Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, who came to America as a young boy fleeing Cuba and now steers a large company with a portfolio valued at more than $4 billion.
hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a center point. When United Way pitched a framework to Oakland Schools for a countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition as a way to improve academic achievement, Floyd — who experienced food insecurity growing up — knew firsthand the powerful impact it could have. To secure the needed funds, Floyd led a team that earned support from all 28 local districts to finance the program — despite the fact that a majority of them would see no benefit. “The local districts were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The biggest surprise was how quickly it happened. Education is a democratic system and democracy can be very slow, but this happened in six to seven months. That showed how committed people were to making sure the students of Oakland County have everything they need to be successful.” In a county where over 7,000 children suffer from hunger, and only two in five eligible students access a school breakfast, Floyd said a common misperception is that “Oakland County is rich.” “That makes this program all the more important, because if that is the bias or the thought process people have about Oakland County, then these kids would have never gotten help.” In a groundbreaking public/nonprofit partnership between the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, Oakland Schools and United Way, Oakland County is Better with Breakfast was born. “I’m impacting lives now,” Floyd said. “I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.” — Laura Cassar
PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB LEWKOW FOR CRAIN’S
T
Albert Berriz talks workforce housing, Ann Arbor and Cuba
32 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020 Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936
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Laura Picariello
Reprints Sales M Manager Phone: (732) 723-0569 Fax (888) 299-2205 Email: m lpicariello@crain.com @ m
Willoughby has been promoted to district manager at Pilot Freight Services at its Detroit location, overseeing the station’s sales, operations, and financial results. Sara joined Pilot in 2014 as an international operations agent and moved into sales as an account executive, building on her strong customer relations background. She has served as the acting district manager for Pilot Detroit and will continue to lead and grow the station.
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Un ed Way o Wash enaw Coun y s a so sh ng s COV D response o und many o he same h ngs The Commun y Re e Fund aunched n March o suppor bas c needs ke ood and hous ng has rans oned o a second phase o undra s ng ha w suppor recovery e or s nc ud ng financ a nav ga on serv ces educa ona suppor s such as ap ops and ab e s d g a access and earn ng abs a ch d care cen ers and area nonprofi s a ong w h effor s o he p d sp aced emp oyees connec w h pub c and nonprofi ass s ance programs L ke he firs und he second undra s ng n a ve w a so pr or ze e or s ocused on rac a nequ es n he commun y Pres den and CEO Pam Sm h sa d The Ann Arbor-based affi a e awarded a $1 05 m on ra sed hrough he firs und by une Three-quar ers o he unds awarded rom he firs und suppor ed effor s o serve peop e and commun es o co or and 39 percen wen o agenc es ed by peop e o co or Sm h sa d “Tha s ano her mpor an s ep n address ng rac a equ y o make sure he unds are go ng o agenc es work ng r gh n hose commun es” Un ed Way or Wash enaw Couny s COV D Recovery Fund has ra sed $268 000 n dona ons o da e Sm h sa d and secured a $500 000 gran rom he M ch gan Pub c Hea h ns u e n co abora on w h M ch gan Depar men o Hea h and Human Serv ces n ear y Oc ober A h rd poo ed COV D response e or n he reg on ed by he Commun y Founda on or Sou heas M ch gan ra sed $15 6 m on hrough Sep ember Four unds a he oundaon are suppor ng hea h sma bus nesses he ar s and genera needs o comp emen he und ng rom Un ed Way and o hers So ar he Commun y Founda on has d s r bu ed rough y $12 m on o he money ha s come n o hose unds sa d Sherr e Arb v ce pres den marke ng and commun caons The ounda on sn expec ng a second round o und ng rom o her ounda ons or ha same COV D ree go ng orward Pres den Mar am No and sa d “We are no ou ry ng o ra se a round wo Bu we are ge ng money rom ounda ons or (o her) spec fic h ngs re a ed o COV D com ng o he Commun y Founda on” No and sa d Tha add ona und ng s prov dng suppor or organ za ons ke New De ro and s rac a equ y work g ven he d spropor ona e mpac o COV D-19 on B ack popu a ons And $100 000 rom Peps Co s suppor ng hree B ack- ed ear y ch dhood organ za ons n De ro — B ack Mo hers Breas eed ng Ne work B r h De ro and Mo her ng us ce — as hey have p vo ed o he p mee new needs or h ngs ke d apers and c ean ng supp es dur ng he pandem c or he am es hey serve Arb sa d Beyond he COV D re e und do ars he Commun y Founda on has made an add ona $26 5 m on n gran s rom donor-adv sed unds ho ds s nce he pandem c began Arb sa d Con ac swe ch@cra n com (313) 446 1694 @Sherr We ch
NONPROFITS
American Cancer Society sells Southeast Michigan HQ building Property listed for $2.3 million; 40 employees of nonprofit working remotely, for now BY SHERRI WELCH
The American Cancer Society has sold its Southeast Michigan building. The Atlanta-based nonprofit closed Oct. 16 on the sale of the two-story site it constructed 12 years ago, about three months after listing it. It did not disclose the buyer or sale price for the 30,000-square-foot building at 20450 Civic Drive in Southfield. It includes offices, conference and board room space, along with storage areas. The building had been listed for $2.3 million. CBRE Inc. represented the American Cancer Society in the deal. Many of the nonprofit’s 40 employees had been able to work more remotely even prior to this year as they worked west to Jackson County, north to St. Clair County and over to Flint, said Megan Roether, vice president of business operations. But 2020 was the catalyst, at the moment, for all of its staff going virtual, she said. “It became clear this year that we
The American Cancer Society’s 30,000-square-foot Southfield building had been listed for $2.3 million.
could sell the building and really make sure that our donor dollar is being used most effectively,” Roether said. The nonprofit has set up a shortterm office at a co-op at the Town Center in Southfield to maintain a local address and give it space for its
business operations, Roether said. “As things progress, we will figure out what our needs are and really keep our eyes open for space in Southeast Michigan,” she said. “We would like to retain a presence, certainly, in the market. We just have to figure out when and where.”
The building sale comes as the American Cancer Society faces regional and national revenue declines wrought by its inability to convene large groups at in-perRoether son fundraisers during the pandemic. Staff, donors and volunteers have rallied and transitioned to lots of virtual and creative fundraising, Roether said. That’s allowed continued funding to flow to the support programs the American Cancer Society provides for patients and caregivers, education and prevention efforts. “But unfortunately, we are seeing a 50 percent decline in annual research funding (nationally) if the current trends continue,” she said. The organization started the year as a $700 million organization, she said. It’s now projecting revenue will drop 29 percent to about $500 mil-
lion this year. There are some silver linings here in Southeast Michigan with strong support for the “Real Men Wear Pink” campaign, breast cancer awareness month and virtual fundraising walks across the region, as well as the inaugural American Cancer Society Night of Discovery Ball planned for November, Roether said. But the nonprofit is seeing the same fundraising declines in the region. The year is not over, though, Roether said hopefully, noting that October is its biggest fundraising month and the fourth quarter its best, typically, for fundraising. The building sale “is sad for American Cancer Society,” Roether said. “But our mission is strong, our presence is strong, our support is strong in the market. We will be looking for our new home soon.” Staff writer Kirk Pinho contributed to this story. Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
DEVELOPMENT
$20 million marijuana cultivation facility to be built in Orion Township
Company plans another nearby grow site, five retail locations BY CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
A Macomb County cannabis company was set to break ground on a 54,000-square-foot cultivation facility in Orion Township last week that is expected to create about 65 new jobs. Natrabis said in a news release that its $20 million project at 4601 Liberty Drive South will be one of the most technically advanced marijuana cultivation facilities in the state, with its own processing center outfitted with an on-site lab by Troy-based Precision Extraction Solutions. It also plans another 54,000-square-foot facility nearby and five retail locations. Natrabis said it will be hiring plant managers, controllers, compliance officers, lab and cultivation technicians as well as for administrative, janitorial, packagers and marketing/ sales positions. “We’ve been in the industry for over 20 years and are committed to producing the highest quality cannabis at an affordable price through the use of cutting-edge technology, and we can’t wait to start growing with Michigan,” Natrabis partner Nick Simpson said in a news release. With 20,000 plants in the facility, the company will use a Rhythm “fertigation” system that will operate automatically and on-demand through a software program that tracks and manages each plant’s health throughout the growing cycle. Natrabis will also install an HVAC system that captures condensation through an underground filtration system, which is then recycled as clean water to help irrigate the plants. Natrabis bought the property in August 2019 for $1.3 million for its
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Digital Specialist Natrabis is building a 54,000-square-foot cannabis facility at 4601 Liberty Drive South in Orion Township and plans another similar size facility nearby. | NATRABIS
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Natrabis was to break ground on its $20 million cannabis grow and processing facility in Orion Township last week. | NATRABIS
first ground-up build and has completed $1.1 million in underground and site work, a spokeswoman said. Quadrate Construction is the general contractor and the builder is Mike D’Agostini, she said. The Washington Township-based
company will move its headquarters to the facility in Lake Orion. Natrabis said it is using a combination of individual investors and debt partner Advanced Flower Capita to develop the new facility, which it expects to be completed in February.
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WINERIES
From Page 3
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, is the culmination of a more than yearlong battle between the township and the wineries over decades-old ordinances. The 11 plaintiffs are: Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula Association; Bowers Harbor Vineyard and Winery Inc.; Brys Winery LLC; Chateau Grand Traverse Ltd.; Grape Harbor Inc.; Montague Development LLC; Ov the Farm LLC; Tabone Vineyards LLC; Villa Mari LLC; Winery at Black Star Farms LLC. and Two Lads LLC. In total, the wineries own or lease 1,407 acres of the 19-mile long peninsula. Calls to Gregory Meihn, partner at Ferndale-based Foley & Mansfield PLLP and counsel for the township, and to township Supervisor Rob Manigold were not returned. The plaintiffs allege the township bars the wineries from hosting weddings and other events, live music, selling merchandise outside of wine glasses, dictates how much land must be used for grape production and disallows temporary structures such as heated tents, which may be critical for the wineries this winter during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit claims the ordinances violate the wineries’ First Amendment rights by not allowing charitable or political events at their establishments as well as violating the commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution by forcing the wineries to acquire 85 percent of its grapes from farms on the peninsula. The lawsuit also alleges the ordinances are superseded by the state’s alcohol laws. “We’re trying to push and explore,”
READY
From Page 7
Watson also said Mid-Michigan’s urgent care centers and emergency departments are seeing an increasing number of people with coronavirus symptoms. Positive rates have doubled from about 2.5 percent to 5 percent, indicating community spread, she said. “We also have been testing pre-op patients and getting much less than 1 percent positives. These are asymptomatic people. The numbers jumped to 1.3 percent,” Watson said. While Watson said Mid-Michigan has increased PPE supplies from seven days to as many as 30 days, the system hasn’t received any assurances from the state that it will receive the same amount of supplemental PPE it did earlier in the pandemic. “We currently have adequate supplies. We purchased as much as we can and are warehousing some things, but we are concerned about sporadic back orders,” Watson said. “We are heavily reliant on overseas supplies and still on allocation from our distributors.” Like other health systems, Watson said Mid-Michigan is not sure how far its PPE supplies will last if hospitalizations spike to spring-like levels. “We have to encourage everybody to still wear masks and practice social distancing. We don’t want to shut down routine surgeries to the hospital because we don’t have enough PPE,” Watson said. Trinity Health’s eight hospitals in Michigan had 92 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, an increase of 113 percent from 43 on Oct. 1. Another 24 patients are suspected with COVID-19. The data comes from St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Ann Arbor and Mercy Health in Muskegon.
On Old Mission Peninsula, 2 Lads Winery sits on 60 acres with 24 acres of planted grapes. | 2 LADS WINERY
Baldyga said. “That doesn’t only mean you work with the small farms in your backyard. It would be interesting to try some fruit from Antrim County and Leelanau County. We’d love to do one off collaborations with friends. We get one harvest a year. You get one chance to make that killer riesling or amazing pinot noir. A once a year shot at this, particularly when they don’t let us look anywhere for fruit.” The wineries are seeking an immediate injunction on the township’s local ordinances. The lawsuit alleges the plaintiffs’ attorneys worked with the township to rectify the ordinances since the sumAt 15-hospital Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, COVID-19 hospitalizations have been increasing the past several weeks. As of Oct. 21, 106 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19, a 140 percent increase from 44 on Oct. 1. Spectrum officials told Crain’s they also are seeing an increase in ER visits along with increased number of positive cases. “We have planned for this and are ready with testing supplies, PPE and staffing and operational plans,” said spokesman Bruce Rossman in an email to Crain’s. “In addition, we are asking our communities to please get their flu shots and continue the COVID-19 prevention practices, including wearing masks, social distancing of at least 6 feet and washing hands often.” McLaren Health Corp’s COVID-19 numbers have been relatively stable over several weeks across the 15-hospital system, said Michael McKenna, the system’s chief medical officer. As of Oct. 19, 102 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 or suspected cases at McLaren’s hospitals with 28 ICU patients, said MDHHS. Of the patients coming into the ER and hospital, McKenna said the average age of people with positive cases has been dropping as younger people are going back to school, restaurants, bars and commingling at parties “It seemed more contagious in the beginning. Right now it’s pretty amazing, people have COVID-19 fatigue, but we are not seeing big outbreaks at elementary schools or nursing homes than we saw last spring, which drove heavy hospitalization and heavy mortality,” he said. Contact: jgreene@crain.com; 313-446-0325; @jaybgreene
34 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
mer of 2019 to no avail, forcing the lawsuit. “We’ve been trying for a year and a half to resolve this,” said Joseph Infante, partner at Miller Canfield and attorney for the plaintiffs. “The ordinances are all still on the books, so this is the natural progression. We really had to file to get the attention of the township and get these illegal ordinances removed.” Paul Hamelin, owner of Verterra Winery in Leland and president of Traverse City Wine Coast, an organization that represents the 30 largest wineries in the Traverse City region, said the complaints against the town-
PPE
From Page 6
One practical reason is prices for PPE remain high, up to four times the costs for masks and gloves in January, Mazurkiewicz said. McLaren and other hospitals ran into a breakdown of the PPE supply chain during April and May, when all supply distributors and hospitals were backlogged because of the pandemic, Mazurkiewicz said. Over the summer, McLaren, Trinity Health and Beaumont, among other health systems, invested in domestic mask manufacturers. Mazurkiewicz said McLaren is nearing a deal on a second category of PPE, a product he declined to name. “We’ve been working with suppliers to build our strategic stockpile for us,” Mazurkiewicz said. “The difficulty is how to build up supplies without substantially raising the cost of health care. If there is a break in the supply chain, I have an ability to go to that stockpile and make sure we secure the right amount for our employees.” Michael McKenna, M.D., McLaren’s chief medical officer, said he believes the health system is prepared for another COVID-19 surge. The question is how big will the surge be? “We really don’t know, but we better be prepared,” McKenna said. “We aren’t seeing a lot of evidence now (that it will be worse than spring). With this disease, it is so hard to predict.” Rob Handfield, professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State’s Poole College of Management in Raleigh, said hospitals have been purchasing more PPE to avoid shortages like earlier this year.
ship are longstanding, but local politics dominates much of the northern Michigan wine industry. While wineries on the Old Mission Peninsula are barred from having weddings, wineries on the Leelanau Peninsula can’t own bed and breakfasts. “It’s all local politics,” Hamelin said. However, Hamelin said the ability to host weddings — Verterra has an event space called The Ridge and hosts weddings for upward of 4,000 guests annually — is a stark advantage over the wineries on Old Mission. “Weddings bring in a lot of guests around the state and region,” Hamelin But he said most still rely on the unpredictability of Asian manufacturers for the bulk of supplies. Over the past several months, the federal Strategic National Stockpile has been purchasing billions of dollars of PPE to replenish depleted warehouses from earlier this year, Handfield said. “They have loaded up on PPE and are sitting on it,” he said. Handfield said he is conducting a major survey of state PPE preparations. He said officials in most states told him they are worried they will not be able to rely on the Strategic National Stockpile for PPE if normal distribution channels peter out. He said California and Utah have done a good job warehousing PPE, but he has not spoken yet with Michigan officials. Fielder, of MDHHS, said the state has spoken several times with Region 5 officials for the Federal Emergency Management System, which includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. He said he feels confident that Michigan can rely on the federal stockpile for most PPE, except gloves, if supplies run low. “FEMA asked us to look at 90 days cache and we asked (health systems) to do that,” said Fielder, adding most health systems have increased their internal PPE supplies. “N95 masks will be tough to get again.” Ed Hisscock, Trinity’s senior vice president of supply chain management, said the 92-hospital system has a distribution center in Fort Wayne that supplies its Michigan hospitals with PPE. “It has been a godsend to have it ready. We have space for more PPE and can move it to hospitals if we need to,” said Hisscock, who said
said. “It’s a fantastic way in a season to expose 2,000 to 4,000 people who may never come to the Traverse City region. It’s part of a marketing arm. It is not as economically lucrative as one would think, but it is part of your marketing mix. So it’s an advantage if you can host weddings.” Asked if a reversal of the events ordinance on Old Mission would cut into his events business, Hamelin said no. “With the number of inquiries we get every year for weddings, it’s staggering, even if we were to double the number of weddings across the region we wouldn’t saturate the desire for northern Michigan weddings.” But Hamelin is also understanding of the local ordinances on the Old Mission Peninsula, which is 10 times smaller in land mass than the Leelanau Peninsula, he said. “Old Mission originally was a large suburb of Traverse City,” he said. “The density is much more than Leelanau. Out of that has born some of the township differences.” Baldyga, however, argues the township has ignored that wineries can be quality neighbors while also expanding their offerings. “When they enacted a lot of these ordinances 40 years ago, they didn’t have any examples of what wineries were in their backyard,” he said. “The cherry (farmer) and rural community members viewed wineries as a worst case scenario that meant drinking excessively at tasting rooms and late night events. But that’s not how it is and now that we have 40 years of being wonderful community members that create jobs and show that social responsibility, it’s time to change.” Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh Trinity has increased hospital PPE on-hand supplies from about five days to up to two weeks. During the past six months, domestic manufacturing around the U.S. of medical supplies and PPE has accelerated. Hospitals use 3D printers to make swabs. Apparel companies are now making gowns. Alcohol distillers produce hand sanitizer. Auto manufacturers are making face shields and ventilators. But Chinese and Asian manufacturing has ramped up even more quickly and are flooding U.S. markets with less expensive alternatives, Handfield said. In September, the Government Accountability Office reported that PPE shortages persist nationwide. The GAO said the Trump administration pulled $6 billion from the $16.7 billion originally allocated to the Strategic National Stockpile to replenish stocks of PPE, ventilators and testing supplies, to use the money for Operation Warp Speed, its effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine. DeLuca said Prodigo’s data showed the average backorder rate for PPE increased from the typical one week time to up to two months at the height of the pandemic in April. Prices for PPE went up an average of 49 percent. “When products went on backorder, we saw hospitals looking for new product substitution” from domestic manufacturers, he said.“We saw substitutes of greater than 95 percent of PPE coming from domestic suppliers. One day a local vendor is doing alcohol, the next day making hand sanitizers.” Contact: jgreene@crain.com; 313-446-0325; @jaybgreene
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LOBBYISTS
From Page 1
In the first seven months of 2019, lobbyist spending on food and drinks topped $578,000. In the past four election years, lobbying expenses on meals through July 31 have averaged $430,104, according to records compiled by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. The steep decline in spending among Lansing’s traditional big spenders on wining and dining legislators is stark in their individual reports to the Secretary of State’s office. Through the end of July, Consumers Energy Co.’s food and beverage spending on legislators was down 88 percent compared to the first seven months of 2019, according to a Crain’s analysis of lobbying expenditure disclosures filed with the Secretary of State. The Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, a trade group representing bar owners, reported a 90 percent decline in its spending on food and drinks for lawmakers through July. Troy-based Molina Healthcare of Michigan reported no spending on meals for lawmakers through July after spending $10,555 and $9,119 in 2019 and 2018, respectively. The Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association’s spending has been almost nonexistent this year. The trade group that represents Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable providers reported $69 in food and drink expenditures over seven months, a 99 percent decline from the $9,679 in dining tabs it picked up through July 31 last year, a Crain’s analysis shows. Veteran Lansing lobbyists say public health orders and fears about meeting indoors has made pre-pandemic relationships with legislators, members of Whitmer’s staff and state department officials more important to try to influence policymaking. “What we do know is government is not going away, and you have to figure out how to access government on behalf of your client,” said Mike Hawks, CEO and co-owner of Gov-
Pandemic casualty: lobbyist-paid food and drink Lobbyist-paid meals and drinks for legislators and executive branch officials has taken a steep drop during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is a look at publicly disclosed spending through July 31 by lobbying firms, corporations and trade associations compared to the first seven months of 2019 and 2018. Food & beverage expenses Lobbying group
Public Affairs Associates LLC Governmental Consultant Services Inc. Consumers Energy Co. Muchmore Smalley Harrington & Associates (MSHA) Midwest Strategy Group Kelley Cawthorne McAlvey Merchant & Associates Michigan Credit Union League DTE Energy Co. Michigan Legislative Consultants LLC Michigan Licensed Beverage Association Molina Healthcare of Michigan Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association Michigan Association of Health Plans AT&T Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Karoub Associates County Road Association of Michigan Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association AARP
2018
2019
2020
2019 to 2020 % change
$55,494 $28,068 $19,898 $14,472 $17,948 $32,907 $14,436 $6,503 $6,146 $6,620 $7,058 $9,119 $9,179 $3,898 $2,574 $7,604 $5,936 $3,342 $1,702 $0
$53,365 $35,513 $32,268 $29,829 $25,174 $24,775 $19,092 $18,607 $12,759 $12,656 $11,656 $10,555 $9,679 $8,370 $8,047 $7,967 $7,827 $7,450 $5,426 $5,181
$32,716 $15,593 $3,953 $4,938 $10,731 $11,056 $12,617 $2,442 $3,029 $7,745 $1,211 $0 $69 $234 $4,557 $7,497 $4,255 $4,377 $1,216 $4,824
-39% -56% -88% -83% -57% -55% -34% -87% -76% -39% -90% -100% -99% -97% -43% -6% -46% -41% -78% -7%
Note: These figures reflect meals for legislators through July 31 of each year that were paid for by lobbying firms, trade associations or corporations. These totals do not include additional meals and drinks paid for by individual lobbyists who work for these multiclient firms. SOURCE: MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICE; LOBBYIST DISCLOSURES
ernmental Consultant Services Inc. (GCSI), one of the Lansing’s largest multi-client firms. GCSI’s food and beverage spending declined 56 percent between Jan. 1 and July 31 compared to the first seven months of 2019, records show. Hawks said his firm has shifted from holding large dinners with 10 to 15 legislators to more one-on-one meetings, if the lawmaker is comfortable meeting in person. “It is a little more personalized,” Hawks said. “There aren’t as many people going to dinner or to lunch. ... But we haven’t had difficulty — with effort, of course — reaching the people that we want to reach to make our case.”” Like other white-collar office workers, lobbyists report spending an inordinate amount of time each day on Zoom video conference calls. — to the point that some say they’ve gained weight or developed back
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS GRAPHIC
problems from hours of being strapped to a desk instead of walking around downtown Lansing’s Capitol complex from meeting to meeting. “I’ll be honest with you, I herniated a disc this summer and I really think it’s because I spent so much time just sitting in front of my computer and not getting up,” said Sarah Hubbard, a principal in the multi-client lobbying firm Acuitas LLC. “I mean, we’re busier than ever just sitting at home doing Zoom calls starting at 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning.” Back in the spring when Whitmer’s stay-at-home order was still in place, lobbyists organized Zoom happy hours with legislators and their clients — a novel adaptation to being unable to get their clients facetime with policymakers in one of Lansing’s backroom haunts. “For a month or so, those were super popular,” Hubbard said. “That’s not really happening anymore. I think peo-
CLINC
Weighing the risks In addition to fewer dinners and social activities, there also are fewer in-person meetings or opportunities to track down a legislator at the Capitol because the Legislature canceled multiple session days during the lockdown and after a couple of lawmakers in the Republican majority party contracted COVID-19. But the efficiency of video conference meetings has created new and more frequent opportunities to connect clients with lawmakers, said Brandon Dillon, a former Democratic state representative from Grand Rapids who became a full-time lobbyist last year. “In some ways, it’s actually been easier to bring people together because you don’t have to have clients from out-of-state for a meeting, you just do it on Zoom,” said Dillon, CEO of The WinMatt Group. “But you do lose the kind of personal flair when you’re not able to meet in person and get that body language feedback that’s hard to capture on a Zoom meeting.” The Legislature itself has not moved to a virtual form of voting, unlike all other levels of government in Michigan. Mask-wearing in committee meetings and on the House and Senate floor is not mandatory for lawmakers, adding a level of wariness for some lobbyists who are balancing the needs of clients with concerns about their own risk of being exposed to COVID-19. House and Senate committees have allowed lobbyists to submit tesbeen there, done that — have a T-shirt or two — on board to Clinc to make sure that we can scale properly.”
From Page 1
“In part because we are a tool for digital disruption, digital transformation. And financial services is a very large vertical, it’s one where digital transformation happened today,” Newhard explained. “It has a lot of money behind it frankly, and the use cases are very well known. And, frankly, when we made this choice to focus we had some good reference customers.” Clinc’s AI software can be found in the new mobile banking app rolled out over this past summer by Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, the nation’s fifth largest bank by total assets, according to Bankrate. A September report by McKinsey & Co. determined that the potential annual value of artificial intelligence and analytics for the global banking sector could eventually reach $1 trillion. The report notes three specific ways AI technology can help banks: ` Boost revenues through increased personalization of services to customers (and employees). ` Lower costs through efficiencies generated by higher automation, reduced error rates and better resource utilization. ` Uncover new and previously unrealized opportunities based on an improved ability to process and generate insights from vast troves of data.
ple just kind of burned out on that.” In-person lunches and dinners remain “very limited,” Hubbard said, especially as new cases of coronavirus have been steadily rising since Labor Day. “This summer seemed relatively more normal just because you could be outdoors” for meals, said Bret Marr, a partner at the multiclient lobbying firm Muchmore Harrington Smalley & Associates LLC. “But with the transition back inside, that’s certainly going to put a stress on people’s comfort level doing inside meeting with people outside of your household.”
Stepping in
The Smart Assistant app by U.S. Bank uses Clinc AI software. | U.S. BANK
“More broadly, disruptive AI technologies can dramatically improve banks’ ability to achieve four key outcomes: higher profits, at-scale personalization, distinctive omniNewhard channel experiences, and rapid innovation cycles,” the McKinsey report says. “Banks that fail to make AI central to their core strategy and operations — what we refer to as becoming ‘AI-first’ — will risk being overtaken by competition and deserted by their customers.” Having its software used by one of
36 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
the nation’s largest lenders means that Clinc has a proof-of-concept it can show off to other banks, making it much easier to go downmarket in the sector, Newhard said. The company currently does under $10 million in annual revenue and has fewer than 100 employees, most based in Ann Arbor. It also has a small office in China. As Newhard goes out to engage with banks around the country and globe, he plans to go on a hiring spree. But he’s clear he’s not hiring for entry-level positions. “We have a lot of great tech, great talent. And we’re long on both,” he said. “Frankly, we’re short on experience. So part of this is bringing folks that have
Newhard, a longtime IT executive out of Texas who began in the role of Clinc CEO over the summer, comes in after something of a tumultuous year for the company. Since Mars left the company earlier this year, he maintains only a minority financial stake in Clinc as a founder, a company spokeswoman said. Following Mars’ resignation, fellow co-founder Lingjia Tang — to whom Mars is married — took over as interim CEO. Tang is still the company’s chief technology officer since Newhard took over the helm. Mars did not respond to a request from Crain’s seeking comment for this report. Given the circumstances under which Mars left the company, Newhard said he feels he has something of a clean slate with which to drive the company forward. “Coming in as the new person, it’s like you actually do have tabula rasa,” Newhard said. “It’s a very good platform to move forward, frankly. And the employees have really embraced sort of (figuring out) who should we be? Let’s be really thoughtful about, you know, what are the things that we legitimately believe in as a company?”
timony in favor or opposition to legislation electronically. But in a business where showing up often counts, Miner said he feels the need to be in the committee room. “You really don’t have to be present,” Miner said. “But you kind of feel like as a lobbyist you’ve got to be present, especially if you’ve got a bill up (for a vote). You’d rather be there in person if there’s a question.”
Challenges ahead In January, about one-third of the House’s 110 seats will be fresh faces to Lansing — the result of voter-approved constitutional term limits. Each new freshman class of House members faces a steep learning curve about the history of certain public policy issues and the intricacies of the state’s $63 million budget. Lobbying firms, trade associations and some of the state’s largest corporations host countless private meetings with lawmakers in the first few months of a nonelection year to get them up to speed on current and past issues. Many of those meetings are paired with dinner, drinks and socializing. This winter, lobbyists will have to figure out how to forge relationships and get their messages across to new legislators under the constraints of the on-going public health threat, Marr said. “That will be a cumbersome process,” Marr said. “But I think folks have adjusted to Zoom and Teams and know how to do that.” Anticipating the pandemic will pose difficulties for relationship-building in the new year, GCSI’s Hawks said his firm’s lobbyists have been reaching out to House candidates who won primaries in heavily Republican or Democratic districts, meaning they’re likely to prevail on Nov. 3. “In a term-limited world, you have to do that anyway — that is nothing new because of the huge turnover,” Hawks said. “Who knows what next year brings, but I don’t think we’re starting from a dead stall.” Contact: clivengood@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @ChadLivengood
Scaling up In May 2019, Clinc nabbed $52 million in a Series B fundraising round, setting up the company to take a major step forward in the AI sphere. An initial public offering by 2022 was a stated goal of former CEO Mars. While not taking an IPO off the table, Newhard said he’s hardly packing his bags for a trip to Wall Street at this moment. “An IPO is swell if it happens,” he said, noting that there are plenty of investors in the company who may well want to get their liquidity out of the business at some point, leading to a public offering being necessary. “I don’t see an IPO as an end,” he said. “I see building a great business as what I want to go do.” During his first week with the company in July, Newhard said that there was no shortage of demand from banks seeking AI software, and it hasn’t let up in the ensuing months. So he’s focused on keeping it simple at the moment and ensuring that Clinc has the necessary infrastructure in place to meet that demand. “The market demand is there,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal problem to have.” Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes
DREAM
original parent organizations, an African American Muslim group called Neighborly Needs and the Indus Community Action Network. The New Center-Midtown resident’s family of five plans to move into a house in Dream of Detroit’s neighborhood, likely in November, after spending upward of $100,000 purchasing and renovating it starting in February. “I’m not naive to the fact that I’m an influencer in my community ... I can’t be naive to that. I am a religious leader and I’ve been an educator for 20 years. So I have to be honest that if I know that I can do a little more for this admirable (Dream of Detroit) effort ...” Saadiq said. “If I’m gonna preach about it, literally, I should at least take a couple steps in that path to show people that it’s possible.”
From Page 3
Hotel to home Around a month after Dawud Clark moved out of the hotel where he was residing, he found himself face-to-face with a leaky pipe dribbling water from the ceiling into the kitchen of the Project Homecoming house. And, he said, he knew basically nothing about plumbing. “We had to tear out half the kitchen ceiling to fix the pipe from upstairs,” said the 60-year-old Clark who, after being incarcerated for 30 years, moved into the under-renovation home to become its house manager. Clark originally thought they’d need to fix the break from upstairs — because that’s where the leak was. But no, they had to come from underneath instead. He has been helping a contractor fix up the 2,100-square-foot home. It’s nearly done, he said, wearing a black Ernie Sims Lions jersey while giving a tour. On-the-job training is a key component of Project Homecoming’s efforts, aiming to support parolees with financial and re-entry skills. Clark’s involvement began in late 2019, after he left prison in 2018. He said one of the top problems he has faced since being released has been finding a place to live. There was the discrimination against returning citizens, plus having a zero credit rating. “Before I moved in (to the Project Homecoming house) I was living in a hotel,” Clark said. “I’m working, I’m trying to find a place to live. And I’m just exhausting myself every day going in circles. When I got in touch with Dream of Detroit, they got in touch with me, it made sense. It saved my life.” While staying at the Normandie Hotel on Woodward Avenue just south of Highland Park, he’d ride his bike a mile and a half or so to the 35-year-old Muslim Center, though he knew no one. Eventually, the lifelong Detroiter started volunteering there. Crain heard about him and they got introduced through a mutual friend at the center.
To become independent A second and possibly a third returning citizen are expected to move into the house by the end of the year. From there, Crain wants to eventually get approval through the Michigan Department of Corrections so Project Homecoming can get connected with parolees through that official route and get state funding per-resident. Clark said that once the home is occupied his job will be to maintain a smoke-, alcohol- and drug-free living space, as well as help the four or five residents get their lives set up again as needed: Getting ID cards and driver’s licenses and learning how to use a laptop, for example. “Our main point is our religious focus,” he said. “Most people who come
KAPSTONE
From Page 3
“That is what has kept us afloat,” Turner said. Buffington spent two decades working in human resources for automotive suppliers, including Federal-Mogul Corp., Airboss Flexible Products Co. and Epoxi Tech Inc. Turner has nearly 20 years of experience in the specialized field of recruiting engineers. Before starting Kapstone with Buffington, Turner was a head
Envisioning ‘green’ district
Above, nonprofit Dream of Detroit estimates it is spending $100,000 to renovate a house and make it a transitional home for formerly incarcerated mostly Muslim men in neighborhood community on Detroit’s west side. At left, Dawud Clark, a formerly incarcerated Detroit resident, is pictured at the work station where he crafts leather goods. | ANNALISE FRANK/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
here are going to be Muslim. And you know, once we have our religious foundation, the next thing is getting them into these (trades) training classes, getting them trained so they can become independent and move out.” Dream of Detroit will manage the Project Homecoming building, while Detroit-based Muslim Family Services will offer counseling services for residents and is paying for appliances and utilities, Crain said. The Tayba Foundation, which does inmate education across the country, will offer life skills education and re-entry and case management in-kind. Dream of Detroit is still developing the job skills piece and curriculum, with a $15,000 Bernard & Audre Rapoport Foundation grant that is also helping fund the house manager’s stipend, according to Crain, who also lives in the area. As it’s planned so far, the men would train in construction trades on nearby houses that have yet to be renovated. Dream of Detroit and the Muslim Cen-
ter have also acted as a host site for entrepreneurship training nonprofit ProsperUS, and Crain expects Project Homecoming participants to take some classes there as well to help solidify any business aspirations. In addition to the homes Dream of Detroit has either rehabbed or overseen single private developers and homeowners make over, Crain estimates there are 15 more properties to go in its impact area. It is bounded by West Davison Street and Davison Freeway in the north, Glendale in the south, the Lodge service drive to the east and 14th Street to the west. The nonprofit may later transition to building ground-up, but for now it’s been mostly single-family renovations and one duplex. Another house renovated by Dream of Detroit holds an artists’ residency program called Indus. The nonprofit has also hosted street fairs and movie nights, managed COVID-19 testing in the spring and plans to build out a lighted area for outdoor gathering in a mural-lined alleyway.
Dream of Detroit’s reputation spreads past its impact zone. It takes part in wider neighborhood meetings — the Hope Village collaborative — where nonprofits, residents and some businesses get together to discuss goings-on and issues, such as dangerous traffic on Davison Street, the border between Dream of Detroit and neighbor community development corporation Hope Village Revitalization. “They’ve done a phenomenal job of rehabbing homes. They’ve pretty much taken the block there and changed the trajectory of the block pretty substantially,” Debbie Fisher, executive director of Hope Village Revitalization, said of Dream of Detroit’s efforts. “Really, they’ve invested a significant amount in the housing stock in a way that has created some ripple effects in the neighborhood around there, as well.” One of the Dream of Detroit area’s individual investors is Mika’il Stewart Saadiq, associate imam at the Muslim Center. He’s been a board member and fundraiser for the nonprofit and its
hunter for d. Diversified Services in Bingham Farms. The two Black female entrepreneurs have made recruiting and sourcing talent from racially-diverse backgrounds part of their business model aimed at corporations looking to diversify their talent pool. “The one thing we have in our favor is we have a network full of diversity, so that makes it a little bit easier but also a good pot to stir from,” Buffington said. Kapstone’s clients include include AM General, Dakkota Integrated Systems, Detroit Manufacturing Systems,
DTE Energy Co., Piston Automotive, Walker-Miller Energy Services LLC and Solutions for Energy Efficient Logistics LLC. The compan’'s Orlando office offers a chance to get a foothold into central Florida’s entertainment and tourism-based service sector as well as aerospace companies, Buffington said. “You can manage it from anywhere,” she said. As Kapstone marks its fourth year in business, its founders are trying to build on a book of business that balances the more “hands on” work of managing
temp jobs with their specialty in sending clients prescreened top candidates for engineering jobs in the automotive, energy and aerospace sectors. “We really like having that niche,” Tuner said. “What we don’t want to do is become the jack of all trades and the master of none. “We want to stick to our core because that’s what we do best.” Their fourth year in business also has been marked by the economic upheaval of the coronavirus pandemic. Kapstone’s employees work in their office at 607 Shelby St. two days a week
The pandemic has slowed another of Dream of Detroit’s plans, to turn two shipping containers into a rentable commercial kitchen and a walk-up restaurant on Woodrow Wilson Street. Crain said the group envisions the road as a “green business district” stretching past the 63-year-old nonprofit Detroit Repertory Theatre down to Cass Community Social Services. Dream of Detroit may try to raise money through crowdfunding for the $150,000-$175,000 project, the planning of which is backed by a Kresge Innovative Projects grant. One vacant spot would work well at the corner of Woodrow Wilson and Tyler, Crain said. But the lots are privately owned and Dream of Detroit hasn’t been able to purchase them. Site ownership can be a roadblock. “I can’t honestly say that we’ve tried to get support from (the city’s Strategic Neighborhood Fund) ... What I do know is that those designations are based on the consumer spending habits and capacity of the folks living within those neighborhoods, as opposed to any measures of need or service delivery,” Crain said. “From the perspective of the city’s connection to (SNF) and the city touting it as a public win, that is where I think there’s a disconnect ... I’m not opposed to public-private partnership, but the city does, I think, owe it to the rest of the neighborhoods, the rest of us, to also show where and how are we being prioritized.” As for Clark, he wants to eventually move on from the Project Homecoming house and let someone else take the reins so he can further pursue entrepreneurship. Clark likes to bake, and spends three or four hours a day on a side gig/hobby: leather work. He handcrafts purses, Bible covers, belts and other pieces. A belt may take eight to nine hours over three days, selling for $40. He said he’d like to use what he learned helping renovate the Project Homecoming house to fix up his own storefront. “I’d like to open up a small bakery, sell leather goods in the corner,” he said.
and remotely the remainder of the week. “I don’t think anybody can deny that there is more focus when you’re in the office,” Buffington said. Since returning to the office, they’ve noticed that their younger associates benefit from being within earshot of them. “When you’re at home and you’re in isolation, you don’t have that kind of opportunity to gather information and learn as easily as you would if you’re listening to a conversation from a more seasoned recruiter,” Turner said.
OCTOBER 26, 2020 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 37
THE CONVERSATION
Attorney Denise Lewis on diversity, development and Dan Gilbert HONIGMAN LLP: With nearly 40 years in commercial real estate legal experience under her belt, Denise Lewis, the former partner in the Detroit-based law firm’s Urban Redevelopment Practice Group and its diversity partner, has recently retired, turning her attention to education issues in the city. She is now teaming up with New York-based The Africa-America Institute as a senior adviser to its CEO on what she calls a pilot K-12 education program for the city. Lewis, who has worked on efforts ranging from the recruitment of Dan Gilbert’s thencalled Quicken Loans Inc. to the new Detroit Pistons practice facility in the New Center area, has been an advocate for diversifying both the | BY KIRK PINHO legal and real estate professions throughout her career. ` I’d like to get some thoughts from you on specific trends in commercial real estate that you’ve noticed in Detroit or in the suburbs during your tenure at Honigman. Because of concerns about the virus, that leads to less population use of restaurants and other entertainment spaces. But I believe that will be shortlived, after the solution is found and people return to downtown. I’ve seen a reclaiming of cities and a reclaiming of some of our historic spaces and some of the history and the beauty of the architecture that we’ve had. So that was a good part. I’ve seen that put on pause because of the pandemic, but I’m a firm believer that the trend to city life will again be reclaimed when the health issues of the pandemic are resolved. ` What were some of the more memorable things you worked on during your time at Honigman? As I look back on it, probably one of the things that I’m most proud is the impact that I, along with others, have had on the landscape, on the downtown core in Detroit. I think back to a time not so long ago when the area around Campus Martius and the stretch up Woodward to Grand Circus (Park) was really vacant. There was vacant land, there were vacant and underused buildings. One of the things being the construction of the (former) Compuware (Corp.) building and that structure’s sort of setting an anchor for the Campus Martius Park, and then Dan Gilbert and Bedrock came in and helped restore and reposition historic buildings around Campus Martius and down that stretch of Woodward, and I was proud to have a role in participating with them. I can remember a meeting I participated in, which was the first meeting that Dan Gilbert had with then mayor (Kwame Kilpatrick) about trying to convince him to come downtown. And that meeting was at his offices in an office park in
Livonia. From that day, there were discussions and he came downtown. ` What was that meeting like? It was Mayor Kilpatrick and George Jackson (former head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp.). I remember sitting in a conference room out where Gilbert was located, talking about the pros and the cons of that move, and it turned out to be definitely a win-win for him and for the city of Detroit. ` Was it a sales pitch? He had already started considering moving into Detroit, but it was a sales pitch and how important he would be to the city’s future. They were pitching him but he was a willing participant. He already had looked at some of the possibilities. ` What’s one project you worked on that you were sure would get finished but ultimately got away? It’s not that it got away, but I have put a lot of effort in the Paradise Valley project, which was structured to be a way for African Americans to have an investment and development downtown. I retired before I got that across the finish line. I hope with the commitment for investing more with African American developers, there will be a way to get that across the finish line. That Paradise Valley development definitely will have a huge impact on downtown life, as well as showcasing the kind of work that African American developers can do. I’m a firm believer that the city will never see its full potential without including everyone under the tent. It has to include developers of color and women developers. There are very few womenowned firms in development. We have some African American and Latino firms.
Denise Lewis, former partner at Honigman
` What else is important to talk about? I’d like to talk a little more about the whole issue of how we solve the development problem in Detroit. I think we have a window to get some real progress made, and we’ll have to be strategic about it. I have watched the number of commitments of the large banks after the social justice reckoning we’ve been going through. Just last week, JPMorgan Chase & Co. made this $30 million commitment to try to address the wealth gap of African Americans in the country, but that has a silver lining for a city like Detroit because to the extent this large commitment of funds are made by CitiBank, JPMorgan Chase, Huntington Bank, that gives an opportunity for more capital to be invested in Detroit, and that’s been one of the most serious problems for developers in Detroit of all colors, whether white, Black and Latino. Detroit has not had the institutional capital needed to build large projects. We are fortunate to have Bedrock and Dan Gilbert, who was willing to commit capital that he controls, but we need access for Detroit to reach its full potential to the wide range of institutional capital out there, and I’m going to continue to lend my efforts to try to help Detroit gets its fair share. Overall, Detroit has not been seen as a prime market. It’s come up a lot, a long way from where we were 10 years ago. One of the most important parts of achieving that is getting access to capital and it’s amazing that same theme permeates developers of color, women developers and the city overall. You have to have projects evaluated and appraised fairly. And then you have to have the willingness to take the risk on investment in the projects and lending in the projects. I think we have a window for some serious progress to be made.
READ ALL THE CONVERSATIONS AT CRAINSDETROIT.COM/THECONVERSATION
Business leader, philanthropist, ‘fierce patriot’ Peter Secchia dies
Peter Secchia speaks at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation annual dinner in 2019.
1971, he purchased control of the company and served as CEO until 1989, when he was appointed the U.S. ambassador to Italy by President
38 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | OCTOBER 26, 2020
George H.W. Bush. Known for his philanthropy in Grand Rapids and beyond, Secchia’s name is on buildings at Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, Spectrum Health and numerous other locations. Secchia, a graduate of MSU, was a large booster for athletics there, including a $1 million gift for the Secchia Stadium softball facility. Beyond his business and philanthropic efforts, Secchia was among the most prominent figures in Republican politics at the state and national levels. The GOP stalwart served on finance committees and in other roles for a host of Republican candidates
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Peter Secchia, a prominent West Michigan businessman, philanthropist and one-time ambassador to Italy, died Wednesday at the age of 83. Secchia’s death was confirmed by family spokeswoman Amy LeFebre. “I am able to confirm that Mr. Secchia had experienced health issues for several months and was receiving nursing care at home,” she said. “He recently contracted COVID-19, which was a contributing factor in his death. He was not hospitalized and died peacefully at home.” Secchia began his career in 1962 at Grand Rapids-based UFP Industries Inc., formerly known as Universal Forest Products (NASDAQ: UFPI), a commercial lumber company. In
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over the last quarter century. Dick DeVos, a prominent businessman and Republican backer who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006, said Secchia’s loss will be felt throughout the Grand Rapids community. “Peter was a fierce patriot and adopted son of Grand Rapids, which he lovingly referred to as the center of the universe,” DeVos said in a statement. “I am thankful for the leadership he provided through his commitment to our nation’s political process. From his impact as Ambassador to Italy, to his local efforts to make Grand Rapids a better place to live, work and play... .he will be greatly missed.”
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Crain’s Detroit Business is published by Crain Communications Inc. Chairman Keith E. Crain Vice Chairman Mary Kay Crain President KC Crain Senior Executive Vice President Chris Crain Secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong Chief Financial Officer Robert Recchia G.D. Crain Jr. Founder (1885-1973) Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. Chairman (1911-1996) Editorial & Business Offices 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732; (313) 446-6000 Cable address: TWX 248-221-5122 AUTNEW DET CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS ISSN # 0882-1992 is published weekly, except the last 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.
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