Crain's Detroit Business, May 23, 2016 issue by Crain's Detroit Business

MAY 23-29, 2016

Unhappy investors await Comerica’s recovery plan

Company offers Flint free pipes, but rules forbid plastic, Page 3

20 IN THEIR 20s

By Tom Henderson

ommendations at the bank’s second-quarter conference call in July. Comerica Inc., which moved its At the very least, the consulting headquarters from Detroit to Dallas group would devise a cost-cutting in 2007, faces its biggest corporate plan to boost earnings. challenge since it merged with ManThe future matters to Michigan. ufacturers National Bank in 1992. Years after pulling its headquarters As oil prices have plunged pre- out, Comerica remains a major cipitously, the bank’s portfolio of presence. It is second only to Chase Bank for deposit market loans to the oil industry share, according to the — its corporate home’s Nearly a decade Federal Deposit Insursignature business — after moving HQ, ance Corp. As of last June has taken a hit and reveComerica’s 30, the latest date for nue has plunged. strongest market? which figures are availComerica’s disapMichigan, Page 24 able, Chase had $39.1 pointing first-quarter billion in deposits in the earnings released April 19 angered, or at least worried, state for a market share of 20.5 persome institutional investors and an- cent, and Comerica had $27.5 bilalysts. On a conference call, Chair- lion for a share of 14.4 percent. In Comerica’s earnings, there man and CEO Ralph Babb Jr. announced he had engaged the Boston were plenty of metrics to give shareConsulting Group to help him decide holders pause. n First-quarter earnings fell how to best to improve shareholder from $132 million in the first quarter value. All options were on the table, he a year ago to $59 million. n Earnings of 34 cents a share in said, including the sale of the bank, SEE COMERICA, PAGE 22 and he would report the group’s recthenderson@crain.com

Owners of Fisher, Kahn buildings look to develop underserved areas By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

It was 4:30 a.m. one Friday, and Peter Cummings and Dietrich Knoer were feeling just the right kind of crazy. That day, touring the Eastern Market’s Wholesale Market well before dawn last summer, the two real estate veterans began the process of forming their new Detroit-based development company, The Platform LLC, which has more than $250 million in primarily mixed-use apartment projects in the pipeline in Midtown, New Center and around TechTown. First on the list is Third and Grand, a $52 million project at Third Ave-

nue and West Grand Boulevard on a 1.41-acre parking lot purchased from the Henry Ford Health System that is expected to house hundreds of apartments and tens of thousands of square feet of retail space. Groundbreaking is expected this fall, followed by a steady stream of other projects that would bring about 1,000 units and 100,000 to 150,000 square feet of retail space to the area along Woodward Avenue within a few blocks of QLine rail stations. But the duo, who helped lead last summer’s purchase of the Fisher Building and Albert Kahn Building in New Center for $12.2 million, is

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SEE PLATFORM, PAGE 24

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

MICHIGAN

BRIEFS Other states court Dow Chemical; biz leaders worry

Numerous states are aggressively courting Dow Chemical Co. to move jobs out of its Midland birthplace — and business leaders are increasingly concerned that Michigan lacks the tools to fight back, according to a Bridge Magazine/Crain’s Detroit Business report. Recently, Dow management has quietly acknowledged to Michigan business leaders that the company is fielding significant incentive offers to move jobs to other states, according to business leaders who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Other states are courting Dow and putting in offers,” one executive said. “I am sure that the business community in Midland is very concerned — as they should be.” Dow spokeswoman Rachelle Schikorra last week downplayed what she referred to as rumors about jobs moving out of Michigan five months after the company announced it would be merging with DuPont. “The new materials science headquarters will remain in Midland,” she said. “We’re building a new

corporate center. You can see our commitment in steel in the ground.” About 1,160 people work in Dow headquarters, which Schikorra said Dow is committed to keeping in Midland. But 5,087 people work directly for Dow in numerous facilities in the area, and a major relocation of Dow jobs would almost certainly also impact other Midland companies that provide services to Dow. An additional 1,422 work for Dow Corning Corp., a joint venture between Dow and Corning, N.Y., glassmaker Corning Inc. that Dow plans to assume full ownership of this year. Loss of Dow jobs would also be a blow to Gov. Rick Snyder, whose administration has made a strategic decision to cut economic incentives designed to keep and attract businesses, contending that government is ill-equipped to decide which companies should receive state support.

Pardon me, but Holland will make Grey Poupon Although the newly merged company is closing facilities in other states, food and beverage giant The Kraft Heinz Co. plans to make all

of its Grey Poupon mustard at a plant in Holland. Kraft Heinz, which has dual headquarters in Chicago and Pittsburgh, will invest $17.2 million to expand its Holland plant and add 50 jobs to its base of 252, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. said last week. The MEDC’s Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $500,000 performance-based grant for Kraft Heinz that will require the company to meet various milestones over three years. When completed, the company plans to make all of its Grey Poupon and most of its Heinz Yellow mustard products in Michigan, the MEDC said. Kraft Heinz was born out of the 2015 merger of Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft Foods Group Inc. and Pittsburgh-based H.J. Heinz Co.

MICH-CELLANEOUS n At a time when many companies are looking for ways to build teams between departments and generations of employees, Grand Rapids event design startup Distel Wolfe Events has a two-word answer: scavenger hunts. The hunts are among the corporate team-building events produced by the company, the Grand Rapids Business Journal reported. Distel Wolfe also hosts “Amazing Race” hunts. “Millennials tend to love these kinds of activities, but if you have a baby boomer and a Gen X on your team, they bring their own perspectives and creativity to completing the challenges,” said Jill Wolfe, who owns the company

with Carol Distel. n A proposed tax increase to fund John Ball Zoo and the Grand Rapids Public Museum is on its way to the voters to decide. Kent County commissioners voted last week to place the millage proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot, WOOD-TV reported. The 10-year, .44 millage would cost the average homeowner in Kent County about $3 more per month, supporters say, for updating exhibits and facilities at both venues. n An advancing bill would create a state fund that could be used to pay for underground infrastructure needs across the state in the wake of Flint’s water crisis, AP reported. The proposed Michigan Infrastructure Fund was approved unanimously by the Senate last week. Lawmakers plan to decide soon how much money should go into the account. Gov. Rick Snyder, who supports the fund, has proposed an initial $165 million deposit while a commission works on a statewide infrastructure assessment and recommendations. The bill establishing the fund was sent to the House for consideration. n Municipalities can pass their own ordinances governing wage rates paid to building contractors and vendors, the Michigan Supreme

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

CALENDAR ........................................20 CLASSIFIED ADS...............................21 DEALS & DETAILS............................20 KEITH CRAIN....................................... 6 OPINION .............................................. 6 OTHER VOICES ................................... 6 PEOPLE ..............................................20 RUMBLINGS ......................................26 WEEK ON THE WEB .........................26

COMPANY INDEX: SEE PAGE 25 Court found in a decision that faults a lower court for reaching the same conclusion. The high court sided with Lansing city officials and against the Lansing-based Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan in a dispute over a city prevailing-wage ordinance governing municipal building contracts. The builders’ organization, which advocates for an open construction contracting market regardless of unionization or labor affiliation, had argued that the Court of Appeals went against a 90-year-old legal precedent, as well as a 2009 appellate ruling in favor of Guardian Protective Services Inc. over a security services pact with Detroit for Cobo Center.

Correction n A story on Page 3 of the May 16 edition of Crain’s should have said Southfield-based real estate developer Hartman and Tyner Inc.’s owners have an ownership stake in Hazel Park Raceway.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

Offer of plastic water pipes to Flint remains untapped By Catherine Kavanaugh Crain News Service

As unpredictable spikes in lead continue to plague the water system in Flint, philanthropic pledges of some $125 million have poured in recently to help residents through the crisis. Meanwhile, one donation worth millions of dollars that could help fix the lead-leaching pipes has been in limbo at Flint City Hall for three months and may never get serious consideration. Back on Feb. 22, Walter Wang, the CEO of JM Eagle, the largest plastic pipe manufacturer in North America, told the Flint City Council his Los Angeles-based company would

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provide enough free pipe to replace all the residential and commercial lead service lines in the city of 99,000. However, no action has been taken yet as Flint finalizes the bidding process to widen its scope of lead service line replacement from 33 pilot houses that just got new copper lines to 500 households. That’s because Flint is among the U.S. cities that does not allow for the specification of plastic pipe, according to Tony Radoszewski, president of the Plastics Pipe Institute, a trade association based in Dallas. “Our members have been trying to sell to Flint for years, and they can’t,” Radoszewski said in a tele-

phone interview with Plastics News, a Crain publication. “It’s not only the service lines but the water mains as well. So they’re using ductile iron in the water mains and copper in the service lines. And copper is not an inexpensive choice.” Copper pipe is two to three times more expensive than polyethylene pipe, which is what JM Eagle offered Flint, Radoszewski said. Of the 32,900 service connections, Flint’s website says more than 15,000 are “considered” lead service lines, and the estimated average price to replace each one is $4,000. That puts the total cost of pipes at $60 million or more.

Polyethylene intake pipes are not allowed everywhere, including Flint. PLASTICS PIPE INSTITUTE

SEE PIPES, PAGE 25

Retired attire

Blowing the whistle Enron, WorldCom figures tell

By Bill Shea

Crain’s General & In-house

bshea@crain.com

Counsel Summit that telling the truth can come with a cost, Page 4

SALVATION ARMY

Rapid growth in suburban thrift stores, like this one in Southfield, has helped the Salvation Army ARC expand services.

Salvation Army rehab center director who expanded programs, stores will shed uniform and travel

B of A bigwig Local Bank of America exec gets promotion to oversee business banking in eight states, Page 5

Overtime changes Businesses have ‘work to be done’ to prepare for new rules that take effect in December, Page 7

Soccer talks Gilbert-Gores group still talking to Wayne County about how to bring stadium to jail site, Page 7

Tee-off fever for inaugural LPGA event

By Sherri Welch

formally joined the organization when he was 21. He served as a corpsman for a time at one of the Merle Miller, administrator of the Salvation Salvation Army’s churches before departing the Army Southeast Michigan Adult Rehabilitation Cen- organization for a time to work at a large property ter, has a very personal connection to his work. company in New England. He returned in 1992 to It could easily have been him seeking oversee a Salvation Army church in Calhelp for addiction. ifornia. As a youth growing up without a faMiller came to Detroit in 1998 to ther in Youngstown, Ohio, he ran the manage the adult rehabilitation center streets for a time. He watched as his in the city. During his tenure, he overfriends, one after another, got into saw the $27 million renovation of the drinking and drugs. For them, and him, ARC’s Detroit site and merged the Pontiit was a tough life and “survival of the ac site into the Detroit ARC to create the fittest,” he said. Southeast Michigan ARC. Four years Eventually, Miller wound up at the later, he assumed oversight of the RoMerle Miller: Has mulus ARC and converted it into a resiSalvation Army. “I found the Lord and realized I had grown revenue dential substance abuse treatment centoo much to offer to be drinking all the more than ter for women. twentyfold. time or getting in trouble,” he said. Initially, the Detroit ARC had beds for Now, Miller, 71, is retiring from the 100 men who voluntarily commit to a center after leading an expansion of its thrift- six-month treatment program after being restore network that quadrupled its size and in- ferred by other agencies and the courts. Today it creased its revenue more than twentyfold. has 350, and the Romulus site has an additional As a young man, Miller attended the Salvation 100 beds for recovering women. During Miller’s Army’s church services, which he likened to those tenure, more than 3,200 men and women have SEE SALVATION ARMY, PAGE 25 of the Methodist or Evangelical churches, and swelch@crain.com

It’s a frenzied time for Keith Karbo as the hours tick down to Thursday’s first round of the inaugural LPGA Volvik Championship at Travis Pointe Country Club in Ann Arbor. The tournament was his idea, and as its director, he and his Ann Arbor-based sports marketing firm, Red Arrow Partnerships, are organizing the event and selling corporate sponsorships. The inaugural year of a professional golf tournament traditionally is the toughest for corporate sponsorships because the event doesn’t have a history to market. Through Friday, the tournament had sold nine corporate sponsor skyboxes — it was originally 10, but two were combined to make a larger structure — along the 16th and 18th greens, Karbo said. Those have sold for $30,000 to $32,000 each, and costs often are split among several companies that share the skybox and tickets during the tournament. Also available for corporate sponsors are chalet village tents at $25,000 each, a Champions Club package at $10,000 each and private room packages for $15,000 for four days or $5,000 for a single day. A variety of those have been sold. Among the major corporate sponsors, aside from the title sponsor, are Detroit’s DTE Energy Co. and Quicken Loans Inc., and Livonia-based lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems LLC. Overall, the event has 84 companies and media organizations signed to sponsorships or trade deals, Karbo said. Golf industry observers say getting the smaller sponsors is the real challenge for tournaments. SEE LPGA, PAGE 21

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

High-profile whistleblowers differ on merit of new laws By Chad Halcom chalcom@crain.com

Policymakers often react to largescale abuses with large and complicated laws, but two high-profile whistleblowers offered differing views on whether that strategy works at Crain’s sixth annual General & In-house Counsel Summit. Sherron Watkins, former vice president of corporate development at Enron Corp., and Cynthia Cooper, former vice president of internal audit at WorldCom Inc., both said they saw some merit in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 last week at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit. Cooper felt the reform package builds on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that resulted from the accounting scandals at each of their former companies. But Watkins called the law long and unwieldy and likened it to an overdrawn prenuptial agreement that divorce lawyers can easily sidestep. “In terms of making our whole financial system healthier, I don’t think it’s accomplished anything,” Watkins said. Watkins and Cooper generally agreed, however, that financial incentives like the Dodd-Frank provision that entitles whistleblowers to 10 percent to 30 percent of government recoveries over $1 million for violations of securities, and other federal laws, make companies take compliance practices seriously. “Over 40 percent of all frauds are identified through tips, but the top two reasons officers who are aware of fraud don’t report it (are that) they don’t think anything will be done about their concern anyway, and they fear retaliation,” Cooper said. Watkins said some of the past trouble with disclosures stems from an amendment to the IRS tax code, proposed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, that allowed corporations to deduct salary compensation over $1 million only if officers had met certain performance targets. That caused a shift in compensation structures from salaries and bonuses to stock options, and companies increasingly found tax benefits in growing their employee stock option plans rather than concentrating stock options among top management. “Now suddenly the whole company doesn’t want to hear bad news, and nobody wants to do anything too risky, because it’s personal,” she said. Cooper said whistleblowers are often gone from their jobs within a year and face social ostracism. “The press was calling some of my friends, the FBI came to my desk and (reviewed computer data), I was told I’m going to be subpoenaed to testify before Congress,” she said.“I didn’t even like to give a talk in front of my staff.” Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796 Twitter: @ChadHalcom

PHOTOS BY AARON ECKELS

Crain’s General & In-house Counsel Summit honored former Chrysler Corp. General Counsel Leroy Richie (above left) with a lifetime achievement award and TriMas Corp.’s Kymberly Kinchen with its Rising Star Award. Below: Crain’s reporter Dustin Walsh interviews whistleblowers Sherron Watkins (center) and Cynthia Cooper.

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

BoA exec to head Midwest biz banking

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EVP Elliott to continue to be based in Troy office By Tom Henderson thenderson@crain.com

The Bank of America Merrill Lynch has named Senior Vice President Matt Elliott as head of business banking for the Midwest region. It is a new position, in BoA’s global banking and markets division. Elliott will lead teams serving the financial advisory, lending, treasury and international banking needs of businesses with $5 million to $50 million in annual revenue. Elliott, 47, will retain his title as president of the Michigan market, and is based in Troy. “It’s the Big Ten without Rutgers and Matt Elliott: Now M a r y l a n d , ” oversees business joked Elliott banking in nine about the new states. Midwest region, which includes the Dakotas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. “What’s great about the new job is I get to stay in Michigan,” said Elliott, a native of the state. “It’s funny. I’ll meet people and they tell me, ‘Welcome to Michigan.’ They think I must be from North Carolina.” The Bank of America is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. In October 2012, Elliott was named president of the bank’s operations in Michigan, replacing Brett Bernard. Elliott joined the bank in 2010 as chief middle-market commercial banking executive in Michigan, having previously been senior vice president of corporate finance for George P. Johnson Co. in Auburn Hills. A graduate of Michigan State University, Elliott is a member of the board of directors of the Detroit Zoological Society, the Detroit Economic Club, Business Leaders for Michigan and the Detroit Regional Chamber. Last September, he was named by Crain’s as the 26th most-connected person in Southeast Michigan. The Bank of America is No. 4 in the state in deposit market share, its $15.7 billion good for a share of 8.23 percent. It is eighth in the number of branches, with 127. Chase Bank is No. 1 in both, with 249 branches, $39.1 billion in deposits and a share of 20.53 percent. Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337 Twitter: @TomHenderson2

May 26

Effective strategies for customer growth: What C-suite executives should know

June 2

Cutting through the data analytics hype

June 9

Selling your business: Timing is everything

June 16

How to deploy a flexible approach to real estate

June 23

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

OPINION

State must respond to possible Dow exit

or 120 years, Dow Chemical has been the foundation of Midland’s economy. The mid-Michigan community of 42,000 has been understandably nervous about losing any of the 6,100-plus jobs in Dow or its joint venture, Dow Corning Corp., as a result of Dow’s pending massive merger with Delaware-based DuPont. But as Crain’s and its Lansing-coverage partner Bridge Magazine reported online on May 18 (See Page 2 of this issue), Dow management has “quietly acknowledged” to Michigan business leaders that Dow is being bombarded by incentives to move Midland jobs to other states. And business leaders — on and off the record — confirmed they fear that Michigan has dropped out of the economic incentive “arms race” and could lose Dow jobs. Incentives are tricky — and expensive. And the liberal tax incentives provided by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to save Michigan jobs have come back to bite huge economic holes in the state budget as manufacturers cash in on tax credits promised a decade ago. Still, we’re not sure “no response” by the state is the best response. The combined Dow-DuPont plans eventually to split into three companies, one based in Midland and two in Delaware. If you thought the Flint water crisis rocked the state and its national image, it can only be compounded by losing an even bigger chunk of Dow than is already planned with the merger and spinoffs. What's the right economic strategy? What are the best practices around the country? Michigan has some major assets — not the least of which are three world-class universities. What role could research — or education — play in incentives? Let’s put the best minds in a room and see what the state can come up with. But “no response” is not an option.

Flint should mull free pipe offer The Flint water crisis is a case study in public administration failures, at all levels of government. The crisis has led to an outpouring of support — $125 million in philanthropic pledges and counting. But as Catherine Kavanaugh reports on Page 3, some potential fixes from the business sector are left on the table because of outmoded building codes and restrictions. The largest plastic pipe manufacturer in North America has offered to give the city enough free pipe to replace all commercial and residential lead service lines in the city. That offer is worth millions of dollars. But Los Angeles-based JM Eagle may be rebuffed because Flint’s city ordinances require copper piping. We’re not advocating for one material over another. But this free offer is a good opportunity to review the standards and see if it’s time to modernize standards as has been common in Europe and in many other U.S. cities. A crisis is a terrible opportunity to waste.

New law’s message to business: Protect your trade secrets T

he Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 was signed into law earlier this month by President Obama, and the act is now effective. Below is a recap of what is new and what every company should be looking to do in light of this new law. Specifically, there are new provisions that must be written into every noncompete or other restrictive covenant signed by any employee. First, and most significantly, the new act will give parties a federal cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets, so long as the trade secret is related to a product or service used in interstate or foreign commerce. This means that plaintiffs can now bring a trade secrets case in federal court. This will also permit parties to more easily subpoena witnesses across state lines, subpoena documents from out-of-state parties, and to enforce injunctions and court orders throughout the United States. The DTSA also provides a significant new weapon where trade secrets are threatened, if stringent elements are met, for a party to obtain ex parte seizure orders. This means that if someone steals a company’s trade secrets, the company can seek a court order to seize the trade secrets, the electronic devices or computers they are found in, or other means or devices of misappropriation without first providing notice to the defendant. So, a person or company accused of misappropriating trade secrets could have federal marshals arriving at their doors to confiscate com-

Re: How employers can benefit from workers with autism Employers often struggle with managing employees. They should take note of the opportunities that employing individuals with autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities have to their workforce. People with disabilities are known to have a strong work eth-

It’s a smaller — but a better — city

A lot of people may have bruised egos as they discover that Detroit is now the 21st-largest city in the nation, smaller than El Paso, Texas, in terms of population. But the decline is very subtle, and it’s a smaller population loss during the last year than anyone might have imagined. The rate of decline has slowed. After looking at the losses over the past couple of decades, it’s a moral victory to see a loss so small, a projected loss of about 3,100 people between summer 2014 and summer 2015. I have always looked at Detroit

KEITH CRAIN Editor in chief

as part of Southeast Michigan. We are still a very significant economic community with lots of economic vitality. Detroit will never return to the city it was after World War II

when we were vying to be the third- or fourth-largest city in the country. Around the world, it’s still the Motor Capital of the World. With the North American International Auto Show held here every January, that reputation seems to be well established. We should note that most major urban centers seem to be losing population, so Detroit shouldn’t feel so bad. Meanwhile, another event with a huge Detroit connection will happen next Sunday. The Indianapolis

OTHER VOICES Paul Mersino

Mersino is an attorney and shareholder in the Detroit office of Butzel Long. He is a member of the firm’s commercial litigation practice group. puters or servers without even having a chance to be heard. This type of seizure is intended only in “exceptional circumstances” where an injunction would not suffice and it can be shown that the person who misappropriated the trade secret would destroy, move, hide or otherwise make the matter inaccessible to the court if that person were given notice of the claims against it. It is anticipated that such orders will be rarely granted, but this is left to be seen as the courts begin to implement the law. The DTSA also specifies that if an injunction would “prevent (or place conditions on) a person from entering into an employment relationship,” it must be “based on evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the information the person knows.” Depending on how courts interpret this, this is likely to curtail use of the “inevitable disclosure” theory. Similarly, the DTSA provides that an injunction preventing or limiting

employment cannot “otherwise conflict with an applicable state law prohibiting restraints on the practice of a lawful profession, trade or business.” Thus, in states such as California where noncompetes and other restrictive agreements are essentially unenforceable, parties cannot use the DTSA to circumvent state policy. Finally, the DTSA also has a whistleblower protection provision. This offers immunity from liability for the confidential disclosure of a trade secret to the government or in a court filing made under seal. This provision includes a notification requirement that employers should immediately implement in all of its agreements with its employees. The passing of the DTSA only underscores what every company and every employer should be doing. If you have trade secrets, you should take reasonable steps to keep such information secret. This means, as a minimum starting point, drafting noncompete/nonsolicit/confidentiality agreements for those employees who come into contact with your trade secrets. If you already have such agreements, they should be reviewed to make sure that they comply with the new law, including the new employee notice provisions. It also means enforcing those agreements when they are breached. Once there is a misappropriation or a threatened misappropriation, you must contact and engage your expert attorneys immediately and move swiftly.

TALK ON THE WEB Reader responses to stories and blogs that appeared on Crain’s website. Comments may be edited for length and clarity. ic, low turnover and a desire to suc-

ceed, and they enjoy what they do.

267495

A friend’s brilliant son with autism received a full ride from the Universi-

500 will be running its 100th race, and we should all be rooting for our hometown boy. Roger Penske is celebrating 50 years in motorsports. I happened to be at the Indy 500 in 1972 when Penske won his first of 16 Indy 500s. This year, he’ll be trying hard to win his 17th as a team owner. And to win the race on the 100th birthday would be quite an accomplishment. It appears that Penske has four cars and drivers, and they are all potential winners this year. We all remember what a great job he did when he took over chairing

ty of Alabama and will be majoring in aeronautical engineering. Michigan Ace

Re: Hazel Park, Northville Downs battle over electronic wagering We can either grant this capability to local establishments or watch the money leave our state. MikeInMI

the Super Bowl XL when the game was played in Ford Field in 2006. Now it’s our turn to cheer for a guy who has done a great job contributing to the constant improvement of our city, including restoring the Grand Prix race in Detroit on Belle Isle. It will be a very special day in motorsports next Sunday. Let’s root for Penske at Indy. And while we’re at it, let’s plan to cheer in the stands at our own Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on June 5. Another exciting day for our city.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

Tellem: Soccer group, county continue talks on jail site By Robert Snell rsnell@crain.com

Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores’ team is still talking to Wayne County about building a $1 billion pro soccer and mixed-use project with Dan Gilbert downtown despite concerns about the cost to taxpayers. Arn Tellem, vice chairman of Gores-owned Palace Sports & Entertainment, said last week he is working with the county and conducting analysis that could determine if the project is feasible at the county’s jail site downtown, where construction has been stalled. Tellem spoke during the Pancakes & Politics breakfast at the Detroit Athletic Club, three weeks after billionaires Gilbert and Gores unveiled plans to pursue a Major League Soccer team and build a stadium in Detroit. The plan involved building a soccer stadium for as many as 25,000 people at the 15-acre jail site on Gratiot Avenue at I-375. “We are working together, which is the most important thing,” Tellem said Thursday. “We are doing an analysis and don’t want taxpayers to foot the bill. It’s the perfect site. My hope is we’ll find a way to make it work.” The breakfast featured Tellem

and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans — both sides of the bargaining table negotiating to build the soccer stadium — plus Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan President and CEO Dan Loepp. Wayne County still owns the jail site, and officials have said they plan to complete a facility that was halted about three years ago amid cost overruns. There is no deal for the Gilbert-Gores partnership to buy the site, and the county would want more than an earlier $50 million offer from Gilbert to sell the site. The county would have to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars to be made whole and recoup the approximately $200 million invested in the jail site, plus the cost of moving to another location and relocating the nearby courthouse and juvenile detention facility. “We can’t allow Wayne County taxpayers to foot the bill,” Evans said. “This involves dismantling three institutions that are important to the county. We’re paying excessive amounts of money to keep existing jails operating. They’re in bad shape, barely constitutional.” He would not rule out a deal with Gilbert and Gores.

Attorneys: ‘Work to be done’ for employers to adjust to new OT rules By Dustin Walsh dwalsh@crain.com

The U.S. Department of Labor last week finalized its updated ruling on overtime regulations that greatly expand the amount of workers eligible for overtime pay. While the agency touts a meaningful boost to the paychecks of millions of workers, businesses are now working to reduce the ruling’s impact. Under the new rules, drafted 10 months ago, the annual salary threshold at which companies are required to pay overtime to salaried workers will be doubled from $23,660 to nearly $47,476 — as calculated by the 40th percentile of earnings for full-time salaried workers in the poorest region of the U.S., the South. The rule also updates what’s considered a highly compensated employee ($134,004), where they are presumed exempt from overtime pay, and provides a mechanism to update those thresholds every three years. The DOL said 4.2 million more salaried workers are now eligible for overtime pay. Businesses have until Dec. 1 to

comply, and local attorneys are working to update their clients on the change. “There’s work to be done, and companies have to determine what the cost of compliance will be,” said Gary Klotz, partner at Butzel Long PC in Detroit. “The secondary effects of this regulation will be in how employers respond to minimize the effects.” Matthew Disbrow, partner and head of the labor, wage and hour matters practice at Detroit-based Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, said his clients are already as-

sessing the changes. “It’s not a simple matter,” Disbrow said. “The large majority of owners are going to look for avenues to keep their wages unchanged.” To do this, companies must begin planning now for the Dec. 1 deadline, said Brian Kreucher, partner at Royal Oak-based Howard and Howard Attorneys PLLC. “Luckily, implementation is not 60 days from the ruling, but this is going to take time for companies to audit their workforce and determine what to do next,” Kreucher said. Here’s what business need to do

now, according to Klotz, Disbrow and Kreucher. n Determine how many employees who were previously exempt are under the $47,476 threshold. n Monitor how many hours of overtime those workers log. n Determine what is cheaper: Bump their pay to $47,476, reduce overtime by hiring more part-time workers, eliminate those employees and put more responsibilities on higher-paid employees, or move employees from salary to an hourly compensation structure. n Use the opportunity to reassess how employees are classified and determine whether they are exempt or not exempt based on job function — which are executive, administrative, professional and outside sales roles — and potentially reclassify their jobs. “There will be a number of employees that receive a bump in pay,” Disbrow said. “But this is not going to have the net effect on wages that the DOL anticipates. It’s going to cause companies to find ways to maintain the status quo, and that’s not going to benefit employees.” Dustin Walsh: (313) 446-6042 Twitter: @dustinpwalsh

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20 IN THEIR 20s

They are acquiring retail properties, advising startups and making buildings smarter. They are cooking pasta and building city centers. They are telling stories. These are the twenty-somethings to watch in metro Detroit. Read about them here. Then, network with them at 5:30 p.m. July 20 at the Detroit Yacht Club. For tickets, visit crainsdetroit.com/events.

David Berman, Lorient Capital LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Tyson Gersh, Michigan Urban Farming Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Darvell Powell, General Motors Co./Black Young Professionals of Metro Detroit . . 19

Marcus Burrell and Eric Thomas, Saga Marketing LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Amelia Hoover, American Red Cross of Southeastern Michigan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Kayla Roney Smith, Hazel Park Promise Zone Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Andrew Chmielewski, Mitten Crate/Dave’s Sweet Tooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

MeShawne Johnson, Detroit Chassis LLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Brian Rudolph, Banza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Alicia Decker, Centria Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Michael Kabcenell, Penske Automotive Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Eric Schwartz, University of Michigan Ross School of Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Etrit Demaj, Hepta Control Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Carly Li, Taubman Centers Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Sam Surnow, The Surnow Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Aghogho Edevbie, Wayne County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Taylor Nelson, Mayor Mike Duggan’s office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Aileen Villarreal, Detroit Tigers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Balqis Elhaddi, Henry Ford Health System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Amanda Perlaky McGregor, United Road Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Editor: Kristin Bull | Design: Karen Freese Photographed aboard the Detroit People Mover by Jacob Lewkow

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

AMELIA

20 IN THEIR 20s

HOOVER Disaster program specialist, American Red Cross of Southeastern Michigan

Amelia Hoover is unruffled by disasters. In fact, she finds handling them an opportunity to improve efficiency and productivity while helping people in need. Hoover, 25, a disaster program specialist for the American Red Cross in Detroit, has the uncanny ability at a young age to look at a problem She took a and figure out a way to help solve it. For short break example, after seefrom helping ing there were more Detroiters than 500 open casedisplaced by loads of people dishouse fires to placed by residenlead water tial fires in Detroit, distribution she created a “virtuefforts in Flint. al casework program,” which allows for volunteers throughout the state to close cases. After being trained by Hoover, volunteers call clients and walk them through the process of getting help after a fire. The result was getting the caseloads down to fewer than 150 in about 45 days. “We have too few caseworkers and too many people in need,” said Hoover, who grew up in Brooklyn but now lives in Detroit. She said the Detroit Red Cross responds to more single-family residential fires than any chapter in the country, and it has the highest rate of arson.

| 25 |

Hoover said her specialty is taking the lead on a family’s long-term recovery plan — making sure it has food, clothing and shelter. She also recently completed a stint as assistant director of information and planning during the Flint water crisis, determining who needed water assistance. With a degree in political science and international norms, security and cooperation from the University of Michigan, she started her career helping political candidates get elected and was in the Americorps program when she started at the Red Cross. Ian Dyar, regional disaster officer for the Michigan region of the American Red Cross, called Hoover “hungry, inquisitive, thoughtful and compassionate. “She’s not afraid to go against ‘the tyranny of precedent,’ to quote Clara Barton,” he said. “She embodies that. She looks to help or refer people to the right place. She wants to be a master of her craft.” “I see myself staying in direct relief, in disaster,” Hoover said. “There is nothing like it that motivates me to be the best version of myself. People are having the worst day of their lives, and being able to help them is the most amazing feeling.” Marti Benedetti

AILEEN VILLARREAL | 27 |

After graduating in 2010 from the University of Notre Dame, where she was head student manager of the famed Fighting Irish football team, Aileen Villarreal went in search of a media relations job in Major League Baseball. She was armed with a double She’s the players’ liaison to the media — the first Hispanic woman in that role in all of MLB — and is working to engage the team’s Spanish-speaking followers.

major in sociology and film/television/theater (and a minor in Latino studies), but her real ad-

vantage was that she speaks fluent Spanish. And that’s something many baseball teams, with rosters deep with Latino players, want on staff. The Montebello, Calif.-native is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents, and she grew up speaking Spanish first. She spent three months as a Houston Astros intern, and in that time she saw the Detroit Tigers were seeking a media relations coordinator fluent in Spanish. She was hired for the job in November 2010. In 2013, after internal job shuffling, she found herself promoted to media relations director, making her MLB’s first Hispanic woman to reach that level.

Media relations director, Detroit Tigers

Villarreal, 27, is in charge of the entire day-to-day coordination of players and managers and their interaction with the media. The job also requires oversight of the flood of statistics, game notes and news releases. She also has made getting Tigers information and news in front of a Spanish-speaking audience a priority. She developed and launched the team’s Spanish-language Twitter account, @TigresdeDetroit, not long after joining the club. It now has more then 35,000 followers. She also translates the team’s news and statistics into Spanish. The Tigers have a heavily Latino roster, many of them super-

stars such as Miguel Cabrera, but only a few have required translation help, she said, such as Bruce Rondon and Yoenis Cespedes. Villarreal works in baseball at a time when social media have changed media relations. “It’s nonstop, that’s for sure,” she said. “News can break at any time of day.” Her rapid promotion has meant some of her career goals have been met early. She’s still contemplating her long-term objectives. “I’m still kind of learning this whole world and I’m still pretty young. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do next,” she said. Bill Shea

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s

TAYLOR

NELSON Executive programs coordinator, Mayor Mike Duggan’s office

A key part of Detroit’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, she works with landlords and housing groups to resettle refugees in Detroit.

Taylor Nelson is helping manage the flood of refugees resettling in Michigan, finding homes and pairing immigrants with vital city services. She is implementing Detroit’s Office of Immigrant Affairs’ refugee housing efforts, tasked with a goal of helping resettle at least 50 families a year in Detroit for the next three years. “Being instrumental in really helping to change someone’s life for the better, even in a really small way, is just really transformational,” Nelson said. The native Detroiter was teaching in France and Atlanta before coming home in late 2014 and being hired to work for Mayor Mike Duggan. She is a key part of Duggan’s community engagement efforts, a role that blossomed in September

SAM SURNOW | 29 | For Sam Surnow, the past 15 months have been about getting his houses in order: First, helping guide his family following the tragic death of his father, the developer Jeff Surnow; and then, getting a grasp of the complexities of his father’s real estate firm, The Surnow Co.

But now the 29-year-old new company president will turn his attention to other people’s houses. More than a year after purchasing the First Church of Christ Scientist building at 191 N. Chester St. in downtown Birmingham, Surnow is planning to turn the property into

when the mayor created the immigrant affairs office. Nelson, who received her bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Michigan and a teaching certificate from Georgia State University, is working with local landlords and building partnerships with housing groups to find shelter for refugees. The refugees, largely from the Middle East, are being settled across the city. “What we want to do is make sure that not just specific neighborhoods are capable of welcoming refugees, but that all neighborhoods are hubs and welcoming environments that can support refugees,” she said. “And just making sure that proper social service and resources are available to support, not just refugees, but native Detroiters.

“It’s really rewarding, providing people with access and an increased opportunity,” Nelson added. “We’re really connecting them with existing resources.” Nelson credited Duggan for creating the immigrant affairs office and Fayrouz Saad, the director of immigrant affairs, for leading the city’s resettlement efforts. “It’s one thing to speak about refugees or watch the news or to do all this work, but it’s another thing when you meet a family and realize all the trauma they have gone through and the fact they are still living, surviving; and you see the resilience and how grateful they are just to be here,” Nelson said. Robert Snell

President, The Surnow Co.

The tragic death of his dad pushed him into the top spot at his family’s company, but the buzz surrounding the $100 million Royal Oak City Center development is all his own.

about 15 high-end condominiums in a project he roughly estimated at $15 million to $20 million. Construction is expected to begin next year. But it’s been this year that’s been particularly significant for Surnow, a University of Colorado graduate and former senior associate for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in New

York City. This spring, The Surnow Co. and Lansing-based developer Boji Group announced a $100 million plan to build a new 190,000-squarefoot building on the site at 11 Mile Road east of Main Street that is expected to house Royal Oak government operations in 30,000 square feet. Dubbed the Royal Oak City Center project, the plan is also to build a park with an amphitheater and playground, and a new Royal Oak Police Department headquarters on the site. In addition, construction is ex-

| 26 |

pected to be complete in October on the David Wachler & Sons jeweler building in Birmingham, to be renamed the Woodward Building following its $7 million redevelopment with office and retail space. None of that was set in stone when Surnow assumed the helm of his father’s company. But since then, Surnow and his younger brother, Max, have put their touches on the company, making major advances in projects that were in limbo after their father died — and bringing them closer to the finish line. Kirk Pinho

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

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20 IN THEIR 20s

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ERIC | 28 | MARCUS | 29 | THOMAS BURRELL Senior partners, Saga Marketing LLC, Detroit

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When Eric Thomas and Marcus Finance Network Conference, City of Burrell split from their business Detroit and the Children’s Hospital of partner in March 2015, they needed Michigan Foundation. But it was their work on the Park to create a new marketing agency — five full-time employees and 19 Detroit campaign that solidified the contractors were depending on importance of storytelling for the them. While it was a stressful time, duo. “The people in charge of the app the duo took the opportunity to build what they believe the business for the parking meter change were world really needs: Saga, a storytell- also doing the website,” Thomas ing agency. said. “The problem was that the Thomas and Burrell met eight website did not tell the story. So a years ago at Black Expo at Cobo Center. When they reflected back on their When the city needed to tell the story of its new most successful cam- parking meter system, it reached out to these two paigns, they discovered storytellers. Next up, they’re tasked with telling the the common thread of story of Detroit’s 1967 riots. They work together as storytelling. a team, so together they take one spot on our list. Thomas met with executives and creative directors at large marketing agencies, week before launch, we got the call including Campbell Ewald, Team De- to do the website — the message, troit and Global Design at GM, to learn photos, design, everything. It was a how to best approach their new pretty cool experience.” business. That research paid off: The next big project, “Detroit Saga has generated nearly $250,000 1967,” is for the Detroit Historical Sowith 19 contracts. Its founders ex- ciety as it prepares to mark the pect to double those figures in 2016. 50-year anniversary of the riots. For Saga’s future, Burrell is optiThomas and Burrell are now the ones being consulted as storytelling mistic. “I’m happy where we are and experts, speaking at national con- excited about the opportunities that ferences for the Industrial Designers have come to us in the past year. Society of America and The Black Looks like we’ll be here for a while.” Women’s Expo in Chicago, and sellBurrell also knows where they ing out local workshops. will be each Friday afternoon. And “It’s positioned our firm in an in- that’s another story. teresting place,” Burrell said. “We’ve The agency celebrates the end of got something here.” each week with a steak lunch, Clients include UAW-Ford, Greater cooked in a broiler in their downDetroit Area Health Council, Cabrini town office. They’ve had up to 35 Clinic, Black United Fund of Michigan, join them for the drop-in lunch; the Story Worldwide, Cornerstone storytelling is, as expected, great. Schools Association, the Opportunity

Laura Cassar

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s

ERIC

SCHWARTZ | 29 |

Assistant professor, University of Michigan Ross School of Business

If Eric Schwartz asks, “What’s interested in the future by lookyour guilty pleasure?” he’s proba- ing at tickets they bought in the bly referring to your TV viewing past, even if those tickets were habits. for seemingly disparate events, One of his big areas of re- such as a Wynton Marsalis consearch these days is that of “binge cert and an experimental dance watching,” the act of gorging performance. one’s self on a TV series. The pheHe describes his work as that nomenon has come to mark the of “quantitative literacy” — era of Netflix and Amazon, and translating these new possibilipromises to be an area of intense ties so organizations can underinterest to advertisers and mar- stand and use them. “That part keters in the years ahead. of the job is something I really That suits Schwartz perfectly. value and take pride and get joy He’s an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Using what he calls “quantitative literacy,” he is Business, and he studied helping future marketing execs understand the mathematics as an under- age-old question: “What do people want?” graduate. But he wanted something a little less dry than, say, accounting or engi- out of,” Schwartz said. neering on which to apply his Some of the Ann Arbor-area skills and base his career. He startups he’s worked with are went into marketing, studying Wisely Inc. and Companion LLC, as such things as the behavior of well as entrepreneurial support consumers and effectiveness of organizations Spark and UM’s Desai Accelerator. digital ad campaigns. Schwartz also is advising a Schwartz chose a good time to do this. Data science and analyt- UM team that’s using smartics have entered a new era as phone technology to gather and powerful computing technology analyze lead-contaminated water data in Flint. The project, has entered the game. This convergence is allowing funded with a $150,000 grant businesses and nonprofits to from Google, aims to predict arbetter understand what custom- eas more likely to have been coners and audiences want, and also taminated. Schwartz has taught more to predict behavior. Schwartz has worked with the University than 500 undergraduate stuMusical Society to predict what dents. Gary Anglebrandt concert ticket buyers might be

AMANDA PERLAKY McGREGOR | 28 | Manager of driver recruiting, United Road Services Truck driving has some romance to it — scenes of trekking across the country, donning a trucker cap and heading off into the sunset with a load of cargo. But for the most part,

Perlaky McGregor in 2014. The company wanted to replace its outsourced recruiting vendors with a newly built in-house team. The company had just doubled in size after acquiring a competitor, growing the number She’s found a way to make truck-driving cool, of trucking terminals to 75 hiring more than 800 haulers since taking over nationwide, but all the rerecruiting for the company two years ago. cruiting was to be done from Romulus. Perlaky McGregor was it isn’t considered cool. charged with building this team. Her Like many industries that de- first task was to recruit the recruiters. pend on skilled labor, the trucking She hired four in the first year and world is having a hard time recruit- now has a team of seven, including ing young people. Looking to herself. They hire drivers at a clip of change that, United Road Services about 40 a month and have hired Inc. in Romulus sought out Amanda more than 800 since they began.

“The in-house team is a very young department, which is not typical for transportation,” Perlaky McGregor said. She and her team travel the country, visiting job fairs, universities and vocational schools. They have hired from 28 schools across the country. “We now have people on a waiting list. Most of those students are very young,” she said. CEO Kathleen McCann credits Perlaky McGregor with increasing hiring and reducing turnover through smarter hiring decisions and by being “a super ambassador” at meetings with schools and at job fairs. Perlaky McGregor keeps an eye on the future by grooming people

for higher roles. One has been promoted to a management position, and Perlaky McGregor sees herself moving up the ladder too. This all might seem an unusual path for someone who studied communications and psychology at Walsh University in North Canton,

Ohio. But her family has a background in transportation, and she knows an opportunity when she sees one. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s not a field that’s going away by any means,” she said. Gary Anglebrandt

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s

DAVID | 29 | BERMAN Founder and partner, Lorient Capital LLC

Lorient Capital LLC is a new firm in downtown Birmingham that acts as both a private equity investor to acquire established companies and as a venture capital investor in startups, with plans to make a big local impact, thanks to its $250 million in committed capital. Lorient is a family office, its money coming from co-founder and managing partner Mark Mitchell, who sold his majority interest in U.S. Medical Management, a Troy-based home care company he founded in 1993, to St. Louis-based Centene Corp. for $200 million. Berman, who began his career in 2009 as an investment banker at J.P.

As a banker, he orchestrated the $200 million sale of a local medical firm, then was recruited to be its vice president. Now, he’s advising medical-tech firms through a new investment business with $250 million in committed capital.

Morgan Chase & Co. in New York, was the investment banker at Chicago-based B.C. Ziegler & Co. who helped Mitchell negotiate the sale. Mitchell, who remained CEO at U.S. Medical, was so impressed with Berman that he recruited him to join his management team as vice president of strategy. Both left U.S. Medical last June and founded Lorient in August. Among its first local investments was $3.3 million for First Sense Medical LLC, a Pontiac-based company that hopes to use infrared thermal imaging to detect breast cancer earlier and more reliably than mammography. “I have spent my entire career advising and operating early-stage and middle-market companies and saw a large opportunity to build a platform to invest in and help grow these types of businesses,” Berman said. Tom Henderson

AGHOGHO

EDEVBIE | 28 |

Assistant corporation counsel, Wayne County

Aghogho Edevbie is the youngest attorney on staff of the Wayne County Department of Corporation Counsel, a position he accepted last December. But his affinity for public service began when he was even younger. Edevbie, a Detroit native and son of Nigerian immigrants who joined the county after about three years as a Butzel Long PC associate, recalls first giving thought to the mission statement “Men for Others” as a senior at University of Detroit-Jesuit High School. “That message gets really pounded into us from day one, but for me initially it was just a slogan, until as a senior I had to give a speech to the incoming freshmen in my role as student council president,” he said. “It gave me an opportunity to consider that serv-

ing others is really a responsibility.” As assistant corporation counsel at Wayne County, Edevbie oversees litigation involving the county Department of Public Services and some non-litigation matters for certain offices in the department as well. In that role, he recently negotiated an agreement with an energy company that eliminates fluctuations in the rate Wayne County pays for power in some DPS buildings — a move that could save taxpayers up to $570,000 in the fiscal year that begins July 1. The contract still awaits approval by the county board of commissioners. During his time at Butzel Long, he helped the firm prepare for deposition in a federal lawsuit against Peter Romero, a former Clinton adminis-

tration ambassador to Venezuela accused of aiding a Texas financier in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. That case in Texas netted a judgment of nearly $1 million against Romero, which was later upheld on appeal. “I was impressed with where he came from, his aspirations and accomplishments so far,” Wayne County Corporation Counsel Zenna Elhasan said of meeting Edevbie at a federal bar association function when he was a Butzel attorney. After that meeting, Edevbie said he was persistant in pursuing a position in the county office — going so far as to write a seven-page memo on how he would approach the role. He got the job.

He's the youngest attorney on staff; and in his role overseeing litigation for the county's DPS, he's saving county taxpayers money.

Chad Halcom

CARLY LI | 28 | Manager, strategy and research, Taubman Centers Inc. As manager of strategy and research for Taubman Centers Inc. (NYSE: TCO), Carly Li advises senior leadership and board members on business strategy for the retail company's U.S. and Asian investments. She joined the Bloomfield Hillsbased company as an intern in

lion in projects. She speaks three languages, making her an essential player in Taubman’s site visits to Asia with the company’s executive team, Taubman Vice President Scottie Lee said. Li also projects sales for ground-up developments in Asia and in the U.S. — Li and her team successfully rebranded Great Lakes Crossing an example is the Outlets — one of about $5 billion in projects she's advised since starting as an intern for Taubman.

2008 before hiring in full time the following year after earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan. Since then, Li has been involved in many of the company’s largest deals, touching on about $5 bil-

Mall at University Town Center in

Sarasota, Fla. — and for acquisitions, such as the company’s purchase of the mixed-use retail and office center Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Li also does strategic analysis to help existing properties grow. She worked with a cross-company

team to redevelop and rebrand Great Lakes Crossing Outlets, which initially had a bit of an identity crisis, offering regular and outlet retailers and merchandise. Since 2009, when she recommended the Auburn Hills center shift to a clear identity as an outlet center, mall tenant sales have nearly doubled and net operating income has increased significantly, creating an asset value of more than $100 million for the property. She also provides analyses to senior management to help them secure approval from the company’s board and investors for projects such as the $500 million redevelopment of upscale mall Beverly Center in Los Angeles. Li is also the author of the Chinese bestselling time manage-

ment book 72 Hours a Day, which was published in Mandarin for young professionals in China, and a second book on personal finance set to be released later this year in China. Sherri Welch

“H sect men offic clien with com said In boa Sou you profi “T we’r men and of th sub tack hop so w gion

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s

BALQIS

ELHADDI

| 28 |

ANDREW CHMIELEWSKI | 28 | Co-founder, Mitten Crate LLC; founder and CEO, Dave’s Sweet Tooth

The toffee business employs 12 and is projected to surpass $500,000 in sales this year. (A May 5 TV appearance on "Good Morning America" resulted in 3,200 orders and more than $120,000 in revenue in one day.) One thing Chmielewski learned with Dave’s Sweet Tooth is that the best way to sell a product is by getting people to try it. This led to the launch of Mitten Crate, a subscription box comAs a food artisan, he identified one challenge in growing pany highlighting food his business: He needed to find a way to get his product products from Michiin the hands of more foodies. That’s how his purely gan. Each month, five to Michigan subscription food box company was born. six local food products are selected and sent to subscribers across the toffee as gifts started placing or- country. Each box is $35. “The food scene in Michigan is ders. Chmielewski, who was attending Oakland University, realized: such a cool place to be, and Mitten “I don’t need a degree; I have a Crate taps into that,” Chmielewski product.” said. With an initial investment of Since its inception in 2013, $10,000 in 2010, Chmielewski membership has grown from 52 launched Dave’s Sweet Tooth, mak- subscribers to more than 1,500. ing the toffee in his dad’s kitchen What started with less than a $1,000 and selling the product at local upfront investment will break the craft shows. Dave’s Sweet Tooth has $500,000 mark this year. grown to a 5,000-square-foot manMitten Crate donates $1 for evufacturing facility in Harrison ery box sold to Gleaners Community Township and sales in more than Food Bank; so far, this donation has 2,000 stores in 14 states including purchased 100,000 meals for peoWhole Foods Market, Busch’s Fresh ple in need in Southeast Michigan. Food Market and Fresh Thyme Market. Laura Cassar Andrew Chmielewski knew he didn’t so much want a business degree as he wanted a business. And the perfect product was waiting for him in his dad’s kitchen. Chmielewski’s father (and his product’s namesake, Dave) is a retired Detroit firefighter known at the station for his homemade toffee. It was such a hit that friends and family who had received the

Project manager, Henry Ford Health System

Balqis Elhaddi found that her clinical background in medical technology and laboratory services fit in nicely as project manager for Henry Ford Health System’s new QuickCare medical clinic in downtown Detroit. Facing a July deadline to open Henry Ford’s first walk-in clinic, located at Her background in medical the historic Grinnell technology and lab services Building at 1515 Woodhelped develop the hospital ward Ave., Elhaddi closely system’s first urgent care managed the construcclinic in downtown Detroit, tion team that was buildand it’s designed for ing a 2,000-square-foot clinic in a space unused millennials like herself. for years. On a tight five-month schedule, she used wily negotiating skills to strike deals for parking with nearby businesses. She also implemented point-of-care testing and worked with Henry Ford’s information technology department to bring telemedicine to the clinic that links patients with off-site doctors in Novi. Hired by Henry Ford five years ago to work in clinical labs, Elhaddi also has managed projects involving Henry Ford’s outpatient walk-in blood testing labs and centralized prescription renewals. At QuickCare, which Henry Ford is looking to expand in more locations, Elhaddi developed a new hiring and pricing structure. She oversaw the implementation of an online reservation tool that allows

patients to self-schedule a visit that holds their spot in line. A text reminds patients of their visit time and resets the time if there are delays at the clinic, allowing patients to go about their business until they are ready to be seen. “(We developed) a transparent pricing system for those with no insurance or high deductibles,” said Elhaddi. “This was a great opportunity because it allowed me to work on a model that the system had not used before and was appealing because it was designed for millennials like myself.” The clinic is staffed by a nurse practitioner and six other employees. Elhaddi said QuickCare will add more services that patients are requesting, including midwife services and dermatology telemedicine consults. Jay Greene

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s Executive director, Hazel Park Promise Zone Authority

| 25 | KAYLA

RONEY SMITH

When students in Hazel Park receive a decision letter in the mail from their college of choice, they call Kayla Roney Smith while they open it. Since 2013, Smith has been helping students and families navigate the various applications, systems (and potenShe is tial roadblocks) that bring them to creating a the point of receiving that letter — college-going no easy feat in a community where culture in most students will be the first in Hazel Park. their family to attend college. This navigation is the mission of the Hazel Park Promise Zone Authority, the nonprofit that Smith leads. The mission of the promise zone is this: if you live in the city and graduate from its high school, you are guaranteed a tuition-free associate’s degree. Like other promise zones - the Kalamazoo Promise being perhaps the most well-known in Michigan - it’s designed to boost educational attainment and incentivize families to move to a city. Last year, 20 families cited the program as a reason they moved into

Hazel Park, said City Manager Edward Klobucher. “She is bringing order to chaos,” he said. In the past three years, scholarships to Hazel Park students have more than doubled to $1.5 million annually, ACT scores have increased and the percentage of students submitting a Free Application for Federal Student Aid — a key college-going indicator — increased from 55 percent to 80 percent. Perhaps most significant: The school district has moved from the fifth to 85th percentile of the state’s top-to-bottom rankings. “Teachers and community members who have been here for years tell me that students and parents are inquiring about and discussing college more than ever before, and the impact has been clear through our data,” she said. Smith grew up in Gaylord but was drawn to metro Detroit in part because of her family tree: she’s the great-granddaughter of former Detroit Mayor Frank Couzens (and great-great-granddaughter of former Detroit Mayor James Couzens). Kristin Bull

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MESHAWNE JOHNSON | 25 | Change control manager, Detroit Chassis LLC MeShawne Johnson didn’t plan a career in the auto industry, but she finds herself on the fast track, adeptly handling goals and standards that are saving her auto supShe fell into a career of problem-solving for the auto industry, where her employer calls her a “breath of fresh air.”

plier employer money and helping it operate more efficiently. The 25-year-old Southfield resident double majored in criminal justice and psychology at Northern Michigan University. She has found her degree helpful in giving her the ability to problem-solve and "think outside the box." After stints at Dakkota Integrated Systems and Ciber Inc., a company that supplies Ford Motor Co. with contractors, she was recruited last August by Detroit-based Detroit Chassis LLC for an operations coordinator position. After three months, she was bumped up to change control manager. Under her leadership, the company has implemented a lean, continuous improvement process that has resulted in a 75 percent decrease in scrap materials, a 50 percent reduction in production downtime, and $350,000 in cost recovery. Detroit Chassis owner Carlton Guthrie thinks Johnson is a standout as a young woman in a primarily older, male work environment. "She is working with older people who have difficulty with new technology, and some have difficulty communicating," he said. "I had an issue where my staff was not understanding some of the metrics I was asking for. She came into my office and said 'Explain to me what you want, and I can find a way to explain it to them.' She is a breath of fresh air." Marti Benedetti

C R A I N â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

20 IN THEIR 20s

ETRIT DEMAJ | 27 | COO, Hepta Control Systems

It was the morning after his 10th birthday that Etrit Demaj left behind everything he knew. It was 1999. He and his family were in Kosovo and the bombs and the guns and the soldiers walking through his hometown meant an ethnic war was escalating. That morning, his mom looked him in the eyes and told him she had sewn money into the waist of the jeans he was He makes buildings wearing and if they were smarter â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including to be separated â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if those owned by Dan something unthinkable were to happen to her or Gilbert. But his story to his dad or his older begins with a journey brother â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he should for survival. keep the money hidden and use it to travel as far toward the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s border as he could. His family survived the evacuation; their journey took three months. Eventually, they settled in Southeast Michigan â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Rochester Hills, specifically â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and from all of that Demaj learned never to take freedom, or opportunity, for granted.

smart building technology. Demaj is in the business of making buildings smarter â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from the heating and cooling to the lighting to the window shades. Heptaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest client is Dan Gilbertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bedrock Real Estate Services, an account Demaj oversees. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I hired him at a young age because I have always put a lot of faith in the young and hungry; I also wanted the company to grow more as a family,â&#x20AC;? said Hepta President Ted Houck. Since Demaj joined the company last year, Hepta sales have grown by 300 percent and employees have more than doubled from 18 to 40. Demaj is also busy growing an online residential real estate service he launched last year. Called Reozom.com, it works like a virtual listing agent; Demaj said his goal is to make buying or selling a home as easy as posting on social media. The service has listed 1,000 homes and has been used by over 1,200 agents. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on pace to double last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $130,000 in revenue. Kristin Bull

ITY

ALICIA DECKER | 29 | Vice president of operations, Centria Healthcare

Alicia Decker recently took a call from a happy customer; in the business world, sometimes satisfied customers make it all worth it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This one was a parent who said their 6-year-old said his first word last week and it was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mom,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? She saw a Decker said. business Decker is vice opportunity in president of opin-home autism erations for Centria Healthcare, a therapy; it grew Novi-based her business â&#x20AC;&#x201D; home health and grew into a care provider. passion for She joined the helping families. company in 2013. One year into the job, she learned about insurance reform that allowed for Medicaid and private insurance to fund a specific type of in-home behavior therapy, called Applied Behavior Analysis, for children with autism. Decker saw this as a business opportunity for Centria, which specialized in pediatric home care

Today, Demaj runs the daily operations of

Hepta Systems, a Detroit-based manager of

nursing. But the more she learned, the more she became personally motivated by families' need for this type of service. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My passion developed when I started digging into this. I talked to families and heard great things about ABA. At the time, families were experiencing wait lists ranging from months to years to get into therapy, and I knew I needed to act quickly to resolve this problem,â&#x20AC;? said Decker, who took on every aspect of the project, from hiring therapists to the logistics of reaching out to families. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I didn't want another family waiting.â&#x20AC;? She grew the client list from three to almost 800 in two years. A year ago, autism services was about 10 percent of Centria's business. Today, it's grown to 45 percent. Almost 950 have been hired in Michigan because of the added service. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s built a program that is changing lives,â&#x20AC;? said CEO Scott Barry.

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

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20 IN THEIR 20s

MICHAEL KABCENELL | 29 |

Director, strategic initiatives and business development, Penske Automotive Group Michael Kabcenell has the makings of a lifelong company man. He started working at Penske Automotive Group while attending the University of Michigan, having cold-called the company in search of an internship, although the company hadn’t announced He found a way to any. He’s a self-described “car make sense of online nut,” and working for an autocar-buying, generating motive dealership company appealed to him. almost $10 million for Penske offered him a job the auto dealership out of school and put him in a company. formal management training program. He studied the company’s finance and insurance business, which allows dealerships to make money by getting financing and insurance for customers. He noticed things like how better-performing competitors had separate teams designated to F&I, whereas Penske lumped it into sales. He made 10 recommendations to improve operations, and eight of them were accepted. This led to 28 percent improved F&I per-vehicle profit and more than $150 million in profits. His current project is to develop better online sales tools. Automotive retail is “late to the game” in this regard, he said, in part because there are so many other parties — lenders, manufacturers, government agencies — involved in car sales, and also because the industry remains unconsolidated, with dealers typically using third-party tools and widgets. Kab-

cenell helped streamline the process for Penske, and now its customers can nearly complete a deal before setting foot in the dealership. The result? More than 3,200 cars sold, $105 million in revenue and $9.6 million in gross profits. It’s been “one of Penske’s most successful projects in recent times,” said Terri Mulcahey, executive vice president at Penske. Kabcenell, who drives a 2016 Mercedes C300, said he eventually would like to work his way into top management. Gary Anglebrandt

BRIAN

RUDOLPH | 25 |

CEO, Banza

Brian Rudolph didn’t set out to revolutionize pasta. A finance major from Emory University, Rudolph had a desire to eat gluten-free and a certain fearlessness in the kitchen. But when one of his culinary experiments — chickpea pasta — was so well-received by friends, family and even one of Rudolph’s bosses, Rudolph realized his passion could be his profession. He launched Banza, his chickpea pasta company, in August 2014. “We believe we can change the pasta category forever, for the better,” Rudolph said. Banza was recognized by Time magazine as one of the Top 25 In-

His gluten-free chickpea pasta has grown from an Eastern Market table to almost 2,500 stores nationwide and will soon take on macaroni and cheese with new product offerings next month.

ventions of 2015. Other recent recognitions include the $500,000 grand prize at Accelerate Michigan Innovation, a $100,000 prize from the Innovation Fund and being named an Endeavor Entrepreneur by a panel of international business experts. (Not bad for a numbers guy who says he only ate four foods as a kid.) In the past year, Banza has gone from two to 2,300 retail stores. That

number will grow again as Banza was recently rolled out in Target stores. Banza’s product line is expanding too: The company will introduce four kinds of macaroni and cheese next month. A New York native who moved to Detroit as part of the Venture for America fellowship program, Rudolph works to give back to his new hometown. Banza donated 3,000 pounds of pasta to Forgotten Harvest’s food bank. It also works with Detroit Food Academy to teach students about the food business and employ them in paid internships at Eastern Market where it sells its pasta.

Laura Cassar

C R A I N â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

TYSON

GERSH

Founder and president, Michigan Urban Farming Initiative Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all been incremental for Tyson Gersh, founder and president of the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, a volunteer-based farm in Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North End. Over the past five years, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s led 8,000 volunteers to produce 50,000 pounds of food, feeding over 2,000 individual city households. And heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nowhere He's turned two near done. square blocks in Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North End has benefited from about $4 End into a model million in investfor urban farming, ments because of with 5,000 the farm, accordpounds of food ing to Gershâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calproduced over the culations, based past five years. on surveys with The farm is property owners expanding, with a in the area. community It all started as kitchen and a pet project: farm-to-table Gersh thought he would grow a restaurant all part small community of the plan. garden to help feed the hungry. That single plot of land has grown, not only in physical size, but in ideology. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The role of MUFI is not simply to use vacant land to feed food-insecure individuals, but rather to position itself as a driving force in rethinking how urban

20 IN THEIR 20s

| 26 |

spaces are developed and to model the many ways that urban agriculture adds value to modern urban spaces,â&#x20AC;? Gersh said. Now, in addition to 300 crops, the farm features nearly a dozen offshoot projects, including a public composting toilet, an offgrid shipping container home designed as a cost-competitive pilot for repurposing blighted housing stock, and a retention pond made from the foundation of a blighted home that supplies an off-grid automated drip-line irrigation system to the adjacent farm. Most of these projects came from necessity. The retention pond was inspired by the need for a water source for the farm. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was saying what we really needed was something like a big, empty pool and right there in front of me is the basement of a demolished house â&#x20AC;&#x201D; basically, a big, empty pool,â&#x20AC;? Gersh said. Not only does the farm now have a water source, the pond is part of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blue infrastructure, reducing the strain on the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water system. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Two-thirds of the cost of demolition for a house is removing the foundation and utility lines,â&#x20AC;? Gersh said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;By converting that

space and repurposing it, you are adding value to the neighborhood and saving the city money.â&#x20AC;? Next up for Gersh and the farm is a community resource center. Formerly an apartment complex, the center will include administrative offices, educational classrooms and a community kitchen. A future buildout will house a for-profit farm-to-table restaurant. Either way, Gersh is excited to try. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You cannot be afraid of failure; thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how innovation works.â&#x20AC;?

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Design release engineer, General Motors Co. | Founder, Black Young Professionals of Metro Detroit

Darvell Powell is a problem solver. A recent transplant to Detroit from Kentucky, Powell has already made a name for himself. As a design release engineer at General Motors Co., a job heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s held since May 2015, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saved the He found and fixed automakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proverbial bacon more than once. Months into a a problem on the new model-year production, auto assembly Powell identified a part and proline, and then, cess working on an outdated separately, found specification, one that could be and fixed a costly to the automaker in a problem with time of crippling recalls. networking among Working the issue all the way his peers in the up to Mark Reuss, GMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presicommunity. dent of its North American operations, Powell was able to determine that the outdated process didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t present safety or durability issues, so the automaker began fixing the parts as the cars came in for service. He also negotiated an alternative design for a part after a supplier upped its rate from $900,000 to $3 million. The part is now made at a GM plant and automated, thanks to Powellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inventiveness. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not only his day job in which Powell shines. After moving to Detroit, Powell noticed a lack of congruity among the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s black professionals across

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'((3 5(6285&(6 '((3 5(/$7,216+,36 Developing customized investment strategies is a continuum. We are honored to serve our clients. industries, especially those under 45. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coming from Kentucky, I was looking to find more people I could identify with,â&#x20AC;? Powell said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was definitely difficult. After asking around, I was directed to a chat room. That wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t acceptable.â&#x20AC;? Powell founded an organization called Black Young Professionals of Metro Detroit, which already has roughly 400 members since its founding last July. The group has incorporated as a nonprofit and is applying for 501(c) status, Powell said. The group meets twice a month for networking and sponsors a community event once a quarter, he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve found there are young people that are black and in this community that can grow personally and dedicate their time to helping out the rest of this community,â&#x20AC;? Powell said. Dustin Walsh

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

CALENDAR TUESDAY MAY 24

Starting Up: An Introduction to the Entrepreneurial Support Ecosystem in Michigan. 9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m.

Macomb-Oakland University Incubator. Explores several state resources to help start and/or grow a high-tech innovation. Items for discussion include business incubators, SmartZones, support services, university technology acceleration and commercialization and funding programs. Mark Ignash, the incubator’s client support administrator and strategist, will provide a formal presentation with a question-and-answer period. Velocity Center, Sterling Heights. Free. Contact: Joan Carleton, phone: (586) 884-9324; email: macinc@oakland.edu.

WEDNESDAY MAY 25

The Energy Renaissance — What its Price Cycles Mean to You. 11:30

a.m.-1:30 p.m. Detroit Economic Club. Ryan Lance, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, will be the guest speaker. Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit. $45 DEC members; $55 guests of DEC members; $75 nonmembers. Contact: (313) 963-8547; email: info@econclub.org.

UPCOMING EVENTS Driving Innovation and Engagement: The Role of the University Research Corridor in the Motor City. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. June 7. Detroit Economic Club. Mark Schlissel, president, University of Michigan; Lou Anna Simon, president, Michigan State University; and M. Roy Wilson, president, Wayne State University,

will be guest speakers. $45 DEC members; $55 guests of members; $75 nonmembers. Contact: (313) 963-8547; email: info@econclub.org.

The Multi-Generational Workforce.

DEALS & DETAILS CONTRACTS

SME, Dearborn, formerly the

Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the owner of TCT Group, Rapid News Publications, Cheshire, United Kingdom, announced a strategic alliance in which they will produce the annual 3-D manufacturing event starting in 2017. The new event, renamed RAPID+TCT, will combine the companies’ industry knowledge and global networks to draw industry professionals together to address the challenges of 3-D manufacturing. Websites: sme.org, rapidnews.com.

Altair Engineering Inc., Troy; RUAG Group, Bern, Switzerland; and Morf3D, El Segundo, Calif., are

working together in advancing additive manufacturing for aerospace applications, including design, analysis, building, testing and certification. Websites: altair.com, ruag.com/space, morf3d.com.

CKC Agency, Farmington Hills, a

public relations and media services firm, has added six new accounts to its roster: McLaren Oakland, Pontiac; CryoWellness USA, Farmington; Ashley Gold’s PawnChickShopping. com, Detroit; Motor City Comic Con 2016, Novi; Irrational Persistence: Seven Secrets That Turned a

Bankrupt Startup Into a $231,000,000 Business, a book by former Garden Fresh Gourmet Vice Chairman Dave Zilko; and the Southfield Nonprofit Housing Corp., Southfield. Website: ckcagency.com. Aqaba Technologies Inc., Sterling

Heights, an internet marketing agency, has been retained by Dale’s Landscaping Supply Inc., Roseville, to design the company’s new website. Also, Aqaba teamed up with Vintage House Banquet and Catering, Fraser, for pay-per-click campaign management services, and launched the newest-generation website for Cinzara LLC, Troy. Websites: aqabatech.com, daleslandscaping.com, vintagebanquetsandcatering.com, cinzara.com. FCA US LLC, Auburn Hills, and CarGurus, Cambridge, Mass., a car

shopping website, have an agreement that provides FCA US dealers an opportunity to advertise and post their certified pre-owned vehicle inventory on the CarGurus site. Websites: cargurus.com, fcanorthamerica.com.

Bankable Marketing Strategies LLC,

Detroit, an integrated marketing communications and branding agency, has contracted with the following groups to perform

11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. June 7. Automation Alley. Jason Morga, vice president of Kelly Services Americas marketing group, talks about the global phenomenon of a multigenerational workforce where four distinct generations are employed in one workplace. Automation Alley, Troy. $20 members; $40 nonmembers. Email: events@ automationalley.com; phone: (800) 427-5100. Brand Storytelling. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. June 8. Adcraft Detroit. Featuring Shinola Chief Marketing Officer Bridget Russo. College for Creative Studies, Detroit. $40 members; $50 nonmembers; $25 junior/student members. Website: adcraftdetroit.com/events. Intellectual Property Law for the Growing Business. 8:30 a.m.-10 a.m. June 14. Automation Alley. The law

has changed more in the past 10 years than ever before. Partner company Brooks Kushman PC will

advertising, marketing and hospitality events: Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Michigan chapter, Detroit; New Center Community Services, Detroit;

Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority, Detroit; and Macomb County Treasurer’s Office, Mt.

Clemens. Websites: scdaami.org, bankablemarketingstrategies.com, detroitmi.gov, newcentercmhs.org, treasurer.macombgov.org.

DTE Biomass Energy Inc., Ann Arbor, a landfill gas-to-energy company, and Pacolet Milliken Enterprises Inc., Greenville, S.C, a private family owned investment company within the energy and utility infrastructure sector, has formed Potrero Hills Energy Producers and started generating electricity from landfill gas at a facility in Suisun City, Calif., to be used by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. under a longterm purchase agreement. Websites: pacoletmilliken.com, dtepowerandindustrial.com.

EXPANSIONS Lear Corp., Southfield, a supplier of

automotive seating and electrical distribution systems, opened its new leather cutting plant in Szolnok, Hungary. The 172,222-square-foot facility will double its production space. It supplies leather parts to many premium automotive manufacturers in Europe. Website: lear.com.

Magnet Consulting, Rochester Hills,

a firm that helps businesses assess, hire, develop and train workers, has opened office space at 455 S. Livernois Road, Suite B24, Rochester Hills. Website: magnetconsulting.com.

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PEOPLE: SPOTLIGHT

John Rakolta III promoted at Walbridge Aldinger John Rakolta III has been promoted to executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Detroit construction company Walbridge Aldinger. He replaces Vince DeAngelis, who is retiring. Most recently, Rakolta III was group vice president and CFO. He is the son of John Rakolta Jr., chairman John Rakolta III and CEO of Walbridge. Rakolta III is being replaced by William McCulloch, who joins Walbridge from FSE Energy Inc., a New Orleans-area contractor. In addition, Peter Darga has been promoted to company vice president and treasurer.

Dow Corning’s Hansen to retire in Dow transition Mantese Honigman PC, Troy, which

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The chairman, CEO and president of Midland-based Dow Corning Corp. will retire after the Dow Chemical Co. assumes full control of Dow Corning on June 1. Robert “Bob” D. Hansen will stay with the company, which specializes in silicone and silicon-based technology, for several months to ensure a smooth ownership transition for the Dow Corning silicones business, according to a news release. Dow named Howard Ungerleider, vice chairman and CFO of Dow, as chairman of Dow Corning, and Mauro Gregorio, currently vice president leading the Dow Corning integration, as CEO of Dow Corning. Also, Andrew Tometich was named business president of Dow Corning’s silicones division. He has been Dow Corning’s senior vice president of silicones since 2014.

Inforum names Goodaker interim COO Cindy Goodaker, retired executive editor of Crain’s Detroit Business, has been named interim COO of Inforum, a Detroit-based professional development and networking organization for women. She succeeds Jacqueline Wiggins, who had served as Inforum’s first COO since 2012. Goodaker retired from Crain’s at the end of 2015. Wiggins left this month to join Southfield-based Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP.

LPGA FROM PAGE 3

“It’s not the one big sponsor that is that hard. It’s the 50 other sponsors at every possible level,” said Dave Richards, owner of Bloomfield Hills-based Resort & Golf Marketing. Among the most recent smaller corporate sponsors inking deals to be part of the tournament are three Ann Arbor car dealerships: Sesi Lincoln, Mini of Ann Arbor and Dunning Subaru. Sesi Motors President Joe Sesi “was one of the first people I talked to about the tournament in the early stages over a year ago,” Karbo said. Sesi Lincoln, in collaboration with the Lincoln Motor Co. brand, will have cars displayed at Travis Pointe during the tournament and is the sponsor of hole No. 17. “It reinforces to the community we’re here and we want to support events in the community,” Sesi said. Karbo said a few more late sponsors could come in just before play begins Thursday, when the Golf Channel begins its four days of live coverage. “There’s a good chance of that,” he said. “But now we’re concentrating on what we have sold. It’s about delivering on the promises we’ve made to these corporations and organizations that Keith Karbo: have supported Already looking to us.” next year’s Karbo said he tournament believes it will be easier to persuade companies to sign deals with the tournament next year after they see the Volvik Championship unfold this week. “I believe it will be less challenging because it will be reality now,” he said. “The corporate community will watch or see it on TV, an international sporting event in our backyard. It’s a wonderful economic development tool.” Another hurdle in selling sponsorships has been that the event was unveiled last fall, after many corporations already had set their 2016 marketing budgets, Karbo said. Some of those companies have committed smaller dollar amounts for the inaugural tournament with the intent of full sponsorships in 2017, he said. The major source of revenue for the tournament is the three-year sponsorship deal signed by title sponsor Volvik, the South Korean manufacturer of colored golf balls. Financial terms were not disclosed. When asked if the 2016 tournament would be profitable or break even, Karbo said that will depend on how the next several days unfold. “We need to get through the weekend, and get a good walk-up crowd. People are buying (sponsorships) right up to tournament week. People are seeing the actual build and are excited,” he said. More than 7,000 tickets have

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

May 23, 2016

Tournament facts What: Inaugural LPGA Volvik Championship Where: Travis Pointe Country Club, Ann Arbor When: May 26-29 Purse: $1.3 million Format: 72 holes Par: 72 Yardage: 6,709 Field: 144 Notable players: Lydia Ko, Michele Wie, Lexi Thompson, Paula Creamer, Inbee Park, Christie Kerr, Brittany Lincicome Tickets: Clubhouse tickets range from $20-$120; grounds tickets are free to $60. Free for active-duty and former military. Parking: $5-$15 TV: Golf Channel (May 26-27: 7-9 p.m.; May 28-29: 3-6 p.m.) Website: volviklpga.com Notes: The tournament’s philanthropic goal is to create awareness for the services offered to military families via the National Network of Depression Centers that was born out of the University of Michigan Depression Center. … Tournament organizers predict a $20 million to $30 million economic boost for the local economy. … A sponsor exemption was granted to Korean amateur champion Ayean Cho and to former Saline High School and Grand Valley State University golfer Sarah Hoffmann to play in the tournament. Hoffmann holds the women’s course record at Travis Pointe, where she’s golfed since age 5. She quit her job as a trauma nurse at the University of Michigan Health System in February to relocate to Orlando and turn professional. … Travis Pointe opened in 1977 and has hosted the PGA Northern Club Professional Championship, the Michigan Amateur Championship, the Women’s Western Amateur, the Women’s Michigan Open and several U.S. Open and U.S. Senior Open qualifiers.

“It reinforces to the community we’re here and we want to support events in the community.” Joe Sesi, President, Sesi Motors

been sold from 14 states and Canada, Karbo said. “The phones keep ringing, and the online ticket sales keep churning,” he said. “We’ve trended really well leading into the tournament.” Thousands more are expected to buy tickets at the gate, and organizers have said they expect 40,000 to attend across the tournament’s four days. “It’s mostly a general admis-

sion-type crowd,” Karbo said. Unlike the men’s PGA Tour, which doesn’t have regular stops in Michigan, the LPGA Tour finds Michigan to be fertile ground: The $2 million Meijer LPGA Classic, played at Blythefield Country Club near Grand Rapids, began two years ago, and the LPGA’s developmental tour, the Symetra Tour, has three Michigan stops. The LPGA’s new Ann Arbor tournament was born out of an idea Karbo had two years ago. He took the notion of organizing an event to a friend at the LPGA, and talks about how to make it happen started, he said. The tournament was put on the LPGA’s schedule last fall. Getting local financial backing and connections was a first step, so Karbo turned to KC Crain, executive vice president/director of corporate operations for Detroit-based Crain Communications Inc. (which owns Crain’s Detroit Business), whom he knew from the metro Detroit business community. Crain introduced him to his wife, Ashley Crain, who was captain of the golf team at Old Dominion University, has written for Golfweek, and was a competitor on the Golf Channel show “Highway 18.” She’s the Volvik Championship’s tournament chairperson. She said business interest in the tournament has been growing in recent weeks, thanks in part to increased media attention to the event and the LPGA itself. That should translate into increased corporate sponsorship participation in 2017, she said. “We’re even more excited about next year. Nobody really realized how big it is,” she said, noting that she’s been fielding a recent wave of phone calls from people and businesses that want to become involved. The handful of Volvik Championship organizers — about five, Crain said — had just eight months to get the event launched from scratch. And they’re grateful the weather has finally started to get sunny and warmer. “We’ve been doing our sun dance for the past few weeks,” she said. The first players were expected to begin arriving Sunday night after the Kingsmill Championship in Williamsburg, Va., with the rest arriving Monday. Some will be housed with local families. “Because it’s a new event, they’ll be here soon as possible to get as much practice time as possible,” said Karbo, who praised the Travis Pointe staff for having the club and grounds in shape for an LPGA tournament. “We’re ready to shine for the players and spectators.” About 630 volunteers have signed up to work the tournament, he said. Time, or lack of it, has been the primary headache, Karbo said. “The biggest challenge has simply been time. I’ve looked at the clock a few times, and it hasn’t stopped,” he said, chuckling. “This last week has been like a game show. It’s been exciting, the adrenaline is pumping. You have a specific amount of time to execute the plan.” Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626 Twitter: @Bill_Shea19

Page 21

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COMERICA FROM PAGE 1

the first quarter were well below analysts’ expectations, 30 cents below fourth-quarter earnings and down from 75 cents in the first quarter last year. n Driven by its oil-industry loan portfolio, nonperforming loans increased by 85.6 percent, from $379 million at the end of 2015 to $689 million at the end of the first quarter. n And 56 percent of its energy loans were marked as “criticized,” meaning they are at a higher risk of default. Those are short-term numbers. Longer term, since Babb took over as CEO at the start of 2002, the bank’s stock price has slid about 25 percent, compared with a 19 percent drop for the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index. In the past two years, Comerica is down more than 12 percent, while the KBW index is up slightly. With its headquarters near the Barnett Shale, one of the epicenters for the shale revolution, it is natural Comerica would lend to the industry during its boom, and natural it would now be feeling the effects of the crash. But that doesn’t mollify critics. Mike Mayo, a managing director at New York City-based CLSA Americas LLC who has covered Comerica since the early 1990s and prides himself on being an activist analyst, launched a public campaign to urge Comerica to pursue a board shakeup, management changes, a sale of the bank or some combination, and was widely quoted in a variety of financial media. He was quoted in an article on TheStreet website as scoffing at the hiring of the consulting group. “A plan to have a plan after a decade of failed plans,” he said. Mayo traveled to Texas for Comerica’s annual shareholder meeting April 26 to query Babb directly, as did many others. “As promised, large shareholders put Comerica Inc. executives on the defensive ... in what has been described as an unprecedented show of investor frustration with the Dallas-based bank’s financial performance,” wrote the Dallas Morning News. “A string of about a dozen shareholders peppered Comerica Chairman and CEO Ralph Babb at the company’s annual shareholder meeting — typically short, staid events — about his team’s plans to boost earnings. ‘I think you need to start looking at your results,’ said Chuck Griege of Blue Lion Capital. ‘The industry has to change, and you’ve got to change with it.’ ” Representatives of Fiduciary Management, the third-largest shareholder, and Invesco, the sixth-largest, criticized the bank for its performance, saying it was time to consider a sale. Jack Barnes, an analyst at New York-based Samlyn Capital, Comerica’s 13th-biggest shareholder, told Babb he was at the meeting to “demand strategic change.”

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

Michigan continues to drive Comerica’s bottom line When Comerica Inc. shocked Michigan in 2007 by announcing it was moving its headquarters to Dallas, it was explained as a way to be closer to the growing markets of California and Texas, and to be seen by Wall Street analysts and institutional investors as a major regional bank and not a Detroit/Rust Belt company. Nearly a decade later, Michigan continues to drive Comerica’s bottom line, shoring up the bank’s poor results in Texas in particular, which have faltered with the collapse of oil prices. As oil prices fell, the quality of the bank’s loans to the energy industry suffered dramatically, and net income from the state plummeted. Last year, Michigan accounted for $325 million of net income for Comerica, 36 percent of its annual total, while California accounted for $297 million and 33 percent, and Texas contributed only $79 million, or 9 percent. In 2014, Michigan's numbers were $288 million and 30 percent, with California at $274 million and 29 percent; and Texas, its oil woes starting to have an impact, at $168 million and 18 percent, down from $183 million and 20 percent the year before. Today, Comerica breaks out numbers for California, Texas and Michigan. In 2007, the year of the move, it broke out Texas, with the other regions referred to as the Midwest and Western, with Michigan and California making up the bulk of each, respectively. In 2007, the Midwest accounted for $294 million, or 40 percent, of Comerica's net income, with the Western market at $190 million and 27 percent, and Texas at $84 million and 12 percent. The recession formally began at the end of 2007, and the impact on the bank was clear by the end of 2008. That year, Michigan accounted for fully 77 percent of the bank’s net income, $205 million, as California, which was ravaged by the collapse of its booming housing market, lost $19 million. Texas provided $53 million, or 20 percent. In 2009, the collapsing auto industry showed up in Last year, each director was re-elected with at least 96 percent of the vote. Approvals were down in the 80s this year, a seemingly high number but considered something of a slap in the board’s face given that those elections are typically nearly unanimous. Babb put on a happy spin at the post-meeting press conference, saying he was pleased with the outcome. “It was in the 80s. That’s a good vote,” he said.

“Preserve the franchise” “The ex-CEO of Comerica, Gene Miller, had a mantra when it merged with Manufacturers: ‘Preserve the franchise,’ ”Mayo told Crain’s. “Almost a quarter-century later, Comerica has preserved the franchise. It is an attractive franchise, especially for its core deposits. And it’s been the type of Main Street bank that has lent to businesses that help the economy grow.” “It is a very strong franchise, very

Michigan’s performance, with net income falling to $37 million, or 26 percent, with California losing $14 million and Texas earning $40 million, or 28 percent. Things were back to normal in 2010. Michigan contributed $167 million, 34 percent of net income, with California at $131 million and 26 percent, and Texas at $70 million and 14 percent. Twice, in 2011 by $3 million and in 2013 by $18 million, California has outperformed Michigan. Texas has been a consistent third, with a peak post-recession percentage of 23 percent in 2001. Mike Mayo, an analyst and managing director at New York City-based CLSA Americas LLC, who has been sharply critical of Comerica's management, told Crain's that the bank needs to start generating significantly higher returns or take drastic measures, which he said include changing management, selling the bank “or shedding a geographic region. There’s little chance you'll get to next year’s annual meeting (in April) without this playing out. Comerica has attractive franchises, like Michigan. If it can't optimize them, someone else could.” Ralph Babb, Comerica's chairman and CEO, told Crain’s that selling off Michigan operations won't happen on his watch. “Michigan is a very important part of our overall franchise. Geographic diversity is very important to us, and one of our top strategies,” he said. “We operate one bank and have for a long time. We don't have three franchises, we have one.” When asked, with the luxury of hindsight, and seeing what has happened to the oil industry in Texas while the Michigan-based auto industry has rebounded to record levels of production, would Comerica have been better off keeping its headquarters in Detroit, Babb said: “We did what we wanted to do when we moved to Dallas,” he said. “We’ve significantly grown in Texas, we’ve grown in Michigan, and we’ve grown in California, and our goal is to continue building a stronger, more competitive bank."

high quality,” agreed John Donnelly, managing director of Grosse Pointe investment banking firm Donnelly Penman & Partners, which has a focus on financial institutions. “But its cost structure is a bit bloated.” Which is a reason, he and Mayo said, that the bank has consistently been among the least efficient of its peers, with lower returns on equity. “It hasn’t had a double-digit return on equity once in the last eight years. Not once. Clearly the low-interest-rate environment has been more difficult than expected, but its peers have gotten around that. Our view is that Comerica needs to show significantly higher returns or shed a geographic region, change management, restructure the bank or sell it,” said Mayo. Having scoffed at the bank when it announced it has engaged a consultant, Mayo nonetheless liked what he heard at the annual meeting. “Seven different times, Babb said he would consider all options. Sev-

Tom Henderson

en times. The message was, ‘Wait till you see the plan we roll out in mid-July.’ We’ll see,” he said. In fact, after the annual meeting, CLSA, Mayo’s firm, raised its target price for Comerica to $50, up from $44, and lists it as an “outperform.” Other analyst reaction was generally positive to what Babb had to say, that he has got the point that something concrete needs to be done. TheStreet Ratings gave the bank a buy rating and projected a 12-month price of $48.83; Rafferty Capital Markets LLC raised its 12-month range for the stock from $30-$39 to $33-$43; Raymond James boosted its rating from “market perform” to “outperform”; and last Thursday, Goldman Sachs upgraded it to “neutral.” Terry McEvoy, an analyst at Little Rock, Ark.-based Stephens Inc., doesn’t think there are any buyers out there for Comerica, or that it will shed any of its regions. In a report he issued on May 4, McEvoy wrote: “We feel the high-

“A string of about a dozen shareholders peppered Comerica Chairman and CEO Ralph Babb (left) at the company’s annual shareholder meeting — typically short, staid events — about his team’s plans to boost earnings.” Dallas Morning News

est-probability event is an expense reduction being announced in July,” adding that he believed in “the potential for lower expenses, greater comfort around Comerica’s energy portfolio and the embedded acceleration in earnings per share once (interest) rates rise.” Later, he told Crain’s that Comerica’s poor performance in recent years isn’t so much a case of management mistakes under Babb but its particular niche, a focus — some might call it an over-reliance — on lending to business and industry, where record-low interest rates made margins razor-thin. “It’s Comerica’s business model,” said McEvoy, describing the bank as “a one-trick pony” compared to its more diversified peers. “Investors are saying, ‘How much longer can we take this?’ But they can be too quick to push a sale. Is this the right time to sell? Are there buyers out there who will pay a fair price? I don’t think so,” he said. At this point in the cycle, more patience could be a virtue, he said. “Interest rates will rise, and that will reward them.” In fact, Babb told Crain’s that the small, quarter-point rise in interest rates late last year by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, a rise seen by many as negligible, will translate to an additional $90 million on Comerica’s bottom line this year. “So you can see how sensitive we are to interest rates. Eighty-five percent of our loans have floating rates,” he said. And with the Fed hinting at another quarter-point rise in June, another boost to the bottom line is likely. “We are one of the most interest-rate sensitive institutions because of the niche we’re in. None of us expected interest rates to be so low this long,” said Babb. Babb said he understood the frustration by institutional investors and, with help from the consultant, would review expenses and look for other sources of revenue. “We think we’ll be closer to double-digit returns even before interest rate hikes,” he said. Babb reiterated all options were on the table. “When you look at our overall returns on equity, that’s gone on a long period of time, which is why we’re doing what we’re doing.” One option that isn’t on the table? Voluntary retirement. Babb is 67. The bank requires board directors to retire at the next annual meeting after a 72nd birthday, but there is no retirement age for bank executives. “We regularly review succession plans with the board for senior executives, including myself,” Babb said. “I have no plans to retire at this point. Our team is really focused on improving results in a challenging environment. Our goal is to build a stronger, more competitive bank.” He may not have long to do that. All eyes are looking at the July calendar, and all ears will be waiting to hear what Babb and his consultants have to say then. Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337 Twitter: @TomHenderson2

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

Could Comerica look north for suitor?

Employment Litigation Experience

In Your Corner.

Is there a Bank of Montreal in Comerica Inc.’s future?

Ralph Babb, Comerica’s chairman and CEO, told analysts and angry activist shareholders at the bank’s annual meeting on April 26 that all options were on the table in an effort to improve results for what has been regarded as an underperforming public company, including selling the bank. During a teleconference call April 19, when Dallas-based Comerica reported results below analysts’ expectations, Babb said the bank had hired the Boston Consulting Group to pursue “all options” to help him decide how to best improve shareholder value, including cost-cutting, restructuring and a possible sale, and that he would announce its recommendations in July. Dick Bove, vice president of equity research at New York-based Rafferty Capital Markets LLC, who has been following Comerica for 25 years, wrote a report on the 19th that said the ideal buyer would be the Bank of Montreal, a giant bank that, despite its name, is based in Toronto. Bove told Crain’s that the reasons the Bank of Montreal would be a perfect fit include: n Given its size, with assets of $71.9 billion as of Dec. 31, it is unlikely any U.S. bank would be interested in buying Comerica, but the Bank of Montreal’s parent company, BMO Financial Group, has assets of $699 billion and could easily absorb Babb’s bank. “They have the firepower to do a large acquisition in the U.S.,” said Bove. n Canadian regulators have been encouraging Canadian banks to expand into U.S. markets. In 2010, the Bank of Montreal bought a Wisconsin bank, Marshall and Ilsley Corp., and in 1984 it bought a bank in Illinois, Harris Trust. Buying Comerica would fill in the Michigan doughnut hole between its branches in Ontario, Illinois and Wisconsin. n The Bank of Montreal has been lending to the oil industry, in western Canada, far longer and with better results than Comerica. “It has more skill sets serving that market than Comerica,” Bove said. “The Bank of Montreal has been doing this for decades, while Comerica is new to the game. Getting into the Texas market would be a coup.” n With the recent sharp drop in the value of the Canadian dollar, money the bank makes in U.S. operations becomes more valuable. “Every dollar earned in the U.S. gets magnified when it is translated into Canadian dollars,” said Bove. A spokesperson for the Bank of Montreal didn’t respond to email requests for comment. When asked if Comerica has had any discussions with other banks about a possible sale, Babb said: “We don’t discuss individual discussions that may or may not have been held.” Tom Henderson

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PLATFORM FROM PAGE 1

also looking outside of the active greater downtown to underserved and often overlooked neighborhoods where they feel they can make a difference through economic and real estate development. The three neighborhoods in the queue are: n Northwest Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brightmoor, where Cummingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation purchased five properties at

Grand River and Lahser in a Wayne County tax foreclosure auction a year and a half ago. n Islandview across from Belle Isle, where The Platform has applied to purchase a half-dozen parcels on East Grand Boulevard between Jefferson and Lafayette from the Detroit Land Bank Authority. Knoer, who has been active with the Church of the Messiah on East Grand at Lafayette, said that if the parcels are purchased, the project could include historic building restoration, multifamily development and street-level retail space, and parking. Affordable housing would also be pursued. n Around the University of Detroit Mercy, where an unspecified project is in the works. Cummings said in an interview with Crainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last week that the Brightmoor effort is an extension of the foundationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in that com-

Platformâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s principals

From left: Peter Cummings, Mike Hammon, Dietrich Knoer.

Peter Cummings is the former chairman of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra who has been active in Detroit real estate for more than a quarter century. He was a developer of Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Whole Foods Market Inc. store and the Ellington apartment development, both in Midtown. He also was responsible for the $225 million, six-year Orchestra Place project that restored Orchestra Hall, built the Orchestra Place office building, added two new music venues to the Max M. Fisher Music Center and created the Detroit School of the Arts. Dietrich Knoer, who will run the day-to-day company operations, brings a development and finance background that spans from Chicago and Atlanta with Hines Interests LP to London with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., where he was a real estate investor. He is also involved with the Church of the Messiah Housing Corp. and BLVD Harambee nonprofits in the Islandview neighborhood. Mike Hammon, principal of The Platform, has worked for Cummingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Ram Realty Services and New York City-based The Related Group, Stephen Rossâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; real estate company.

munity, where relationships and trust have been established over the years between the foundation and Brightmoor leaders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That enabled me to go into that neighborhood feeling like I had people I could rely on, talk to,â&#x20AC;? said Cum-

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mings, the son-in-law of the late Max Fisher and principal of The Platform, based in the Fisher Building. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what motivated me to buy these properties that I think are critical for the transformation of this stretch of Lahser to Grand River, at least back through the old Redford Theater, to make it a real village center that was vibrant, probably arts-oriented, and that would lift this area and, probably by extension, lift the interest in homes in the neighborhood.â&#x20AC;? Sonya Mays, CEO of the new Develop Detroit multifamily real estate development nonprofit organization focused on neighborhood investment, said Cummingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; development work in Detroit over the past 20 years proves him as a developer who has a keen ability to predict real estate trends. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you look at his Midtown work, what you see is somebody who has the ability to look 15 to 20 years out at a place where other people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see the viability just yet,â&#x20AC;? said Mays, a former senior adviser to Kevyn Orr, Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former emergency manager. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see that type of longer-term market player across Detroit neighborhoods now, but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m seeing it more and more in the places that are kind of the next logical adjacencies from downtown and Midtown,â&#x20AC;? such as the North End and Milwaukee Junction areas.

Mapping it out In green marker on a dry-erase board in its second-floor Fisher Building office, The Platformâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s planned New Center and surrounding area projects are outlined on a handdrawn map; known projects and key developments by others are in red. Details of some of The Platformâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Center, Midtown and TechTown plans are readily available. Others are still under wraps, due to negotiations and pending announcements. But in bits and pieces, a map emerges of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expected to come in and around the area surrounding the

northern end of the QLine rail line. Third and Grand is expected to include 231 apartments ranging from 500-square-foot studios to 1,100-square-foot two-bedrooms and 20,000 square feet of retail space in new construction. A 350-space parking deck is also planned. Also in the works is the planned redevelopment and new construction for Baltimore Station, the seeds of which were planted by a trio of University of Michigan graduates who came up with the first incarnation of the plan in a class with their professor, real estate developer Peter Allen. The former students â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Clarke Lewis, Dang Duong and Myles Hamby â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are all now working on the expanded project as contract employees for The Platform. As part of a class project, the students originally conceived the development as a $14 million project along the one-block stretch of retail buildings on Woodward Avenue between Baltimore and Milwaukee streets. It would have brought 48-56 new units to the market, along with retail space. Today, after taking Cummings and Knoer on as development partners, Baltimore Station is expected to cost $40 million and bring between 160 and 170 units at 6402 Woodward and 6408 Woodward, along with a nearby vacant lot currently under contract for purchase, Cummings and Knoer said. There is also the planned redevelopment of an Albert Kahn-designed building at Cass Avenue and York Street that used to be a Cadillac sales and service building and house Wayne State University criminal justice classes. About 80 residential units and other uses are planned for the 147,500-square-foot building. Cummings also said there is a planned project in Midtown but wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t discuss specifics. Outside of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main targeted development area is a 2.3-acre chunk of west riverfront land next to the Riverfront Towers that Cummings owns. He said that while the land is not part of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s official development lineup, he expects it to be in the equation. Bond insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp. received development rights for Joe Louis Arena, which is slated for demolition and to be replaced by a hotel with at least 300 rooms and standing no more than 30 stories; and a mix of office, retail, recreation and residential space, according to bankruptcy court documents. The property sits on about 9 acres. The Cummings land is next to JLA, and he said he has had conversations with FGIC and the city about the development plans. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be part of that story,â&#x20AC;? he said. But so far, the most ambitious part of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announced lineup is the Fisher and Kahn project.

Like a Rubikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cube After being the highest bidder in an online auction last summer, Cummings and Knoer, who was then chief investment officer for Southfield-based Redico LLC, started working on the underwriting, analysis and development plan. While details of the plans for the

Fisher and Kahn, which total 925,000 square feet, are still being finalized, they generally include â&#x20AC;&#x153;office, retail, residential and entertainment uses, which will require additional investment into the properties,â&#x20AC;? they said at the time. There have also been talks about hotel space in the Fisher Building. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just buy two buildings. We bought arguably the most iconic building in the city,â&#x20AC;? said Knoer, referring to the Fisher Building. And it hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been easy figuring out how to position the property, which is 635,000 square feet and which Knoer likened to a Rubikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cube. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You twist one and the colors are all different on the other side,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very complex mixed-use piece of real estate, and it just needs a lot of thinking.â&#x20AC;? Other partners in the development team along with The Platform and Redico are John Rhea, a Detroit native and managing partner of Rheal Capital Management LLC, and HFZ Capital Group, a New York Citybased real estate development firm. The Albert Kahn is expected to go almost entirely residential, Rhea has said in the past. There would be at least 150 units. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good news for Randall Fogelman, a past Crain's 40 Under 40 honoree and current managing partner of Detroit Independent Holdings, which owns three buildings totaling 18,000 square feet on West Baltimore nearby. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We definitely need more people living there. ... By having more residents there 24 hours, it can definitely improve the neighborhood.â&#x20AC;? The developers have hired M1/ DTW, a Detroit-based design firm that is â&#x20AC;&#x153;cataloging every piece of history, every sourcing of the marble, the hardware, the history of the tenants, the original brochures, what role (the Fisher) played over time, the people who were here, the tenants who were here,â&#x20AC;? Cummings said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They are doing almost an archeology.â&#x20AC;? Plans are expected to be revealed later this year. At the time the buildings were purchased last year, project costs were estimated by some at being at least $80 million. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cummings has the resources and experience to undertake large redevelopments like the Fisher and Kahn,â&#x20AC;? said Melinda Clemons, senior loan officer for the local office of Washington, D.C.-based Capital Impact Partners, a community development financial institution that has organized more than $1.9 billion in loans since its inception. While the Fisher â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sometimes known as Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest art object â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and Kahn may be the most complex of all the upcoming projects, Cummings still points to the Whole Foods as his most rewarding. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I stood at the parking lot at the opening and saw the way the community rallied to embrace that store, and subsequently saw the success of that store, I said itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a long time since Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done a real estate development that I felt that good about, where I felt the community impact was that significant.â&#x20AC;? Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

PIPES FROM PAGE 3

Another research team put the number of lead service lines at 4,300 but found 13,000 made of an unknown material that could be lead. The state has hired an engineering firm to do an inventory of the service lines connecting homes and businesses to water mains. The uncertainty about the number of lead service lines makes the value of JM Eagle’s offer hard to estimate, but it is surely substantial for a once affluent auto boomtown dogged by Rust Belt woes. Through the years, job losses led to an eroded tax base, then city debt, then emergency financial managers, then rust-colored water from a botched money-saving switch to the Flint River as a water source in 2014. Poisoned water flowed from city taps for 18 months before a pediatrician sounded alarms about elevated lead levels in newborns and the water source eventually was changed back to Lake Huron. Lead is a neurotoxin that can cause permanent health effects, such as lower IQs, delayed development and behavioral problems. “You’d think a municipality so devastated over the last 40 years would do everything they can to maximize their financial resources, and yet they are not doing it,” Radoszewski said. “Why is that?”

Beyond ‘plastophobia’ Some in the industry say there could be a bias against plastics to support the metal workers in Flint,

SALVATION ARMY FROM PAGE 3

completed the residential treatment program, which includes counseling and work therapy. Enabling the expansion of the ARC’s rehabilitation programs over the past two decades was the growth of its thrift-store network, its main source of revenue given that it operates without subsidies from The Salvation Army church. As administrator of what is now the Southeast Michigan ARC, Miller has grown its thrift-store network to 35 stores from nine, and store revenue — the main support for the ARC — to $60 million last year from $2.7 million. That makes up the bulk of its $70 million annual budget, with additional revenue coming from other

where General Motors Co. is the largest employer. Or, maybe it’s a case of plastophobia about PE pipe, even though it has been tested and certified to meet water purification standards set by NSF International and is widely used elsewhere. Radoszewski chalks the lack of follow-up on the JM Eagle offer to the “habituation factor” — a term he first heard at a conference for U.S. mayors in a discussion about what happens when municipal officials are faced with certain decisions, like choosing between a material that has made great advancements in the last 50 years and one used since ancient Egypt. “You can demonstrate until you are blue in the face that you have a superior alternative system with a lower cost and a longer service life, and they are still reluctant to make the change,” Radoszewski said. Other communities’ acceptance of PE has turned it into the No. 1 pipe material used in water systems in Europe and one that is gaining market share in the United States, where it competes against copper for service lines. There are a lot of reasons public and private utilities are modernizing their water systems with plastic, Radoszewski said. He rattled off a list of benefits: PE pipe has a 100-year service life; never rusts or leaches lead; doesn’t leak because it is fused; and is as flexible as it is durable, which means cheaper trenchless installations are possible. “You don’t tear up streets,” Radoszewski said. “You bore a hole on one end, pull the pipe through, and come sources, including a catering service launched a couple of years back to supply meals to other nonprofit programs such as Self Help Addiction Rehab in Detroit and Covenant House Michigan in Detroit. The ARC now has more than 1,600 employees, up from just 63 when Miller took the reins. The thrift chain has thrived, he said, because the proceeds are going back to benefit people who need help. “I’ve seen what God has done for the people who benefit from the money,” Miller said. “Lives have been changed drastically.” “When I see these guys or girls come across the platform to receive their completion certificates ... knowing what they were prior to the program, you talk about being happy.” As gratifying as the work has been, it’s time, said Miller, to step back. On June 26, he will retire to travel with his

INDEX TO COMPANIES

These companies have significant mention in this week’s Crain’s Detroit Business: American Red Cross of Southeastern Michigan..10

Hepta Control Systems....................................... 17

Banza......................................................................18

Lorient Capital LLC...............................................14

Black Young Professionals of Metro Detroit....19

Michigan Urban Farming Initiative....................19

Centria Healthcare .............................................. 17

Mitten Crate LLC .................................................. 15

City of Detroit ........................................................11

Penske Automotive Group .................................18

Comerica ................................................................. 1

The Platform LLC ....................................................1

Dave’s Sweet Tooth ............................................. 15

Red Arrow Partnerships........................................3

Detroit Chassis LLC .............................................16

Saga Marketing LLC ............................................. 12

Detroit Tigers........................................................10

Salvation Army Southeast Michigan ARC..........3

Develop Detroit ................................................... 24

Surnow Co. .............................................................11

General Motors.....................................................19

Taubman Centers.................................................14

Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit............ 25

United Road Services .......................................... 13

Hazel Park Promise Zone/College Access Network..16

University of Michigan......................................... 13

Henry Ford Health System.................................. 15

Wayne County Dept. of Corporation Counsel .14

up the other end. When you use trenchless installation techniques, you can save up to 40 percent of your installation cost.” Another big plus, he added: Water in plastic systems does not have to be treated with corrosion-controlling chemicals.

Plastic used nearby Flint's neighbor, the city of Burton, became the first municipality in Genesee County to use PVC pipe to replace its 1930s-era ductile iron water mains. Local officials created an alternative pipe committee to look at options for the 19-mile project that began in June 2014 and should be completed in 2019. Burton Mayor Paula Zelenko told the local newspaper that the plastic pipe would give Burton’s 29,000 residents clean and safe drinking water every time they turned on their faucets while saving taxpayers $651,000 and increasing water pressure by 25 pounds. Farther away, the massive regional water system called the Karegnondi Water Authority, which Flint will eventually draw water from, is being built with 11,000 feet of PE pipe to protect the water intake line from the zebra mussels in Lake Huron. The invasive species can’t attach to PE pipe and clog the flow. In 1989, Monroe lost its water supply for three days because of a zebra mussel infestation. After years of limited success with oxygen deprivation, filtration barriers and sonic vibration, the KWA specified polyethylene pipe by Asahi/ America. The plan is to also use a regwife. Major Larry Manzella, administrator of the Chicago Central ARC, will succeed him. Even with retirement on the horizon, Miller isn’t resting. By July, the Southeast Michigan ARC will open its 36th thrift store, its second upscale boutique, in Trenton at Van Horn Road and Fort Street. The ARC signed a 10-year lease for the building and invested about $200,000 to build it out, Miller said. Soon, it will offer designer, fashion and vintage merchandise like the boutique the ARC operates under The Salvation Army banner in Royal Oak. The 14,000-square-foot location is expected to yield $1 million in revenue its first year and create about 30 jobs, some of them filled by the ARC’s beneficiaries. The ARC offers the same sort of upscale merchandise to a lesser degree in all of its stores, he said. But given its proximity to Birmingham and other affluent communities, the Royal Oak store gets more of those sorts of donations. “With the new (Trenton) store, we expect to get similar types of donations from Grosse Ile and that area,” Miller said. It’s an approach Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit has used since re-entering the local thrift store market in 2010. “We try to target areas similar to Salvation Army to be convenient for the donor, creating a shopping environment that’s clean and organized,”

ular dosing of sodium hypochlorite to fight the zebra mussels.

Offer for Flint JM Eagle didn’t issue any press release about the offer from Wang, 51, who bought his business from his late father, Taiwanese billionaire Y.C. Wang, and built it up to estimated sales of $2.5 billion in 2015, according to Plastics News’ latest ranking. And not many people outside of the council chambers that February night would even know about it, had a local TV station not been at the meeting to cover appointments of the new police and fire chiefs. No one from the company will comment on the offer except to say it is still on the table. “We truly want to help the people of Flint. We wholeheartedly stand behind our pledge and look forward to hearing from the city,” Neal Gordon, vice president of marketing and waterworks sales, told Plastics News before declining further comment. Flint City Councilman Eric Mays said he has not received any updates about the JM Eagle offer from elected officials or city administrators. But he would like to know more about alternative pipe materials. “Is there a technical downside? What are the advantages?” Mays asked. JM Eagle reached out to the governor’s office to facilitate the meeting with city officials, according to Anna Heaton, Gov. Rick Snyder’s press secretary. Attempts to contact Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and other city officials were not returned last week. said Jeff Ukrainec, vice president of donated goods at Goodwill. In January, Goodwill opened its sixth thrift store, and first in Washtenaw County, at Carpenter and Ellsworth roads in Ypsilanti. “We’re continuing to branch out to generate revenue, to get donations and to serve the local communities … whether you need to shop there or want to shop there to find a treasure,” Ukrainec said. The majority of the ARC’s thrift stores are in Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and to a lesser degree, Wayne and Monroe counties, Miller said. The top-selling locations are in what he calls “the golden triangle.” They include its stores in Rochester Hills, which generates over $4 million in annual revenue; Utica, with $3.5 million; and Shelby Township, with revenue over $2.5 million. “These stores are only six miles apart, and that’s the kind of money they produce,” Miller said. The ARC has “trained our donors over 18 years to just drop (donations) off, and we’ve made the store locations convenient for them,” Miller said. That’s drastically reduced the number of pickups for the agency. In 2015, alone, over 250,000 donations were made at the back doors of ARC stores. “We have cornered the thrift-store market in Southeast Michigan and probably in the state. We have been doing it now, for going on 20 years,” he said. Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694 Twitter: @SherriWelch

www.crainsdetroit.com Editor-in-Chief Keith E. Crain Group Publisher Mary Kramer, (313) 446-0399 or mkramer@crain.com Editor Jennette Smith, (313) 446-1622 or jhsmith@crain.com Director, Digital Strategy, Audience Development Nancy Hanus, (313) 446-1621 or nhanus@crain.com Managing Editor Michael Lee, (313) 446-1630 or malee@crain.com Managing Editor/Custom and Special Projects Daniel Duggan, (313) 446-0414 or dduggan@crain.com Assistant Managing Editor Kristin Bull, (313) 446-1608 or kbull@crain.com News Editor Beth Reeber Valone, (313) 446-5875 or bvalone@crain.com Senior Editor Gary Piatek, (313) 446-0357 or gpiatek@crain.com Research and Data Editor Sonya Hill, (313) 446-0402 or shill@crain.com Newsroom (313) 446-0329, FAX (313) 446-1687, TIP LINE (313) 446-6766

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WEEK DeRue named UM biz school dean

niversity of Michigan regents have promoted D. Scott DeRue to dean of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. DeRue, currently associate dean for executive education and the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration, replaces Alison Davis-Blake as the ninth dean of the business school, effective July 1. Davis-Blake is returning to a faculty position after five years in the post. Also last week, regents named Patricia Hurn dean of UM’s School of Nursing. Hurn, currently vice chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Texas System, becomes dean and a nursing school professor Aug. 1. Current dean Kathleen Potempa is returning to a faculty position.

COMPANY NEWS n The bidding for internet

pioneer Yahoo Inc., which reportedly includes Detroit billionaire entrepreneur Dan Gilbert, is coming in lower than previously expected, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Bids for the internet operations are expected to be between $2 billion and $3 billion, less than previous expectations for a price tag between $4 billion and $8 billion, the report said. Reuters first reported the bid by a consortium including Gilbert, backed by financing from legendary investor Warren Buffett. n Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares Inc.

announced a five-year lending, investment and philanthropy plan for the communities it serves after it acquires Akron, Ohio-based FirstMerit Corp. The sixth-largest bank in Michigan by deposit market share, Huntington plans to fund total investments and loans of $16.1 billion to underserved borrowers and communities as well as small businesses between 2017 and 2021. n An initiative dubbed “Catapult” seeks to boost Southeast Michigan nonprofits by offering small grants, AP reported. The

Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan is inviting nonprofits with

annual budgets of less than $500,000 to apply for five grants of $7,500. A group of semifinalists will be picked to pitch their ideas to a committee. Applications are due June 1. Details are posted online at cfsem.org/initiative/catapult. n J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. plans to make new investments as part of its earlier $100 million commitment to Detroit’s economic recovery, AP reported. Initiatives include $4 million for preserving affordable housing in neighborhoods through the nonprofit Develop Detroit; $1.5 million to strengthen job training and summer youth employment; and other efforts to support small

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 6

ON THE WEB MAY 14-20

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

40 feet

The length of the former steel shipping container that is the new space for The Fountain Detroit, a restaurant and bar to open May 27 in Campus Martius park. Operated by 800 Parc LLC, the park’s new concessionaire, the 340-square-foot, 100-seat restaurant is among the first adaptive reuses of shipping containers in Detroit.

$2 million

The amount of a U.S. Labor Department grant for Grow Detroit’s Young Talent, a summer employment initiative in its second year.

$200,000

The size of a grant from the New York City-based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to the Detroit Jazz festival for live streaming of performances on its mobile app. This year’s festival is Sept. 2-5.

business growth, the banking company said. n Manufacturing supplier Zoller Inc. plans to build a new $5 million North American headquarters in Ann Arbor, where the City Council approved company plans for a nearly 45,000-square-foot building, the Ann Arbor News reported. The approved site plan proposes construction of a single-story research and sales office with a product display area and warehouse. The unit of a Germanbased parent company designs and manufactures precision tools for measuring, presetting and balancing machines. n Detroit-based Huron Capital Partners LLC announced it has partnered to make an investment in Santa Clara, Calif.-based InterVision Systems LLC, an IT services firm. Joining the deal was RLG Capital, a Utah-based firm, and other individual investors. Terms were not disclosed. InterVision provides systems architecture, engineering, sales and integration services, primarily in the western U.S. n Lathrup Village-based Michigan First Credit Union signed a corporate sponsorship deal to become the first cornerstone partner at the Little Caesars Arena under construction. The deal includes naming rights to the unique rafters-level gondola seating above the ice that is for fans and media attending Detroit Red Wings games or other events. n Fourteen local nonprofits are benefiting from nearly $250,000 in grants supporting cancer care,

youth sports and other causes in the inaugural round of funding from three permanent endowments established by the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation at the Detroit-based Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, the latter foundation announced. n A second Go! Sy Thai restaurant in Detroit, in Capitol Park, is expected to open in the fall. The 29-seat restaurant is expected to employ about 25 workers in the location in The Albert apartment development. Go! Sy Thai’s other Detroit location is in Midtown. n Cari Cucksey, host of HGTV’s “Cash & Cari,” opened her new store, RePurpose, in Holly. The vintage shop offers customers restored treasures and classes. n St. Mary Mercy Livonia received Level II trauma center verification from the American College of Surgeons, making it the 38th trauma center in Michigan. It was provisionally verified in 2014 and has since treated more than 3,000 patients with trauma injuries. n Novi-based Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc. elected longtime defense and space executive Sonya Sepahban to its board of directors.

OTHER NEWS n The Minority Business

Development Agency Business Center

in Detroit has been awarded a $310,225 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s MBDA office. Detroit is one of 21 grant recipients for a program designed to help minority-owned firms create jobs, compete in the global economy and expand. n The new professional Federal Hockey League team in St. Clair Shores unveiled its name: the Fighting Saints. The developmental league team will play its first season starting this November in the city-owned Civic Arena. n Officers with the Detroit Police Department are getting body cameras after City Council approved a $5.2 million contract for 1,500 cameras to be worn by officers and 450 in-car dash cameras, AP reported. A federal grant will pay $1 million of the cost. n New U.S. Census Bureau estimates say Detroit’s population continued to decline, knocking it off the list of the nation’s 20 most populous cities, AP reported, although its newest decline is smaller than those in other recent years. Figures released last week said Detroit’s population was 677,116 last summer, down 3,107 from 2014 and putting it 21st on the list. The bureau said the last time Detroit wasn’t in the top 20 was 1850. n Detroit is the worst of 150 cities in the country to start a career, according to a recent survey by WalletHub, an online personal finance site. This was the second year Detroit was dead last at No. 150 in the survey, which focuses on city propers and not suburbs.

RUMBLINGS Volvik champion will score new tile trophy

he winner of this week’s inaugural Volvik LPGA Championship in Ann Arbor will take home a tile trophy crafted by Motawi Tileworks in Scio Township. The 12-by-12-inch trophy tile was pressed on a 60-ton RAM press with a custom mold that weighs over 100 pounds, the company said in a statement. “After nearly a week in the drying and kiln-firing process, the tile was hand glazed using a bulb syringe, and then re-fired, which created the colorful and unique finished piece.” The tournament’s winner will be presented with the trophy after the final round on Sunday at Travis Pointe Country Club. The art tile company was founded by Nawal Motawi in 1992. “Designing this trophy was deeply challenging and satisfying. I’m really proud of it,” Motawi said in a statement. The trophy is the first for Motawi Tileworks, which specializes in handcrafted art tiles. The company will sell commemorative posters and tiles during the tournament, which begins Thursday, and the proceeds will benefit the event’s philanthropic tie-in: the services offered to military families via the

National Network of Depression Centers that was born out of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center.

Motawi’s work can be found in more than 320 galleries, showrooms and museum shops, including the National Gallery of Art and the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the company said.

Tigers foundation to give $300K for stadium complex The Detroit Tigers Foundation said it plans to give $300,000 — its largest-ever donation — to the nonprofit Detroit Police Athletic League on Monday for the youth sports organization’s $11 million multisports complex and headquarters at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, the site of the former Tiger Stadium. The charity will present the money during an on-field pregame ceremony to support PAL’s “Kids at the Corner” campaign before the 7:10 p.m. game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The grant was made possible, in part, by the fundraising efforts and generosity of several Tigers players and alumni, including Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Alan Trammell and Phil Coke, the foundation said in a statement. PAL announced in April that the complex will be named for former Tigers great Willie Horton. The new facility in the city’s

MOTAWI TILEWORKS

The winner of the Volvik LPGA Championship in Ann Arbor will take home a tile trophy crafted by Motawi Tileworks in Scio Township.

Corktown neighborhood will include a 2,500-seat stadium for baseball, softball, football, lacrosse, soccer and other sports and have dugouts, locker rooms, scoreboards and lights. The full footprint of the original Tiger Stadium diamond will be used. The 10,000-squarefoot headquarters will include PAL offices on the first floor. The second floor will be a banquet facility for up to 300 people for volunteer training and community use. The Detroit Tigers Foundation, an affiliate of Ilitch Charities, has awarded nearly $19 million in grants, college scholarships and baseball game tickets since its 2005 founding. Tiger Stadium opened in 1912 as Navin Field. The Tigers left for Comerica Park after the 1999 season; the last portion of the old ballpark was demolished in 2009.

Motor City Comic Con growing like the Hulk Holy turnstiles, Batman! This month’s Motor City Comic Con at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi set another attendance record, organizers said. About 55,000 fans of superheroes, comic books, TV shows, movies, and pop culture wandered the expo center’s 300,000-square-feet-plus during the May 13-15 event. That broke last year’s record of 50,000. In 2012, the event drew 18,000 attendees, topped with 30,000 attending a year later. In 2014, attendance hit 40,000, and the comic con required use of all the space at the venue. This year’s attendance totals were provided by the show’s media relations agency, Farmington Hills-based CKC Agency. Organizers did not provide revenue totals. While the Novi event is growing, the granddaddy of such events remains the four-day San Diego Comic Con, founded in 1970. It gets about 130,000 visitors.

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3:35 PM

GMRENCEN, INFORUM TOWER 400

TERRY BARCLAY IS REFLECTING A NEW DETROIT EDUCATOR. LEADER. CONNECTED DETROITER.

CLOSING THE GENDER GAP. Terry Barclay’s always asking, “What’s next for women?” As CEO of Michigan’s leading women’s business alliance, Inforum, she’s concerned about issues that really matter to women. Under her leadership, Inforum has more than doubled its membership, surpassing 2,200, and provides opportunities for business women to connect, forge alliances, discuss vital civic and business issues, and advance as leaders. GMRENCEN is celebrating the spirit and vision of the people of Detroit. Learn Pore at reŴectingdetroit.coP. #REFLECTINGDETROIT