Crain's Detroit Business, Oct. 2, 2017 issue by Crain's Detroit Business

OCTOBER 2 - 8, 2017

Battle lines drawn in push for auto insurance redo

New buyer aims to bring new life to Schvitz.

Hospitals, law firms oppose. Page 36

Page 3

SPECIAL REPORT

40 under 40 What brings this year’s remarkable 40s together? They’ve made big decisions and bold moves. They’ve reinvented themselves and their companies. And across a diversity of sectors, from all walks of life, they’ve tackled the region’s deepest challenges. Autonomous vehicles. Educational attainment. Regional transit. Home mortgages. Health disparities. Skilled workers. And so much more. Start reading on Page 8.

Economic development

Labor force could be key to Amazon HQ2 bid By Dustin Walsh, Chad Livengood and Kirk Pinho

On paper, Amazon Inc.’s quest for a second headquarters in North America employing 50,000 people in the next 15 years looks like an open bidding war among states that can write any check imaginable, courtesy of taxpayers. Need But what if the e-commerce giant to know wants more than  Amazon may need a talent tax-free living? Amazon’s big- pipeline more than gest business im- tax incentives pediment is la-  State is working bor. The company on a broader has 6,025 current education plan to open positions in boost computer greater Seattle science graduates alone, more than 75 percent of  Supply chain which are com- management puter science and professional may engineering jobs. play role in Amazon One former ex- bid ecutive, at least, believes the bid that delivers the best plan to expand its pipeline of computer engineers will win out among the more than 100 American and Canadian cities vying for the $5 billion investment. “(Amazon) is a black hole in Seattle for accumulating talent,” said James Thomson, partner at Seattle-based Buy Box Experts, which provides advisory services to Amazon’s third-party sellers, and former head of Amazon’s third-party seller portal. “They will ask, ‘How many engineers can you provide me access to?’” Property tax breaks and incentives for capturing the state income taxes of new employees eventually go away, Thomson said, but maintaining a steady stream of educated workers remains “Amazon’s single biggest bottleneck.” “This is not about a short-term handout,” Thomson told Crain’s. “This is about helping (Amazon) solve the problem.” SEE AMAZON, PAGE 33

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MICHIGAN BRIEFS

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

Tim Sakmar Global Network Manager, MTD

TRAVEL MICHIGAN

The Michigan Strategic Fund board approved a three-year contract for Indianapolis-based Strategic Marketing and Research Insights starting in 2018 to evaluate the Pure Michigan tourism marketing and branding campaign’s return on investment.

State hires new firm to evaluate Pure Michigan

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Michigan’s tourism division plans to hire a new company to study the effectiveness of the state’s award-winning Pure Michigan advertising campaign. The Michigan Strategic Fund board last week approved a threeyear contract for Indianapolis-based Strategic Marketing and Research Insights starting in 2018 to evaluate the tourism marketing and branding campaign’s return on investment. The Michigan Economic Development Corp. said in a memo that Strategic Marketing narrowly edged out Toronto-based Longwoods International, which has had the state contract since 2006. Strategic Marketing’s contract is worth an estimated $92,500 per year, or $277,500 in full, according to the MEDC. It is set to expire in the 2020 fiscal year, though the agreement comes with two, one-year extensions. The MEDC has hired a company to analyze the Pure Michigan campaign since it launched in 2006, with a focus on estimating its return on investment. In 2016, Longwoods’ research found, the state invested $12.9 million into the Pure Michigan ad campaign, generating 5 million trips and $1.5 billion in new visitor spending. For every $1 the state invested in the campaign, Longwoods found, Pure Michigan returned $8.33 in tax revenue when combining its reach in the region and nationally. The company surveys travelers and uses its own methodology to calculate ROI. Longwoods’ findings have elicited criticism, notably from the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which contends the numbers are inflated and questions the transparency of the firm’s modeling tool. Longwoods executives said the company’s methodology is proprietary and confidential. Travel Michigan’s request for proposals, issued this summer, specifies that the winning bidder will be expected to study the Pure Michigan campaign’s effects on the state and awareness among travelers of the

brand and the ad spots, among other things. The results are expected to be shared in March at the Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism. “Having insights into messaging and marketing efforts that are working, and what could be working better, will continue to be critical as Travel Michigan moves forward with efforts to evolve the Pure Michigan campaign,” David Lorenz, vice president of Travel Michigan, said in an emailed statement. “Research and data are the cornerstone of that strategic planning effort.”

INSIDE

Michigan-based firms support Equality Act

logg, in terms of comprehensively addressing the needs of LGBT workers within their four walls ... you’re also seeing a groundswell of support from these businesses for LGBT equality in the public square,” she said.

Michigan-based companies Dow Chemical Co., Kellogg Co. and Whirlpool Corp. are among the more than 100 businesses that are supporting the federal Equality Act, the Human Rights Campaign announced last week at the Detroit Regional Chamber. The businesses, which employ a total of 5.8 million workers, have signed on to sponsor the Washington, D.C.-based LGBT rights organization’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act, including Midland-based Dow (which recently merged with DuPont to form DowDuPont), Benton Harbor-based Whirlpool and Battle Creek-based Kellogg, according to a news release. Lawmakers reintroduced the anti-discrimination bill in May after first introducing it in 2015. The legislation would add language to existing civil rights laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public places, federal government employment, housing, education, credit and jury service. HRC officially began its campaign to recruit companies that support the Equality Act in March 2016, but some including Dow joined back when the bill was first introduced, said Deena Fidas, director of the nonprofit’s workplace equality program. The high brand recognition and international presence of the Michigan-based signatories make them a “significant” addition to the coalition, Fidas said. “You have some real leadership from Whirlpool and Dow and Kel-

CALENDAR

CLASSIFIEDS

DEALS & DETAILS

KEITH CRAIN

OPINION

OTHER VOICES

PEOPLE RON FOURNIER

32 4

RUMBLINGS

WEEK ON THE WEB

Communities awarded water system funds

Fourteen Michigan communities are getting money to improve their water and sewer systems, the Associated Press reported. The Michigan Economic Development Corp. is distributing $23.2 million in grants under an initiative established last year, the Infrastructure Capacity Enhancement grant program. It’s intended to boost economic growth and help low- and moderate-income communities upgrade public infrastructure. The recipients were chosen from among 48 applicants. They had to match at least 10 percent of the funding, which originates with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Chosen cities and towns include Adrian, Bad Axe, Grayling, Lapeer, Croswell and Hillsdale. Projects must be completed by Dec. 31, 2019.

CORRECTION A Sept. 24 column by Chad Livengood contained an incorrect reference to Detroit’s 2013 municipal bankruptcy. Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, not Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

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Legislature

Redevelopment

Amnesty plan would forgive $634 million in driver fees

Tile work on the deck of the cold-water pool indicates it was added after the main building’s construction more than a decade earlier.

By Chad Livengood clivengood@crain.com

State lawmakers are pursuing a plan to forgive $634 million in unpaid driver fees that workforce development officials say are crimping the state’s labor pool. A bipartisan seven-bill package introduced Thursday in the Michigan House would grant full amnesty to more than 300,000 motorists who owe the state Driver Responsibility Fees, wiping out the debt completely on Oct. 1, 2018. The new push to forgive the outstanding debt comes after Crain’s highlighted in Need August how the to know fees have strand Plan would ed some workers forgive $634 who have lost million in unpaid their driver’s lidriver fees censes because of the unpaid  Seven-bill fines — and can’t package get a better job to introduced pay off their Thursday debts.  Would grant full “We have too amnesty to more many people than 300,000 who are held motorists hostage because they have these huge fees and fines that weren’t paid,” said state Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, a Grand Rapids-area Republican who is crafting a package of Senate bills to be introduced next week. “I would just prefer to get that program behind us and just move on.” Driver Responsibility Fees are a state-level surcharge that former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Legislature tacked onto municipal traffic violations and fines in 2003 as the state’s budget was experiencing tax revenue shortfalls. “In my opinion, this was nothing more than a money grab by the state of Michigan to balance their budget — and they essentially did it on the backs of the working poor,” said House Speaker Tom Leonard, a DeWitt Republican who is pushing for total forgiveness of the fees. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s Workforce Development Board, a panel of mostly Detroit corporate leaders, has been advocating for a reduction or wholesale forgiveness in the fees, arguing that they’re a barrier to employers seeking help in a period of low unemployment and talent shortages. Cindy Pasky, founder and CEO of Strategic Staffing Solutions in Detroit, praised lawmakers for reconsidering the wisdom of maintaining the debt while the fees themselves are being phased out. SEE AMNESTY, PAGE 37

MUST READS OF THE WEEK

The Schvitz is a dilapidated, notorious and history-rich steam bath and club in Detroit’s North End neighborhood. PHOTOS BY NANCY DERRINGER/BRIDGE MAGAZINE

Detroit bathhouse cleans up its act By Nancy Derringer Bridge Magazine

New Schvitz owner Paddy Lynch sits on the walled patio area at the North End facility.

The first punches had yet to be thrown in the heavily hyped Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor prizefight last month when Paddy Lynch looked around his newest project and saw a glimpse of what could be. It was just a few months after he borrowed against the equity in his historic Detroit mansion and paid $160,000 cash for the Schvitz, a dilapidated, notorious and history-rich steam bath and club in the city’s North End neighborhood. Fight night was a fundraiser for its renovation, with the pay-per-view match displayed on screens on two of the club’s three levels. About 150 people paid to attend. Wearing everything from spa robes to Saturday-night heels, they

Need to know

Dilapidated, notorious steam bath in Detroit being restored 

 The Schvitz was set to reopen Sunday, though still a work in progress  Paddy Lynch bought the building for $160,000

mingled from the basement steam room to the main-floor dining room and the recently opened second-floor ballroom. “All those people, enjoying everything it has to offer,” Lynch said of the crowd. “That’s what I want for it.” The Schvitz was born in an earlier era, when hot running water was less common, and working people needed a place to get clean, relax and escape. It’s being reborn in a neighbor-

hood with many problems and much potential. Detroit’s real-estate comeback is pushing north from the central city. Lynch’s handsome house is only few blocks away, but the one across the street from the Schvitz on Oakland Avenue is burned; a nearby church is active, but with some boarded windows. The neighborhood could use some more viable businesses, but the last thing Lynch wants is to be just another yuppie gentrifier. It will be a tall order, he acknowledges. The building is nearly a century old, its plumbing not much younger, its reputation falling somewhere between colorful and infamous. It won’t be cheap; the current budget of $250,000 will do a lot, but not everything. SEE BATH, PAGE 38

Q&A with Arthur Jemison

Jemison talks jobs, new business, workforce By Kirk Pinho

Need to know

kpinho@crain.com

For the last several years, Arthur Jemison has primarily been focused on housing in Detroit — especially making sure the city’s rebound doesn’t leave behind lower-income residents. But starting in December, his portfolio will get much bigger as head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., replacing Rodrick Miller, who left earlier this year. Jemison, 47, joined the city of Detroit in 2014, previously serving as the

 Arthur Jemison to lead Detroit Economic Growth Corp.  He replaces Rodrick Miller

Arthur Jemison

He joined city of Detroit in 2014 

deputy director of the department of housing and community development in Massachusetts. Before that,

he served in various governmental roles in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Since joining Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration, he has been active in affordable housing issues and development and pursuing a U.S. Housing and Urban Development Choice Neighborhoods grant to redevelop the site of the Brewster-Douglass housing projects at Mack Avenue and I-75, among other big projects. The city lost out on the grant nearly a year ago but is getting ready to make another attempt.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spoke with Crain’s Detroit Business reporter Kirk Pinho last week about his upcoming new job. What’s going to be your main priority?

It’s going to be creating jobs in the city, both through expansion of local businesses that are here already and businesses that are joining our community. That’s the main thrust. SEE JEMISON, PAGE 37

What keeps you up at night?

Telemus acquisition adds Chicago market

Tigers will need nostalgia, gimmicks as losses mount

Ron Fournier talks to Barton Malow CEO Ryan Maibach, and learns how a high-rise could be assembled from roof down. Page 4

The wealth management firm adds $250 million with Barrington deal. Page 31

Rebuilding period will present a challenge in keeping attendance up. Page 34

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WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?

Ryan Maibach: Raising the roof, in a new way R

yan Maibach swiveled in his chair and tapped his keyboard, waving me closer. “Who doesn’t love a crane?” the president and CEO of Barton Malow Co. said as his office laptop loaded a video of an overseas construction project. And that’s when I watched conventions of construction turned upside down. Rather than build a high-rise like stacks of Legos, sending crews higher and higher with each new floor, as the RON building industry has done for decades, the overseas projFOURNIER ect is being built entirely at street level. On Maibach’s laptop, each floor was fully constructed — and even decorated — on the ground and then hoisted to the top by a lifting mechanism. Nobody builds high-rises this low. But this is what Maibach is all about — finding ways to disrupt and transform an industry that makes up for its lack of ingenuity with a general lack of accountability. Construction firms have built big things the same way for decades, often over cost and after deadline. Maibach says he’s breaking that mold. A fourth-generation builder, he runs the 10th-largest privately held company in Southeast Michigan, with 2,200 employees and $2.4 billion in revenue. Barton Malow along with two other firms, Hunt Construction Group and White Construction, were the lead contractors for the Little Caesars Arena, which opened Sept. 12. In a wide-ranging interview about his faith and business principles, I pressed Maibach for details about the on-ground engineering technology. He glanced at his public relations director, paused, and said, “We have not really publicized this yet.” Until now. (This interview is edited for length and context.) What keeps you awake at night?

With that, there is an understanding that there is a bigger picture and a broader purpose. So I would say I am not a worrier, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t have concerns or interests or the things that you want to go well.

The Maibach File Age: 43. Education: B.S., civil engineering, Purdue University. Mentor: My father. Biggest achievement: My three kids. First job: Folding clothes at The Gap. Life goal: Maximize positive impact on people.

How does your faith help you balance what you need to do to run a great business? Does it help you with perspective?

ects and community. As we build temporary jobs. But beyond that, projects they impact a community, what is it? and we are looking for projects that The interest in apprenticeships as a are a positive impact on a communi- result of Little Caesars Arena has ty — and it is more than just the use been tremendous, and I think we I would say yes, but that strikes me as 8 C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7 have invited people and given expoa little trite. It helps you provide con- of the facility. sure to a community about what an text, and there are reasons why things SPECIAL industry can offer them. happen and there is more in play Give me an example. REPORT than what you can control yourself. We are a part of the team at Little s deputy director of the Kresge Caesars Arena. What else? Foundation’s education proHow can a business be a force for The amount of community in Smith mangram,interest Caroline Altman a portfolio ofI65 grants repreLittle Caesars Arena (isagesexciting). good? So put that into context for me. The senting more than $30 million in cannot think of a day inmulti-year the last few In a variety of ways. [T]here is aDeputy direct arena is going to make you some grants. Director, Education Program, She was named relationship between people, proj- money. It’s going to create some SEE FOURNIER, PAGE 35 to the position seven years after joining the Troy-

40 under 40 CELEBRATE

I am not prone to be much of a worrier. Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of that ties to faith, and that has been a big part of my life and my family’s life for many years.

Caroline Altman Smith, 37 The Kresge Foundation

based foundation as a program officer in education and a promotion to senior program officer in 2010. The grants fund efforts around the country aimed at helping more low-income and students of color get into college and successfully graduate. Locally, the grants support initiatives including building capacity of the Detroit College Access Network, launching Wayne State’s Undergraduate Student Success Initiative and an initiative connecting academic and career pathways at Macomb Community College. “At the end of day, we’re trying to help more students graduate college. Undergraduate college degrees is our north star,” Altman Smith said. Altman Smith was also tapped in 2010 by the foundation’s president to lead a $1 million cross-departmental team focused on strengthening infrastructure for nonprofits, in addition to her regular responsibilities. Initially, the program funded nonprofit capacity building and leadership development. Two years ago, the team narrowed its focus to nonprofit leadership as its budget doubled to $2 million. After a year of surveying needs and researching capacity building service providers, the team, led by Altman Smith, re-launched the leadership development program. Currently, it has 130 grantees from around the country, including 19 Detroit-based nonprofits. The corporate world has long understood how important it is to invest in its employees’ talent and leadership development, but the nonprofit world has lagged behind, because they put every spare dollar into mission and don’t prioritize professional development for their staff, Altman Smith said. “We’re providing them money specifically to invest in their staff.” — Sherri Welch

“At the end of day, we’re trying to help more students graduate college. Undergraduate college degrees is our north star.”

few things in common: WITH CRAIN’S 40 UNDER FORTY AND whether they work in 20 IN THEIR TWENTIES HONOREES business, public service These 40 people have a

or for a nonprofit, they’re

making big decisions, Join us as we celebrate the 2017 honorees of Crain’s 40 under Forty and 20 in their Twenties.

bold moves and leading our region into the future. businesses to new heights and making decisions that put their organizations Selected by our editorialon the map. team from nominations If you want to see the state’s next generation of leaders, look no further than this celebration. to represent a diversity of businesses and backgrounds, they’ve all made a difference for Detroit.

Rub elbows with this year’s accomplished group of young professionals who are scaling

A CELEBRATION OF

CRAIN’S

4o 2o

Name

Page

Altman Smith, Caroline 8 Bazzi, Mariam 19 Benson, Jocelyn 20 Bernalostos-Boy, Juliana 8 Bishop, Adam and Jacob 9 Cobbina, Awenate 26 Connors, Brian 17 Donnelly, Graig 15 IN THEIR UNDER Farmer, Nicole 20 ROOSTERTAIL, DETROIT Faust, Harmony 9 TWENTIES FORTY Gram, Neal 9 Harrison, Clarinda 10 Hoff, Kyle 16 TITLE SPONSOR TITLE SPONSOR Hoover, Spencer 10 Hoyle, Kimberly 12 Hussain, Syed 13 Kiriluk, Quinn 27 Lambert, Chris 28 Linn, Emily 29 hen DSM Engineering Plastics Lutz, Rachel 14 wanted to open an R&D center for its North American headquarters Malcoun, Joe 11 in Troy, it picked Juliana BernalosMamou, Ed 12 tos-Boy to lead the $2.4 million projMann, Sean 21 ect. She finished it ahead of schedule. Mitchell, Dannis 14 Now, Bernalostos-Boy Interested in becoming a heads up a For more information team of research scientists and laboMorris, Eric 12 sponsor of this event? and to register, visit ratory technicians. If you are a YP who is 21-35 you qualify Nassif, Marc 23 Bernalostos-Boy is no stranger to Contact Rudy crainsdetroit.com/events 14 Lisanew for Crain’s new Young ProfessionalO’Reilly, Rebecca beginnings. She was born in Coat lrudy@crains.com or family moved to Palackdharry, Libby 24 lombia, and her Event pricing. Take advantage of Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s. Patel, Jeena call 313-446-6032. 18 30% off all qualifying events! “I like starting from scratch,” she said. Rea, John Paul 20 At different points in her career, Rogensues, Angela 23 she’s had these opportunities to “think Schram, Ryan 11 deeply about why you’re creating the organization that you’re creating and Schramm, Philipp 18 what you hope the end result will be.” LOCATION SPONSOR AUDIO SPONSOR TITLE SPONSORS MAJOR SPONSORS Shajahan, Asha 22 Now she has a similar opportunity with Suryadevara, Dhivya 22 DSM. “We are trying to transform the Tucker, Brandon 19 R&D side of the business here in the U.S., and I get to — to a large extent — Van Dyke, Peter 24 design what that should look like and Wiley, Alexis 16 then make it happen.” Williams, Her connection to DSM, a multiRick and Yolanda 27 national company with revenue of Wilson, Deidra 11 nearly 8 billion euros, began with an

THURSDAY

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Juliana Bernalostos-Boy, 32

R&T Manager, Americas, DSM Engineering Plastics Inc.

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“I’m fascinated by what we can learn from such natural materials and how we can apply these lessons to create innovative materials ourselves.”

PARTNER

internship at the company’s Materials Science Center in the Netherlands when she was working on her Ph.D. in materials science. She later worked in DSM’s corporate research group. Now, her goals include supporting the commercial team through materials science expertise and working with customers in the early-stage development of new applications. One of the things that drew her to the field of materials science initially was the idea of learning from nature. “Some natural materials — abalone shells, for example — have amazing material properties,” she explained. “I’m fascinated by what we can learn from such natural materials and how we can apply these lessons to create inPRINT SPONSOR PRINT SPONSOR novative materials ourselves.” Bernalostos-Boy appreciates that her current role lets her see beyond R&D to understand how the rest of ww 41 w.g 03 reko 53. pbusiness rinting.com • 734.4 works — such as supply the chain, customer service and finance — and “what they do to enable these scientific discoveries to come to life.” — Allison Torres Burtka TS

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

An amnesty to put people to work

tate lawmakers are poised to right a wrong, ending a $100 million-a-year tax grab that hurts the working poor and crimps Michigan’s talent pipeline. A bipartisan seven-bill package introduced in the House last week would grant a full reprieve to more than 300,000 motorists who owe $634 million in unpaid driver’s fees. This is an amnesty we support. So-called Driver Responsibility Fees amounted to a state tax that former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Legislature attached to municipal traffic violations and fines in 2003. It was an illthought prerecession budget patch that assessed fees for two consecutive years, ranging from $150 for driving on an expired license to $1,000 for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. For those who could afford the fees, the policy was a nuisance. For those without means, it has been an endless economic disaster. People who don’t pay lose their driver’s licenses and face a cascade of mounting debts that make it impossible to regain their driving privileges, which, given the region’s poor public transit, is a sentence to joblessness. “With the exception of having a felony on your record, I can think of few things that are more of an impediment to somebody finding a job than not having a driver’s license — especially the blue-collar folks,” House Speaker Tom Leonard told reporter Chad Livengood, who forced this issue back into the public square with a series of stories for Crain’s. (See his latest story on Page 3.) As many as 100,000 Michigan residents have lost their driver’s licenses because of the irresponsible state policy. Leonard, a DeWitt Republican, witnessed the burden of fees on the working poor firsthand when he was an assistant prosecutor in Genesee County. “It was nothing more than a money grab by the state of Michigan to balance their budget — and they essentially did it on the backs of the working poor,” Leonard said. The credit for this political move belongs to a group of Detroit-area business people on Mayor Mike Duggan’s Workforce Development Board. The panel sought forgiveness of the fees on grounds that they’re a barrier to employers seeking help in a period of low unemployment and talent shortages. “If you’ve got (these fees) and you’re faced with high auto insurance rates, it makes it near impossible” to get work, said Dave Meador, vice chairman of DTE Energy Co. and co-chair of the workforce board. We support legislation to hasten the end of the Driver Responsibility Fees and encourage this same coalition to set its sights next on Detroit’s outrageously high auto insurance rates.

LETTERS

Amazon bid shows mass transit gap

It’s a classic situation that most Southeast Michiganders find ourselves in: Whenever someone asks us where we’re from, we say we’re from Detroit — regardless of whether we hail from the suburbs, the city proper or anywhere in between. Our parents are from here. Their parents are from here. It’s the city WE love and represent. That’s why the spirit of Detroit runs deep in all of us. As Detroit begins to flourish, it’s time to remove the barriers to regional growth and allow our interconnected economic hub to thrive. We can begin by building a next-generation transportation system that will provide quick, easy mobility between the neighborhoods, suburbs and downtown business sector — something every other major U.S. city has accomplished. If you’ve ever traveled to another big city, like Chicago, Seattle or Washing-

ton, D.C., you’ve seen firsthand how interconnected their transportation is. With Amazon looking to invest $5 billion in a second headquarters, which could possibly bring 50,000 new jobs to Detroit, building reliable transportation has never been more important. In fact, it’s the only thing that we’re missing on Amazon’s wish list: J A metropolitan area with more than one million people? Check. J A stable and business-friendly environment? Check. J The potential to attract and retain strong technical talent? Check. J A strong university system nearby? Check. J Communities that think big and creatively? Check. J Available land for an 8 millionsquare-foot headquarters? Check. J A mass transit system for 50,000 new workers? Get back to us on that one. Our current lack of mass transit options is an opportunity to create the

most modern, interconnected design in the nation. Unlike other big cities, we’re not locked into a costly underground rail system, and we have some of the smartest minds in transportation — including the highest percentage of engineers in the country — right here in Michigan. I’ll be the first to admit that while previous mass transit plans were good, every proposal brought forward lacked two fundamental pieces: a unified system that combines our existing mass transit, and a plan to expand without saddling skeptical taxpayers with the cost. We need cooperation from the business community and taxpayers to fund a common-sense plan that works for everyone. If we’re able to solve these two elusive aspects, I believe we are well on our way toward a plan that works for everyone. State Sen. Ian Conyers D-Detroit, minority vice chair, Senate Transportation Committee

art museum and symphony and opera, to name a few, means a lot. Major professional sports teams are just another opportunity to talk about the value of having a business in Detroit. Although we care a lot about winning and losing, the teams are strong economic attractions whether they are champions or not. Certainly, a professional league soccer team would only add to the list. Professional sports teams, even when they are not winning, usually make the owners very wealthy, in ad-

dition to the prestige of owning a team. But we should not ignore the fact that having four — and perhaps someday five — teams playing within walking distance of each other is unique for economic attraction. Although any Tigers fan will be yelling, “Wait ’til next year!” plenty of cities are jealous of our baseball, football, basketball and hockey teams. That makes them great assets when we’re trying to lure businesses to Detroit.

It all adds to the economy

here are plenty of people who are not happy with the amount of money taxpayers have doled out to the owners of sports teams in our community. The objections may be understandable, but it has been that way for decades. But don’t forget: Our teams are also a huge boost to the local economy. I have no doubt that we would have a lower GDP in Southeast Michigan without our sports teams, and that includes our major college teams.

KEITH CRAIN Editor-in-chief

Even when our favorite team isn’t doing well, we cheer and look forward to the victories and champion-

ships. Even though those championships are rare, every playoff game is another boost to our economy. I have to admit that I am not a particular fan of soccer. But having a major league team in that most international sport of all would bring another economic boost — and could appeal to anyone thinking of relocating to Detroit from overseas. World-class cultural events and facilities are a great asset to our community. If you are trying to attract a global business, then having a great

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

Impending Silver Tsunami a threat to job security A s highlighted by the excellent article “Robots” in the Aug. 28 issue of Crain's Detroit Business, automation is indeed ending whole categories of jobs at a much faster rate than ever. But there’s an additional, largely ignored threat to job security nationwide: 2.34 million private businesses in the U.S. are owned by baby boomers, most of whom will retire in the next 10 to 20 years. Together these baby-boomer-owned businesses employ 24.7 million workers, and 70 to 80 percent of these business owners have no succession plan. Recent research by our organization quantifies for the first time the threat that this looming Silver Tsunami poses for the seven counties of Southeast Michigan: an astounding 400,000 jobs are at risk. Many times, the children of retiring business owners aren’t interested in taking over the family business, forcing the owner to choose between liquidating the business assets or selling it to a competitor — a competitor that may only be interested in obtaining the business’ customer list or consolidating operations out of state. In both cases, local jobs are lost. Across the U.S., cities and economic planners are taking renewed interest in a third way forward: employee ownership. New York, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Madison and Austin have each recently adopted policies supportive of employee-owned businesses, steps that can facilitate the sale of a business by its owner to its employees. While an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is perhaps the best-known form of worker ownership, ESOPs can be complex to set up and expensive to manage — a fact that unfortunately dissuades many retiring business owners from pursuing worker ownership in any of its forms. Here in Michigan, two companies have recently adopted simpler, innovative forms of worker ownership, providing models for other retiring business owners. Dr. Russell Hart, founder and managing partner of Arbor Assays, an Ann Arbor based biotech firm with 12 employees, chose to sell the business to his workers using an innovative “perpetual trust” model. On succession planning, Hart said, “The normal process is for the business to be handed on to children or to be sold to somebody else. For me this wasn’t attractive. We wanted Arbor Assays to remain an independent and successful business.” Similarly, the baby boomer founders of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, with $63 million in sales and 750 employees, recently implemented a program that allows every employee to own a share of the organization’s intellectual property company. These shares provide employees a dividend based on the profits of the entire group of 10 businesses and representation on the governing Partners Group. This action was based on the founders’ and partners’ desire to ensure the continuance of broadbased employee benefits that will survive any individual. “This is the first step in moving toward full employee participation and engage-

OTHER VOICES

Deborah Groban Olson

ment in the organization,” said co-founder Paul Saginaw. Employee-owned companies face the same profit pressures as all businesses. But for employee-owned

businesses, the quality and longevity of employment is also a primary objective. This highly personal impetus inspires workers and prompts innovation. For example, EBO Group, a 100 percent worker-owned company in Akron, Ohio, diversified, through participatory employee ownership, from mining equipment to recycling equipment and medical devices and tripled business in five years from 2003 to 2008, the end of which was the Great Recession. Employee ownership is not the only solution to anchoring jobs locally. But, the fact that employ-

ee-owned companies are four times less likely to lay off employees during a recession, are 25 percent more likely to stay in business over a 10-year period, and have 25 percent higher job growth than comparable non-employee-owned companies should prompt all of us working in economic development to consider ways employee ownership can address both the threat of extreme automation and the coming Silver Tsunami. Deborah Groban Olson is executive director of the Center for CommunityBased Enterprise in Detroit.

Many times, the children of retiring business owners aren’t interested in taking over the family business, forcing the owner to choose between liquidating the business assets or selling it to a competitor.

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SPECIAL REPORT

40 under 40

Caroline Altman Smith, 37 Deputy Director, Education Program, The Kresge Foundation “At the end of day, we’re trying to help more students graduate college. Undergraduate college degrees is our north star.”

These 42 people (including a husband-and-wife duo and a pair of brothers) have a few things in common: they’re making big decisions, bold moves and leading our region into the future. Selected by our editorial team from nominations to represent a diversity of businesses and backgrounds, they’ve all made a difference for Detroit. Name

Page

Altman Smith, Caroline 8 Bazzi, Mariam 19 Benson, Jocelyn 20 Bernalostos-Boy, Juliana 8 Bishop, Adam and Jacob 9 Cobbina, Awenate 26 Connors, Brian 17 Donnelly, Graig 15 Farmer, Nicole 20 Faust, Harmony 9 Gram, Neal 9 Harrison, Clarinda 10 Hoff, Kyle 16 Hoover, Spencer 10 Hoyle, Kimberly 12 Hussain, Syed 13 Kiriluk, Quinn 27 Lambert, Chris 28 Linn, Emily 29 Lutz, Rachel 14 Malcoun, Joe 11 Mamou, Ed 12 Mann, Sean 21 Mitchell, Dannis 14 Morris, Eric 12 Nassif, Marc 23 O’Reilly, Rebecca 14 Palackdharry, Libby 24 Patel, Jeena 18 Rea, John Paul 20 Rogensues, Angela 23 Schram, Ryan 11 Schramm, Philipp 18 Shajahan, Asha 22 Suryadevara, Dhivya 22 Tucker, Brandon 19 Van Dyke, Peter 24 Wiley, Alexis 16 Williams, Rick and Yolanda 27 Wilson, Deidra 11

s deputy director of the Kresge Foundation’s education program, Caroline Altman Smith manages a portfolio of 65 grants representing more than $30 million in multi-year grants. She was named to the position seven years after joining the Troybased foundation as a program officer in education and a promotion to senior program officer in 2010. The grants fund efforts around the country aimed at helping more low-income and students of color get into college and successfully graduate. Locally, the grants support initiatives including building capacity of the Detroit College Access Network, launching Wayne State’s Undergraduate Student Success Initiative and an initiative connecting academic and career pathways at Macomb Community College. “At the end of day, we’re trying to help more students graduate college. Undergraduate college degrees is our north star,” Altman Smith said. Altman Smith was also tapped in 2010 by the foundation’s president to lead a $1 million cross-departmental team focused on strengthening infrastructure for nonprofits, in addition to her regular responsibilities. Initially, the program funded nonprofit capacity building and leadership development. Two years ago, the team narrowed its focus to nonprofit leadership as its budget doubled to $2 million. After a year of surveying needs and researching capacity building service providers, the team, led by Altman Smith, re-launched the leadership development program. Currently, it has 130 grantees from around the country, including 19 Detroit-based nonprofits. The corporate world has long understood how important it is to invest in its employees’ talent and leadership development, but the nonprofit world has lagged behind, because they put every spare dollar into mission and don’t prioritize professional development for their staff, Altman Smith said. “We’re providing them money specifically to invest in their staff.” — Sherri Welch

Juliana Bernalostos-Boy, 32

R&T Manager, Americas, DSM Engineering Plastics Inc.

hen DSM Engineering Plastics wanted to open an R&D center for its North American headquarters in Troy, it picked Juliana Bernalostos-Boy to lead the $2.4 million project. She finished it ahead of schedule. Now, Bernalostos-Boy heads up a team of research scientists and laboratory technicians. Bernalostos-Boy is no stranger to new beginnings. She was born in Colombia, and her family moved to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s. “I like starting from scratch,” she said. At different points in her career, she’s had these opportunities to “think deeply about why you’re creating the organization that you’re creating and what you hope the end result will be.” Now she has a similar opportunity with DSM. “We are trying to transform the R&D side of the business here in the U.S., and I get to — to a large extent — design what that should look like and then make it happen.” Her connection to DSM, a multinational company with revenue of nearly 8 billion euros, began with an

“I’m fascinated by what we can learn from such natural materials and how we can apply these lessons to create innovative materials ourselves.”

internship at the company’s Materials Science Center in the Netherlands when she was working on her Ph.D. in materials science. She later worked in DSM’s corporate research group. Now, her goals include supporting the commercial team through materials science expertise and working with customers in the early-stage development of new applications. One of the things that drew her to the field of materials science initially was the idea of learning from nature. “Some natural materials — abalone shells, for example — have amazing material properties,” she explained. “I’m fascinated by what we can learn from such natural materials and how we can apply these lessons to create innovative materials ourselves.” Bernalostos-Boy appreciates that her current role lets her see beyond R&D to understand how the rest of the business works — such as supply chain, customer service and finance — and “what they do to enable these scientific discoveries to come to life.” — Allison Torres Burtka

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Adam and Jacob Bishop, 33 and 32 Co-Presidents and CEOs, Elite Mr. Alan’s

dam and Jacob Bishop go together like a pair of shoes, and the brothers’ success is tied to their father Alan Bishop’s legacy. After Adam, 33, earned a business degree from Michigan State University in 2006, the Southfield native launched high-end sneaker boutique Soles Inc. in Miami. The following year, Jacob, 32, left MSU to partner with his brother. (He finished his economics degree at University of Miami in 2008.) Five years later, the duo merged Soles with Redford Township-based Mr. Alan’s, their retired father’s namesake athletic wear store, where they grew up learning the shoe business. “[Our father] was our largest mentor and taught us a lot and he still teaches us a lot,” Jacob said. “Only thing we knew was this exclusive, cool boutique. We felt we had no choice but to apply what we knew, which was high-end, high-energy exclusive products in the athletic wear world.” As co-presidents and CEOs, the

“I think what made our dad confident in handing over his baby is he mentored us at such a young age.” Adam Bishop

Jacob Bishop

Neal Gram, 33

Michigan Market Manager, J.P. Morgan Private Bank

fter graduating from Michigan State University, Neal Gram moved to Chicago. He spent the next 11 years looking for an excuse to get back home. “I knew if I really wanted to make an impact on something, it was going to be in Detroit,” Gram said. Last year, he was asked to return to Detroit to lead the J.P. Morgan Private Bank across the state of Michigan. His first step was to build a team that was as passionate about JPMorgan and Detroit as he is. “We are a global, mobile firm. We get the right folks where they want to be,” Gram said. Part of Gram’s Michigan team is made of expats like himself. Gram leveraged internal company resources and used word of mouth to find other JPMorgan employees looking to come home and build something exciting here. “In the last few years, our Private Bank has relocated eight employees back to Michigan with more expressing interest every day,” Gram said. “It has been so invigorating to meet with colleagues all over the country that are interested in our story.” His goal is to grow the team across Michigan by 30 percent over the next three years. “Our growing team shows our commitment to Detroit and clients love it,” Gram said. “Coming back has exceeded all my expectations.” The biggest reward, according to Gram, is seeing people back in their home state. “I work for my employees,” Gram said. “I give them the platform and tools to succeed and be happy.” — Laura Cassar

“We felt we had no choice but to apply what we knew, which was high-end, high-energy exclusive products in the athletic wear world.”

“Our growing team shows our commitment to Detroit and clients love it. Coming back has exceeded all my expectations.”

brothers rebranded the fashion store renowned for its “$29 or two for $50” marketing campaign. As the retail landscape shifted and competitors began to close, they dropped the discount-focused strategy, picked up the name Elite Mr. Alan’s and concentrated on exclusive products and customer experience. Elite Mr. Alan’s gutted and remodeled its eight existing locations, introduced new premium and local brands and will expand to 32 locations by year end, including Illinois, Indiana and Florida. They also added a third sportswear lifestyle brand, Pogo Boutique. Since 2014, Elite Mr. Alan’s staff has grown to 600 and tripled its revenue to $50 million. Adam wants to double that in the next three years. “I think what made our dad confident in handing over his baby is he mentored us at such a young age,” Adam said. “He has confidence in us through our track record building and growing Soles Inc. I think he loved the move. He knows retail has shifted to an entertainment industry. You have to have great vision.” — Tyler Clifford

Harmony Faust, 35 Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Gale (a Cengage company)

armony Faust’s maternity leave had barely started when her marketing department leader left, quickly luring away several team members. With only a few years of management experience, she seemed a longshot candidate for the vice president of marketing job at Gale, an education and publishing company. She spent several weeks with her newborn considering whether to pursue the opportunity. When she returned to work in November 2015, she became the team’s acting leader — and was named to the job a couple of months later. She hired eight marketing people in four months and built her team. “I didn’t take for granted that individual success in a previous role with a team of three would automatically translate to success across the board for a team of 30,” she said. So she hired an executive coach for herself and her leadership team. Her intention: Assure her high expectations were matched by trust and a belief that she and her team could succeed. She also wanted to build a culture around people first and clarity of goals. Her team’s campaign to revitalize Gale’s brand contributed to a 2 percent increase in the U.S. — exceeding its goal — and 22 percent increase in international sales. “I found my passion for what I do early on from my mom,” said Faust of her mother Joan Witte, a communications professional.

“I found my passion for what I do early on from my mom.”

Her husband Phil also works at Gale. He’s the “rock star holding down the home front” while she focuses on career. They have two children, ages 4 1/2 and 2. “I’ve done video conference calls with a baby in my lap ... I’m a mom and I’m a professional.” — Vickie Elmer Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

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CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40

Spencer Hoover, 35

System Vice President and Executive Director of Henry Ford Cancer Institute, Henry Ford Health System

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“We are redesigning the entire cancer enterprise, all the (inpatient and outpatient locations), how we educate patients and they interact with all sites. It’s a soup to nuts redesign.”

pencer Hoover took a much different path than most hospital executives to his current job. The Florida native spent four years in the U.S. Army Airborne, joining up two months after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He participated in tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Injured on a training jump, he was honorably discharged in January 2006 and went on to get an MBA at Penn State University in 2008 and later a master’s in finance in 2016. Now, he’s helping design Henry

Ford Health System’s new $175 million Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion, a six-story outpatient center under construction across the street from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit’s New Center. “From my experience in the service I also derived my purpose in pursuing a career in health care. Both of my children were born extremely premature, 27 weeks (1 lb. 11 oz.) and 24 weeks (14.5 oz) and spent weeks in neonatal intensive care units,” said Hoover, who added his wife, Jessica, also nearly died of preeclampsia during their first child’s birth.

After graduation, Hoover worked in credit underwriting for a commercial bank and later at an investment banking firm in his hometown of Gainesville. In 2011, he landed a job at the University of Florida’s Shands Cancer Hospital, where he honed his administrator skills. In December 2015, Hoover was hired at Henry Ford as associate vice president for planning and business development. But he was soon asked to spend 50 percent of his time on the cancer institute planning.

“We are redesigning the entire cancer enterprise, all the (inpatient and outpatient locations), how we educate patients and they interact with all sites,” he said. “It’s a soup to nuts redesign.” The outpatient cancer center, which is expected to open in 2019, will feature special gathering places for patient and caregiver support groups, yoga classes, music and art therapy, a rooftop and third-floor garden, and a skywalk to connect to 805-bed Henry Ford Hospital across West Grand Boulevard.

“We designed a different approach with the cancer institute,” said Hoover, who oversees a business unit with $1.2 million in charges and $600 million in net collections. “We are operating with a market-based approach rather than a business unit approach.” In March, Hoover also was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to the nine-member board of directors of the newly formed Michigan Veterans’ Facility Authority. The board will help ensure the state provides effective services to veterans. — Jay Greene

Clarinda Harrison, 37

Executive Director, Business Engagement Center, University of Michigan-Dearborn

larinda Harrison glides between worlds: academia, business, community organizations and nonprofits. She attended the University of Michigan, first in Ann Arbor and then in Dearborn, and is a first-generation college graduate. She has a regional focus but believes growing up on Detroit’s East Side informs her life and purpose. At University of Michigan Dearborn’s Business Engagement Center, Harrison works with major corporations to create internship programs or support research. “We will take those resources [and those of U-M Dearborn] and help to grow ideas and really push forward new business ventures from the community, by the community, for the community,” said Harrison. In July she was promoted to executive director of business and foundation engagement. Her new job was created after she led a six-month collaborative strategic

“We will ... help to grow ideas and really push forward new business ventures from the community, by the community, for the community.”

planning effort to merge two departments. “I’m very mission-oriented,” she said. In a previous job at the Michigan Economic Development Commission, she hit her stride working on efforts to connect economic development initiatives, business and the state’s most economically disadvantaged communities. “That was transformational for me,” Harrison said. She is board chair of nonprofit Teen Hype, where her daughter, 17, is a member. Husband Ritchie Harrison works as a planner for the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. “They’re my think tank,” she says of her family. On Nov. 1, Harrison begins a new job as executive director of the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund and director of Economic Vitality at the United Way of Southeastern Michigan. — Vickie Elmer

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Deidra Wilson, 39

Corporate Vice President of Government Relations, McLaren Health Care Corp.

eidra Wilson has health care in her lineage. Her father and brother are physicians, her mother a nurse. Her second cousin is Gail Wilensky, who served as administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration — now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — under former President George H.W. Bush. Wilson, 39, chose policy over providing. Today, she is corporate vice president of government relations for Flintbased McLaren Health Care Corp., responsible for state and federal legislative advocacy on behalf of all 12 hospitals and the McLaren Health Plan. She was recruited from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in September 2015 to create McLaren’s first inhouse lobbying unit in Lansing. She manages a department with a $700,000 budget and a staff of six, including contract employees. Before joining McLaren, she worked in state government relations for Blue Cross in Lansing for 11 years and developed health policy for majority Republicans in the Senate in the early 2000s. “I wasn’t always sure lobbying was where I wanted to go,” Wilson said. “I’d always been sort of a policy nerd. But I was able to transition that, I

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think, pretty well into the advocacy side of things.” The uncertainty injected into the health care debate in Washington is keeping her busy. The biggest issue on her radar: The future of Medicaid, particularly states’ expansion programs created under the Affordable Care Act. In Michigan, the Healthy Michigan Plan has enrolled more than 680,000 additional Medicaid recipients. In January 2016, Wilson created McLaren’s first political action committee, Friends of McLaren PAC. The fund took in $3,000, largely from employees, from April 21 through July 20, according to state campaign finance records. McLaren gave $1,000 each to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer and Republican state House Speaker Tom Leonard in the most recent quarter, records show. Wilson said the health system has hospitals from Southeast Michigan to Petoskey, in what she said are 65 state legislative districts. She hopes to encourage more employees to engage directly with lawmakers. “It adds that extra element of education,” she said. “And in an era of term limits, we are constantly in a re-education mode.” — Lindsay VanHulle

“I wasn’t always sure lobbying was where I wanted to go. I’d always been sort of a policy nerd. But I was able to transition that, I think, pretty well into the advocacy side of things.”

Joe Malcoun, 39

Ryan Schram, 37

CEO, Nutshell Inc.

Chief Operating Officer, IZEA

ccording to Ryan Schram, he “was bit by the media bug early and came of age during Web 1.0.” So what better place for Schram to end up than as chief operating officer of IZEA, the company that created the sponsored social industry by launching the first technology platform to pay bloggers to create content for brands? “We started as three people trying to convince others that social media sponsorship would be a thing,” Schram said of his company, which gives influencer marketing a place to thrive in global advertising. “The risks were validated; authentic storytelling and being engaged with an audience works.” While having the privilege of ringing the NASDAQ Opening Bell in March 2016 was the business thrill of lifetime for Schram, it is the human element of his job he finds most meaningful. “Client development is where the rubber hits the road,” Schram said. “When I work with clients, I get a feeling that great things are happening.” With a strong foundation in North America — most recently, the opening of IZEA Canada in summer 2015 — the goal is to take the technology and the know-how to other continents around the globe. “While IZEA has had the opportunity to form partnerships in countries as diverse as Dubai, India and Australia, over time we believe the current climate is ripe for expansion organically as well as through acquisitions in (Latin America) and Western Europe over the coming quarters,” Schram said of plans for the company. — Laura Cassar

“We started as three people trying to convince others that social media sponsorship would be a thing. The risks were validated; authentic storytelling and being engaged with an audience works.”

oe Malcoun is a driving force of entrepreneurship in Ann Arbor. He has been an angel investor in a handful of growing tech companies. He leads a fast-growing software company in the hot IT space of customer-relationship management. And he and his partners are creating a tech/startup hub in the city’s downtown. Nutshell has raised $5.5 million in angel and venture capital, including investments by Ann Arbor-based Plymouth Venture Partners and Invest Detroit’s Detroit Innovate fund. “I have secured millions of dollars in funding from exceptional investment partners and have significantly increased the enterprise value of the company,” said Malcoun. “As a result, I have been able to hire incredibly talented people. The team we have assembled at Nutshell is exceptional in every regard, and I could not be prouder of them.” One day, Malcoun’s greatest achievement may be considered his co-founding of Cahoots Holdings LLC, which is completely making over three adjacent buildings on East Huron Street in downtown Ann Arbor to serve as a tech incubator and co-working space for early-stage tech companies. It will also be the new headquarters for Nutshell, which is at 30 employees and growing. The project, scheduled for completion late this year, is also called Cahoots. “Cahoots will serve as a center of gravity for the entire entrepreneur community. A place where people meet, learn, work and have fun with like-minded innovative

“The team we have assembled at Nutshell is exceptional in every regard.”

people,” said Malcoun, who is also board president of 826michigan, an award-winning creative writing and tutoring nonprofit founded by the author Dave Eggers. Last year, the nonprofit opened the Detroit Robot Factory in Eastern Market and now serves hundreds of students in the Detroit Public School system. — Tom Henderson Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

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CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40

Kimberly Hoyle, 39

Eric Morris, 37

Director, Business Development & Marketing Hamilton Anderson Associates

imberly Hoyle has always had an interest in urban planning and commercial real estate and a passion for creativity and art. At Hamilton Anderson, she’s been able to “connect all of my disjointed interests,” she said — and she has helped redefine the company’s approach to pursuing projects across all sectors, locally and nationally. “I noticed that we pursued a good number of projects but were not being successful in our responses,” she explained. Hoyle’s innovative approach to teaming strategies helped HAA land Wayne State University’s largest student housing project. Construction is currently underway. “This strategic approach is also one that we intend to employ as we enter new markets, particularly Atlanta and Houston,” Hoyle noted. “I love that, from a business development perspective, I get to touch on every aspect of the business — everything from design on up to finance and accounting — with the type of project that we pursue and the client relationship that we grow.” Hoyle also likes having a hand in the city’s redevelopment. “I was born in Detroit, and to be able to watch it transform into what it is today,” she said. “It’s fascinating to be in the front seat of all that, and to be able to be a part of development that will have a lasting impact on the city overall, and also the people who live here.” — Allison Torres Burtka

“I love that, from a business development perspective, I get to touch on every aspect of the business.”

Michigan Office Leader, HNTB Michigan Inc.

ric Morris’ commute is a daily reminder of what drives him. The Michigan Technological University graduate started his career right out of college as a field engineer, working on road and bridge projects for HNTB, a national transportation and infrastructure firm. Over the years, Morris grew from “doing the grunt work” to heading up design and other areas before eventually becoming Michigan office leader for HNTB. He leads operations throughout the state, including hubs in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Jackson and Lansing, where he is based, and he manages 105 people. Those people, he said, are the reason he is where he is. “The success I have had personally is directly attributable to those I work with day to day,” he said. While his 15 years of work at the firm have been jammed with high-profile projects, like the $200 million I-75 Ambassador Gateway project, which he managed, Morris considers his single greatest accomplishment to be an innovative parking system for truck drivers. The technology — the first of its kind in the country — tells truckers via road signs and a mobile app how many spots are available at rest areas, resulting in a more efficient flow of traffic and money saving for companies. It’s being expanded to eight different states across the Midwest. As it goes, Morris has also seen his share of bumps in the road. He helped write the RTA transit master plan that voters swatted down in No-

“The success I have had personally is directly attributable to those I work with day to day.”

vember. He remains steadfast in moving forward with his vision and “not giving up on transit in Michigan.” Crain’s reported in September that HNTB has been enlisted to revise the defeated RTA proposal in a bid to help lure Amazon to Detroit. “Working on Detroit’s and Michigan’s most transformative projects, that’s what makes me get up in the morning. I want to do a great job for my clients and my teammates.” — Kurt Nagl

Ed Mamou, 39

Owner, The Root and Mabel Gray restaurants; Vice President, GFL Environmental Recycling Services Inc.; Vice President, Royal Oak Recycling

d Mamou oversees two separate businesses — a group of recycling centers and two high-profile restaurants. But they share more in common than most would guess. Royal Oak Recycling was started by Mamou’s father, a former Catholic priest and Iraqi immigrant. Mamou grew up working in the family business, but left to attend Kalamazoo College, where he got a degree in mathematics. This was followed by a master’s degree in applied math at the University of California San Diego. He came back to Detroit in 2005 to help his dad expand the businesses into new markets, including Pittsburgh, Cleveland and White Lake, Mich. Mamou said he and his dad had a bright idea: Instead of using Comerica Park suites to hobnob with their clients, they would build a dining room above their recycling operation. The next step was to hire a talented chef. “James (Rigato) appeared in our laps,” Mamou said. “He was the prep cook at the Townsend (Hotel) at the time.” Noticing that his young chef showed considerable promise, Royal Oak Recycling began using him for private catering and more. “Then we

“We support the local economy as much as we can, buying meat and vegetables from local farmers in Yale.”

started thinking about opening a restaurant down the road.” Hence, Rigato became the celebrated chef at The Root in White Lake. In 2015, Mamou and Rigato opened Mabel Gray in Hazel Park in a 50/50 partnership. The following year, Mabel Gray was named a semifinalist in the prestigious James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant award. Rigato said he was “blown away” by the experience he got from the Mamous. Even when the food business slowed during the recession, the Mamous kept him employed at the recycling center. Next for the partners is Doug’s Delight, an ice cream shop and pastry kitchen across John R Street from Mabel Gray. Mamou said the two restaurants’ farm-to-table culture fits well with the environmental principles of the recycling centers. “We support the local economy as much as we can, buying meat and vegetables from local farmers in Yale. The steak we serve at Root is from local, naturally-raised Michigan (cattle). We follow the seasons for fruit and vegetables,” Mamou said. — Marti Benedetti

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Syed Ahmed Hussain, 36

Chief Medical Officer, DMC Sinai-Grace and Huron Valley Sinai Hospitals

yed Hussain has been leading 800 residents and fellows in a multi-stage quality improvement project the past four years that has reduced the number of venous thromboembolisms (VTE), strokes, hospital-acquired infections and readmissions for heart failure. Hussain, who is originally from Saudi Arabia, joined DMC in 2010 as an intern in internal medicine, later became chief resident and was DMC’s first fellow of patient safety. In September, he was appointed chief medical officer of DMC’s Sinai Grace and Huron Valley Sinai hospitals. In 2013, Hussain proposed working with doctors in training and using DMC’s electronic health record system to improve core quality measures and outcomes of patients. The program started with VTE and stroke care and expanded to hospital-acquired infections in 2015 and readmissions in 2016, he said. (VTE is the formation of blood clots in the vein.) The program has improved DMC’s patient safety and quality scores. The programs’ results were published May 2016 in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. With 100 percent resident participation, VTE and stroke evaluation of patients increased from the high 80 percent

“Engaging residents, who are at the front lines of delivering care, will not only improve our global performance and enhance patient safety and quality but also encourage and teach them to be future physician leaders.”

range to 100 percent compliance during the first year, the report said. The programs also led to increased pay-for-performance financial rewards for the hospital and residents. DMC shared incentive payments to trainees, ranging from $300 to $4,000 per year. “Engaging residents, who are at the front lines of delivering care, will not only improve our global performance and enhance patient safety and quality but also encourage and teach them to be future physician leaders,” Hussain wrote in his 40 Under 40 application. Hussain also is director of DMC’s international services division. Since 2016, he has worked with Canadian health officials and the six Middle Eastern countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council to increase emergency transfers and specialty patient volume. “A lot of Canadians come here for emergency transfers in our (specialized) service areas,” including children’s, pulmonary, cardiology and rehabilitation services, Hussain said. “We are on track this year of having the largest number of international patients.” DMC’s international patient volume grew 13 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. In 2008, DMC treated about 260 international patients, the last year for which data was available. — Jay Greene

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CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40

Dannis Mitchell, 32

Her specialty “allows me to get into some really exciting things, including cutting-edge developments in the health care delivery space and the complex relationship between businesses and their regulators.”

Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Barton Malow

“I was an unlikely candidate for construction — but look at me now.”

rowing up in Detroit, Dannis Mitchell heard a lot about apprenticeship from her father, a DTE lineman. Even after he retired, he would carry apprenticeship applications and hand them out to prospects. Dannis Mitchell does the same thing — on a larger scale. Working since 2013 for general contractor Barton Malow, she said she’s recruited 836 apprentices to the Little Caesars Arena project in downtown Detroit, more than twice as many as would work on a typical project. Many of them had never been on a construction site before. “I was an unlikely candidate for

Rebecca O’Reilly, 39

n 2015, Rebecca O’Reilly had established a robust employee benefits practice at Bodman PLC. She and the firm were thriving, but she was interested in experimenting with new approaches to the business of managing a law practice, so she took a chance and opened a solo practice. With the flexibility to tailor every arrangement to her clients’ needs and to partner with subject matter experts from regional and national law firms, her practice took off. She found herself with more work than she could handle and realized she had to either hire people or merge with another firm. Bodman got wind that she was considering her options. “They came back to me and said, ‘We love what you’ve done with your practice, we see how it’s worked, and we believe in what you’re doing. Just bring it all back — we’ll do it the way you want to do it,’” she said. In 2017, she returned and established the firm’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice Group.

Now, O’Reilly “can continue innovating with the many benefits of a large firm,” she said. She is developing a sophisticated platform for multi-firm coordination, and she expects that “the future of complex national law practice will require lawyers practiced in the management of ‘virtual law firms.’” Her specialty — the federal law that governs employee benefit plans — “sounds really dull, but it actually allows me to get into some really exciting things, including cutting-edge developments in the health care delivery space and the complex relationship between businesses and their regulators,” O’Reilly said. And she’s happy to be doing it in Detroit. Before moving here, she and her husband were visiting family in Detroit when something clicked. They realized that “if you really want to be involved, to be part of the community, there are endless opportunities here,” she remembered. — Allison Torres Burtka

sity of Michigan — Dearborn. Her parents, Danny and Judy Mitchell, taught her to focus on career and community engagement. So she’s excited to give back to Randolph — and to see Barton Malow staff volunteering and helping rehab the school. “It sends chills through my body when I drive by that school and see the progress that’s happening,” she said. This summer, she started a construction boot camp and hired six Detroiters, ages 16 to 21. “You would be amazed at how many referrals come from people who got an opportunity” and started a good construction job, she said. — Vickie Elmer

Rachel Lutz, 37

Member (Partner) and Co-Chair, Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group

construction — but look at me now,” she said. Her recruiting initiatives are being replicated at several new Barton Malow projects, with a launch in Fayetteville, N.C., in July. “We’re tackling the skilled trades shortage,” she said, and opening opportunities to diverse people who lack access to or understanding of the field. She started her career in construction in 2003 through an internship at Randolph Technical High School. She was warned she’d be the only girl, but she took the $14 an hour job anyway. For years she worked full time for Brinker, a minority-owned contractor, and attended the Univer-

Owner, The Peacock Room, Frida, Yama “Detroit is a cosmopolitan city.”

achel Lutz has a lot on her mind: the Jewish holidays, whether to join a nonprofit’s board of directors, and a big one — scheduling travel after she finishes opening two new stores set to debut in the historic Fisher Building in Detroit. The owner of The Peacock Room in Midtown Detroit will almost triple the square footage of selling space with the opening of a second Peacock Room and Yama, a contemporary women’s shop. “Opening two stores at one time — what was I thinking?” she

asked with a hint of the drama that shows up in her shops. As an avid preservationist, she is excited to be moving into “one of the last fully intact storefronts in the Fisher lobby.” Her father ran two businesses there: In the 1960s, he sold hi-fi equipment and in the early 1980s, he ran an IT consulting firm. She’s an active volunteer at Pewabic, the pottery nonprofit on Detroit’s East Side, where she helps with special events and offers retail consulting. Lutz runs her business by hiring

really good people. She also travels three or four times a year to buy merchandise and feed her creative side. “I can’t shackle myself to my business,” she said. Or she hops on her Vespa and heads to Belle Isle or to a women’s support group she founded: Business Bitches Be Brunching. “Detroit is a cosmopolitan city,” she said. Lutz’s success is based on belief in Detroit, her instincts and the personal connection she makes with women who buy her creative finds. — Vickie Elmer

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“My best work doesn’t just happen in a silo. I make sure people have what they need to be successful.”

Graig Donnelly, 37 Assistant Vice President for Economic Development, Wayne State University; Chief Strategy Officer, TechTown Detroit

raig Donnelly was coming back to Detroit, one way or another. Born in Detroit and raised in the Woodbridge neighborhood, work and marriage took Donnelly to New York City. When he felt it was time to come home, he applied for a Detroit Revitalization fellowship and made it to the semifinals, only to be denied. The second time around, he didn’t take any chances. Donnelly applied for both the fellowship and the new position for director. “I am the target audience of who wants to serve as a fellow,” Donnelly said of his determination. He got the job. Detroit Revitalization Fellows (DRF) named Donnelly director in 2013. The DRF was at a critical juncture. Donnelly recruited and trained new staff, crafted a long-term vision and expanded the program’s funding base. “These efforts established DRF as an approach that other cities across Michigan and the country are looking to replicate,” Donnelly said. With the launch of its fourth cohort this summer, the DRF has placed over 80 fellows in key leadership roles in

major projects driving progress across the Detroit region. Donnelly’s success caught the attention of Mayor Mike Duggan, who requested the launch of the Kresge Mayor’s Fellows initiative as a second-stage opportunity for DRF alumni to help city government. During Donnelly’s tenure, The Kresge Foundation, the program’s largest funder, has committed a total investment of over $6 million through 2019. In 2016, Donnelly was promoted to Wayne State University’s assistant vice president for Economic Development and TechTown Detroit’s chief strategy officer. “My best and most important relationships came out of my Woodbridge neighborhood,” Donnelly said. He has used his new position at TechTown to serve entrepreneurs in a third more neighborhoods citywide through a $1.2 million three-year grant from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. “My best work doesn’t just happen in a silo,” Donnelly said. “I make sure people have what they need to be successful.” — Laura Cassar Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

Congratulations Caroline Altman Smith and fellow honorees for being inducted into Crain’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2017.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40 “I felt like I had spent years talking about what everybody else should be doing. I wanted to see if maybe I could be part of it.”

Alexis Wiley, 34

Chief of Staff, Mayor’s Office, City of Detroit lexis Wiley came to Detroit as a reporter climbing the television news ladder. As a reporter/anchor at Fox 2 Detroit/WJBK Channel 2, the Los Angeles native started an occasional segment called “Redefining Detroit” about average city residents making small strides in improving their neighborhoods despite dysfunction in city government. The segment was getting noticed by viewers and by late 2013 Wiley was considering whether to make her next move in the TV news business to a bigger city. But then she got a call on her cell phone from Mike Duggan, the former Detroit Medical Center CEO who had just won an improbable campaign for mayor after mounting a write-in campaign in the primary. Duggan wanted Wiley to become his communications director in the midst of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy, while the city was still under state-controlled emergency management. Wiley, 34, viewed the job opportunity as an extension of her community-focused journalism. “It’s not everyday you get an opportunity to do something like this,” Wiley said. “And I felt like I had spent years talking about what everybody else should be doing. I wanted to see

if maybe I could be part of it.” After four months on the job, Duggan promoted her to chief of staff. “She was problem-solving departmental problems that she was dealing with because we’d get a phone call from a reporter,” Duggan said in an interview. “She would not only figure out how to answer the questions, she actually started digging in to solve the problems of the departments.” Wiley has taken a lead role helping Detroiters get assistance for their water bills and implemented the first citywide expansion of the Grow Detroit’s Young Talent youth summer job program. “The benefit of coming to this job from journalism is I think about how my actions impact people,” Wiley said. “Because as reporters ... your job is to channel what people are feeling and kind of give voice to it. That has been an advantage to me in this job.” Duggan said Wiley has been “tenacious” in getting things done. He noted a deal she struck with Detroit Public Schools Community District to open 27 city recreation centers this summer. “(Alexis) has a rare combination of public messaging talent and attention to detail,” Duggan said. “You just don’t find that in people very often. Those are two different skill sets.” — Chad Livengood

Washtenaw Community College

congratulates

BRANDON TUCKER Dean of Advanced Technology and Public Service Careers on being selected as a Crain’s 40 under 40 honoree.

WASHTENAW COMMUNITY COLLEGE

ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION CENTER Preparing the current and future workforce for the emerging needs of the advanced transportation industry.

Kyle Hoff, 30

Co-founder/CEO, Floyd

yle Hoff’s frustrating experience furnishing his Chicago apartment in 2013 after a move from San Fransisco inspired the e-commerce business he’s building in Detroit today. An architect by training, Hoff thought there had to be a better way to furnish his apartment than trekking to a suburban IKEA and hauling back boxes of furniture parts that had to be assembled. While working in Chicago for Dearborn-based Ghafari Associates LLC, Hoff began to design a minimalistic set of metal legs that could convert an old door or sheet of plywood into a table or a bed frame. He named the device Floyd, in honor of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all of whom were steelworkers named Floyd in Youngstown, Ohio, where Hoff grew up. Four years later, the development and sale of the Floyd Leg has given rise to Floyd Design LLC, an e-commerce company that designs and sells online furniture products that can be shipped by mail and are built to withstand the wear-and-tear of urban living. “Since day one, it’s always been about solving that problem,” Hoff said. “It’s been interesting to see how dramatically and quickly that’s starting to evolve with customers buying furniture online.” Hoff, 30, and business partner Alex O’Dell expect sales revenue this year to top $5 million from the direct sale of its $179 Floyd Leg set, a $489 bed

“It’s been interesting to see how dramatically and quickly that’s starting to evolve with customers buying furniture online.”

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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 // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

Brian Connors, 39

“Relationships are everything in China. That’s not a cute turn of phrase; they are more important than law in most cases and it’s the secret to successful business dealings.”

Executive Director, Michigan-China Innovation Center

rian Connors learned the ways of business in China by ... doing business in China. At 23, after earning a degree in Chinese from Williams College in Massachusetts, the Grand Rapids native fled the U.S. for China. He co-founded the Bridge Cafe, an American-style 24-hour diner in the University District in Beijing, which since has added two more locations. Connors also helped develop a hotel and shopping district and founded a neighborhood improvement association. “I was 23 and wanted to use my Chinese to do something fun, and hopefully make some money and understand what Chinese people and business were all about,” he said. “Relationships are everything in China. That’s not a cute turn of phrase; they are more important than law in most cases and it’s the secret to successful business dealings.” Connors moved back to the U.S. and earned a master’s in public policy from Harvard University before moving to Detroit in 2010 with no prospects and no plans. He took a job as a freelance translator before receiving a Detroit Revitalization Fellowship at Wayne State University, working for Southwest Housing Solutions. But Connors’ experience aligned

with Gov. Rick Snyder’s plans to target foreign direct investment from China and landed him a job. In 2012, Connors became the China business development manager for the Michigan Economic Development Corp. There Connors secured several deals for the state, including a more than $100 million investment from CiTic Dicastal Co. Ltd. of Qinhuangdao in 2014 at the former United Solar Ovonic in Greenville, near Grand Rapids. The Chinese aluminum wheel maker Dicastal North America Inc. plans to hire up to 1,000 employees in coming years. In 2016, these efforts led to the creation of a dedicated Michigan-China Innovation Center in downtown Detroit, with Connors as its executive director. Connors has since focused on building a team to channel more opportunities to the state. “We’re starting to hit stride in our operations and we’re pursuing every opportunity.” Connors said. The center will employ 10 by the end of the year. “China is a challenging and important place,” he said. “That’s why we’re here. To engage them and not leave any value on the table.” — Dustin Walsh

CONGRATULATIONS

Rebecca platform and other metal hardware for shelving and home offices. The product is manufactured and assembled in the U.S. Hoff, who lives in Midtown, said more than half of the company’s sales are in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Fransisco and Washington, D.C. Floyd Design has grown to 10 fulltime employees and the company is preparing to move into a new office and design space in Eastern Market in November. In March, the company joined the nonprofit Endeavor’s global entrepreneurship network in a move aimed at scaling the business. Floyd Design recently completed a $5 million investment round, drawing capital funding from Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Founders Brewing Co. Executive Chairman John Green, Dan Gilbert’s Detroit Venture Partners, New Yorkbased venture capital firms 14W and Brand Foundry and LZB Investments, the investment arm of Monroe-based furniture giant La-Z-Boy. La-Z-Boy company officials have become strategic advisers for Floyd Design, while also studying how the furniture sales market is changing amid a shift to more consumer goods being sold online, Hoff said. “It is really an amazing partnership,” he said. “We’re definitely breaking into an area of a lot of other furniture companies are attempting to break into.” — Chad Livengood Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

D’Arcy O’Reilly Member of Bodman PLC Co-Chair, Employee Benefits Executive Compensation Practice Group Co-Leader, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Client Service Team Member, Technology Committee

Rebecca, congratulations from your colleagues at Bodman on being named to Crain’s 40 Under 40. We are proud that you have been recognized throughout Michigan for the influence and leadership you bring to all of your professional and community activities.

www.bodmanlaw.com

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40

Philipp Schramm, 37

CFO and Vice President of Human Resources, & IT, Corporate Communications, Legal Webasto Roof Systems Inc.

he employees at Rochester Hills-based Webasto Roof Systems Inc. witnessed dark times in 2014. The company was projecting tens of millions of dollars in losses. An analysis by consulting behemoth McKinsey & Company rated the company’s culture “the worst it had even seen.” But after Philipp Schramm was hired as vice president of Human Resources, things began to change. By taking a people-centric approach along with Schramm’s leadership skills and hard work from the whole corporate family, “we propelled the company out of dire financial straits and laid a new foundation,” he said. Schramm credits McKinsey with its “interesting and diverse metric system that targeted what needed to be improved.” In less than two years, the company’s McKinsey rating jumped 18 points. Harvard Business Review published a case study about Schramm’s culture-improvement strategy. Turning the company around at the age of 32 required Schramm’s commitment and dedication. “I focused on family and work, and my hobbies

took a lower priority,” he said. The turnaround shaped him. “You see decisions made by the leadership team. This is how we were able to impact the lives of so many. We have 2,000 colleagues.” Schramm said his strong academic background played an important role in the turnaround. He has undergraduate, master of business administration and doctorate degrees from the Katholische Universitat Eichstatt — Ingolstadt in Germany in business administration and management. He has an executive MBA in leadership from the Harvard Business School. Jonathan Wege, chairman of Grand Rapids-based Wege Foundation and creative partner and founding member of PowerDigm, is a neighborhood friend of Schramm’s in Bloomfield Hills. Their children attend school together. “I’ve witnessed what a focused guy he is. He is intense whether he is working on his landscaping or his job,” Wege said. “I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since I was young. I see him moving to a CEO position. I want four of him.” — Marti Benedetti

Jeena Patel, 36

Partner, Warner Norcross & Judd

eena Patel entered the legal side of the automotive supply world at a time when the auto industry was in an economic tailspin. “I always wanted to be a litigator and there was plenty of it needed as it was a rough time (2006) for the auto supplier industry,” she said. “Stop shipping was happening a lot, which led to litigation cases. Out of need, I went in that direction. I fell into it and I fell in love with it.” Her love affair with litigating for auto suppliers eventually led her to becoming a partner at Warner Norcross & Judd in 2014 at 33. Asked what qualities she needed to have risen so quickly at the firm, she said without a pause: “tenacity, creativity, passion and conviction.” Patel also uses those qualities in her service to the Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation (AWAF), where she is vice president and general counsel. She said her contributions to the AWAF have focused on helping other women in the auto industry. “We help provide scholarships for women in automotive-related companies,” Patel said. “It is a nice way to encourage women to stay in the industry and for me to be a high-level mentor.” One of Patel’s greatest wins for a

“You see decisions made by the leadership team. This is how we were able to impact the lives of so many. We have 2,000 colleagues.”

client involved her firm suing a supplier for breach of contract regarding the price of parts. The firm disputed the supplier’s terms and conditions of purchase, “which required that the parts be sold for a fixed price for the life of the vehicle program,” Patel wrote in an email. “Ultimately, we convinced the court to grant summary judgment in favor of our client. The court awarded our client a substantial sum of money to compensate it for the additional money that it paid the supplier in order to avoid a large shut down of its assembly plant and the tens of millions of dollars in damages a day and the massive loss of jobs that would have occurred. Overall, a great result for our client.” Jennifer Dudley, assistant general counsel at American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. in Detroit, is Patel’s friend and former colleague at Warner. “Jeena is extremely intelligent and will dig until she understands both the legal and business sides.” Moving forward, Patel wants to remain on top of what is happening in the auto supplier world, particularly legal issues pertaining to autonomous vehicles. “I want to be a go-to expert for traditional and non-traditional companies.” — Marti Benedetti

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Mariam Saad Bazzi, 38

Judge of the 3rd Circuit Court, Wayne County â&#x20AC;&#x153;I strive to do my best and this is the recognition of that. To help people is the dream job.â&#x20AC;?

Brandon Tucker, 34 Dean of Advanced Technologies & Public Service Careers, Washtenaw Community College â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our goal at WCC is to help prepare the workforce for what is not coming, but is already here.â&#x20AC;?

n May, Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Mariam Bazzi to the 3rd Circuit Court in Wayne County. It was a path Bazzi had long been on â&#x20AC;&#x201D; she became Wayne County assistant prosecuting attorney in 2006 and was lead attorney for the countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deed & Mortgage Fraud Task Force. But she said she did not get there alone. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had my parents and the example of their work ethic,â&#x20AC;? Bazzi said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had the support of my family and community. Arab American is an important part of who I am. I am very proud of it and where I came from; I am the child of immigrants.â&#x20AC;? Bazzi is the second Arab American woman appointed to the bench in Wayne County. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I strive to do my best and this is the recognition of that,â&#x20AC;? Bazzi said of the appointment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To help people is the dream job.â&#x20AC;? A Dearborn native, Bazzi, who once considered teaching instead of law and is passionate about education, also served as president of Dearbornâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s school board for nearly two and a half years. She had to resign when accepting the judgeship. Bazzi is a member of the Michigan Middle Eastern Affairs Commission, the League of Women Voters of Dearborn/Dearborn Heights and the Arab American Political Action Committee. She was the first woman president of AAPAC. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dearborn is a community that has spent last 40 years trying to define itself and find an identity,â&#x20AC;? Bazzi said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted to be a part of that process. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to elect people that understand our issues and will address them. AAPAC has had a big impact in creating block votes and I contributed to that success.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Laura Cassar

randon Tucker has always had a passion to help others succeed. So when Washtenaw Community College received a $4.4 million Community College Skilled Trades Equipment Program (STEP) grant from the State of Michigan â&#x20AC;&#x201D; matched by their board with $3.6 million â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Tucker wanted it to mean more than building renovations and equipment. Through Tuckerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership, the college retooled its curriculum to align with the new technology the grant brought in, focusing on autonomous and connected vehicles. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We saw the need and where the industry was going, like the need to train the technicians that support the engineers,â&#x20AC;? Tucker said, also crediting WCC president Dr. Rose B. Bellanca for her vision. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our goal at WCC is to help prepare the workforce for what is not coming, but is already here.â&#x20AC;? The new direction also allows WCC to partner with organizations like University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MCity and the Square One Education Network, which provides grants to educators developing tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workforce. These partnerships allow students to graduate from the program more well-rounded and with hands-on experience. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everyone needs education, inspiration and empowerment,â&#x20AC;? said Tucker, who is also an assistant preacher with a mission to serve. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nothing excites me more than when a person achieves even greater success than they thought possible.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Laura Cassar Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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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 // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40 “I came up with every reason why I shouldn’t ... I’m a woman, I’m too young, I’m black — everything I could think of to give an excuse and they kept pushing me.”

Nicole Farmer, 37 President and CEO, LifeLine Business Consulting Services

t age 27, Nicole Farmer ventured into co-ownership of a Tuffy Auto Service franchise after spending most of her youth on welfare. She was a teenage mom who bounced from foster care as a child to homelessness as an adult. Writing a business plan with detailed cash-flow projections was a nerve-wracking experience. Farmer didn’t think she’d ever qualify for a loan to buy the auto shop. “At that time, I didn’t even know how to spell the words projected financials, much less understand what they were asking for and what they meant,” Farmer said. But the auto shop’s former owners convinced Farmer that she could be a business owner in the face of her own self-doubt. “I came up with every reason why I shouldn’t ... I’m a woman, I’m too young, I’m black — everything I could think of to give an excuse and they kept pushing me,” Farmer said. Farmer, 37, now owns a consulting venture that helps other unlikely entrepreneurs become business owners. Her company LifeLine Business Consulting Services teaches classes, primarily to Detroiters, on how to overcome barriers to entrepreneur-

John Paul Rea, 34

Director, Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development

“Where once things were founded on assumptions, now we have definitive facts and figures.”

ohn Paul Rea’s a-ha moment came in a storage closet. Newly named as director of Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development, Rea was taking stock of the materials they had to offer to interested investors. What he found was a closet full of economic development folders that looked like something straight out of the 1990s. The ugly folders also contained an overwhelming amount of information. Every single piece of information the office had on file was mass photocopied and added to the folders. Things had gotten out of hand. Rea

decided it was time to do something better. That “something better” helped lead to more than $260 million in investment and more than 3,800 jobs created and retained in Macomb County. “I started to build a data-driven industry and occupational model which was founded in local data,” Rea said. “We facilitated conversations about the emerging needs of industry, and assessing whether our community could fulfill facility and talent needs.” For example, when a local land owner called and said that Cabela’s, a specialty retailer of outdoor recreation merchandise, was interested in building a

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90,000 square foot store on his land, Rea and his staff got to work. Not only did they pull the standard community information that Cabela’s corporate requested, they also included the number of boat registrations and fishing and hunting licenses in Macomb County. The lease was signed less than two weeks later. “We always had this data at our fingertips,” Rea said. “It’s figuring out the science behind economic development. Where once things were founded on assumptions, now we have definitive facts and figures. We are the conduit to get that information out there.” —Laura Cassar

Co an De Fu

ship and bring a business idea to market. The service was born from Farmer’s own travails in buying the auto service franchise a decade ago. “We are now helping individuals go through that loan process, where before I had to do it on my own and not really knowing or understanding how to write a business plan or how to do those projections,” she said. More than 5,000 Detroiters and 200 Pontiac residents have taken LifeLine’s classes over the past seven years, Farmer said. LifeLine gets most of its funding through grants from JPMorgan Chase Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and New Economy Initiative. That philanthropic support helps keep the cost down to $199 for the courses and subsequent business consulting and coaching, she said. LifeLine works with foundations and government programs for small business such as Motor City Match to help entrepreneurs in Detroit obtain grants and loans for startup money and capital improvements to often vacant real estate, Farmer said. “They’re not looking at credit, they’re looking at character,” Farmer said. — Chad Livengood

“W wi do we

Jocelyn Benson, 39 CEO, Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality “Seeing the impact of your work only feeds into a passion where you’re reinforcing that commitment every day.”

ong before Jocelyn Benson became the youngest woman in U.S. history to lead an accredited law school, she feared for her life while investigating hate groups as a writer for

the Southern Poverty Law Center. “That’s where I tried to develop a courageous commitment to the causes I care about,” said Benson. “It kind of taught me to be fearless and

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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 // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

Sean Mann, 37 Co-owner and CEO, Detroit City Futbol Club

“We’re confident with what we’re doing and the brand we’ve created.”

courageous ... facing real fears as a 19-, 20-year-old. That feeds how I approach things now.” Now Benson leads the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE) after stepping down in fall 2016 as dean of Wayne State University Law School. RISE is a sports-based anti-racism initiative that is headquartered in New York and has an office in Detroit. It was created by Detroit-born billionaire and sports figure Stephen Ross. “I met her with regard to, initially, with Wayne State, she came to solicit me for funds,” Ross said. “She succeeded, as she usually does.” Ross saw her tireless passion, he said. And in the year since he hired her she has “set the tone” and “driven (RISE) to new heights.” Benson travels all over the country, but her home base is Detroit’s Sherwood Forest neighborhood. And Detroit is where she started piloting the RISE Leadership Program for high school students. It combines basketball with classes where young athletes learn about empathy and implicit bias. Surveys show that the classes change these students’ attitudes, Benson said. And she has watched them come away with a better understanding of their teammates. “Seeing the impact of your work only feeds into a passion where you’re reinforcing that commitment every day,” she said. “That’s really the fire in my belly that drives it ... I’m driven to see if people’s lives improve as a result of my work.” Where will that fire take Benson next? Crain’s reported last month that Benson may be eyeing a run for Michigan Secretary of State. — Annalise Frank Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

ean Mann spent his professional career navigating Michigan’s halls of political power as a lobbyist and policy adviser. On the side, he’s been a soccer fan. That’s now become his day job. Mann quit his role with Lansing-based Michigan Legislative Consultants on Sept. 5 to become the full-time CEO of Detroit City FC, the semi-pro soccer club that he and four co-founders are planning to turn professional. The team has been a success story since its 2012 launch, starting with a thousand fans per game and growing into this past season’s team-record

5,398 per-match average. In August, the club reached the National Premier Soccer League’s semifinal for the first time in front of a team-record 7,533 fans at DCFC’s home pitch, Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck. The stadium was able to hold that many fans because Mann led the club’s crowd-funding investment campaign, which raised more than $700,000 to renovate and expand Keyworth, DCFC’s home since 2016. The team is profitable and has sustained 40 percent to 45 percent growth annually in gross revenue. It had a budget of about $1 million this past season. By turning pro, Mann and his

co-owners will have to navigate new issues such as labor and travel costs. They also have to find a deep-pocket investor that meets the multi-millionaire owner net worth requirements — and can cover the expansion fee — as part of the bid to turn pro. They’ve been in talks with potential investors and a couple of pro leagues and hope to have a deal this fall. Mann also is dealing with Major League Soccer potentially expanding to Detroit. DCFC could be part of that effort — or may have to co-exist with it. “We’re confident with what we’re doing and the brand we’ve created,” Mann said. Detroit City traces its roots to the

Detroit City Futbol League that Mann founded in 2010. It was a co-ed rec soccer league made up of Detroit neighborhood teams, and its popularity led him to suggest a formal semi-pro team for Detroit that plays in an established regional or national league. Many DCFL players and fans became DCFC loyalists, who have created a intense European-style game-day party atmosphere. “We had a pipeline across the city, that fanbase to tap into,” Mann said. He found his four co-owners in 2011, and each chipped in $5,000 to launch Detroit City FC in 2012. — Bill Shea

Congratulations to Deidra Wilson on being selected as a Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree. All of us at McLaren thank Deidra for going above and beyond, every day.

mclaren.org

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CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40 “We had to ask ourselves whether we wanted to be everything to everyone. We want to be in markets where we have a path for a return.”

“Health is not about the absence of illness but about our working conditions, education, housing, social inclusion and public policy.”

Dhivya Suryadevara, 38

Vice President of Corporate Finance, General Motors Co.

hiya Suryadevara is one of the most powerful people in Detroit’s automotive sector. The entire financial force of General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker with a market value of more than $55 billion, runs through Suryadevara. “Our financial expression, how we improve performance, transactions, corporate financial planning, comes together in my group,” said Suryadevara, who directs roughly 100 employees. Suryadevara is new to the role, promoted on July 1 from treasurer and vice president of finance. But her career at GM is already paved with milestones. She led the creation of a newfound discipline on the use of shareholders’ money through GM’s capital-allocation framework in 2015. She aided in GM’s efforts in recent years to end operations in Venezuela, which now is the midst of an economic and political crisis that’s tearing the country apart. “Broadly, that was a philosophical change in the company,” she said. “We had to ask ourselves whether we wanted to be everything to everyone. We want to be in markets where we have a path for a return.” In 2012, as CEO of GM Asset Management, Suryadevara was part of a small team that executed a unique transaction to slash about $29 billion from GM’s $80 billion pension bur-

den by shifting some salaried retirees to a group annuity handled by Prudential Financial Inc. “That was one of the most interesting things I’ve worked on in my career,” Suryadevara, a Harvard University MBA graduate, said. “It was unprecedented. Nobody had done anything of that size before and we’re grateful we did it. It was a good deal for everyone, a win-win-win, and continues to be.” Now Suryadevara is dedicated to return on capital as GM continues to position itself for the future of automotive, including ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles. GM spent roughly $500 million last year on California autonomous car software and component supplier Cruise and created its Maven ride-sharing service. “We’re very excited about how well-positioned we are for the future,” she said. “We want to think about how we are reinvesting in our core business, but also invest in future technology with a goal of 20 percent return on investment. There’s certainly uncertainty on how (autonomous vehicles, electrification and ride-sharing) will play out, but we think it’s going great. (Automakers) are going to be disrupted; we don’t want to be the one that’s disrupted. We want to be the disruptor, but with a strong balance sheet.” — Dustin Walsh

Asha Shajahan, 36 Medical Director of Community Medicine, Beaumont Hospital

orking with her patients at Beaumont Health clinics in Roseville and St. Clair Shores, Asha Shajahan noticed many of them lacked access to quality foods and safe outdoor exercise areas. Some of their medical issues, she realized, were related to their environments. “Through my patients, I realized that tackling health equity requires health systems to look at health differently,” said Shajahan, a family medicine and teaching physician based at Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe and assistant professor at Oakland Unversity’s William Beaumont School of Medicine. “Health is not about the absence of illness but about our working conditions, education, housing, social inclusion and public policy,” she said. As she taught Beaumont’s residents and medical students, Shajahan realized many trainees didn’t understand how to address basic health disparities for minority patients. Many trainees also lacked “cultural competency” — an understanding of how to deliver care that meets patients’ social and cultural needs. Studies show that when providers grasp this, and work to bring community partners like

churches, schools and nonprofit service organizations onto a patient’s health team, health outcomes and quality improve. So Shajahan reached out to Challenge Detroit, a nonprofit leadership development program, to collaborate on a health disparities project. For three years, Shajahan has led an inter-disciplinary group, usually composed of medical students, residents and fellows from Challenge Detroit, through a six-week training program. “We have a lot of dialogue about what health is. It is eye opening,” said Shajahan. The Challenge Detroit Health Disparities project was presented at the 2015 American Medical Association medical education meeting. Shajahan has also helped to create a formal elective in health disparities, a topic that was sometimes included in training rotations, but not always, she said. “We have 500 residents (at Beaumont) and we are doing a multi-disciplinary approach to teach residents this,” she said. “It is a slow process, but it helps bring perspective that your community can teach you to become a better physician.” — Jay Greene

“Kids speak the language of laughter and play. It’s the adults ... who need to figure out ways to impart respect and inclusivity.”

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Angela Rogensues, 36 Executive Director, Playworks Michigan

ngela Rogensues is putting her master’s in adult learning to good use — she’s helping transform the way adults approach play so they, in turn, can teach kids on the playground and other group environments. “Kids speak the language of laughter and play,” she said. “It’s the adults ... who need to figure out ways to impart respect and inclusivity.” If the goal is to build a civil society where children are able to solve conflict, be empathetic and work cooperatively, “we have to teach those things to our kids and model them,” she said. Rogensues, who joined Playworks Michigan in 2012 as a program director, was promoted to executive director two years ago. She oversees the nonprofit’s $1.3 million annual budget and 18 employees. This year, the organization will provide services to 35 area schools. Their work is proven to encourage physical activity in children, reduce bullying and shorten the amount of time students take to transition back into their classroom after recess. Playworks Michigan will reach an additional 6,000 children, thanks to a large grant Rogensues landed last fall. She led the organization’s successful application for a $1.14 million grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation. The largest single grant ever awarded to Playworks Michigan, the funding enabled Playworks to expand its programs to 11 new districts in Macomb and Wayne counties. Over the past two years, she’s increased the amount of revenue coming to Playworks Michigan by 27 percent, both through increased charitable support and fees paid by additional elementary schools adopting the Playworks program or approaches. With the revenue increases, Rogensues is weening the local affiliate, which launched in Michigan in 2010, from the support of its national office in Oakland, Calif. Last year, it self-funded all but 2 percent of its annual budget and programs. — Sherri Welch

“Marc’s done a great job of simultaneously growing BBG’s office here ... while at the same time him personally understanding unique submarkets of Detroit.” Dennis Bernard, Bernard Financial Group

Marc Nassif, 38 Senior Managing Director and Partner, BBG Inc.

arc Nassif’s career as one of the leading commercial real estate appraisers in the region was accidental. Bored one summer with his job at National City Corp. in Birmingham, he decided to join the bank’s softball team. The roster was Nassif and National City’s entire real estate investment group. (National City was bought by PNC Bank during the 2008 market crash for $5.2 billion.) You can guess where it went from there. “By the end of that summer, I was seated with them and working exclusively on their deals,” said Nassif, now the senior managing director and partner of the local office of Dallas-based BBG Inc., which has grown from seven offices nationally in 2011 to an anticipated 30 in the next six months. “They also helped me get my first gig in appraisal.” Since joining BBG, Nassif has worked with companies like Detroit-based The Platform LLC and on the rehab of the United Artists Theater building downtown. He also identified a building in the Brush Park neighborhood that will become the regional office’s new HQ, along with a first-floor restaurant. All told, 60 people will work out of the building, 10-plus from BBG and the rest from other companies. A graduate of Albion College, Nassif manages an annual budget of more than $3 million, up from about $2 million when he opened the office six years ago. “Marc’s done a great job of simultaneously growing BBG’s office here with very capable appraisal and research people, while at the same time him personally understanding unique submarkets of Detroit,” said Dennis Bernard, president of Southfield-based Bernard Financial Group. “He’s both building a good-sized firm at the same time as appraising.” — Kirk Pinho Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

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CRAIN’S 40 UNDER 40

wning a public relations agency in Detroit was always a goal for Peter Van Dyke, even as a college student. When he was seeking employment after graduation he had a few interview questions of his own, including, “What is your 10-year plan? Would you consider selling your agency at some point?” That was the last question of his last interview with Berg Muirhead and Associates. Their answer was yes. “I knew from day one that I would eventually buy the agency, and that guided all my decision making and growth,” Van Dyke said. “It involved 10 years of determination and dedication as the firm’s employee. My number one goal was to earn the respect of the firm’s leadership, so they entrusted their legacy with me. I also had to earn the trust of their significant clientele, so when the business transition occurred, our clients would be comfortable with the new leadership of the company.” In 2016, Van Dyke — along with business partner Marilyn Horn — acquired and successfully rebranded Berg Muirhead and Associates, now Van Dyke Horn. In his first year of ownership, Van Dyke was able to retain all of the firm’s major clients and attract significant new business, doubling its staff and increasing revenue by 25 percent from 2015 to 2016. Van Dyke Horn is slated to increase its revenue another 40 percent in the next year and hire an estimated five new associates at various levels. “I didn’t foresee the speed (at which) this would happen,” said Van Dyke, a 2010 Crain’s 20 in Their 20s honoree. “My biggest goal is to successfully manage the growth of our firm. This involves hiring the right team members with the right expertise and qualities to steward our growing roster of clients.” — Laura Cassar

Peter Van Dyke, 36 CEO, Van Dyke Horn “My number one goal was to earn the respect of the firm’s leadership, so they entrusted their legacy with me. I also had to earn the trust of their significant clientele, so when the business transition occurred, our clients would be comfortable with the new leadership of the company.”

Libby Palackdharry, 33

Senior Director, Financial Stability Programs and Operations, Southwest Solutions

n Detroit, it’s difficult to get a mortgage — most home sales are in cash. Sixty-six percent of Detroit residents have subprime or no credit, and “accessing capital is a major barrier,” said Libby Palackdharry. But she and her team are working to change that. Palackdharry merged Southwest Economic Solutions’ foreclosure prevention, homebuyer education and financial coaching programs into one collaborative Homeownership Assistance Team that contributed to 10 percent of all new home mortgages in Detroit in 2016. This collaborative approach “focuses on thinking about the individuals we serve versus the programs that we run. It’s all about how we can best help the individuals we work with take that next step towards the goals they want to achieve,” Palackdharry said. In Detroit, “it really has been a cash market — if you didn’t have the cash to purchase a home and do the rehab on your own, you wouldn’t be able to do it,” Palackdharry said. “Up until recently,

“There’s a huge racial disparity in wealth in America. On average, white households have 11 times the wealth of African American households.”

there was no mechanism to finance a home purchase if the home didn’t appraise at the cost it would take to purchase and rehab the home so it could become livable.” To fill those needs, Palackdharry helped roll out Detroit Home Mortgage and the Detroit Land Bank Authority’s Occupied Buy Back Program. She also led Detroit HomeLIFT at Southwest Solutions, which offered down payment assistance to low- to moderate-income homebuyers. “There’s a huge racial disparity in wealth in America,” Palackdharry said. “On average, white households have 11 times the wealth of African American households.” But, she added, there’s opportunity in Detroit “to narrow the gap by enabling low-income families to build wealth through homeownership.” Her team’s work has a ripple effect, she said: “It doesn’t only help the individuals we’re serving, but it also helps their families and the communities that they’re living in as well.” — Allison Torres Burtka Photographs by Jacob Lewkow for Crain’s

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CaringForKidsPrototype.indd 1

Burns: What makes iGen unique compared in a little more detail versus the millennial group? Twenge: There’s been a big shift in the way teens spend their leisure time. The iGen teens ... spend less time hanging out with their friends in person, they spend less time doing pretty much anything that teens usually do when getting together with their friends like going to the mall, driving around in a car going to parties. They are getting much less face-to-face interaction. Burns: In today’s world with texting, do you see the lack of interpersonal connection? Twenge: The increase in mental health issues started around 2012 and that happens to be the year that where the percentage of Americans that had smart phones crossed 50 percent. Teens who spend more times on social media, on texting, on gaming, on screens beyond about two hours a day can show more signs of depression. Burns: Do you have advice for parents? Twenge: The key isn’t to take away the smart phone entirely; that’s how they communicate with their friends. But use beyond about two hours a day seems to be problematic. The great news is you can put an app on your teen’s phone that limits the amount of time spent on a certain social media application, or that shuts down the phone at night because that is another key thing for mental health and happiness - to get enough sleep - and a lot of teens are taking their phones to bed with them. For younger children, we need have a serious conversation with them about what’s the best time for them to be getting their own smartphone. The average age now in the U.S. is 10. I think that’s way too young.

Burns: If you are working with a family that has wellness and nutritional issues that could possibly lead to mental health issues, do you find that they are all connected? Kalass: Stress has a cumulative impact on children in an adverse way. If a child is stressed all the time because they are wondering where their next meal is going to come from or if they are in a home with regular physical or emotional abuse, there is a of lack of physical security. We are working at Starfish to understand what trauma looks like and to get away from labeling children as bad. Burns: You are really trying to get to the root of ‘why’. There is something going on in their life that causes them to have this behavior. Kalass: When children are struggling with emotional or mental health challenges, we need to link them to supportive adults and to programs. Children who are stressed out because something has happened in their family or they are being bullied at school, that stress shows up in the pediatrician’s office for a stomach ache or in the principal’s office because that kid has acted out because he doesn’t feel good. We are working on bringing our Starfish professionals into those locations to help children get to the other side in a healthy way. Burns: Any advice for parents if they think something is wrong? Kalass: Parents often feel defeated and depleted themselves and they’ve got to take care of themselves first. Find organizations in your community like Starfish. There should not be the stigma that we have in our country and our community around mental health challenges. No one is afraid to say they have a stomachache, a headache of if their eyes aren’t working. Our emotional wellbeing sets the stage for our physical wellbeing—they go hand in hand.

9/27/17 2:00 PM

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Telemus Capital acquisition adds Chicago market By Tom Henderson thenderson@crain.com

Southfield-based Telemus Capital LLC has entered the long-sought Chicago market with the acquisition of Barrington Strategic Wealth Management Group LLC. Terms were not disclosed. As of press time, the deal was set to close Sunday. Barrington has $350 million under management, which will push Telemus, an investment advisory firm founded in 2005, past the $2.5 billion mark. Diana Joseph, who founded Barrington in 2009, will become the fifth partner at Telemus as well as co-chief investment officer. Her firm, which employs nine, will be rebranded with the Telemus name. “This allows us to much better serve our clients with more investment options and more sophisticated planning,” said Joseph. “There are so many rationales for us doing this.” She said one benefit for her is that Telemus will take over back-office functions “so I can spend a lot more time on things that create value.” “This allows us to continue to grow and continue to attract great people. People want to be part of a growing firm. And it adds to our already deep bench, which is great for our clients,” said Lyle Wolberg, one of Telemus’ three co-founders. “Barrington is well known in Chicago, and Diana is widely quoted in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s,” said Wolberg, who said the two firms have been in talks for almost a year, having become acquainted with each other through New York-based Focus Financial Partners LLC, an affiliation of 54 independent advisory firms nationwide that Telemus joined in 2013. Telemus will now have four offices. In 2006, it bought Ann Arbor-based Beacon Investment Co. In 2014, it bought Los Angeles-based Concentric Capital LLC, which focused on clients in sports and entertainment. The Telemus deal is further confirmation of the perception nationally that the Detroit area is doing much better financially, and that firms based elsewhere are no longer scared off by the words “Michigan” and “Detroit,” said David Sowerby, a longtime area investment adviser who began his career at Comerica Bank and later was at Beacon.

DEALS & DETAILS NEW PRODUCTS J McKeon Products Inc., Warren, a manufacturer of hearing protection products, announced Mack’s Flightguard airplane pressure relief earplugs. Website: macksearplugs.com. J BeagleBoard.org, Oakland Township, manufacturer of embedded devices, announced PocketBeagle, an ultra-tiny complete open-source USB-key-fob computer. Website: beagleboard.org.

Email Deals & Details items to cdbdepartments@crain.com

Need to know

Telemus Capital is acquiring Barrington Strategic Wealth Management J

J Deal adds $350 million under management, which puts Telemus over $2.5 billion J Addition would add fourth office for Telemus to Southfield, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles

In July, Sowerby was recruited after 19 years as portfolio manager at Bloomfield Hills-based Loomis Sayles & Co. LP to open the Michigan office of Cleveland-based Ancora Advisors LLC, an investment advisory firm with

Diana Joseph: Founded Barrington in 2009.

Lyle Wolberg: Two firms in talks almost a year.

$5.2 billion in assets. He serves as a managing partner and portfolio manager in the Bloomfield Hills office.

“It’s good to see an acquisition going in that direction,” Sowerby said of Telemus’ entry into Chicago. “What we’ve seen historically is the opposite. Look at all the banks getting bought and their wealth-management divisions moving out of Michigan. As prosperity, as defined by job growth plus income growth, grows faster in Michigan than the rest of the country, firms want to be here. Ancora saw the potential here and wanted a big footprint here.” Sowerby praised Telemus for its reputation as an entrepreneurial firm and said it has been highly respected since Wolberg, Gary Ran and Robert

10% SAVINGS When your business is more energy efficient, it’s also more profitable—and DTE Energy wants to help make that happen. Take John Logiudice, owner of Florentine Pizzeria, for example. DTE worked with him to make some small changes that led to big savings. Simply installing a programmable thermostat, sink aerators, LED lights and a prerinse spray valve in the kitchen saved John around 10% a month on his energy bill. If you’d like to manage energy use to save money at your business, visit dteenergy.com/savenow.

Stone left UBS in 2005 and took much of their book of business with them. Wolberg said one challenge for the firm since its founding was recruiting advisers to Michigan and keeping them. “We’ve seen talent leave Detroit for many years,” he said. “We’ve had friends leave to work in Chicago. This gives us a chance to reconnect with people there, and it creates organic opportunities.” Barrington is located in the heart of downtown Chicago, two blocks from the train station. Tom Henderson: (231) 499-2817 Twitter: @TomHenderson2

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CALENDAR TUESDAY, OCT. 3 Western Wayne Business Leadership Banquet. 5-8 p.m. Livonia Chamber of Commerce. Keynote speaker Matt Cullen of Rock Ventures, which serves as Dan Gilbert’s portfolio of more than 100 companies, discusses Gilbert’s vision of revamping properties and attracting new business ventures in downtown Detroit. Crain’s publisher and editor Ron Fournier is the emcee. Ford Motor Company Conference and Event Center, Dearborn. $1,500 corporate table sponsorships; $100 individual. Contact: Dan West, phone: (734) 427-2122; email: dwest@livonia.org; website: livonia.org Women of Influence Lecture Series. 6:30-8 p.m. The Community House. Jocelyn Benson, CEO, Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality. $15. The Community House, Birmingham. Contact: Program department, phone: (248) 644-5832; email: program@communityhouse.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS From Here to Security: How Workplace Savings Can Keep America’s Promise. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Oct. 11. Detroit Economic Club. Robert Reynolds, president and CEO, Putnam Investments & Great-West Financial, will speak on how to improve retirement systems — public and private. Cobo Center. $45 members, $55 guest of members, $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org Women of Influence Lecture Series.

SPOTLIGHT

6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 11. The Community House. Denise Brooks-Williams, president and CEO, Henry Ford Hospital. $15. The Community House, Birmingham. Contact: Program department, phone: (248) 644-5832; email: program@communityhouse.com. Crain’s 2017 Health Care Leadership Summit. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 19. Crain’s Detroit Business. The summit will focus on managing health care in a time of uncertainty. Attendees will hear from industry experts on how their companies are managing today and making long-term decisions, despite uncertainty in the areas of policy and decision making, talent acquisition and retention, and technology. Keynote address from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who will discuss the future of health care reform and an eye-opening panel discussion on Michigan’s opioid crisis, moderated by Lt. Governor Brian Calley. Marriott Renaissance Center. Individual ticket: $185; reserved table of 10: $1,900; young professional ticket for ages 21-35: $140. Contact: Kacey Anderson, phone: (313) 446-0300; email: cdbevents@crain.com. Launching a Local Sports Organization to Drive Economic Impact. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Oct. 25. Detroit Economic Club. Leadership from Detroit’s sports teams, the Detroit Sports Commission, Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, media and the business community have joined forces to form the Detroit Sports Organizing Corp. with a mission to win the large Super Bowlsized sporting events for Detroit.

Panel includes: Arn Tellem, vice chairman, Palace Sports & Entertainment; Tom Wilson, president and CEO, Olympia Entertainment; Rod Wood, team president, Detroit Lions. Ford Field. $45 members, $55 guest of members, $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org Things That Go Bump in the Workplace — A Survivor’s Guide to Employment Nightmares. 8:00 a.m.noon Oct. 27. Plunkett Cooney. Topics to include: compliance with civil rights law, recent case law developments, investigation strategies and practical recommendations for managing employment risk. Detroit Athletic Club. Free. Contact: Stephanie Pegg, phone: (248) 901-4028; email: spegg@plunkettcooney.com; website: plunkettcooney.com Transforming Healthcare. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Oct. 27. Detroit Economic Club. Toby Cosgrove, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic, will explore national healthcare trends and industry disruptors. MotorCity Casino Hotel. $45 members, $55 guest of members, $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org State of the Region. 11 a.m.-1:15 p.m. Nov. 1. Detroit Regional Chamber. The Detroit Regional Chamber’s fourth annual release of the State of the Region report, providing an economic overview of the 11-county region. Cobo Center. $50 members; $100 nonmembers. Contact: Jordan Yagiela, phone: (313) 596-0384; email: jyagiela@detroitchamber. com; website: detroitchamber.com

Chamber CEO appointed to Fed board

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has appointed Detroit Regional Chamber CEO and President Sandy Baruah to its Detroit branch board of directors. Baruah’s term, effective immediately, expires Dec. 31 and will be followed by an additional Sandy Baruah three-year term through 2020, according to a news release from the Detroit Regional Chamber. He replaces Fernando Ruiz, retired vice president and treasurer of Dow Chemical Co., who vacated his position on the board, Fed spokesman Dan Wassmann said via email. In his new role, Baruah will be tasked with helping form national monetary policy and acting as a link between the Federal Reserve and the private sector, the release said.

Boys Hope Girls Hope names new director

Patrice Johnson

Boys Hope Girls Hope of Detroit has named Patrice Johnson its new executive director. Johnson, 29, took on the role at the nonprofit Sept. 5, replacing

Suneil Singh, 38, who is leaving the organization after four years at the helm. “These past four years, the board and I have transformed a nearly insolvent nonprofit into one of the leanest, best performing charities in the city of Detroit,” Singh said via email. Johnson comes from the Gerald R. Ford Job Corps Center in Grand Rapids, where she worked as director of programs.

Boys & Girls Clubs CEO to retire The Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan’s president and CEO of 20 years, Len Krichko, plans to retire from the nonprofit at the end of the year. A national search is starting to find his replacement and expects to fill the position in the Len Krichko second quarter of 2018, Shaun Wilson, a spokesman for the organization, told Crain’s in an email. An interim president and CEO will be appointed when Krichko retires, Wilson said. Krichko, 61, will help with the transition in 2018 by serving as an executive consultant, according to a news release. During his tenure, Krichko helped the metro Detroit area grow from eight clubs to 10 and it expanded from serving 7,000 children per year to about 15,000, Wilson said.

PEOPLE BANKING/FINANCE

INSURANCE

J Danielle Kammeyer to chief operating officer, Concorde, from director of brokerage operations.

J Grace Peabody to principal, Peabody Insurance Agency, from MBA candidate, University of Notre Dame.

CONSTRUCTION

MANUFACTURING

J Matt Vetter to vice president, Schafer Construction Inc., from director of pre-construction services, Cunningham-Limp.

J Manoj Karwa to vice president of global sales and marketing, Clean Wave Technologies, from senior director/general manager of EVSE Programs, Leviton.

HEALTH CARE Rob Barrow to executive vice president, Centria Healthcare, from chief operating officer, Wright & Filippis. J Jody H. Boorstein to chief financial officer, Centria Healthcare, from chief financial officer, Aero Communications; Steven Merahn, M.D., to chief medical officer from chief medical officer, US Medical Management; and Darren Schwartz to chief sales officer and executive vice president senior vice president of sales, Groupon. J

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY J Edward Wolyniec to CEO, BeneSys Inc., from senior vice president, HR outsourcing and consulting services, Xerox.

NONPROFITS/TRADE GROUPS J Ellen Thackery to deputy executive director, Michigan Historic Preservation Network, from Southeast Michigan field representative.

REAL ESTATE J Thomas Lasky to executive vice president, Colliers International, Southfield, from owner, Forum Group Commercial Real Estate, Southfield. J Joe Romzek to director of marketing and events, UCC Management Co., from Michigan regional admissions officer, Sullivan University, Louisville.

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October 2, 2017 33

Roma Cafe to reopen in November as Amore La Roma By Kurt Nagl knagl@crain.com

Roma Café in Detroit’s Eastern Market is set to reopen with a new name and the family blessing of its former owner. Amore La Roma is expected to open in early November in the space formerly occupied by Roma Café, the popular Italian eatery that had been owned by the Sossi family for 127 years before Janet Sossi Belcoure closed it in July. She transferred the building’s lease to Guy Pelino, 58, who has been executive chef there for three years and wrote the most recent menu. “Since I’ve been here, the whole place has really felt like a family, so

AMAZON FROM PAGE 1

As business and government leaders work to craft a proposal for Amazon to come to Detroit, some officials involved in the talks are sensing Michigan taxpayers don’t have to buy Amazon’s jobs in the way Wisconsin just did to land a Foxconn electronics plant. They think the biggest challenge is to prove to Amazon that Michigan has a pipeline of computer engineers, programmers and other information technology professionals that can be quickly expanded to fulfill Amazon’s consumption of brain power. “It’s going to be a key part,” said John Walsh, strategy director for Gov. Rick Snyder. But despite having one of the top computer science and engineering universities in the country — the University of Michigan — that need could be tough for Detroit and the state of Michigan to fill. Only 3,522 students at Michigan’s 15 public universities earned a degree in computer science and engineering specialties, excluding data entry and data processing, in 20152016, according to provisional data from the national Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System analyzed by Crain’s. Michigan’s entire breadth of post-secondary institutions, including for-profit colleges, churned out 4,519 students with associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in the same specialties in 2015-2016. Other competing states offer more, including Illinois and Pennsylvania, which graduated 7,327 and 7,461 students with these degrees in 20152016, according to IPEDS data. But computer-related programs are growing in the state. Farshad Fotouhi, dean of the Wayne State University College of Engineering, said the college saw a 17 percent increase in computer engineering students, with about 200 who joined this fall. That brings the college to about 700 undergraduate and 150-200 graduate students. And his computer science department chair is asking for more resources to accommodate greater demand. But whether that will happen is an open question. “If the enrollment keeps growing, we need more faculty and more space,” Fotouhi said. “Having a direct pipeline of funding would be essential, because right now, the limited funding that is coming to universities is not sufficient.” Quicken Loans Inc. Chairman Dan Gilbert, who is leading Detroit’s bid

Need to know

JJEastern Market restaurant, with same

menu, to reopen in early November

JJ$125,000 in renovations planned JJSunday hours, bocce ball court and outdoor bar in the works

much tradition and so much love for this restaurant,” Pelino said. “I didn’t want to displace all these people that have been here for so long, and I don’t want to look for a new job at my age.” Amore La Roma will have the same menu Roma Café had before closing its doors and Pelino will bring back most of the 35-40 Roma Café employfor Amazon, has discussed with Snyder the need for state support in expanding education and training for the types of information technology jobs Amazon has, Walsh said. Gilbert said last week that he’s talking to “anybody and everybody” in government, the business community and philanthropic foundations about the need for more education programs to fill the tech talent pipeline. “It doesn’t take a lot of capital, and it doesn’t take a lot of time,” Gilbert said after an event on STEM education in Detroit with Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser of President Donald Trump. At that event in a Gilbert-owned building on Campus Martius, the billionaire mortgage impresario shared the stage with an executive from Amazon, who said public policy needs to gear toward jobs of the future. “We have to start today if we want to prepare our children for careers in tech in 15 years,” said Melissa Elmer, vice president of consumer engagement at Amazon. “And it’s really important to see around corners and see the skills and anticipate the things they’re going to need to make them successful.”

‘SWAT teams’ The University Research Corridor, a research alliance between UM, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, has been tasked with providing Gilbert’s team with background information on talent production and research and development projects and dollars, said Britany Affolter-Caine, URC’s interim executive director and program director. Roger Curtis, director of the state’s Department of Talent and Economic Development, said the working group is already developing plans to augment the Amazon proposal, including expediting earlier plans to grow computer apprenticeship programs and getting computer programming classes into the K-12 curriculum. “We’ve been focused on this stuff already and hopefully these initiatives can be put on steroids,” Curtis said. “There are a lot of creative ideas on the drawing board and we’re doing whatever we can to make sure they become a reality under this bid.” Curtis declined to provide details on the state’s plans. Lou Anna Simon, president of Michigan State University, said there are “SWAT teams” in both Snyder’s office and on MSU’s campus devoted to laying out how Michigan and the Detroit region can meet Amazon’s needs. One area Detroit’s bid is likely to highlight is its supply chain management talent pool, which tops the country, Simon said.

CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A sign touting the new Amore La Roma opening hangs outside the restaurant building in Eastern Market where a letter was posted this summer bidding arrivederci to Roma Cafe guests after 127 years in business.

“The workforce at Amazon is going to be the supply chain people, not just the engineers. It’ll be the creative class thinking digitally, not just software engineers,” Simon said in an interview with Crain’s. “We’ve already laid out the basics of what we think our advantages are, which are growth in engineering, supply chain ... the algorithm people, who are agnostic about what problem they solve, using applied mathematics and computer science to do the work we are talking about.” Michigan’s colleges and universities had 815 graduates in 2015-2016 with degrees in supply chain management, far exceeding regional competitors with Illinois at 160 and Pennsylvania at 316, according to IPEDS data. And Amazon may have to expand its reach beyond degree-holding individuals to meet its demand, said Cindy Pasky, CEO of Strategic Staffing Solutions and co-chair of Detroit’s Workforce Development Board. “If you’re thinking about what could be offered to Amazon, not every position they’re going to want to fill is someone with a lot of experience at the top of an org chart,” Pasky said. The city’s workforce board and agency have piloted programs the past two years focused on the hospitality industry, Detroit hospitals and the skilled trades. Pasky thinks that could be replicated and scaled for computer programming certificates or some other employee training Amazon may need that doesn’t require a four-year degree. Only 446 students received certificates short of a bachelor’s degree in the computer science and engineering fields in 2015-2016. Michigan has room for improvement. “It’s the idea that you train for what the employer needs based on their criteria — and that doesn’t happen in a lot of states,” Pasky said. “We could do it on a large scale for Amazon because we’ve proven we can do it.” Thomson, the former Amazon executive, said if Michigan leaders can dedicate resources toward educating the kind of workforce Amazon desires, it will have a spillover with other companies in different industries. “Whatever city wins this, it’s not just Amazon that’s going to come to town,” Thomson said. “It’s going to be other companies that also follow and say, ‘Hmm, Amazon’s found a way by way of the state to get access to talent. Wouldn’t it be nice to tap into that?’” Curtis said even if Michigan loses the bid, the benefits of the process will live on. “No matter where this bid ends up, it’s still going to be great for the state of Michigan,” he said.

ees. Pelino will continue to head up the kitchen alongside the same cooks. What will change is the aesthetics. Pelino said he has spent about $60,000 in renovations so far and will likely be about $125,000 into it by the time the build-out is done. Pelino said he is handling the contracting. He applied for a Motor City Match grant and CEED loan to help fund an exterior facelift for the restaurant. “We’re trying to bring it back more to the 1900s as far as the look of the place,” he said. Visitors can expect an enhanced vintage feel, with a refurbished bar and bathrooms, new flooring and ceiling, new kitchen equipment and

walk-in freezer and new air-conditioning system. Layout will stay largely the same; no walls will be demolished. During the renovations, Pelino said he found pictures of Eastern Market from the 1930s and 1940s, which will be framed and hung on the walls of the restaurant. Local artists have also been invited to help decorate. “We’re trying to get everyone in the Eastern Market area involved with the place,” Pelino said. Even bigger changes are in store for outside the restaurant, but not until spring. Pelino said he plans to build an outdoor bocce ball court and convert a 45-foot cargo container into an outdoor bar.

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Tigers’ challenge: Offset a near-guaranteed decline By Bill Shea bshea@crain.com

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As part of their promotional plans for 2018, the Detroit Tigers intend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their 1968 World Series championship team. The hope is that those to-be-announced anniversary promotions, and traditionally popular enticements such as bobbleheads and fireworks, will lure fans to Comerica Park, where the Tigers team on the field is expected to be a far cry from the one that beat the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games 50 seasons ago. Detroit’s roster was stripped of a lot of talent and a lot of big contracts this summer as Tigers ownership and management went all-in on a rebuilding effort that’s a sea Need change in busito know ness strategy.  Tigers home They have shed attendance this expensive stars in season was the trades in return lowest since 2005 . for young, cheap talent they’ll de The team plans velop over time. 1968 anniversary That means promotions in more losses. As 2018. 2017 draws to an  Detroit’s roster end, the Tigers was stripped of a have lost nearly lot of big contracts 100 — the season this summer. ended with a weekend series at Minnesota — and fans have drifted away from the ballpark. Detroit had 2.3 million fans at 41,299seat Comerica Park for 81 home games this season. That’s the lowest total home attendance since drawing a little more than 2 million in 2005. The 28,661-per-game average still ranks 14th best in the team’s 117 seasons. It’s also the best in the American League Central Division. All the promotions and gimmicks will do little more than stanch hemorrhaging if the Tigers continue to lose. From Sept. 1-27, their record was 4-22, thanks to a roster depleted of much of its major league talent after trades and injuries. They’re down more than 2,500 fans a game since last season, and since 2013, the Tigers’ per-game attendance is down an average of 9,406 fans per game. That’s nearly a 25 percent decline over five years. The Tigers’ only sellout this season was 45,013 for Opening Day. Detroit sold out two of 81 home games last season, and four in 2015. In 2014, the last year the Tigers made the playoffs, they sold out 27 of 81 home games. Tigers attendance peaked in 2008 with a franchise-best 3.2 million, which included a club record 41 sellouts. They averaged 39,538 that season. The Tigers sold about 15,500 season tickets for 2017, and that number is likely to decline next season. The franchise record for season-ticket sales was about 27,000 in 2008, sparked by the trade that brought slugger Miguel Cabrera from the Florida Marlins. Season tickets are a revenue lifeblood of pro sports teams because they’re guaranteed income not subject to in-season fluctuations of fan interest. If losing stretches multiple seasons, season ticket sales will drop off, too. Fans tired of losing have plenty of options to spend their discretionary dollars on in the area, including the United Shore Professional Baseball League, a

Tigers attendance Figures reflect attendance at home games. 2017 win-loss totals are through Sept. 29. Year

Wins

Losses

Home attendance

Per-game avg

2017

2,321,599

28,661

2016

2,493,859

31,173

2015

2,726,048

33,655

2014

2,917,209

36,015

2013

3,083,397

38,067

2012

3,028,033

37,383

2011

2,642,045

32,618

2010

2,461,237

30,386

2009

2,567,165

31,693

2008

3,202,645

39,539

2007

3,047,133

37,619

2006

2,595,937

32,049

2005

2,024,431

24,993

2004

1,917,004

23,667

2003

119

1,368,245

16,892

2002

106

1,503,623

18,795

2001

1,921,305

23,720

2000

2,438,617

30,106

Source: baseball-reference.com

developmental outfit in Utica that caters to fans seeking an inexpensive baseball game in the northern suburbs. It averaged 3,350 fans per game this year. The Tigers’ front office has tools to slow the gate slide: Discounted tickets, group sales, promotions and giveaways, social media campaigns, digital, print and broadcast advertising, and offering experience options for fans such as interacting with current and former players. It’s the playbook used across sports these days. The Tigers also can remind fans that the stadium is in the 50-block District Detroit project that the team’s owners, the Ilitch family, is spending $2 billion to create. “It becomes more about event marketing than baseball. Every team has gone through it, even the Yankees,” said Michael Cramer, who was president of the Texas Rangers and NHL’s Dallas Stars from 2000-04 and now is director of the Texas Program in Sports and Media at the University of Texas. “The best way to do it is to have fun, market the stadium, the game, have giveaways and concerts. Do some things you might not do. Unless you can make it a fun and entertaining day that just happens to be while a baseball game is going on, you’re not going to do as well when you’re not winning.” The team declined to comment on their attendance or plans for 2018 other than to say they’re still being formulated. The Tigers did acknowledge they’re hiring more analytics staff — and need to find a new manager — to hasten the rebuilding. While the gate declines are stark, a decline in fan revenue will be less of a strain on the Tigers’ finances next season because they’ve slashed their labor costs via trades and releasing players. Detroit began the season with more than $200 million earmarked for players, and has since shed tens of millions of dollars. Currently, the team has $96 million in payroll on the books for 2018. That

doesn’t include 10 players who are eligible for salary arbitration next season, nor players under team control making the league minimum. Their salaries likely will add $20 million to $30 million to the payroll. The club also could add relatively cheap free agents, so payroll on Opening Day could be around $130 million. Some of that money will be paid to former players. The Tigers will pay $8 million of Justin Verlander’s salary next season as part of the terms of his trade to the Houston Astros. Detroit also will pay the Texas Rangers $6 million for Prince Fielder’s $214 million salary as part of his 2013 trade for Ian Kinsler. The Tigers aren’t a poverty case. Tigers General Manager Al Avila has an Ilitch-mandated budget to live within the team’s means as he handles the roster, regardless of how many fans come through the turnstiles, but fan-based revenue is just one part of any team’s budget. The team takes in millions of dollars in league-wide shared revenue from broadcast rights deals, licensing, and merchandise sales. The Tigers also get $50 million a season from their local deal with Fox Sports Detroit. That contract is up in 2021, and if the Tigers are poised to contend by then, they could command an even more lucrative long-term deal, Cramer said. He figured Detroit’s rebuilding cycle, if successful, would take about five seasons. What this season, with its trades and revamped business strategy, represents is the close of an era that began in earnest with a surprise World Series trip in 2006 during a 95-win season. It was when owner Mike Ilitch, who died this past February at age 87, began spending in earnest on players, shelling out $1.6 billion over the next 11 seasons. Detroit had a winning record in nine of those years, and two American League pennants. Bill Shea: 313 (446-1626) Twitter: @Bill_Shea19

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

FOURNIER FROM PAGE 4

months that there hasn’t been a conversation about what is going on at the arena. The ability to go there and see it take shape — and you start to imagine what’s going to be happening there, whether it is the sporting events or the concerts. It’s about the memories that will be made. It ties back to how a business becomes a force for good. People are wired for community, we are wired for relationships, we have a need for connection with others, and business can provide that social infrastructure. Sports facilities can provide that place for gathering. This at a time when we are less united as a country, looking for new ways to be connected.

I think there is a role for business to play in helping establish those connections. The types of community organizations that existed in decades past, don’t exist to the degree today that they once did. Organized religious institutions don’t have the memberships that they once had, and I can’t speak to why that is, but people need that. In the absence of that, even in these more divided times, I think you are seeing business leaders step up and be more of a guiding light in terms of commenting more today than ever in the past about things that are occurring or need to occur in society. I think as both spokespeople and examples, as well as internally, (businesspeople have) the opportunity to help facilitate and encourage the community and the connectivity.

“Even in these more divided times, I think you are seeing business leaders step up and be more of a guiding light in terms of commenting more today than ever in the past about things that are occurring or need to occur in society.” Ryan Maibach finger on anything specific or new systems you created? Or as you unwind the way you have done things out of habit, are you doing things differently that may be a model for the rest of the industry?

It’s a cautious yes. We have not really publicized this yet: We just finished the purchase of an engineering form of technology that we do think will provide a very different methodology for doing multi-story construction. Please explain.

In traditional construction, if we were playing with our Legos, we would stack our Legos up and put in windows and keep on going up and up and up — and we would build on top of what we started. We start at the ground and work our way up. This new engineering technology is a different approach in that there is a core that is built and, at the top of

the core, there is a lifting mechanism, and then on the ground, you effectively build the roof, and then you use this lifting mechanism to pull the roof up and into place and pin it into the core. Then you build the next floor on the ground and you lift it up into place. And so on. You are able to effectively create more of a manufacturing environment at the base of the building rather than working from the base with using things like cranes and pumping mechanisms to keep working your way up. (The traditional approach) tends to make high-rise construction more cost-prohibitive. Is this something a lot of construction companies are doing?

It is not something that’s been explored much in the past. The technology that you have bought, is it something that you are planning on using in any of your projects now or are you looking for the right client and the right project?

We are trying to be thoughtful about where we are going and what we do with it. We are looking at and considering the projects as they come, whether they would be candidates for this, and at the same time we have also reached out to a handful of people (with whom) we have shared some of the concepts … to see if they would be interested in developing a project. Knowing that this is a newer concept and newer methodology, there is varying levels of interest at being a part of something new.

While the rest of the business world is being disrupted, the construction industry is still operating as it has for decades. You were telling me earlier how construction is really no more efficient or accountable than it’s been in past years. Do you see that changing?

Financing Experience

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We feel like change is coming. We have set our sights on being a catalyst for change.

Are you far enough along in that transformational line to put your

Ŷ Financial matters, business and corporate matters, financial transactions, real property, acquisition and commercial financing transactions.

“We just finished the purchase of an engineering form of technology that we do think will provide a very different methodology for doing multi-story construction.”

Ŷ Startup to mid-size companies, corporate governance and private equity matters.

Ryan Maibach

BANKRUPTCIES J The following businesses filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit Sept. 22-28. Under Chapter 11, a company files for reorganization. Chapter 7 involves total liquidation. J Mike Farrell’s Detroit Wrecker Sales LLC, 19303 W. Davison St., Detroit, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets and liabilities not available. J Dusk To Dawn Heating and Cooling Services LLC, P.O. Box 741, Birmingham, voluntary Chapter 7. Assets and liabilities not available.

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Battle lines drawn in latest try at auto insurance reform Need to know

By Chad Livengood clivengood@crain.com

Hospitals, trial attorneys, medical clinics are against the changes J

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and House Speaker Tom Leonard’s sweeping proposed changes to Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system has drawn battle lines in Lansing as lawmakers try again to tackle the state’s highest-in-the-nation premiums. Hospitals, trial attorneys and the medical clinics that treat drivers suffering from injuries sustained in car crashes have lined up against Duggan and Leonard’s proposals to drastically cut how much they can charge. The auto insurance industry seems to like the Duggan-Leonard plan. And the Michigan Chamber of Commerce endorsed it. Hearings are set to begin Tuesday in the House Insurance Committee on the bipartisan plan Duggan and Leonard put forward last week in a bid to deliver rate relief for Michigan drivers. Here are three aspects of the legislation where divisions run deep:

Capping benefits The Duggan-Leonard plan calls for creation of a three-tier system of coverage for personal injury protection. While Michigan’s unlimited medical

J Auto insurance industry seems to like the plan J

Hearings set to begin Tuesday

benefits would remain an option, drivers also could choose to buy a lower level of coverage capped at $250,000 or $500,000. Expenses exceeding the caps would be shifted to private or government health insurance. “At $250,000, you’re never going to touch the health carrier,” said Pete Kuhnmuench, executive director of the Insurance Institute of Michigan, the industry’s lobbying arm. “... There would be a cost shift, but you’re paying that health care premium anyways.” But the details of those caps, spelled out in House Bill 5013, are a lot more nuanced. The $250,000 cap is split into two coverage caps: $225,000 for “an emergency medical condition and related emergency medical care only” and $25,000 for all other personal injury benefits, including long-term attendant care, according to the bill. “There is no such thing as a $250,000 lower cap — it’s really just $25,000,”

said Steven Gursten, an attorney at Michigan Auto Law, a Farmington Hills-based personal injury law firm. “For Duggan, that is going to kill his constituents.” Gursten said the legislation would result in an “enormous” cost-shift to employer-provided health insurance plans and Medicaid. “If you don’t have great health insurance, which many people don’t, then you’re going to be blowing through personal savings, declaring personal bankruptcy and ending up on Medicaid,” Gursten said. Duggan told Crain’s the cost-containment measures in the legislation will lower overall expenses, resulting in a “minimal impact” on private insurance plans offered by employers. In other states, Duggan said, “auto accidents are a very small piece of any employer’s overall health care cost.”

Medicare fee schedule Hospitals, doctors and rehabilitation clinics have been able to charge some of their highest rates to car accident victims because Michigan’s auto insurance lacks the type of government-mandated and health insurer-negotiated pricing built into

ool Old School

the regular health care system. In Detroit, a neck MRI can cost auto insurers $3,258, while the workers’ compensation system pays $770 for the same procedure and Medicare pays $484, according to data compiled by the Insurance Institute of Michigan. “Why should an X-ray for a broken arm be any different if you got it from falling off your roof compared to an auto accident?” Kuhnmuench said. Duggan and Leonard’s plan would mandate medical expenses for auto insurance be set at the Medicare payment level, drastically driving down costs in the system to meet their goal of an average 20 percent reduction in insurance premiums. For hospitals with Level I trauma centers, the legislation creates a separate payment rate of 125 percent of the Medicare rates for treating a narrow set of medical conditions requiring immediate attention. Duggan, a former CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, portrayed the 125 percent reimbursement rate as satisfactory for hospitals because it’s “above” what Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan pays providers. “I mean, hospitals will engage in fistfights over … a Blue Cross patient, which is your best-paying patient, typically,” Duggan said. The Michigan Health & Hospital Association doesn’t see it that way. The hospital industry’s lobbying arm opposes the proposed fee schedule because medical providers would get paid “substantially less” for treating auto accident victims, said Laura Appel, senior vice president and chief innovation officer for MHA. “Medicare is not a great payer in

general, probably comes close to cost,” Appel said. Appel said the bill doesn’t spell out the specific procedures and instances where a hospital could get reimbursed at the higher rate. “We’ll be litigating that for years about whether you get the 100 percent or 125 percent,” she said. The Coalition Protecting Auto NoFault, a group of medical providers and personal injury attorneys, has said it would agree to a fee schedule of 185 percent of the workers’ compensation rate. That would lower the payment for an MRI in the Detroit market from $3,258 to $1,424.

Shifting to Medicare Michigan is the only state that doesn’t legally allow seniors to use their Medicare health insurance to pay for injuries sustained in auto accidents, Duggan said. “You’re forcing them to buy medical coverage they don’t need at $800 to $1,000 a year,” Duggan said. Duggan and Leonard are proposing letting Medicare recipients or retirees over age 62 with lifetime retirement health insurance drop personal injury protection coverage. But swapping no-fault coverage for Medicare is not an equal trade, Appel said. “If you’re in a serious auto accident ... Medicare is not going to pay for your family to take care of you,” Appel said. “If Medicare paid for long-term care, we wouldn’t need Medicaid the way we do. Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

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Mobility center looks for proposals on HQ, labs By Tyler Clifford tclifford@crain.com

The American Center for Mobility is seeking developers for a new headquarters and technology park to be built next to its connected and automated vehicle proving grounds in Ypsilanti. The RFP calls for a 45,000-squarefoot headquarters with collaborative and configurable spaces, meeting and conference rooms, vehicle access and a rooftop to host events. It also calls for a 13,500-square-foot lab. The headquarters and lab will be part of a tech park on 25 acres next to the 500-acre proving grounds, the RFP said. Construction on the proving grounds is expected to be completed in December. The RFP seeks a plan for development of the technology park and wants a developer who will build, lease and manage the technology park.

Need to know

JJAmerican Center for Mobility wants to build 45,000-square-foot headquarters next to proving grounds JJThe HQ and labs will be set on 25 acres JJProposals are due Oct. 30

“It’s exciting to take this next step and begin building out a tech park that will become a critical component for our testing, standards, and education programs at ACM,” ACM President and CEO John Maddox said in a statement. “The site at Willow Run offers an opportunity to create a future mobility ecosystem that will be a place where industry-changing innovation is driven.” Ann Arbor Spark, an ACM founding partner, is managing the RFP process and will host a Q&A session and site tour on Oct. 12. Proposals are due Oct. 30.

C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

AMNESTY FROM PAGE 3

“Will that solve all of our workforce shortage? Of course it won’t,” said Pasky, co-chair of the mayor’s Workforce Development Board. “But it definitely will make an impact.”

A source of revenue Leonard said the House legislation will speed up the planned five-year sunset of Driver Responsibility Fees to end a year early on Oct. 1, 2018. On that same date, the state will stop trying to collect the unpaid fees, Leonard said. “This would give absolute immunity and forgiveness for any person who owes a Driver Responsibility Fee on that date,” Leonard told Crain’s. As of Wednesday, the state Treasury Department could account for just over $634 million in unpaid Driver Responsibility Fee debt, spokeswoman Danelle Gittus said. In June, the unpaid debt totaled $594.8 million among 317,000 drivers, according to Treasury Department data obtained by Crain's. “I think people are pretty surprised at the dollar amounts (owed) and this huge barrier it’s creating, especially if you need a car for employment,” said Dave Meador, vice chairman of DTE Energy Co. and a co-chair of Detroit’s workforce board. “If you’ve got (these fees) and you’re faced with high auto insurance rates, it makes it near impossible (to get to work).” Since their introduction, Driver Responsibility Fees have been a lucrative source of revenue, generating as much as $100 million for Michigan's cash-strapped state budget in the years leading up to the Great Recession. The fees were assessed for two consecutive years and ranged from $150 for driving on an expired license to $1,000 for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. Since lawmakers started a long, phase-out of the fees in 2012, revenue has dropped to an estimated $43.5 million this fiscal year. The nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency has estimated the fees would generate $25.5 million in the 2019 fiscal year. But under the House and Senate plans, lawmakers would forgo that revenue to eliminate them at the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2018. “It’s brought in a lot of money, but it’s also created a huge financial burden on a lot of our hard working Michigan residents,” said Hildenbrand, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We’ll be able to make the adjustments in the budget.”

check and be back in good standing.” Leonard said he witnessed the burden of the fees on the working poor firsthand when he was an assistant prosecutor in Genesee County before being elected to Tom Leonard: Has witnessed the the House in 2012. “They knew burden of fees. there would never be a path for them to drive legally in the state of Michigan again,” Leonard said. “With the exception of having a felony on your record, I can think of few things that are more of an impediment to somebody finding a job than not having a driver’s license — especially the blue collar folks.” House Speaker Pro Tempore Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, is sponsoring the main House bill granting amnesty for the driver fees on Oct. 1, 2018. The bills will be sent to the House's Michigan Competitiveness Committee, which Chatfield chairs. The seven-bill package has three Democratic sponsors in the minority party, including Reps. Leslie Love and Sylvia Santana of Detroit. Love is sponsoring a bill that will create a community service option for drivers who want to get their license back before Oct. 1, 2018, in exchange for volunteering in their communities. Santana is sponsoring a bill that will create a program to educate drivers on how to get their license back and potentially rejoin the workforce, according to Leonard’s office. Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

JEMISON FROM PAGE 3

Also, using our real estate assets and the expertise of our organization to create those partnerships. Do you still envision yourself being involved with the Choice Neighborhoods process?

In the last submittal for Choice, the DEGC was our Neighborhood Implementation Entity. We expect the same to be the case. We have already engaged members of DEGC’s team about the application again. The application goes in on Nov. 22 and so I’ll be here (with the city) to put it in on behalf of the city and a few weeks later, and I will join the DEGC. What are your top three priorities?

The top three are going to be identify those deals that give us the best chance to grow or attract new businesses. The city and DEGC have worked together on Flex-N-Gate and Sakthi and on other projects, and we have more of that in the pipeline. That will be No. 1. We have a planning effort in Eastern Market that’s both important to planning and our ability to grow the food sector. I’m also interested in pursuing a deeper partnership with the workforce side of the house. Also, I want to work on connecting with the great internal assets of the organization that we have. I’d be stupid if I didn’t ask about Amazon. What do you see your role in that process to be moving forward?

I’m part of the team that’s working with Bedrock in the chase. Jed Howbert (executive director, Jobs and

“We are beginning to have a kind of pitch we can make, but also the opportunities in manufacturing that really speak to our origins of the city and the origin of our growth and we are going to be able to make progress there too. It’s a dream job.” Arthur Jemison

Economy Team) has been deeply involved and the DEGC staff members and business development have been deeply involved, but the people who have been driving it are city and DEGC staff members. I have been brought into the loop on it. There has been reported tension between the city and DEGC in the last several years. What’s your take on that?

I have had a chance to observe it and, to be honest with you, and maybe it’s my workstyle, but I have not really observed that to the degree it’s been covered. Staff and leadership over there at the DEGC have been doing great work, and I haven’t seen it to the degree it’s been covered. In taking this new job, I went through vigorous interviews and meetings with the board. There was a rigorous process. I feel like I

went through the process that people would expect a major entity to go through. One of your big pushes has been for 20 percent of the housing units coming to market be affordable. What’s your role in that in your new job?

The DEGC provides the underwriting analysis. It will continue to do that. It will also have some new deals they will pursue. We are going to continue to do it where the DEGC has property or is working with developers. Two of the larger developers in town (Bedrock LLC and Olympia Development of Michigan) have bought in in different ways to doing 20 percent and I expect will do the same. Making sure there is equitable growth is going to be consistent. Why the job switch?

I love housing. But when you’re on the economic development side, you’re more a part of making markets and what drives the place of commercial uses. Our city is unique in that we have been the industrial engine of the country, so you find yourself having to sell one thing or the other. What’s unique now is that we have a thriving downtown and striving neighborhoods that are transforming themselves. We are beginning to have a kind of pitch we can make, but also the opportunities in manufacturing that really speak to our origins of the city and the origin of our growth and we are going to be able to make progress there too. It’s a dream job. Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

‘Perpetual state of punishment’ Drivers who don’t pay the fees lose their license to drive and can end up with more court fees. To get a driver’s license reinstated, drivers have to pay off the fees, plus an extra $125 reinstatement fee. As many as 100,000 Michigan residents have had their driver's licenses revoked because of unpaid court fees, according to a new report published this week by the Virginia-based advocacy group Legal Aid Justice Center. Michigan has a $500 Driver Responsibility Fee for driving on a suspended license that can compound the fees. “Enforcing debts against people who can’t afford to pay puts them in a perpetual state of punishment,” authors of the report wrote. “They can never atone, especially compared to wealthier people who can just write a

Leaders in Complex Business Lawsuits and Class Action Litigation www.millerlawpc.com (248) 841-2200/ www.millerlawpc.com 950 West University Drive / Suite 300 / Rochester / Michigan / 48307 / (248) 841-2200

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BATH

FROM PAGE 3

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Cash flow is a big question mark. But the Schvitz is also a place its regulars have kept running for decades, one they feel connected to in ways they express in near-religious terms. It’s a place of purification, of cleansing, a sanctuary where troubles are exorcised in puddles of sweat. It’s a hard place to turn your back on. Alan Havis, one of Lynch’s two partners, has been coming to the Schvitz for years and is typical of the old guard. His patronage began in 1981, when he was attending law school downtown and began meeting his father and great-uncle there on Thursday nights. “It’s not only a social thing for me, but it’s the thing that I do for myself that lets me do the other things I do,” said Havis, 57, of his weekly visit. “I can sweat it all out, get my head together, and (work hard) for another week, until I can get back there again.” If Lynch can take that core of devotees and build a larger clientele around them, he said, he can do good not only for the business, but the neighborhood and maybe even the city itself. The Schvitz was set to reopen Sunday with an open house for old and new customers, neighbors and the general public. It’ll still be a work in progress, Lynch concedes. But in some ways, it’s always been one.

A steamy history Schvitz is a Yiddish word. It means sweat. The Schvitz’s founding is rooted in Judaism; it opened in 1918 as a Jewish cultural and community center for the North End neighborhood. The basement was dug out later, when the steam room and a cold-water pool were added; tilework on the pool deck says 1930, and it was sometime around then that its clientele grew to encompass the Purple Gang, the fearsome criminal mob of the city’s Prohibition era. The Schvitz was run by members of the Meltzer family from the 1930s to the mid 1970s. Rick Meltzer, whose father and grandfather were the proprietors, said during that time it was largely a men’s club — ladies-only on Wednesdays — that served up steam, relaxation and big meals afterward. “My dad always said the Purple Gang guys hung out there, but they didn’t run the place,” Meltzer said. That job was done by Eugene “Toots” Johnson, who was said to have stopped by looking for work in 1929, started digging the basement project with an offered shovel, and never really left until he died in 1987. By the late ’70s, the club was following the decline of the city. It was sold to a succession of owners and entered an era many modern Detroiters have at least heard about, that of the infamous “couples night.” Couples night, or nights, were Fridays and Saturdays, when male-female couples paid $75 to have the club to themselves for open sexual activity. For decades, the Schvitz had a binary identity; during the week, it was a place for men, many of them Russian or eastern European devotees of steam, to sweat and socialize in the banya, and on the weekends, a place for swingers.

Sauna patrons make their own steam by throwing buckets of water onto hot rocks in the oven.

It was the sex, more than the mobsters, that gave the place its shady reputation, Lynch said. After the partners closed the deal in March and got the keys, couples night was the first thing to go. “The phone rang for weeks,” said Jessie Nigl, the third party in the new management, who will supervise its daily operation. One day she let another employee answer, she said, lacking the heart to “disappoint another displaced swinger,” and overheard her telling the caller, “This is a de-sexualized space now.” “We thank those people for helping keep the lights on for many years,” said Lynch. “But it’s time for something new here.” What Nigl, Lynch and Havis want to build in its place is a hybrid Schvitz and spa, open to men some days, women on others, with co-ed days — swimsuits required, no sex tolerated — in between. On weekends, it’ll be available for private events. Havis hopes to rekindle the tradition of fathers bringing their sons and more family-friendly activities. A Sunday ladies’ brunch potluck was attracting good business before the Schvitz changed hands, so the partners hope there’s a female customer base ready for communal sweating, too. The owners plan to build a separate dry-heat sauna, offer conventional spa treatments — massage and barbering for men, massage and skin treatments for women — and eventually reopen the kitchen. The unsavory history will be part of the allure. “This was a wild place, and we embrace that,” said Havis. “The sex,

drugs, gambling, Purple Gang — we embrace it, but call it folklore. We’re about therapy, not sexuality.”

Purging through the pores Lynch, 33, grew up in West Bloomfield, a third-generation scion of the Lynch & Sons funeral-home business, where he makes his living at the family’s Clawson location. A graduate of Brother Rice High School and Boston College, he has the idealism of a Catholic missionary and the social network that decades of funeral service affords a family. (His uncle, Thomas Lynch, is a poet and essayist, and the subject of the 2007 “Frontline” documentary “The Undertaking,” as well as a creative inspiration for the HBO series “Six Feet Under.”) Lynch has been coming to the Schvitz for five years. He’d been through a rocky period after college graduation and a searing stint in Haiti, doing service with the Little Brothers of the Incarnation, a monastic order of priests. The work, with AIDS patients and desperately poor Haitians, left him depressed and medicated. Going off antidepressants wasn’t easy, especially in his line of work. “Funeral homes are sad places and it’s not easy work, and going to the Schvitz one or two days a week was my place of purification,” he said. He made friends, and started feeling better. “I was surprised by the atmosphere, of men sweating in the basement in this obscure part of the city.” But he said it was Nigl who opened his eyes to what the Schvitz could become. Nigl took Lynch on a trip to the 10th Street Baths in New York City, a

The advantages of a private club are pretty clear when you can eat with your shirt off and a monkey on your shoulder in this undated photo of the bathhouse. The club had a resident parrot for many years, but no one remembers the monkey.

NANCY DERRINGER/BRIDGE MAGAZINE

similar facility now enjoying a renaissance among millennials. “It really showed me what we could do,” Lynch said. “That we could make this place into something far better, for more people.” When they got home, they contacted Havis and began negotiations to buy it. Since they took possession in March, the building has continued to reveal itself. The new owners tore up ancient carpet and tore down drop ceilings, exposing original tile and pressed tin. Opening some bricked-over windows improved the air quality. But the biggest revelation was under the floor in the swingers’ TV room — a mikveh, the ceremonial bath used by observant Jews for purification purposes. Rabbi Yisrael Pinson, executive director of Chabad of Greater Downtown Detroit, examined it for authentication purposes, and said he believes it dates from the building’s original construction. It had a basin to collect rainwater, as a kosher mikveh must have a natural water source. It was close to an exterior door, so that women could come in and use it without passing through the men’s area. And it had the traditional six steps to the bottom. “Every Jewish community needs to have a mikveh. It makes sense that as we’re rebuilding the Jewish community (in Detroit), we should build a mikveh,” Pinson said. He wants to start fundraising to restore it, which would make it the only one in the city. Such details suggest the building could one day gain historic status, making it eligible for grants or low-interest loans, Nigl said. In the meantime, the owners want to make the facility more open to neighbors. Lynch is considering a lower neighborhood-resident admission charge (currently $25), converting an unused lot to a garden tended by the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, and other diplomatic gestures. Lynch said a neighborhood resident who grew up there told him her mother had always instructed her to walk on the other side of the street when passing the building, “because it was full of mean white men.” He wants to change that perception. A big step may come in the spring, when the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society will take over the basement space to produce “Bubble Schmeisis,” a one-man play by Nick Cassenbaum, with live klezmer music. “They’re going to build a stage over the pool,” Lynch said. “It’s a play about a schvitz that will actually take place in the Schvitz.”

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THE WEEK ON THE WEB

RUMBLINGS

SEPTEMBER 22 - 28 | For more, visit crainsdetroit.com

Moroun family seeks to develop McLouth site

ayne County commissioners voted last week to recommend approval of a Moroun family-led redevelopment of the former McLouth Steel Products Corp. property in Trenton. After a tense debate last Wednesday that included some commissioners blasting the Moroun family’s history with property in Detroit, the Committee of the Whole voted 11-3 to recommend the full commission approve last Thursday the transfer of the 188-acre property to the Wayne County Land Bank so Moroun's Crown Enterprises Inc. can demolish the former factory and then build on the land. The purchase price for the site on West Jefferson Avenue is $4 million to cover unpaid taxes owed to the city, county and other taxing jurisdictions. Crown anticipates spending $5 million to demolish the 1 millionsquare-foot building with shattered windows on the site and clean up the property to grade, according to a document the Warren-based company provided to the commission. A purchase and redevelopment agreement with the county calls for Crown to spend at least $20 million over 72 months. If that level of investment isn't made, Crown would pay the land bank $1 million. It also calls for a $250,000 donation to Trenton at a later stage in the redevelopment. Pending the commission’s approval, the development agreement gives Crown Enterprises until the end of the year to take title on the property. That depends on the company coming to an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on cleanup responsibilities at the heavily contaminated site at 1491 W. Jefferson Ave. on the north side of Trenton, Michael Samhat, president of Crown Enterprises, told Crain’s. Crown, which also owns the 76acre site abutting the McLouth Steel site, could turn it into a multimodal logistics hub, a cluster of manufacturing plants, a finished car shipping center for multiple brands or an auto assembly plant, Samhat said. The company has often been criticized for sitting on properties it owns, including the Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. “The process was thorough and fair,” Trenton Mayor Kyle Stack said. “I know this is not a popular decision and I know of the criticisms my council and I will bear.”

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

300,000

The number of motorists whose unpaid driver fees would be forgiven under a new plan by state lawmakers.

The number of construction projects for which Motor City Re-Store and other groups are seeking Detroit-based contractors as part of a broader goal to employ more Detroiters.

$4.5 million The boost Amazon is receiving from the state to build its 1-millionsquare-foot distribution center in Shelby Township.

its Cleary Culinary Academy programs Oct. 30 at its Detroit Education Center. J Eighty-five percent of unionized hospitality workers at Little Caesars Arena who voted ratified the first labor deal at the new downtown Detroit home of the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons. J Restaurateur Eli Boyer plans to open a burger joint called Loverboy in Bedrock LLC’s 28 Grand Building in Capitol Park. J Delphi Automotive is renaming its automated driving business Aptiv to reflect its focus on keeping up with future technologies, Automotive News reported. J Adient Ltd. completed its $360 million acquisition of Oak Parkbased automotive seating manufacturer Futuris Group. J Lincoln Capital LLC, an investment group based in Okemos, purchased the 175,506-square-foot Lincoln Park Plaza from Lincoln Park Plaza LLC. J The Suburban Collection added Jaguar of Troy and Land Rover Birmingham to its portfolio after striking deals with Bloomfield Hills-based Elder Automotive Group and Birmingham-based Fred Lavery Co., respectively.

J Art Van Furniture Inc. is hiring more than 100 sales staff at 13 stores, including the new location set to open in January in Canton Township. J The Topgolf Swing Suite — equipped with three golf simulators, pool tables, TVs, arcade games, and food and beverage service — opened last week at MGM Grand Detroit. J The Michigan Strategic Fund approved $24.7 million in local and school tax captures for the Village at Bloomfield project in Pontiac and Bloomfield Township. J Peoples Bank in Southfield is terminating 62 employees with the closing of its national mortgage business division, but those affected are being picked up by a new company. J J.C. Penney Co. plans to hire 1,300 people across its 34 stores in Michigan for the holidays, while Target Corp. recently announced it will hire 2,000 seasonal workers in the state.

OTHER NEWS J Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, House Speaker Tom Leonard and Rep. Lana Theis last week unveiled an auto insurance reform plan that would create optional levels of personal injury protection plans to drive down rates and impose a first-of-itskind state denial of premium increases exceeding inflation. J Vice President Mike Pence visited metro Detroit last week to attend a fundraiser, talk tax reform and visit a local manufacturing plant. J The Wayne County Commission Committee of the Whole recommended an extension of the deadline for the Warren Evans administration to come to a decision on the halfbuilt jail in downtown Detroit to Dec. 1. J Grammy-winning songwriter and Detroit native Allee Willis debuted her community-promoting song “The D” last week during a premiere party at the Detroit Institute of Arts. J City workforce agency Detroit Employment Solutions Corp. plans to use a $1.1 million U.S. Department of Labor grant to provide education and training to 60 youths through a new facility to be called the East Side Youthbuild Center. J A Michigan judge ruled in favor of Wayne State University in a bylaws dispute with a rebel pediatrics group affiliated with its medical school.

BUSINESS NEWS The lobbying arm of U.S. internet companies announced a $300 million commitment from leading technology companies toward STEM education at an event at the 1001 Woodward building in Detroit with Quicken Loans Inc. Chairman Dan Gilbert and Ivanka Trump. J Dan Gilbert’s team has been quietly working on a deal for one of the most perplexing and environmentally challenging properties available for redevelopment in Detroit: the city-owned former Uniroyal Tire Co. factory site on the east riverfront. J Cleary University is set to launch

DETROIT RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY

Plans for a 3.2-acre parcel in Detroit on Atwater Street, east of Chene Park and west of Stroh River Place, include a sandy beach, play areas for children, a shed and a floating barge. The Detroit RiverFront Conservancy is seeking restaurateurs and retailers for the new park expected to open on Detroit’s riverfront in 2019. The nonprofit issued on Thursday a request for proposals for those interested in being a tenant at the former industrial site.

Quicken Loans Inc. Chairman Dan Gilbert.

CHAD LIVENGOOD/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Gilbert ponies up to be in lobby group with Amazon

few weeks ago, Quicken Loans Inc. Chairman Dan Gilbert admits, he had never heard of the Internet Association, the lobbying arm of internet giants Amazon, eBay, Google and Facebook. But then Ivanka Trump called, according to Gilbert. The president’s daughter and adviser wanted to hold an event in Detroit centered on members of the Internet Association committing $300 million in financial support for STEM education, Gilbert said. The Internet Association quickly got a new member in Quicken Loans, the Detroit-based online mortgage company Gilbert founded. And Quicken Loans agreed to sponsor computer science training for 15,000 students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District as part of the new private-sector commitment that was paired with a $200 million pledge in federal funding from the Trump administration.

“They did get us to join — we had to pay a membership fee,” Gilbert said after the event last Tuesday with Ivanka Trump. Executives from big internet companies attended the event at a Gilbert-owned office building on Campus Martius, including one from a firm Gilbert is actively trying to woo to Detroit — Amazon. Michael Beckerman, president and CEO of the Internet Association, said the event was held in Detroit to emphasize that there are jobs in computer science “outside of Silicon Valley.” Gilbert is planning to continue wooing Beckerman as he tries to get of members of the Internet Association to set up shop in Detroit. “He’s coming back next week for the Michigan-Michigan State game next weekend,” said Gilbert, a Michigan State University alum. “We’ll take the tour again. You know, we’ll see what happens.”

Ideas for what Detroit should send to Bezos

couple of weeks ago, we noted that Tucson economic developers were sending a 21foot cactus to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to get his attention as the company looks for a second headquarters location. So we asked you: What should Detroit send? Below you’ll find a selection of the best answers we got from you.

Bushels of fresh Michigan apples for the Amazon employee lunchroom would be a wonderful gift from the city of Detroit. Walter Peregon II Although we don’t have a cactus to send; we should send an oversized gift basket of all Detroit-made Products (Better Made, Faygo, Valentine Vodka, Detroit Hustles Harder Apparel, etc.) This demonstrates how we take pride in our hometown and how we welcome them to the neighborhood. Dawn Davis I think the best deal-making gift from Detroit to Jeff Bezos would be an

iPhone preloaded with 10 or 20 phone numbers of the people he would most want to speak with, including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, Sandy Baruah, Doug Rothwell, Jeff Mason, Gov. Rick Snyder, Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Dan Gilbert, Tom Gores, Chris Ilitch, Gerard Anderson and other key players who need to be at the table. Mark Beyer Send him The Fist. John Gulesarian If you have to send a gift to get noticed you’re not on the list. He’s looking for a city with presence already. What should we do? This month pass state legislation to create mass transit, a state entity to link the city and suburbs by rail with funding to run a pilot from Ann Arbor to Detroit and turning over the outer lanes and traffic light control of Detroit’s arteries to DDOT. If we send them an instant fix to our only real obstacle then we send them a signal, this isn’t your father’s Detroit, it’s your grandfather’s, where stuff gets done. E.M. Parmelee