22 minute read
Inside Track
McLemore’s artistic skills make messages pop
Paul R. Kopenkoskey
Special to the Business Journal
Most artists’ handiwork is displayed in art galleries or at private viewings. Randy McLemore’s craftsmanship can be viewed along highways, sidewalks, storefront windows, interior signs and more.
Four years ago, McLemore launched his Grand Rapids-based Flourish! Sign Painter, putting his visual know-how to e ective use thanks in part to the graphic design degree he earned from Western Michigan University in 1989, where he learned how to make visual communication clear, concise and aesthetically pleasing.
Following college, McLemore worked stints in computer graphics for a number of eclectic nonprofi t and for-profi t organizations including Grand Rapids First Church in Wyoming; Barfuss Creative Services; Grand Rapids Community College; and Flashes of Allegan. He ultimately concluded working in advertising wasn’t for him.
“I found out I don’t want to try to manipulate people, thinking about something that may not be necessary for them,” McLemore said.
McLemore took a 21-year detour from visual communication, working as a crew leader for All Gutter Systems; conductor and then engineer for CSX Railroad; owning and operating his own gutter business; then selling Little Giant Ladders, barbecue grills, cutlery and roofi ng products.
Working those varied jobs provided McLemore with additional skillsets in carpentry, mechanical drawing and sales acumen that he uses for his Flourish! business.
“Those jobs have given me the ability to work with customers, to show them what is meaningful and what’s not meaningful in a sign,” McLemore said. “Typography, words and spacing are important to me.”
Hitting the pavement to introduce himself to potential clients is his primary method of fi nding work, although his Instagram handle, @fl ourish_sign_painter, also generates work.
Amid the glow of neon and LED signs that dot a city’s landscape, McLemore has discovered there’s still elbowroom for a sign painter.
McLemore takes weather-beaten signage on walls, awnings, billboards and the like and, using a brush, paint, handmade patterns and other equipment, restores or creates custom signs for his clients. When he’s done, the business signs pop and thus draw attention. Some signs are intentionally temporary, such as chalkboard A-frame signs that promote a limited-time product or service.
Typically, images and lettering are painted by hand, requiring several kinds of brushes and specifi c colors to customize each sign according to specifi cations.
In a world of computer-generated images, sign painting is a front-row seat to what an artist is still capable of creating.
“You can actually see my brush strokes with my work,” McLemore said.
Then there’s the gold-leaf lettering he does for doors and windows that involves using extremely thin sheets of gold that’s used for gilding, but it also can include using copper, silver and aluminum.
“Usually, a business that applies gold leafi ng signifi es a higher standard: a jewelry store, a law offi ce or a doctor’s o ce, some of the higher-end professionals because it has that prestige associated with it,” McLemore said.
No two signs are alike, a diversity McLemore relishes, but he keeps in mind a good business sign shares common goals amid a clog of signs attempting to draw the same passersby’s attention.
“No sign job is exactly the same, I found out,” McLemore said. “There’s no template. Every business is di erent. But the principle needs to be the same: good design. It needs to be legible and clear, and it needs to communicate.”
Some signs need a major facelift.
A large-scale project McLemore completed is a once-weather-beaten billboard on the corner of West Chestnut and Blue Star
RANDY MCLEMORE
Company/organization: Flourish! Sign Painter Position: Owner-operator, sign painter Age: 60 Birthplace: Grand Rapids Residence: Grand Rapids Family: Wife Colleen, six adult children, two grandchildren Business/community involvement: 12-string acoustic guitarist for traditional Irish folk band Biggest career break: “I was contracted to do mural in Hudsonville and from that job, the chief architect contacted me for the Ada redevelopment to do a ghost sign. It gave me more visibility and prestige for what I’m doing today.” Highway in the Saugatuck-Douglas area that for over 30 years promoted Star of Saugatuck paddle wheel boat pleasure cruises.
The board needed a long-overdue facelift. Lichen and moss had invaded the signboard’s face, which was removed, and new 6-by-4-foot wood braces were installed to support it to its proper 90-degree perpendicular position. It was then repainted with oilbased paints and lettering enamels. The layout changed somewhat as the owners wanted to omit some information and add some new. But the classic three-quarters view of the paddle wheel boat with its unmistakable stern wheel remain as the prominent feature of the sign.
“The most challenging part was, at fi rst, making sure the thing didn’t fall over when I began to straighten it up because the old posts were pretty much rotted through, and then the painting of the paddle wheel,” McLemore said. “I wanted to get that right with the proper perspective and correct positioning. There were so many crisscrossing lines and circles overlapping one another that I almost went cross-eyed trying to paint it.”
McLemore recently refabricated Kutsche’s Hardware’s iconic key lock sign on Leonard Street NW. McLemore discovered Kutsche’s sign needed more than a new paint job. After getting the sign down to bare metal, McLemore discovered the lower portion of the metal sign was repaired with fi berglass. McLemore replaced that material with galvanized sheet metal, thus refabricating that portion of the sign and restoring it to its original condition.
“I had to refabricate the part that was rusted out and had to do some traditional metal work, tin smithing where my previous gutter business came in where I knew how to prepare the metal, knew how to solder it. I knew how to cut it and make the tabs fold under,” McLemore said. “It needed a drainage area, so I had to make sure it was open and accessible and still looked aesthetically correct and functional.”
McLemore keeps an eye on sign restoration trends, including ghost signage — whereby it intentionally looks weather-faded. Such a sign took center-stage for the $13 million redevelopment at the 21-acre downtown area in Ada Village where the retail stores have vintage facades. McLemore employed a dry brush technique that involves painting onto the brick wall but not saturating the area of the sign with paint, intentionally creating an old and weathered look as if it had been there for many years.
The name of his company, Flourish! Sign Painter, germinated from a Psalm in the Old Testament that a rms those planted in the house of the Lord shall fl ourish. That passage sparked his imagination and formulated a business model.
“As I contemplated my next career path, I wanted to go back to my roots, so I took that word (fl ourish) and was thinking about what I was going to call this new entity and there’s the fl ourish that’s with the graphic element and penmanship and a dance or movement element and a part of speech,” McLemore said. “It has a dual meaning that would also speak to my business and also speak to your business. If you hire my company, you will fl ourish.”
On his bucket list is to travel to Europe some day, specifi cally the British Isles, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as the Maritime Provinces in eastern Canada where he has ancestral ties.
“It’s where my grandma’s side came from and settled in the 1700s in the New Brunswick area and then moved to Toronto and then immigrated to Michigan,” McLemore said.
McLemore’s fi rst job was when at 14 he worked the summer months as a carhop for Cook’s Hot Dog stand.
“It was an uncommon job for a male,” McLemore said. “I learned how to keep on eye on a fellow employee who was stealing tips from my tray. I learned to save money because I wanted to buy a pair of Adidas shoes and a pair of Levi’s at Rogers Plaza at The Levi’s Loft. That’s where the cool kids went.”
With a growing list of satisfi ed customers and a fl ow of new work in the pipeline, McLemore said he’s at a point in his life where he can keep the wolf from the door and gratify his creative soul.
“If I can convey an idea crisply, cleanly, aesthetically pleasing, well laid out with as little frills as possible, I like that,” McLemore said. “A business with no sign is a sign of no business.”
Randy McLemore’s hand-painted signs add a certain fl air to today’s cluster of neon and LED messages. Courtesy of Randy McLemore
Social Security Administration plans benefit changes for 2022
Recipients can expect an increase due to pandemic, inflation.
Chelsea Carter
ccarter@grbj.com
In 2021, Americans experienced the highest spike in inflation in three decades, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the all-items inflation index rose 6.8% for the 12 months ending in November 2021, demonstrating the largest 12-month increase since the period ending in June of 1982.
Noting these drastic inflation changes and in preparation for what 2022 would bring, the Social Security Administration issued a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in October that will impact more than 70 million Americans. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits will increase by 5.9% beginning in January 2022, with benefits payable to more than 64 million Social Security beneficiaries. Additionally, approximately 8 million SSI beneficiaries will see increased payments beginning on Dec. 30, 2021, to accommodate the sharp inflation increase.
Additional changes include an increased limit on taxed wages in 2022, an increased earnings limit for workers who are younger than “full” retirement age, as well as the first extension to full retirement age since changes were last enacted in 1983.
Lisa Hojnacki, participant services coordinator/team lead for Green Leaf Trust’s retirement plan services division, said the monthly increase for SSI benefits are due to near-term inflation as a result of the pandemic.
“As costs have gone up, Social Security benefits are also increasing, (and) retirees are expected to see about 92 extra dollars per month (compared to 2021). So that’s a big increase, but the reality is, the cost of inflation of commodities and also Medicare Part B premiums will likely eat up a lot of that increase in benefits,” she said.
While Social Security beneficiaries may initially be excited about the increase, Hojnacki suggests caution, noting the cost of goods and services including insurance premiums also are on the rise for seniors or those in retirement age.
“So, while their monthly benefits are going up from Social Security, their insurance premiums are also increasing. In addition to health care insurance premiums increasing, so are regular goods, commodities like meat, gas and home heating, … fruits and vegetables and things like that. Those increased benefits are likely to not necessarily lead to a more comfortable lifestyle for seniors, just to probably maintain the lifestyle that they have.”
Hojnacki said changes to Social Security benefits for the coming year are both significant and rather abnormal, noting a combination of the pandemic and the growing wealth gap in the United States as primary drivers.
According to a Social Security news release, other annual adjustments that take effect each January are based on average wage increases. Because of the 2021 increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax, or taxable maximum, will increase from $142,800 to $147,000.
“So that means that those earning higher income will pay Social Security taxes on $4,200 more of income than they did in 2021,” she said.
The Social Security Administration also will increase the earnings limit for workers who are younger than “full” retirement age from $18,960 to $19,560, with a deduction of $1 from benefits for each $2 earned over $19,560. Full retirement age is between 66 and 67, based on the year a person was born.
Similarly, the earnings limit for those reaching full retirement age in 2022 also will increase from $50,520 to $51,960, as the SSA will deduct $1 from benefits for each $3 earned over $51,960 until the month the worker reaches full retirement age. For those workers who are full retirement age or older for the entire year, there is no limit on earnings.
Hojnacki said the fourth major change on the administration side of Social Security includes a move to “full retirement age,” the first move of its kind in nearly four decades.
According to ssa.gov, the nor-
mal retirement age (NRA) is the age at which retirement benefits (before rounding) are equal to the “primary insurance amount,” or PIA. The website explains PIA as the benefit a person would receive if they elect to begin receiving retirement benefits at their normal retirement age, at which point the benefit is neither reduced for early retirement nor increased for delayed retirement. Specific, individual retirement age can be calculated on SSA’s website.
“Full retirement age is moving and it’s being extended, so full retirement age will be going up, that’s something for folks to keep an eye on. And right now, for most Americans, it’s age 66
Hojnacki
and it’s moving back a little bit so that for those turning 66 in 2022, their full retirement age is being pushed back by two months, potentially, just depending on when that falls for them.”
Hojnacki said the full retirement age up until 2022 was 66 and two months, with the age being pushed back to 66 and four months in the coming year and ultimately delaying benefits for some incoming beneficiaries by a few months.
“Again, something to just keep an eye on as far as when you can start receiving that full benefit,” she said.
Beyond 2022, legislators have begun to explore avenues to address the predicted depletion of Social Security benefits by 2038 through the recent proposal of House Bill 5723.
“There’s a lot being proposed in this bill that would affect Social Security and also is an attempt to reduce the wage gap,” she said.
As beneficiaries seek to navigate the changes coming in 2022, Hojnacki suggests making use of the Social Security Administration’s set of online resources.
“The Social Security Administration has really great online tools. So, making sure that you create your online profile and pay attention to what they’re offering with their online tools, because that will give people the best, most informed, personal benefit experience that they can have.”
Additional information is available at ssa.gov.
SBAM score card shows mixed bag for 2022
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perienced by small businesses as compared to the year before the pandemic. •Rising costs are squeezing margins for small businesses, and supply chain disruptions are presenting challenges to economic recovery.
Calley said the top concern he has been hearing from small businesses has been staffing shortages, which is worrisome because the labor force participation rate does not historically snap back as quickly as other economic indicators following a downturn.
“The decline that we’re feeling today has been 20 years in the making,” he said. “Before the 2001 recession, labor force participation was more like 67-plus percent. It dropped down last year extraordinarily low (to just over 60%), then popped back up, but instead of getting back up to 64% or 65%, like it was pre-pandemic recession, it has only gotten back up to about 61.7%. … History tells us that a growing economy does not solve the labor force participation rate problem that we find ourselves facing today.”
He said this reality forces small businesses, particularly in the service sector, to make tough choices, such as limiting hours and days of operation while still having to pay fixed real estate and equipment costs; training workers to new levels of productivity; adding self-checkouts at grocery stores and iPad ordering systems at restaurants (or eliminating table service and switching to bar or counter service) — all so that the business can run with fewer workers.
Changing consumer behavior regarding the shift to online shopping means small businesses that may not previously have done online sales have to enter the e-commerce realm — a very noisy and overwhelming place — to compete.
“Even though most retail businesses do have and have had an online procurement and order fulfillment system, the presence online is what is impossible for some smaller businesses to compete in without using somebody else’s platform,” Calley said. “There are certain stores that cater to office worker traffic, and that’s their market and their exposure, is the fact that they’re physically located in a place that is within the literal eyesight or within the purview of thousands of office workers. Overnight, the office worker habits, in terms of where and how they’re working, changes, and markets literally move from downtown areas to suburban areas.”
He said it wasn’t easy for them to recover sales to that lost demographic, because being found online requires a new skill set and new level of resources.
“Somebody can’t just throw up a website and have anybody online find them. When you search for things, a lot of the big, dominant, giant online retailers, they create and buy a presence that is literally not possible for most small businesses to replicate or compete with,” he said. “Either they have to sell through somebody else’s network and give them a piece, or there are some brands that are just strong brands with a loyal following, and people seek
them out.”
Calley said some types of retail businesses are more impacted by this changing consumer behavior than others, but there will always be a segment of the consumer population that prefers to touch, feel and experience items before they buy.
“That market, I think they’ll always be served, but it’s hard for me to imagine the proportion of online procurement getting smaller anytime in the foreseeable future,” he said.
Calley noted some large retailers like Meijer are providing a place for locally owned small businesses to sell their goods, which helps provide more sales channels.
“I think the market is going to find its way to a new equilibrium. Some consumer habits won’t change back, and they don’t necessarily have to, but there will definitely be winners and losers in the mix of where things settle,” he said.
“One thing I know about entrepreneurs is as long as they know the rules of the game, they’ll innovate, and they’ll find their new place in it. Where I draw my confidence is that while some industries are going to be irreparably damaged by the permanent changes in the pandemic, there are many entrepreneurs that are also going to take advantage of the situation to build a better mouse trap.”
The full score card report is available to download at sbam.org/ scorecard.
Calley
The Right Place shares 2022 economic outlook
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petitiveness was “very good” or “good.”
“Now, two years into our threeyear cycle, we’re ahead of plan because of the great performance of the team and frankly, the great performance of our regional economy over the past year,” Thelen said in an interview with the Business Journal after the presentation.
“We had a lot of pent-up demand, and decisions that were put off in 2020 took place this year, which was great, and then some companies started to recognize that when things are cloudy and the economy is not certain, it actually is an interesting time to invest, because you can then separate, distinguish, differentiate from your competitors and come out of this cloudy economy a bit faster. And we saw a number of businesses do just that.”
Thelen touted The Right Place’s work facilitating West Michigan expansions and investments in 2021, including: •Cleveland, Ohio, tech company MCPc’s $2.8 million investment in Madison Square, where it will open a new facility in mid2022 that is expected to bring 75 to 100 jobs to the area •Autocam Medical breaking ground on a $60 million, threeyear expansion of its global headquarters and manufacturing footprint in Kentwood •Aerospace and defense manufacturer L3Harris spending $2.58 million to expand in Cascade Township in a move expected to create 50 jobs •BAMF Health building its new radiopharmacy and theranostics clinic headquarters on Medical Mile in Grand Rapids •Sparta-based Speedrack planning a $65 million expansion in Walker, bringing over 160 jobs to the area
The Right Place also assisted Comstock Park-based electronic and autonomous vehicle solutions provider Gen3 Defense & Aerospace and Grand Rapids-based pump and gas compressor manufacturer Blackmer with expansions totaling $15.5 million that are expected to create 319 jobs.
With all the growth and new jobs coming to the region, historically low labor force participation rates present a big challenge, Thelen said. Three out of five companies in the region reported struggling to fill jobs as the labor force participation rate fell 3.2 percentage points, from 66% in February 2020 to 62.8% in September 2021. The region had nearly 8,000 more unemployed workers in September 2021 than it did in February 2020, Thelen said, with 65,000 people not currently in the workforce.
At the same time, companies in the region posted an average of 51,330 job openings per month in 2021.
“We know there are reasons why people are not running back into work, but as companies make their decisions about where to grow, where to invest … over all of 2022, frankly, we’re going to need to find ways to invite those folks back into the workforce and engage them,” Thelen said. “The workforce is there; we’ve got to find a way to get them back.”
Industrial vacancies are at a worrisome 1.69%, or about 2 million square feet of vacancy, which “in the grand scheme of things, that’s zero,” Thelen said.
He said The Right Place in 2022 will prioritize helping companies attain site readiness to increase the industrial vacancy rate so the region can become more competitive to companies looking to invest here.
Other focus areas for The Right Place as it continues its strategic plan will be talent and diversity, regional technology strategy, Industry 4.0/5.0 readiness and growth, and placemaking, especially considering Michigan’s aging workforce and declining population of people under age 18.
“We recognize placemaking and enhancing quality of life is critical to our region’s long-term economic success, especially in a remote work or work-fromhome environment where people can and are choosing to live anywhere,” Thelen said.
“… Downtown Grand Rapids has done incredible things over the past 20 years and really has become a great urban market. We need to continue to see that throughout the region, so that if somebody wants to come to West Michigan and enjoy an urban lifestyle, they can do so. If they want to come and enjoy a rural or suburban lifestyle, they can do so. We need to be able to show to newcomers that we have everything that they’re looking for. We might not be Chicago, where you have five of everything, but certainly in greater Grand Rapids, we should have one of everything.”
Economic outlook summary
Grimes provided a 2022-23 economic forecast.
“The economic outlook and the current economic conditions are good. That may seem a bit insensitive when we’ve got over 1,000 people a day dying from COVID in the United States, and we’ve got record caseloads in Michigan and hospitals are full of patients. I’m very cognizant of the fact that, for a lot of people, things are not good, but I’m here to talk about the economy, and the economy, in general, is in pretty good shape right now,” Grimes said.
He added for the general population, as well as for The Federal Reserve and policymakers, inflation is one of today’s top concerns. Two of the major drivers are supply chain shortages and the price of oil, the latter of which is easing.
To manage inflation, the Fed is expected to raise short-term interest rates, which had been held near zero during the pandemic to stimulate the economy, gradually up to about 1.3% between now and 2023. In addition, conventional mortgage interest rates are expected to go up from about 3.2% today to about 4% by the end of 2023.
West Michigan’s share of the state’s payroll employment growth continues to outpace its share of the state’s population, and while the eight-county region’s real personal income growth has matched the state’s since 2007-08, the average real wage of West Michiganders lags behind the statewide average, at $54,000 per year versus about $59,000 per year.
Grimes’ outlook also included the following takeaways: •U.S. gross domestic product in the third quarter of this year was 1.4% higher than the pre-pandemic peak in the fourth quarter of 2019. •The unemployment rate in the U.S. (4.2% in November) is less than 1 percentage point higher than the pre-pandemic low. (The unemployment rate measures the share of workers in the labor force who do not currently have a job but are actively looking for work, according to The Economic Policy Institute.) •In Michigan, the unemployment rate (6.1% in October due to new methodology but actually lower) is a little over 2 percentage points higher than the pre-pandemic low. •A qualifier is that the pre-pandemic unemployment rate in the U.S. was the lowest since 1969. In fact, the U.S. unemployment rate today is lower than it was in any month between March 1970 and February 1999 and for any month between March 2001 and August 2017. Therefore, the U.S. unemployment rate today is very low by historical standards. The unemployment rate in Michigan also is low by historical standards, but monthly levels below the current value are not as rare. •The average net worth of American households, adjusted for inflation, increased 17.5% from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. The percentage increase in the net worth of the poorest 50% of households was greater than for the richest 1% of households, although in dollar terms, the increase in net worth was much less for poorer households. •Where the economy is falling short is in the number of jobs and the number of people in the labor force. In the U.S., there are 2.6% fewer jobs today than there were in February 2020, and in Michigan, there are 5.1% fewer jobs than in February 2020. The unemployment rate would be much higher except for the fact many of the formerly employed workers have dropped out of the labor force, which is down by 1.5% in the U.S. and 3.4% in Michigan since February 2020. •The imbalance between demand, which is higher than before the pandemic, and supply, especially labor supply, which is lower than it was before the pandemic, is generating price increases. Consumer prices in the U.S. were 6.2% higher in October than a year earlier and 9.8% higher in November, and prices in Michigan, measured by the Detroit Consumer Price Index, are 5.5% higher in October, the latest month for which numbers were available at press time. Price inflation is expected to fall to about 2.5% annually in 2022 and 2023.
