DBusiness | November-December 2020

The development of the first dedicated digital roadway for connected vehicles is underway along Michigan Avenue from Detroit to Ann Arbor — powered by a team of local, national, and international designers, innovators, disruptors, and technologists.

2021 TOP LAWYERS

Our exclusive list of the region’s top attorneys.

COVID-19 WORKOUT

How 10 business sectors will recover from the virus.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

The 2021 Michigan Economic Forecast.

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November - December 2020 || Volume 15 • Issue 6

64

WATERLOGGED Heavy rains in mid-May in central Michigan caused some $200 million in damages to business and residential properties.

52 TECH TRACK The development of the first dedicated digital roadway for connected vehicles is underway along Michigan Avenue from Detroit to Ann Arbor — powered by a team of local, national, and international designers, innovators, disruptors, and technologists. By R.J. King 14 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

58 COVID-19 WORKOUT The coronavirus outbreak roiled the national and global economies, caused millions of job losses, and depressed financial markets. As the world awaits a vaccine, we offer a workout plan for 10 affected business sectors and detail opportunities for future growth. By R.J. King

64 A DAM SHAME Two large earthen dams breached by heavy rains in mid-May wiped out hundreds of businesses and homes in and near Midland. Damages, estimated at $200 million, have property owners seeking legal and insurance relief to rebuild their dreams. By Norm Sinclair

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Contents || November - December 2020

32

COMMENTARY 23

26

DIGITAL DEMAND Online shopping, which reported steady growth in recent years, has skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other e-commerce retailers have been hiring thousands of workers to keep pace with demand, and there aren’t any signs the surge will plateau, let alone dip.

POWER GRID: Major utility overhaul required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

SMART JOBS: Shortage of tech workers can be overcome.

COMPENDIUM How outsiders view Detroit.

THE TICKER 29

32

HOME GROWN Local small farm diversifies to thrive. By Grace Turner SMARTEST CUT: Software from Applied Automation Technologies in Rochester Hills extends accuracy among machine tools. By Tim Keenan A MOOT POINT: Young and Associates in Farmington Hills offers a new appellate consultation and mock oral arguments service. By Tim Keenan PACESETTER A nonprofit in Southfield refurbishes pacemakers for use around the world. By Alan Fisk PDA Q&A: Brig. Gen. Darren L. Werner, commanding general of TACOM in Warren, is working from his historic office during the pandemic. By R.J. King

16 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

34

GROSSE POINTE YACHT CLUB

BACK STORY A local entrepreneur produces his fourth film and signs a distribution deal with Sony Music.

By R.J. King PLASTIC PATH: Scientists at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor are studying the use of plastics in the U.S. economy. By Grace Turner

FOCUS 36

FORE PLAY A bright spot in the region’s economy has been the outdoor recreational sector, especially among private clubs. By Dan Calabrese

PERSPECTIVES 43

PANDEMIC PITFALLS The 2021 economy will be influenced by the coronavirus pandemic, the approval (or not) of a vaccine, more federal stimulus, and who wins the presidential and congressional elections.

By Tim Keenan

36

102 PRODUCTION RUN Liquid Return: In response to COVID-19, Stone Soap Co. in Sylvan Lake moved from producing car wash detergent to hand sanitizer in two weeks’ time. By Tim Keenan 106 OPINION Brain Health: Head injuries are a growing problem.

By Dr. Randall Benson

ETC. 18 18 20 110

114

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR LETTERS FROM OUR READERS CONTRIBUTORS FROM THE TOP Metro Detroit’s largest hospital systems, Metro Detroit’s largest multi-tenant office buildings.

CLOSING BELL Albert Kahn revolutionized industry, yet never lost sight of classical architecture. By Ronald Ahrens

EXEC LIFE 97

CEO GIFT GUIDE What do you get the executive who seemingly has everything? Check out these high-end gift ideas.

By Grace Turner and Selina Herberger 100 RETURN ON INVESTMENT Earn, Return, Invest: Investor Adam Levinson made a fortune on Wall Street and beyond, but he’s most proud of giving back to his hometown by creating the Detroit Children’s Fund. By Tom Murray

ON THE COVER Illustration by Garth Glazier

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: JOSH SCOTT, JACOB LEWKOW, JOHN F. MARTIN

102

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Letters || November - December 2020

Data Stream

O

nce French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac edged his canoe onto the banks of the Detroit River on July 24, 1701, it wasn’t long before industry gobbled up nearly every inch of the waterfront.

Up until the 1950s, citizens seeking the tranquility of our “strait” could access a handful of public docks, boat clubs, and sailing leagues, but for people of limited means the tributary might as well have been in outer space.

That all began to change in 2002, with the formation of the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy. The nonprofit organization, which is made up of business and civic leaders, began to acquire property to construct a 5.5-mile RiverWalk, along with parks, plazas, pavilions, and greenways.

Stretching from Gabriel Richard Park near Belle Isle to the Ambassador Bridge, the RiverWalk is nearing completion along its eastern span. So far, the finished sections of the waterfront, complemented by the Dequindre Cut — an old rail line that connects the RiverWalk to Gratiot Avenue (now a greenway) — have been unqualified winners.

The network of public access points allows anyone to enjoy the serenity of the river. What’s more, a wave of new residents, businesses, and retailers have moved into the area.

Now planners are working on the western span. Thanks to a series of major gifts, design work is underway on the 22-acre Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park. Bounded by the river, Eighth Street, Jefferson Avenue, and Rosa Parks Boulevard, the park will be an oasis of public recreation.

“If you’re coming into the park from the east, you’ll be greeted by an epic playground where kids can climb a large bear and slide down on a log,” says Mark Wallace, president and CEO of the conservancy. “There will be beavers, fish, and other native species made of natural materials that kids can climb on and enjoy, plus a little creek where kids can splash around and dam off sections. There will be mud and sand, as well.”

The park’s central area, to be called The Cove,

18 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

will incorporate a major water feature, and contractors will break through a portion of the seawall to enhance the space. The western portion of the park will be anchored by the Sport House, an open-air structure for games and activities, and will feature trees, hills, and an area to watch movies and other family programming.

A planned path, the May Creek Greenway, will provide connections to Corktown, Mexicantown, Hubbard Richard, Millenium Park, and Briggs/North Corktown, along with Ford Motor Co.’s emerging hub of innovation for mobility at Michigan Central Station .

Rolling out in phases over the next three years, the improvements will link with the world’s first connected roadway for autonomous and connected vehicles.

Planned mostly along Michigan Avenue, between Detroit and Ann Arbor, the automated byway will supercharge a new digital ecosystem for residents, businesses, and visitors.

“With what’s going on along and near the river, you’re seeing Detroit become a model city for transforming industrial space into new uses,” says Joel Smith, president of Neumann/Smith Architecture in Southfield. “It’s the dawn of a new age.”

R.J. King

rjking@dbusiness.com

ENERGY STORAGE ROADMAP

Thank you for writing about EGLE’s request for proposals for an energy storage roadmap for Michigan. I have some concerns, however, with the lead of your story.

Having approved hundreds of wind turbines and solar arrays, the state of Michigan is looking to bolster its renewable energy offerings by seeking proposals for the creation of an energy storage road map for the state. ... Those resources are utility-owned or owned by private business which sell the energy produced to a local utility. EGLE’s road map will inform future decisions about investment by the private sector, and will suggest governmental and private policies as well as identify optimal locations for energy storage facilities.

Nick Assendelft Lansing

NORTH STAR REACH

Thank you so much for your continued commitment to our mission to provide vital support to children and their families who are suffering with a serious health challenge. We just finished an amazing weekend family camp program that was conducted virtually but produced all of the magical community-building and deep impact that we experience at our in-person sessions. Families are extra stressed by the current isolation (isolation is something they are, unfortunately, accustomed to), since their support networks are also limited and their ability to get needed supplies and medical care is compromised.

The visibility and support provided in the Give Detroit Spotlight (DBusiness Daily News) is very helpful as we work to secure the support and resources these families need.

Doug Armstrong Pinckney

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Contributors || November - December 2020

CONTRIBUTORS

VOLUME 15 • ISSUE 6 PUBLISHER John Balardo

EDITORIAL

EDITOR R.J. King MANAGING EDITOR Tim Keenan ASSOCIATE EDITOR Grace Turner COPY EDITOR Anne Berry Daugherty EDITORIAL INTERN Selina Herberger

DESIGN

ART DIRECTOR Austin Phillips ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Alexander Shammami

ADVERTISING SALES CONTRIBUTION: A Dam Shame photographer SEE IT HERE: Page 64

CONTRIBUTION: Return on Investment writer SEE IT HERE: Page 100

CONTRIBUTION: CEO Gift Guide writer SEE IT HERE: Page 97

SETH HERALD is a self-taught, Detroit-based documentary photographer who covers national and international news events — he works for publications and news wire services. His projects focus on social issues, social unrest, and conflict. Herald’s 2015 work in southern Indiana on the impact of the HIV epidemic in Scott County was recognized by the Indiana Associated Press Awards for best continuous coverage of a single event and best news series. In 2014 and 2018 he worked in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories documenting daily life and the ongoing conflict. Last year he traveled to Hong Kong to cover the pro-democracy protest.

In this issue of DBusiness, Herald’s images accompany a feature story, beginning on page 64, about the floods that ravaged mid-Michigan in May when the five-story-high Edenville Dam and Sanford Dam were breeched.

TOM MURRAY, a regular contributor to DBusiness for eight years, began his career in print, then made an unplanned turn to broadcast television, where he was an award-winning anchor and reporter for three decades, covering everything from sports to fine wine and true crime. His work for DBusiness is a return to his early aspirations in the business world: As a kid growing up in his native New York, Murray’s regular summer job through high school and college was on the floor of the stock exchange. In this issue, Murray is the author of the Return on Investment feature about Adam Levinson, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of Graticule Asset Management. The story, beginning on page 100, which explores his childhood, the fortune he made on Wall Street and beyond, and the pride he takes in giving back to his hometown through the Detroit Children’s Fund.

SELINA HERBERGER is a DBusiness fall 2020 intern. She writes articles for DBusiness Daily News and DBusiness Tech and Mobility News, as well as the Give Detroit Spotlight and On the Move sections of the magazine’s website. She also contributed to the DBusiness Largest Multi-tenant Office Buildings list on page 112, the inaugural list of private clubs in southeast Michigan on page 39, and the CEO Gift Guide on page 97 in this issue of the magazine. Upon completing her internship in November, Herberger will have earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant. With a major in journalism and a public relations concentration, she hopes to pursue a career where she can combine both her editorial and communication skills. Her hobbies and interests outside of work include beauty and fashion, traveling, and graphic design.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ronald Ahrens, Dr. Randy Benson, Dan Calabrese, Alan Fisk, Tom Murray, Norm Sinclair CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Brian Britigan, Garth Glazier, Seth Herald, Josh Scott, James Yang

20 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jason Hosko AD & SALES COORDINATOR Danielle Szatkowski ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Cynthia Barnhart, Karli Brown, Lauren DeBano, Kevin Hayes, Kathy Johnson, Donna Kassab, Mary Pantely and Associates, Angela Tisch

PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Jenine Rhoades SENIOR PRODUCTION ARTIST Robert Gorczyca PRODUCTION ARTIST Stephanie Daniel AD & SALES COORDINATOR Danielle Szatkowski PRS GRAPHIC ARTIST Marcus Thompson ADVERTISING DESIGNERS Christian Lott, Daniel Moen, Amanda Zwiren

WEB

DIGITAL DIRECTOR Nick Britsky WEB PROJECT LEAD Matt Cappo WEB PROJECT ASSISTANTS Mariah Knott, Luanne Lim, Bart Woinski SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Travis Cleveland

IT

IT DIRECTOR Jeremy Leland

CIRCULATION

DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Michelle VanArman CIRCULATION MANAGER Riley Meyers CIRCULATION COORDINATORS Sue Albers, Barbie Baldwin, Cathy Krajenke, Rachel Moulden

MARKETING AND EVENTS

MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Mary Sutton MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER Molly Stelma MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTOR Sofia Shevin MARKETING RESEARCH COORDINATOR Ana Potter MARKETING RESEARCH ASSISTANT Hannah Thomas MARKETING AND EVENTS INTERNS Caitlin Farrand, Alexis Nixon MARKETING AND RESEARCH INTERNS Eric Borg, Lourd Dawood

BUSINESS

CEO Stefan Wanczyk PRESIDENT John Balardo PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Kristin Mingo DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS OPERATIONS Kathie Gorecki ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATES Natasha Bajju, Andrew Kotzian, Katie West DISTRIBUTION Target Distribution, Troy

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SPONSORED BY STARTUP NATION

A Life of Purpose Success in the educational sector comes from devoted teachers who focus on critical thinking, flexible lessons, and problem-solving to inspire children.

A

s a lifelong entrepreneur, nothing motivates me to be all I can be more than the stories of fellow Detroiters who exemplify what it means to live a life in which there’s a driving sense of purpose.

Given the times in which we currently live, I can’t think of anything worthier than recognizing the amazingly dedicated educators to whom we entrust our children to help them learn and grow.

Detroit native Kiarra Ambrose has valued education all her life. Growing up, she attended a small Catholic school that provided her with an intimate, close-knit community. Her love of teaching blossomed in high school, when she started mentoring elementary school students.

A self-described “lifelong learner,” Ambrose has made it her mission from those earliest days to turn her passion into a career educating young members of her community.

Ambrose has been deeply involved in Detroit’s public education system for 11 years, beginning her career in charter schools and teaching at two area high schools before taking on her current role. Today, she’s a math training and support coordinator with Detroit Public Schools Community District, where she works with students and teachers. “My job is an extension of me. My purpose is educating; that’s my core,” Ambrose says.

EDUCATIONAL ALCHEMY Ambrose’s holistic approach to teaching focuses on continued education that’s not confined to the four walls of a classroom but can be found outside those walls, as well. This philosophy has led Ambrose to develop several educational programs outside of her work with the DPSCD. “One of the things I’ve come to realize in my evolution is that education happens all around us,” she says. “It’s not just this idea of being in a classroom. Education is more than just the school itself; it’s our communities as a whole.”

Ambrose mentors young people, works with the Horatio Williams Foundation doing SAT prep, and recently launched #EducationalAlchemy.

BY JEFF SLOAN The company focuses on a holistic approach to learning for students, parents, and teachers, and incorporates life experiences, mindfulness, and movement to make unexpected connections for learning.

As she puts it, she believes in making education approachable and enjoyable for children. “I just love creating experiences for people to learn and then humanizing education,” she says. “Let’s make it more human and more about the experience, the connections, and how we learn from each other.”

CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING As the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in the traditional learning environment, Ambrose’s philosophy of community-based education couldn’t be timelier. The pandemic, she says, has presented an opportunity for parents to really think about what educating young people looks like.

“One of the things I’ve begun to do with young people in the community I work with is focus on questions like, ‘How do I think through this?’ or ‘What are some skills that will help me increase my flexibility in thinking?’ ” Ambrose says.

“Critical thinking, flexible thinking, and problem-solving are all skills that we don’t focus on in school because we’re so focused on content,” she adds. “Content is secondary, whereas how you think is what will really carry you further and give you the confidence to delve into content.”

The well-being of our children and the opportunity for them to grow and learn, build confidence, and be inspired by educational opportunities that we, as parents and other adults, entrust educators with is paramount.

The next great invention, scientific discovery, or work of art depends first on our children being inspired by their teachers.

They must enjoy and value the process of learning. In order for that to happen, we need educators who see learning the way Ambrose does, in order to open our children’s minds to new ways of thinking.

“We’re all lifelong learners. Every opportunity presents a chance to learn — either what to do, or what not to do,” she says. “I want folks to embody that, and carry that with them as they move through life.”

As a community, we must support and applaud the shining examples of those who contribute to our society as a result of their exemplary achievements. We’re grateful to Ambrose and others like her who have made it their life’s purpose to provide the best possible education for our children.

JEFF SLOAN is co-founder and CEO of Startup Nation and Aria Ventures, both in Birmingham.

INSIDE || DIGITAL DEMAND | POWER GRID | SMART JOBS | COMPENDIUM

WHEN YOU FLY IN AN AIRPLANE YOU SEE A LITTLE HORIZON. WHEN YOU FLY IN SPACE, YOU SEE A BIG HORIZON. — AL WORDEN, MICHIGAN NATIVE AND APOLLO 15 ASTRONAUT

RETAIL

ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES YANG

DIGITAL DEMAND ONLINE SHOPPING, WHICH REPORTED STEADY growth in recent years, has skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other e-commerce retailers have been hiring thousands of workers to keep pace with demand, and there don’t appear to be any signs the surge will plateau, let alone dip.

Michigan stands to benefit from the growth of online shopping across multiple business sectors.

In recent years, Amazon has added more than

7,000 workers in metro Detroit and filled hundreds of additional positions statewide. The e-commerce giant has developed fulfillment centers, sorting facilities, and delivery stations, and has expanded its offices in Detroit to 600-plus corporate, engineering, and technology positions.

The hiring blitz will continue as Amazon, which overall has more than 1 million workers around the world, is building or planning new facilities in Pontiac, Sterling Heights, Detroit,

Romulus, and elsewhere. It’s also taking over shuttered department store locations and converting them into sorting and delivery outlets.

Apart from access to available workers and real estate sites, e-commerce players are attracted to Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus and the region’s freeway system — a trend that was well in the works before the outbreak of the coronavirus.

With six runways, Detroit Metro’s takeoff and NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 23

Commentary || November - December 2020

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

28B

$

Estimated market size of launching satellites in space by 2028

7K

Number of new satellites to be launched in space by 2030.

1.6T

$

Market capitalization of Amazon Inc.

Sources: Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association, The Wall Street Journal 24 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

landing capacity for air passengers and freight operators leads other major airports among the Great Lakes states. What’s more, getting approvals to add runways can take years. While the virus has leveled the competition for air freight operators and passenger demand has fallen, overall traffic will eventually rebound during the next decade and beyond.

While warehouse positions may not be glamorous and are often fastpaced, the growing use of robots helps eliminate the most strenuous jobs. E-commerce players also provide plenty of cross-training opportunities to their respective workforces, to offset technological advances that may eliminate positions. Free training courses are offered in machine learning, AI, Big Data, cloud computing, and other growth sectors.

Another avenue of e-commerce that Michigan can tap into is a wave of advanced satellites that must be launched to keep pace with demand for instant communication, mobility platforms, GPS, and greater connectivity. Over the next decade, more than 7,000 satellites — each roughly the size of a football — are to be launched by the U.S. Department of Defense, along with aerospace firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, ISRO, ESA Vega, and Firefly Aerospace.

Driving demand are capacity issues at Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

To draw investor and government interest, the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group in Sterling Heights, has been promoting the Michigan Launch Initiative. The program seeks to draw government and private players to launch rockets from northern Michigan into so-called polar orbits; southern locations require more fuel to reach outer space.

“Northern Michigan is uniquely positioned for a polar orbit satellite launch facility,” says Gavin Brown, executive director of MAMA. “It has a low-density population, the most restricted airspace east of the Mississippi River, access to the interstate highway system, and engineering and manufacturing capacity are readily accessible. E-commerce growth will help drive demand even further.”

ENERGY

POWER GRID

AS THE WORLD MOVES TO IMPROVE AIR QUALITY BY ELECTRIFYING EVERYthing from automobiles to unmanned aerial vehicles, industry and government need to figure out where all the power will come from. While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a worthy goal, eliminating pollution in the atmosphere will require a major overhaul of utility systems that rely on coal, oil, and natural gas — the source of 85 percent of the world’s energy generation.

Wind turbines and solar arrays have reduced some of our reliance on fossil fuels, but more reliable green energy production facilities are needed to offset periods when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Hydro power offers one pathway to a green future, but such projects often run into delays caused by local opposition. New nuclear and hydrogen energy sources fall in the same boat — most people like the concept of green power, as long as the infrastructure doesn’t impact their general neighborhood.

In turn, oil and utility companies often oppose green energy projects, and only agree to take on such projects due to regulatory mandates. To ease the way toward a green future offering reliable access to electricity, industry and government must work much more closely to provide clear regulations that take into account the required investment and the ability of end users to pay for new energy systems.

The regulations will likely need to be supported by tax breaks and subsidies, and the general public must be informed of all of the costs and tradeoffs that will come with adopting new green energy sources. If consistent policies can be adopted, the road to reducing our reliance on carbon fuel will be that much shorter.

LABOR

SMART JOBS

A LOOK AT THE LABOR MARKET REVEALS WHAT SOME MAY CONSIDER A counterintuitive trend: At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the loss of several million jobs, there are plenty of employment openings. Consider the September JOLTS report from the U.S. Department of Labor, which showed the country had around 6.5 million job openings in August — about as many as in December of last year.

How can that be? One reason is more people chose to skip work and collect generous unemployment benefits that were extended during the virus outbreak. Another factor is the growing need for technical workers. According to a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a third of small firms reported that unfilled job openings were due to the “quality of labor.”

Many jobs are available, but the skilled workers needed to fill them are either at home, working somewhere else, or don’t exist. On the latter point, there simply aren’t enough qualified candidates to fill all of the smart jobs that are posted. With the world embracing technology to boost efficiency and reduce redundant tasks, the problem will only get worse. As more baby boomers move into their retirement years, the situation is compounded even more.

The shortage of candidates for tech-related jobs can be overcome, but it won’t be due to a sudden (and unrealistic) surge in births. Rather, business, scholastic, and government leaders need to develop a mindset that the education cycle doesn’t end when a graduate earns a diploma. Rather, on-the-job training should be available across entire careers so workers have multiple skills, some of which are evolving.

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Get a network that offers care at a wider range of locations, savings up to 20%* and a suite of benefits designed to help simplify your employees’ care and help them live healthier. Find out more at uhc.com/beaumont.

UnitedHealthcare and Beaumont.

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Insurance coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affiliates. *20% savings based on Q1 2020 UnitedHealthcare internal analysis for average price comparison between UnitedHealthcare plans in Michigan with similar benefits. Savings vary by county.

B2B EI20250881 9/20 © 2020 United HealthCare Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 20-207719

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HOW OUTSIDERS VIEW DETROIT Midwest Real Estate News | Sept. 14, 2020

By Dan Rafter

JARED FRIEDMAN: EVEN PANDEMIC IS SLOWING INDUSTRIAL AND MULTIFAMILY DETROIT MARKET

JARED FRIEDMAN, DIRECTOR OF OPPORTUNITIES IN THE Farmington Hills, Mich.-based office of Friedman Real Estate, is, like everyone else in commercial real estate, working through the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. And, like the rest of his fellow CRE pros, he can’t predict when the pandemic will end and when life will return to at

least something approaching normal in the United States.

But here’s the good news: Friedman sees plenty of hope in the Detroit-area commercial real estate market today. ...

And Friedman predicts that the Detroit-area commercial real estate market will soar even higher once the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic and business shutdowns comes to an end. ...

I know this is a broad question, but let’s start with this: How is the Detroit-area commercial market doing during these challenging times?

Jared Friedman: It is very asset class specific.

When you break down the different asset classes, some are doing fine while others are facing challenges. Industrial is on fire. That sector is as hot as it can be. Three years’ worth of demand for industrial space has been pulled forward...

Fortune | Aug. 10, 2020 | By David Z. Morris

AN ELECTRIC REVOLUTION IS COMING FOR AMERICAN TRUCKING

THE VIDEO WAS CANDID, NARROW, SHAKY, AND without fanfare — its first frames capturing not much more than asphalt. But in the span of 14 minutes, Trevor Milton, the founder and executive chairman of Nikola Motor, a Phoenix startup (in which General Motors Co. has invested) committed to making electric semitrucks, energized investors enough to send his company’s stock up 35 percent in a single day.

The clip reveals a hydrogen fuel-cell electric semi rolling around a blisteringly hot Arizona parking lot.

Milton jogs after the truck on foot, pointing out the various components of its unusual powertrain and swiping at critics who believe the company’s technology is fake.

“These damn trolls,” he says between gulps of air. “I wonder if they’re going to go apologize to everyone for the lies they spread.”

26 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Founded in 2014, Nikola is named after famed 19th-century inventor Tesla (just like that other controversial electric-vehicle concern). Though Nikola has yet to deliver a single truck to a customer — hence the critics — investors have valued the company at as much as $20 billion. …

The New York Times | Sept. 9, 2020 | By David Allen

AN OPERATIC INNOVATOR TAKES ON DETROIT

YUVAL SHARON, WHO HAS ESTABLISHED HIMSELF AS perhaps the most innovative opera director in the United States through his experimental Los Angeles company, the Industry, has been named the next artistic director of a more traditional outfit: Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit.

This Chicago native, 40, who won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2017 and became the first American to direct a production at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival in Germany in 2018, will take over immediately, offered his first production — Wagner in a parking garage — in October.

Over his five-season contract, he will plan four to six stagings a year at and around the Detroit Opera House, directing at least one himself each season.

“With everything else going on, it just wasn’t the time to withdraw from the world and go off into a tranquil, peaceful, reflective mode,” said Mr. Sharon, who had planned to spend this year on a writing sabbatical in Japan before the coronavirus pandemic intervened.

“Detroit feels like the right city and the right company to help model what opera might look like for a 21st-century city — and country.”

Mr. Sharon will be the second artistic leader of Michigan Opera Theatre, a relatively nimble company with a budget of about $15 million. It was founded in 1971 by David DiChiera, who served as chief executive until 2014 and artistic director until 2017, and made efforts to engage Detroit’s Black community and program new work.

It’s an unexpected move, if a coup for Detroit.

Although Mr. Sharon has worked at the Berlin and Vienna state operas, he has never directed at a major American house. Instead, he has made his reputation with orchestras, chiefly the Cleveland Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with the Industry, which has won a following by creating opera outside the opera house. His iconoclastic productions in Los Angeles have included “Hopscotch,” …

Compendium || Commentary

Motor Trend | Sept. 4, 2020 | By Frank Markus

DETROIT’S M1 RACETRACK BRINGING SOME MONTEREY AND GOODWOOD MAGIC TO MOTOWN IN 2014, THE MOTORTREND GROUP HELPED TURN THE Woodward Dream Cruise into a multi-event happening by organizing Roadkill Nights, powered by Dodge — a street legal drag racing program that lets car enthusiasts “run what they brung” right on Woodward Avenue in front of M1 Concourse in Pontiac. For 2021, that 87-acre venue, which ranks as the world’s largest garage-condo/motorsports complex, will add a 28,500-square-foot event center and restaurant facility that will serve as the epicenter for two more big events, both organized in conjunction with Pontiac Motorsports Exposition, the Woodward Dream Show and the American Festival of Speed. Here’s a primer on both: The Woodward Dream Show, scheduled for Aug. 19-21, 2021, is envisioned as a three-day event that zeros in on the best-of-the-best of what generally shows up on Woodward for the Dream Cruise. This mostly invitation-only event will open on the Thursday of Dream Cruise weekend. It will include

“time-attack” lapping on the 1.5-mile Champion Motor Speedway circuit, which involves 11 corners and 30 feet of elevation change. Then, on Friday, there will be a big rod and custom show designed to draw attention to the remarkable skills of the people who craft these rolling art forms. …

American Festival of Speed, scheduled for Sept. 30-Oct. 2, 2021, six weeks after the Dream Show — when there’s no longer any conflict with the Car Week events in Monterey (which typically overlap the Woodward Dream Cruise), M1 and PME will host something of a mashup between England’s Goodwood Festival of Speed and vintage racing events held in Monterey or Watkins Glen. The inaugural event will feature Can Am racing, with Jim Hall on hand along with several of his Chaparral racers, plus one of Carroll Shelby’s Can Am racers. The event will open on Thursday with a dine-and-drive event not unlike Monterey’s Tour d’Elegance. Friday and Saturday are track

Forbes | Sept. 29, 2020 | By Keith Naughton

JIM FARLEY IS ASKING EVERYONE HE MEETS HOW TO FIX FORD A COUPLE WEEKS FROM BECOMING FORD MOTOR CO.’S next chief executive officer, Jim Farley stopped to huddle with two young field sales representatives during an event to honor employees at a Dearborn, Mich., dealership.

“What’s the one thing at Ford Motor Co. you’d like to change?” he asked them, eliciting responses about the need for more models on the lot and

financial assistance to market them.

It’s a question Ford’s chief operating officer is asking everyone he encounters these days as he prepares to take control on Oct. 1 of the 117-year-old automaker, which is struggling to find its way in a new transportation reality of shared, electric, and self-driving cars. He put the question to factory workers at Ford’s century-old Rouge manufacturing complex and middle managers at the automaker’s headquarters.

He’s even engaged the services of a “reverse mentor,” a staffer in Ford’s customer-experience area who is six levels below Farley on the org chart.

“We need to invert the company,” Farley, 58, explained on the sidelines of the dealer event. “We need the decisions and the authority and autonomy to come from all of us to unleash Ford.”

Nicknamed Jimmy Car-Car by his parents for his love of all things with wheels, Farley was a rising star at Toyota Motor Corp.’s North American operations where he worked for almost two decades. But his roots at Ford run deep. He spent summers with his grandfather — among the first Ford workers to build the Model T. At age 14, he drove from California to Michigan to visit his grandfather in a black 1966 Ford Mustang he had rebuilt. He didn’t yet have a driver’s license. ...

days, with cars probably rolling out by decade, in time-attack format (like the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s hillclimb) rather than true wheel-towheel racing. The weekend is capped off by a car show on Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal | Sept. 18, 2020 | By Mike Colias

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING GM: MARY BARRA BETS THAT SMALLER IS BETTER

NEARLY A DECADE AGO, TOYOTA MOTOR CORP. dethroned General Motors Co. as the world’s largest car company, leaving some GM executives wringing their hands.

Mary Barra wasn’t among them. When she took the CEO job in early 2014, she inherited a company that for decades was so large and unwieldy executives sometimes didn’t know whether parts of the business were making or losing money.

On a visit to GM’s unprofitable operations in Thailand that year, she signaled a readiness to curb the company’s fixation on size. She criticized her Asia executive team’s five-year plan to introduce several new models, according to people who attended. GM soon announced plans to cut Thailand’s model lineup, rather than add to it.

For years, the mantra in the capital-intensive car business has been that bigger is better. But in nearly seven years running GM, Ms. Barra has found success with an unlikely strategy: shrinking a company that for much of the 20th century was the nation’s biggest corporation by revenue and profit. …

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 27

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The Ticker

INSIDE || HOME GROWN | SMARTEST CUT | PACESETTER | BACK STORY | PLUS PDA Q&A AND MORE ...

A CHANGE OF HEART Refurbished pacemakers await new patients.

BY ALAN FISK |

JACOB LEWKOW

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 29

Ticker || November - December 2020

DBUSINESSDIRECT Beaumont Health in Southfield Ends Talks with Advocate Aurora Beaumont Health in Southfield, Michigan’s largest health care system, announced Oct. 2 that it has mutually agreed with Advocate Aurora Health to end partnership discussions after the two organizations signed a non-binding letter of intent in June.

Rockbridge Growth Equity Acquires Quartile Digital to Boost Merchant Advertising Rockbridge Growth Equity, a Detroit-based private equity firm, announced Oct. 2 an investment in Quartile Digital, a provider of AI-driven autonomous advertising optimization and spend management software. The investment will be used to recapitalize the business and support further international expansion.

Home Grown

On Oct.. 1, Ford Motor Co. President and CEO Jim Farley announced a series of moves designed to accelerate the automaker into electric and autonomous vehicle production, as well as streamline and transform its global business in a drive to deliver more sustained profitable growth. He outlined key goals and organizational changes including plans to improve quality, reduce costs, and accelerate the restructuring of underperforming businesses.

Carvana’s Car Vending Glass Tower Makes Michigan Debut in Novi Carvana, an e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars, has opened its newest eight-story, 27-vehicle Car Vending Machine in Novi, at I-696 and Novi Road.

GM Purchases Solar Farm in Arkansas, Will Power Lansing Plants General Motors Co. has announced a power purchase agreement for a 180-megawatt solar project in Arkansas. It will power some of the company’s operations and give it the option to store energy for future use.

Power is expected to be used at the automaker’s Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Lansing Delta Township Assembly, and Lansing Grand River Assembly.

For full stories and more, visit dbusiness.com/daily-news to get daily news sent directly to your email.

C

Local small farm diversifies to thrive.

BY GRACE TURNER

arole Caplan-Sosin’s late start in the agricultural industry worked to her advantage. After raising two children in Chicago, she returned to southeast Michigan with enough funds from her former job to launch The Farm on Jennings, just north of Ann Arbor, in 2017.

It’s difficult for young people to break into farming, Caplan-Sosin says, citing a large initial investment in land and equipment. The average age of farmers in the state is 58, according to the Michigan Farm Bureau, and CaplanSosin turns 60 in November.

Caplan-Sosin’s success can be attributed to more than her age. Along with produce, herbs, and cut flowers, she makes and sells jams, wreaths, soup mixes, dried flower arrangements, and tea. She also offers yoga and meditation classes, as well as glamping (glamorous camping) experiences, and offers rental space for small events. Her husband works full time but helps out when he can.

“There’s something about people coming out to the farm for meditation or yoga class that just makes sense,” says Caplan-Sosin, whose farm is in Webster Township. The operation is MAEAP Verified, which indicates the farm prevents agricultural pollution risks, and its produce is Certified Naturally Grown.

While produce and cut flowers have made up most of her profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, CaplanSosin says about half of her revenue pre-virus came from space rentals.

Soon after farmers markets were shut down due to

30 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

COVID-19, she says, growers in the region came together to share best practices and information related to obtaining grants. Michigan State University Extension played a large role in organizing the efforts, Caplan-Sosin says.

“The community has become much stronger.”

The pandemic also shone light on an already-growing trend, according to Caplan-Sosin — an interest in naturally and locally grown produce. The Farm on Jennings, named for its location on Jennings Road, follows organic pest and disease control practices, and has established a pollinator habitat, built up the nutrients in its soil, and rotates crops.

Caplan-Sosin’s 11-acre property includes a half-acre “food forest” in which she grows things such as berries and nuts using permaculture practices, a set of principles designed to use patterns observed in natural ecosystems; 1.5 acres of intercropped row crops and perennials, where different types of plants are alternated to maximize crop health; and a 30-foot-by-144-foot hoop house, similar to a greenhouse, where flowers and seasonal vegetables are grown.

Another section of the property contains more than 2 acres of prairie that Caplan-Sosin restored through controlled burning and the reseeding of native plants.

Caplan-Sosin predicts that in the future, small farms will consolidate into collaboratives, in which several growers come together to share the cost of land and equipment.

This would help young people enter the industry. “The future for small farms is working together,” she says. “We need an investment in the future of our food supply.”

COURTESY OF THE FARM ON JENNINGS

New Ford CEO Farley Moves to Boost Profitability, Technology

November - December 2020 || Ticker

Smartest Cut

Software from Applied Automation Technologies in Rochester Hills extends accuracy among machine tools.

T

BY TIM KEENAN

COURTESY OF APPLIED AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES

ool wear, material inconsistencies, and operator error are just a few of the obstacles to consistently perfect parts. Applied Automation Technologies in Rochester Hills has been developing software for machine tools to remove as many of those hurdles as possible.

A mechanical engineer with a knack for automation technology, Ray Karadayi was working on dedicated software solutions at General Motors Co. when, in 1987, he decided to start a business to create computer-aided design software.

Shortly thereafter, an aerospace company called and asked about using the CAD software for manufacturing automation.

“That made me very excited because my heart is into automation,” Karadayi recalls. “Then we started to invest in software and tools that would work in the manufacturing environment, always with metrology measurement as the heart of what we’re doing.”

Metrology is the scientific study of measurement and is the key to AAT’s flagship, computer-aided part-programming system (CAPPSNC) product, which is an advanced measurement software system that enables something that decades ago would have been impossible.

In the past, to measure a part, it had to be removed from the machining center, which interrupts the manufacturing process and relies heavily on human intervention.

AAT’s software uses the measurements that are taken by noncontact lasers, which are built into machining centers to guide the cutting tool.

“Throughout the machining process the tool is wearing and bending, and sometimes the part moves in the machining center,” Karadayi says.

“There are a lot of factors involved. In the old days, if a part came out of the machine out of tolerance, it would have to go back into the machine for more cutting or become waste.

“What we’re able to do with our software is make it possible to use the machining center itself as the measuring device,” Karadayi says.

“The sensors that come with the machine tool do simple measurements. We’re making them much more functional with our software, which takes control of the machining center.”

Using those measurements, the AAT software adjusts the cutting process automatically to maintain tolerances and produce accurate

WASTE NOT Using software from Applied Automation Technologies, manufacturers can avoid waste that often occurs when tools wear out or parts move slightly in machine tools.

parts longer.

While any company interested in making high-precision parts is a candidate to use the AAT software, Karadayi says he and his 25 employees have had the most success with enterprises in the aerospace, defense, and medical industries, and in automotive mold-making applications.

“Once you’re able to produce metrology data, then you’re able to do a lot of wonderful things with it,” he says. “Our software is doing the decision-making, and when a part is done you’ll know that it’s in perfect tolerance.”

A Moot Point || By Tim Keenan “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GO INTO THE biggest game of your life and never practice,” says former Judge Henry W. Saad, who leads a new appellate consultation and mock oral arguments service at Farmington Hills-based Young and Associates, a law firm specializing in complex business litigation.

“I coached moot court teams in law school, where I taught for 40 years, and one of the things you teach students is that you always have a dry run when you’re dealing with a significant case,” Saad says.

Ninety percent of appellate advocacy or oral arguments these days consist of questions and answers

from sitting judges, Saad explains.

“Those judges are popping questions at you, and sometimes they’re tough.”

Saad says he relies on his experience as an appellate litigator, along with 24 years on the appellate bench, to conduct mock oral arguments that give lawyers insight into cases to improve their chances of success.

The service can run between $10,000 and $40,000, depending on how much research Saad is required to do and the complexity of the case.

“When you have a lot at stake for your client, either money or issues or both, a good lawyer will let the client know that it’s worth spending the money to do a dry run.”

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 31

Ticker || November - December 2020

Pacesetter

A nonprofit in Southfield refurbishes pacemakers for use around the world.

BY ALAN FISK |

G

JACOB LEWKOW

eorge Samson plucks a silvery device that looks like a Christmas ornament out of a plastic bin full of them. The device is a used pacemaker, one of thousands stored at the Southfield-based charity World Medical Relief, where Samson is CEO. The pacemakers have all been removed from the dead before cremation and donated by families, funeral homes, and recycling businesses nationwide. The devices are part of a first-of-its-kind effort called Project My Heart Your Heart, based at World Medical. Its aim is to save heart patients in poor countries by giving them refurbished pacemakers they could not otherwise afford.

“So far 100 to 120 pacemaker implants have been done in the Philippines, and (there have been) about 20 combined in Africa and Nicaragua,” Samson says. “Ten countries have now given approvals to be part of My Heart Your Heart.”

Dr. Kim Eagle, director of the University of Michigan Health System’s Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor and head of My Heart Your Heart, says reusing pacemakers can give “hundreds of thousands who might otherwise die a chance for life.”

As part of the project, Dr. Thomas Crawford, associate professor of internal medicine at U-M, has made several trips abroad to implant pacemakers and train foreign doctors. “Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death around the world,” he says. “As countries modernize, we see more obesity” that can lead to heart trouble.

Over more than a decade of clinical trials and studies, the project has brought together universities and volunteers including Wayne State University in Detroit, U-M, businesses, funeral homes, doctors, foreign governments, and wealthy donors. The facility at World Medical, which sends recycled medical equipment and medicines ranging from surgical suites to bandages to the needy in more than 100 countries, is officially named the Sheldon and Marion Davis Pacemaker Recycling Center.

HEART ALERT Beyond providing refurbished pacemakers, World Medical Relief in Southfield sends recycled medical equipment and medicines to the needy in more than 100 countries.

Sheldon Davis, an advisor to the My Heart Your Heart, says it has overcome many challenges, including initial opposition from pacemaker manufacturers and piles of paperwork to get approvals from U.S. and foreign governments. Implanting used pacemakers is illegal in the U.S. due to contamination concerns, but in 2018 the Food and Drug Administration approved the practice in other countries.

The pacemakers — new ones cost as much as $25,000 — are removed before cremation.

“We ask families if the deceased has a pacemaker,” says John P. O’Brien, president of the O’Brien-Sullivan Funeral Home in Novi. “Most people are glad to participate when I tell them (about My Heart Your Heart).”

After the pacemakers are stabilized, they go to another partner, Northeast Scientific Inc., a recycler of surgical devices, in Waterbury, Conn. There, the refurbishing is completed. Craig Allmendinger, CEO of Northeast Scientific, has traveled to Haiti and Sierra Leone with Crawford and says he “sees a need out there that’s not being met. We’re giving back.”

PDA Q&A: The E-Interview || By R.J. King

BRIG. GEN. DARREN L. WERNER Commanding General TACOM, Warren

DB: WHERE ARE YOU? DW: At the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, which is part of the U.S. Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM). We have 7,500 people who work here, and we’re very closely aligned with the auto industry.

DB: HOW’S IT GOING SO FAR? DW: I took over in June, and there’s an amazing amount of great work going on here.

Part of our mission is that we’re responsible for all of the moving equipment in the U.S. Army, including tanks, trucks,

32 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

and a fleet of water-landing craft. We represent the acquisition and sustainment of equipment, as well as engineering, design, safety, and review. We also have the new Army Future Command, which has co-functional teams that provide a rapid acquisition program for new equipment and next-generation combat vehicles.

DB: WHAT WILL THOSE NEXTGEN VEHICLES ENTAIL? DW: We have autonomous capabilities, and we’re testing those systems right now.

We’re developing capabilities for leader-follower situations with tactical trucks. The first or second vehicle (in a convoy) may be autonomous, and going forward the technology will help us reduce the total number of manned vehicles, especially in sustained conveys. In the future we might have 90 trucks, and only a third of the people we would normally need would be in them.

DB: WHAT OTHER TECHNOLOGY IS COMING? DW: We have optionally

manned vehicles under development right now, and we’re sharing our results with the (auto) industry.

Eventually we’ll have a competition to replace our (current) vehicles. We also have a lot of exciting work going on in additive manufacturing, where we’re developing innovative ways to build repair parts (out in the field) using polymers, titanium, and aluminum. Plus, we’re developing predictive maintenance programs.

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Ticker || November - December 2020

Back Story

DBUSINESSDIRECT Dow to Shut Down Plants in U.S. and Europe to Cut Costs

Former Mining Sites in Northern Michigan to Become Solar Farms Two former mining sites will be transformed into solar arrays through a five-year land lease agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Royal Oak-based Circle Power.

Kroger to Develop $95M Customer Fulfillment Center in Metro Detroit, Add 250 Jobs The Kroger Co. and Ocado, a grocery e-commerce firm, plan to build a $95-million, 135,000-square-foot Customer Fulfillment Center in Romulus to serve the Great Lakes Region. The automated warehouse facility will offer digital and robotic capabilities to accelerate Kroger’s ability to expand its products to a larger footprint. The facility will create 250 new jobs.

GM Investing $71M in Ohio Manufacturing Plants General Motors Co. has announced its plans to invest $71 million in its Toledo transmission plant ($39 million) and its Defiance casting plant ($32 million), both in Ohio. The investments will allow GM to retain 240 U.S. manufacturing jobs.

United Wholesale Mortgage to Merge and Become Public Company Pontiac’s United Wholesale Mortgage, the nation’s largest wholesale mortgage originator, is planning to merge with Los Angeles-based Gores Holdings IV Inc. and go public. Gores, founded by Alec Gores, brother of Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, is a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of The Gores Group, which already is a public enterprise. The new company will operate under the name UWM and be listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol UWMC when the transaction is complete.

For full stories and more, visit dbusiness.com/daily-news to get daily news sent directly to your email.

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A local entrepreneur produces his fourth film and signs a distribution deal with Sony Music. BY R.J. KING

el K. Ganesan isn’t afraid to follow his creative spirit. A former engineer at Chrysler Corp. in Auburn Hills, Ganesan struck out on his own in 1998 and started Kyyba Inc., a software, electronics, and IT staffing firm in Farmington Hills.

In 2017, in the midst of transitioning from the day-today operations of that enterprise, he got the urge to launch Kyyba Films. The production and distribution company, also based in Farmington Hills, is now set to release its fourth movie next spring, in partnership with actor and producer Brandon T. Jackson, B4 Entertainment, and Nasik Rav Media.

“I never had a lifelong passion to be in the film business,” says Ganesan, a native of India who earned a graduate degree in mechanical engineering from Wayne State University in 1991. “One day I just went ahead with it. At the time, there was a lot of film activity going on in India, and Bollywood was becoming a growing presence.”

As president and CEO of Kyyba Films — the name is a reference to a popular character in a video game — Ganesan, along with G.B. Thimotheose, a partner and executive producer, have overseen the production and distribution of “Devil’s Night — Dawn of the Nain Rouge,” “Christmas Coupon,” and “Celebrity Crush.”

Their latest picture, “Trap City,” follows an aspiring rapper who works as a courier for a drug lord. Just before he’s arrested, one of his songs goes viral, and the song’s popularity is further fueled by his subsequent legal issues. When the authorities give him a choice between going to jail or testifying against his former employer, the rapper, played by Jackson, learns a hitman has been hired to kill him.

“Nearly every film made in America attracts a wide audience in India and other international markets, and we (believe) ‘Trap City’ will be a big hit,” Ganesan says.

BRIGHT LIGHTS A crime thriller, “Trap City” is set for a spring 2021 release.

“There’s also a soundtrack of 16 songs that will be released with the movie. The film is all about redemption, love, and inspiration.”

In addition to films, Kyyba focuses on music albums and videos. To help expand its reach, the company has partnered with The Orchard, a Sony Music subsidiary, in a direct distribution deal. “We’re looking to help individual artists reach a broader global audience,” Ganesan says.

“In a way, films and music are just like building cars. You do test studies, decide on a product, produce the product, and then release it and hope for the best.”

Plastic Path || By Grace Turner IN THE FIRST STUDY OF PLASTIC USE across the entire U.S. economy, researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor found two-thirds of the plastic put into use in 2017 was for non-single-use items such as electronics, furniture, construction materials, and automobiles.

“While technically feasible, the costs to recover and sort plastic resins from automobile shredder residue, demolished buildings, recycled household appliances, and other

34 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

consumer goods exceed current market prices for recycled plastics,” says Gregory Keoleian, senior author of the study and director of U-M’s Center for Sustainable Systems.

The U-M team’s goal is to help guide industry, policymakers, and academics toward plastic waste reduction.

“Replacing the largely linear flow of plastics in the economy will require changes in the market conditions that anchor both ends of the plastics material flow: low costs of plastic

feedstocks and relatively low value of plastic waste materials,” Keoleian says.

“Product design and technological approaches should emphasize reusability and reparability, longer service lifetime and durability, and the substitution of plastics with other materials. ... Policy solutions include product take-back mandates, recycling mandates, recycled content standards, product bans, deposit refund systems, and virgin resin taxes to reflect the full environmental costs of petroleum feedstocks.”

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TEL K. GANESAN

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Focus || Private Clubs

VROOM ROOM M1 Concourse in Pontiac offers private garages to car owners and businesses, a 1.5-mile track, and next year, a motor-sports-themed restaurant and event center.

Fore Play

W

hile private clubs were closed for three months and construction upgrades were delayed six weeks or longer following the breakout of the coronavirus in March, member patronage and facility upgrades have come roaring back since June.

As the winter sets in, though, country clubs and other member-based facilities will be hardpressed to meet or exceed the summer and fall rush. At the same time, renovation and expansion projects at private clubs have been widespread over the past several years due to the booming economy, especially since the start of 2019.

The result is that some of metro Detroit’s most recognized and prestigious institutions aren’t letting a pandemic slow them down.

36 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Like a drive off the first tee, the start of the comeback started with golf courses. Peter Swick, general manager of Orchard Lake Country Club in Orchard Lake Village, says golf, which saw rounds played grow by 22 percent in 2020, is just one of the activities that’s up significantly this year despite the pandemic. “People are working nontraditional hours, so you can start the workday earlier and get away from home more readily by mid-afternoon,” Swick says. “I attribute most of it to these nontraditional hours people are working.”

Although golf was initially restricted when the COVID-19 lockdowns started, it quickly became a go-to activity for many looking to be outdoors — especially those with club memberships. “Golf is a fairly safe sport for social distancing,” Swick says.

“People are cooped up at home, not going on vacation. So they play golf.”

But not just golf. Swick says activities such as sailing, tennis, and swimming also were on the upswing over the summer and fall. The only exception has been banquet activity, since clubs haven’t been able to host indoor gatherings of more than 10 people and couldn’t host outdoor gatherings with more than 100 people.

The uptick in activity complements the recent completion of $7.1 million in upgrades to Orchard Lake Country Club’s facilities. “We did clubhouse renovations as well as the lake house, and we did all the kitchens,” Swick says. “A few years ago, we redid the golf course.”

The improvements included new furniture and carpeting throughout the clubhouse, along with a new HVAC system. Members overwhelmingly approved the improvements. “We had 90plus percent support for the renovations,” Swick says, “and post-renovation we’ve been bringing

M1 CONCOURSE

A bright spot in the region’s economy has been the outdoor recreational sector, especially among private clubs, as the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March encouraged more people to golf, swim, sail, boat, play tennis, race cars, and dine on patios and in courtyards. BY DAN CALABRESE

Private Clubs || Focus

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB; MEADOWBROOK COUNTRY CLUB

in tons of members, and we’re at capacity for our golf memberships.”

Steve Brady, director of golf instruction at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, says golf rounds on the North Course have exceeded the pace of recent years, due in part to ongoing work on the famed South Course. “We didn’t allow any play for a period of time,” Brady says. “Then, over time, we allowed walking only — no carts — and after that we allowed carts.”

The recent golf boom couldn’t have happened without adding some extraordinary safety measures. “We sanitize the carts,” Brady says. “We don’t allow the first tee staff to handle the clubs.

The members bring their clubs in, we sanitize everything, and our entire staff wears masks.”

The driving range also reopened, although hitting stations are spread farther apart. Improvements to the South Course, which is expected to be completed this fall and reopened in July 2021, involve five elements: Rebuilding and expanding all 18 greens, widening the fairways, rebuilding the bunkers and adding more sand, removing older trees that were unhealthy, and relocating the third and seventh greens. The total cost of the work is $12 million.

“It sounds like a lot of money, and it is,” Brady says, “but a lot of this work would have to have been done down the road, anyway. There’s all new drainage and irrigation, and that would have had to be replaced in five, 10, or 15 years.

The bunkers would have had to be rebuilt. So the membership said, let’s go ahead and get it done.”

One element of the improved South Course is the use of the Precision Aire system, where a series of underground vaults vacuum out moisture at a higher rate than more traditional gravity

LIQUID TEMPLE The Detroit Athletic Club is renovating its fourth-floor pool and neighboring gymnasium.

drainage systems. It can also blow warm or cold air into the turf, depending on the weather.

In turn, the greens will be replanted with bentgrass, which is firmer and plays faster throughout the year. “We’ll have the best green turfgrass anywhere in the world,” Brady says. He says Oakland Hills took the unusual step of staying open on Mondays this summer to accommodate all the demand.

Of course, not every high-end recreational facility is outdoors, and some have taken more of a hit from COVID-19 than others. Yet that can also provide opportunities. The Detroit Athletic Club’s Albert Kahn-designed clubhouse, which was built in 1915 and is located at Madison Avenue and Randolph Street, undergoes regular

PAYING DIVIDENDS A $5.9-million renovation of Meadowbrook Country Club in Northville Township was honored by the American Society of Golf Course Architects.

maintenance to keep up its original appearance, as well as the strength and integrity of the facility.

Some of the work done in 2020 wasn’t particularly visible, yet the temporary slowdown in member usage while lockdown orders were in place proved to be fortuitous. The DAC upgraded its HVAC and fire suppression system on the fourth floor, where its pool and gymnasium are located. The work in the natatorium included the restoration of a barrel-vaulted ceiling.

Charles Johnson, executive manager of the club, says the shutdown made the process easier.

“Because of the executive orders of the governor’s office, our indoor athletic facilities weren’t operating,” Johnson says. “If you’re looking for a silver lining, this would be a silver lining.”

The work in the natatorium is expected to be completed by the start of the holiday season. “It’s something (members) expect for us to continue to update and maintain,” Johnson says. “To keep the beauty of the facility here is what they expect.

The DAC has a long history of these renovations.

We maintain this 1915 building as (close) as we can to what Albert Kahn designed.”

The clubhouse at the Detroit Golf Club, also designed by Kahn, is nearing the completion of a $4.5-million renovation that began in 2018. It marked the facility’s first upgrade in 20 years.

All told, the Detroit Golf Club is renovating 10,800 square feet of interior space and 12,600 square feet of exterior space, with a new pro shop and dining room, along with improvements to the existing patio and façade.

Eventually, the Detroit Golf Club expects to complete $9 million worth of renovations to the clubhouse. The golf course also has undergone a major renovation, spurred in large part by the annual Rocket Mortgage Classic professional NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 37

Focus || Private Clubs

38 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

dice to infuse it with capital,” says Mike Rodzen, Meadowbrook’s general manager. “It worked out well. We’ve filled our membership now, and our membership wasn’t full prior to doing that.”

The improvements at Meadowbrook, which were completed in 2017, included a $5.3 million golf course renovation, in addition to upgrades of the kitchen, youth room, pool locker rooms, tennis deck, patio work, and more.

Beyond golf and athletic clubs, M1 Concourse in Pontiac, an 87-acre playground for auto enthusiasts that offers 250 private garages and a 1.5-mile performance track, along with other amenities, is working through a $50-million improvement plan. “There was a need for a first-rate, world-class facility that could host the type of entertainment and marketing activities that we do,” says Jordon Zlotoff, CEO at M1 Concourse.

The facility recently broke ground on a 28,000-square-foot restaurant and event center that will host a variety of corporate events, vehicle reveals, training, ride-and-drives, team-building activities, and hospitality events.

Prior to the improvements, M1 Concourse hosted such events in outdoor tents, but soon after operations began in 2016, new elements have been part of the plan. “We decided on this concept roughly three years ago, and started working out the interior design and the overall design of the building,” Zlotoff says. “It took close to three years to get all the administrative approvals so we could break ground on a piece of it.”

Engaging in such an ambitious buildout during a global pandemic prompted some questions, but Zlotoff says the move was based on confidence that the world will emerge from the crisis.

“We certainly considered it during the height

of COVID-19,” Zlotoff says. “Everyone was questioning what the world was going to look like.

Once it became clear we would come out of this eventually, that we’re going to see the other side of this at some point, there was no reason to hold up the construction.”

The next phase of development will include four garage buildings offering a total of 82 new units, as well as the event center and restaurant complex. That phase is expected to cost $35 million and be completed in September 2021.

While some members may be concerned about taking on long-term debt to finance club upgrade and expansion projects, keep in mind private clubs are run by people who have their fingers on the pulse of the area’s economy. Their members are decision-makers at some of the area’s largest companies and up-and-coming entrepreneurial firms.

Club management personnel share a common expectation that the pandemic restrictions will be a short-term experience for southeast Michigan — and, presumably, everywhere. A willingness to invest in club facilities indicates a solid expectation that the area’s economy has the necessary underpinnings to come back strong from the scourge of 2020.

In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt when golf rounds and other activities are up, if only because taking advantage of a country club membership is the closest thing people can experience to a real vacation in this strangest of years.

And when things get back to “normal,” whatever that ultimately looks like, upgraded courses, clubhouses, and other facilities will be ready and waiting — with those who made them happen expecting a solid return on their investment.

LAKEFRONT LOUNGE Pine Lake Country Club in Orchard Lake Village added a Lake Room and Rooftop Deck.

PINE LAKE COUNTRY CLUB

golf tournament. The improvements began in 2014, when all north course bunkers were restored and 18 new tees were added. In 2018, the north course renovation was complete with the addition of six tournament tees to add length for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Meanwhile, the Detroit Golf Club added 30 bunkers to its south course in 2016 to restore the original Donald Ross design.

Derek Jacques, COO at the Detroit Golf Club, says the emphasis now is on very intense course maintenance, at the direction of new course superintendent Jake Mendoza. “It’s not just poking holes in greens like some places do,” Jacques says. “This is a thorough, comprehensive process. We involve four different fertilizers, we fill all the holes with sand — a special sand we put in — we top-dress, we brush that in, and we roll and cut it in.”

A four-day process, the improvements allow for better drainage after a heavy rain. “Jake Mendoza brought a lot of knowledge with him, a lot of application processes, and we’ve employed some of these and realized what a great process it is,” Jacques says.

Like other area clubs, Jacques says the Detroit Golf Club has seen a pronounced increase in rounds played during the pandemic, but it’s very much been a matter of feast or famine. “Nothing has stayed down the middle,” he notes. “We’re significantly up in the number of rounds played, both guest rounds and member rounds, and we’ve seen people spend more time at the club, using it as their staycation area. But the banquet business has been just the opposite, with the executive orders. It’s just fallen off the map.”

The challenge in the banquet business hasn’t come without some triumphs. The Detroit Golf Club was originally supposed to host a summer wedding with 200 guests on its back lawn. With the governor’s orders restricting gatherings, it had to be reduced to 30 people and held on the front lawn. “And the people loved it,” Jacques says.

The pandemic has also introduced some best practices that Jacques expects to continue over the long term, including the requirement for members to make pool reservations.

“We never took pool reservations before, and the pool was jam-packed,” Jacques says. “It still is (popular), but when you have reservations, people show up knowing they’re going to have their favorite lounge chairs and their space. Before, people would show up and they didn’t know for sure. With reservations, it’s a little more limited, but it’s a better experience for members.”

At Meadowbrook Country Club in Northville Township, investing $11.3 million in upgrades didn’t come from a position of strength. It was a gamble designed to improve the club’s fortunes.

“The club was struggling and they rolled the

Private Clubs || Focus

CLUB LIFE

A resource guide to the top private clubs in southeast Michigan.

Barton Hills Country Club 730 Country Club Rd. Ann Arbor 734-663-8511 bartonhillscc.com Members: 500 (estimate) Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Signature Donald Ross golf course; tennis courts; fitness center; newly renovated dining room, wine bar, and resort-style pool complex with an outdoor pavilion

Birmingham Athletic Club 4033 W. Maple Rd. Bloomfield Township 248-646-5050 bacmi.net Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Indoor and outdoor dining, two pools, tennis, squash, paddle tennis, pickleball, fitness center

Birmingham Country Club 1750 Saxon Dr. Birmingham 248-644-4111 bhamcc.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course, pool, tennis, fitness facilities, indoor and outdoor dining

Bloomfield Hills Country Club 350 W. Long Lake Rd. Bloomfield Hills 248-644-6262 bloomfieldhillscc.org Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf

Bloomfield Open Hunt 405 E. Long Lake Rd. Bloomfield Hills

248-644-9411 bohclub.com Members: Contact for information Initiation fee: Contact for information Monthly fee: Contact for information Offerings: Dining room, swimming pool, fitness studio and yoga center, indoor and outdoor tennis, platform tennis, stables, indoor and outdoor equestrian facilities, kids activity center

Country Club of Detroit 220 Country Club Dr. Grosse Pointe Farms 313-881-8000 ccofd.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf club, indoor and outdoor dining, tennis, paddle tennis, pool, bowling, fitness center, children’s day camp, guest rooms, dog park

Dearborn Country Club 800 N. Military Dearborn 313-561-0800 dearborncountryclub.net Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf, swimming, fitness, dining, banquet facilities, junior golf, swim team

Detroit Athletic Club 241 Madison St. Detroit 313-963-9200 thedac.com Membership contact: katherinel@thedac.com Members: NA Initiation fee: Multiple offerings Monthly fee: Based on age Offerings: Albert Kahn-designed clubhouse built in 1915 and fully restored offers full-service athletic facilities, pool, restaurants, ballrooms, meeting rooms, guest rooms, bowling alley, salon, pavilion, named No. 1 Athletic Club in the country

Detroit Golf Club 17911 Hamilton Rd. Detroit 313-927-2457 detroitgolfclub.org Members: NA Initiation fee: Available upon membership inquiry Monthly fee: Available upon membership inquiry Offerings: Two 18-hole golf courses, clubhouse, three dining venues, swimming pool, tennis courts, fitness center

Detroit Yacht Club One Riverbank Rd., Belle Isle Detroit 313-824-1200 dyc.com Members: More than 800; less than half are boating members Initiation fee: $1,000 for active members, $2,000 for boating active members Monthly fee: $380 for active members, $420 for boating active members Offerings: Restaurant and bar, outdoor and indoor pools, swim team, adult and junior sailing, kayaking, tennis courts, social activities, more than 300 boat slips for boating members

Edgewood Country Club 8399 Commerce Rd. Commerce Township 248-363-7112 edgewoodcountryclub.org Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course, casual and fine dining, outdoor pool, fitness center, massage therapist

Franklin Hills Country Club 31675 Inkster Rd. Franklin 248-851-2200 franklinhills.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA

Offerings: Golf, tennis, swimming, banquet space, dining room

Great Oaks Country Club 777 Great Oaks Blvd.

Rochester Hills 248-651-5200 greatoakscc.com Members: 405 Initiation fee: $10,000 Monthly fee: $626 Offerings: 18-hole golf course; driving range; clubhouse with two dining rooms, two outdoor dining patios, and full banquet facility; three tennis courts; pool with cabana bar, kitchen, and splash pad; youth programs; club events; social events

Grosse Ile Golf & Country Club 9339 Bellevue Grosse Ile 734-676-1166 gigcc.com Members: 500+ Initiation fee: Starts as low as $1,000, depending on type of membership and age Monthly fee: Starts as low as $69, depending on type of membership and age Offerings: Donald Ross-designed 18-hole golf course; two full-service dining rooms; swimming pool; GIGCC swim team; clay and hard surface tennis courts featuring adult and youth leagues, individual instruction, and professional tennis staff; social events year-round for all ages

Grosse Pointe Yacht Club 788 Lake Shore Rd. Grosse Pointe Shores 313-884-2500 gpyc.org Members: 770 Initiation fee: Active (boating) $12,500; social $5,000 Monthly fee: Active (boating) $683; social $554 Offerings: Named a Platinum Club of the World; three dining rooms with views of Lake St. Clair; ballroom and main dining room with Italian architecture perfect for weddings, special occasions, or corporate

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 39

Focus || Private Clubs

events; fitness center; Olympic-size pool, bowling recreation center, and a family activity center; 2,440-square-foot Marine Activity Center with sailing, watersports, and boat rentals

Indianwood Golf & Country Club 1081 Indianwood Rd. Lake Orion 248-693-9100 iwgcc.com Members: 500+ Initiation fee: Class A Membership NA, Class B Membership $2,999, Family Fitness Membership $1,500, Social/Pool Family Membership $750 Monthly fee: Class A Membership NA, Class B Membership $130, Family Fitness Membership $130, Social/Pool Family Membership $130 Offerings: 18-hole New and Old golf courses, driving range, Junior Golf Program for children, clubhouse, dining areas including Pipers Pub and Men’s Grill, health club, variety of club and social events

Knollwood Country Club 5050 West Maple Rd. West Bloomfield Township 248-855-1800 knollwoodcountryclub.net Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course; four Har-Tru clay tennis courts; aquatics facility with locker rooms, snack bar, and outdoor dining; 55,000-square-foot clubhouse; fitness center; golf simulator studio; banquet space for 400 people; Troon Privé – Private Clubs of Distinction; member golfing privileges at Troon-managed clubs, resorts, and courses throughout the world

Lochmoor Club 1018 Sunningdale Dr. Grosse Pointe Woods 313-886-1010 lochmoorclub.com Members: 691 Initiation fee: Interim Golf $3,000; social (21-34) $500; social (35+) $1,352 Monthly fee: Interim Golf $595; social (21-34) $200; social (35+) $295 Offerings: 18-hole golf course, men and women’s golf leagues, creative pop-up dining events and seasonal menus, summer patio bar and outdoor dining, wine club that features wine tastings/dinners, swim team for children, tennis programs, junior sports such as golf and tennis, year-round tennis facility, babysitting services, fitness center

M1 Concourse 1 Concourse Dr. Pontiac 40 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

866-618-7225 m1concourse.com Members: 150 Initiation fee: $20,000 Monthly fee: $3,950 Offerings: Seven hours of track time per week; use of M1 Fleet Vehicles such as Dodge Hellcats and Lexus Performance Coupes; instruction provided by high-level driving instructors, including notable racers such as Johnny O’Connell; autocross competitions; guest events for friends/family of Members to Drive; exclusive social events

Meadowbrook Country Club 40941 W. Eight Mile Rd. Northville Township 248-349-3600 meadowbrookcountryclub.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course; 25-meter pool, lap pool, and wading pool; fountain and wading pool for little ones; private tennis programs led by Wayne Jackson; tennis events, lessons, and tournaments; indoor and outdoor dining options

Oakhurst Golf & Country Club 7000 Oakhurst Lane Clarkston 248-391-3300 clubcorp.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course, six tennis courts with USPTA pro available for clinics or private lessons, executive chef, cabana bar, junior Olympic-size resort-style pool, 1,600-square-foot fitness center, variety of social functions

Oakland Hills Country Club 3951 West Maple Rd. Bloomfield Hills 248-644-2500 oaklandhillscc.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: South and North 18-hole golf courses, tennis, swimming, Albert Kahn-designed clubhouse

Orchard Lake Country Club 5000 West Shore Dr. Orchard Lake Village 248-682-0100 orchardlakecountryclub.com Members: 650 Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: 18-hole golf course and driving

range; six-tiered clay tennis courts and four platform tennis courts; seasonal menus prepared by award-winning chefs; lakefront dining; ballroom for wedding celebrations; racquet classes, competitions, and tournament training for all ages; personal training and group fitness programs; sailing clinics and swim lessons for children

Paint Creek Country Club 2375 Stanton Rd. Lake Orion 248-693-4695 paintcreekgolf.com Members: NA Annual fees: $99 to $4,750 Offerings: Golf course, fitness center, pool, 20,000-square-foot clubhouse, 300-seat dining room

Pine Lake Country Club 3300 Pine Lake Rd. Orchard Lake Village 248-682-1300 pinelakecc.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, Olympic-size pool, fitness center, clubhouse, dining room, grill

Plum Hollow Country Club 21631 Lahser Rd. Southfield 248-357-5333 Members: 400 Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course, caddie program, three Har-Tru clay tennis courts, Olympic-size pool

Polo Fields Golf & Country Club 5200 Polo Fields Dr. Ann Arbor 734-998-1555 polofieldsccmi.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course, clubhouse, dining, pool, lounge area, snack bar

Red Run Country Club 2036 Rochester Rd. Royal Oak 248-548-7500 redrungolfclub.com Members: 635 families Initiation fee: $3,500 (social), $15,000 (golf) Monthly fee: $331 (social), $755 (golf) Offerings: Golf course, Olympic-size pool, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, fitness center, indoor golf practice area, bowling leagues

Shenandoah Country Club 5600 Walnut Lake Rd. West Bloomfield Township 248-683-6363 shenandoahcc.net Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course (open to public), clubhouse, dining, partitionable 11,336-square-foot banquet room, two pre-function areas, 4,000-square-foot outdoor terrace

Tam-O-Shanter Country Club 5051 Orchard Lake Rd. West Bloomfield Township 248-855-1900 tamoshantercc.org Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course, clubhouse, dining, four hydro-clay and two hard-surface tennis courts, Olympic-size pool, fitness center, banquet facilities, youth programs

Wabeek Club 4000 Clubgate Dr. Bloomfield Township 248-855-0700 wabeekcc.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye, clubhouse, formal and casual dining, pool, tennis, fitness center, spa, banquet and event space

Western Golf & Country Club 14600 Kinloch Redford Township 313-531-1240 westerngcc.com Members: 400 Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Donald Ross-designed golf course, clubhouse rebuilt after 2018 fire, dining, pool, tennis, snack bar

Wyndgate Country Club 1975 W. Gunn Rd. Rochester Hills 248-652-4283 thewyndgate.com Members: NA Initiation fee: NA Monthly fee: NA Offerings: Two 18-hole golf courses, clubhouse, gardens, banquet and event facilities

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2021 Michigan Economic Forecast || Perspectives

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 43

Perspectives || 2021 Michigan Economic Forecast

P

rospects for a strong economy in 2020 were dashed in the first quarter when the coronavirus became more than just China’s problem on the evening news.

It began arriving on U.S. shores in late January and, within two months, the jobs economy transformed into frontline, virtual, or nonessential positions. Michigan was hit particularly hard .

Late last year, Michigan State University’s Center for Economic Analysis projected economic growth, measured as state-level gross domestic product (gross state product), would trail the nation at 2.3 percent in 2020. But that proved unrealistic in light of the virus.

Since March 15, nearly 2.3 million certifying, potentially eligible claimants have applied for state and federal benefits, with nearly $24 billion in benefits paid to 2.2 million workers. The figures come from an early October report released by the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency.

But there may be a silver lining given the nature of the shutdown.

“Unlike most prior downturns, the current contraction doesn’t represent any glaring weaknesses in the economy per se, but rather the result of policies designed to contain the spread of the virus,” stated a Michigan House Fiscal Agency report in May. “As such, there may be reason for optimism that, as restrictions are relaxed, economic activity will return at a somewhat faster rate than would otherwise normally occur after prior economic contractions.”

Yet, as businesses reopen, many at reduced capacity due to continuing government mitigation policies, the economy is recovering slowly.

Accelerating the speed of the recovery and economic prospects for 2021, according to economists, depends on progress in the fight against COVID-19, including improvements in therapeutics and, of course, the approval and wide distribution of a safe and effective vaccine.

In September, the Federal

44 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Reserve Board voted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged, at a range of 0 to 0.25 percentage points — a level it expects to maintain until at least 2023 in order to help the economy add jobs for as long as possible.

The Fed said it projects unemployment will fall to 7.6 percent by the end of this year and to 4 percent by 2023. Pre-COVID, the jobless rate was at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent.

There still are areas of the economy, however, that will struggle “until we get a vaccine that’s in wide use and closely trusted,” Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in September. “We’re learning to live with COVID, which still spreads.”

In order for the U.S. economy to reach its highest potential output, “we need prosperity to be broadly spread,” he added. Overall economic activity, however, remains “well below” pre-pandemic levels, and the outlook for the economy is “extraordinarily uncertain.”

Robert Dye, chief economist at Comerica Bank, which has its Michigan headquarters in Detroit, agrees with the Fed chairman about a coronavirus remedy. “A vaccine would be a big positive,” Dye says. “It would go a long way to help boost both consumer and business confidence, but my expectation is a widely distributed and effective vaccine is many months down the road.”

Patrick Anderson, principal and CEO of East Lansing’s Anderson Economic Group, says waiting for a vaccine isn’t an effective strategy. “It’s not reasonable to hang all of your hopes on a vaccine because we simply can’t afford to wait for a vaccine to be created, tested, and distributed before we grow food and make things so we can get through the winter.”

Anderson is of the opinion that Michigan’s deep COVID-19 wounds are mostly “self-inflicted” due to government policies that lumped counties less affected by the virus together with those with higher infection rates.

“The collateral damage from

policies that aren’t matched to the counties is severe,” he says. “It absolutely was a crisis in March, and necessitated an emergency response by the state government and the federal government. When we get to May, June, July, August, and September, we have months of data showing cases have been declining in Michigan since April and that it varies tremendously by area. Onesize-fits-all policies clearly are unfair, punitive, and unproductive.”

What cannot be debated is that the longer COVID-19 continues to impact the lives of Americans and Michiganders, the more difficult it will be for the economy to recover.

Add to that a hotly contested presidential election and the need for more federal stimulus, and the potential pitfalls for the 2021 economy are plenty.

“There are significant hurdles we have to get through for the remainder of this year,” Dye says. “My hope is that we get through the election, get another stimulus package passed, and next year we see ongoing economic recovery for Michigan and the U.S. I think it’s still going to be a mixed bag for many businesses, because this is a highly idiosyncratic economy right now.

“It simply depends on where you are, what business you’re in, and what part of the economy you’re connected to. Upper- and lower-income households are facing different challenges right now.

Lower-income households are bearing the brunt of the temporary furloughs we’re experiencing. Many of those will become permanent.”

Adds Anderson: “We’re coming out of Depression-level unemployment and a dislocation of the workforce that we haven’t seen since well before the Great Recession. There are no guidelines to look at in terms of recovering from a Depression-level shock.”

Looking at the numbers, the state House Fiscal Agency report forecasts a 5.5 percent decrease in U.S. GDP in 2020, before rising 3.6 percent in 2021. Inflation is expected to decrease 0.4 percent in 2020 and increase 1.4 percent in 2021. Wage and salary employment

U.S. Economy According to the University of Michigan, the economy is expected to gain back its pandemic losses in 2021.

GDP Unemployment Inflation SOURCE: University of Michigan

Weekly Average Wages for All Industries by County Detroit-area 4th Quarter 2019 Wayne County led Michigan counties in weekly average wages at the end of 2019.

U.S. Average: $1,222 ($1,144 in 2018) Area Average: $1,225 ($1,196 in 2018)

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

2021 Michigan Economic Forecast || Perspectives

9

21.8

8

21.6

7

21.4

6

21.2

5

21B

4

20.8

3

20.6

2

20.4

1 0

2019

$ in Billions

22B

Percentage (%)

10

2021

2020

20.2 20B

for y er

Lapeer

in 019.

$755

St. Clair

$911

$812 in 2018

Oakland

Macomb

Livingston

$1,279

$1,112

$924 in 2018

$1,262 in 2018

$1,112 in 2018

$892

$917 in 2018

Wayne

$1,281 $1,218 in 2018

s

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 45

Perspectives || 2021 Michigan Economic Forecast

Unemployment Rates 13 Detroit and Wayne County were the hardest hit in terms of job loss from the pandemic.

12 11

Wayne Detroit Macomb St. Clair Oakland

10 9 8

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

7 6

4 3

Percentage (%)

5

July 2018

growth is forecast to decline by 4.6 percent in 2020 before growing 3.9 percent in 2021 and 3.2 percent the following year.

In Michigan, the agency estimates wage and salary employment growth will fall by 10.2 percent in 2020 and increase 6.9 percent in 2021. The state unemployment rate is forecast to jump to 13.3 percent in 2020, before dropping to 8 percent in next year.

Personal income in the state is forecast to decrease 1.5 percent in 2020 and increase 0.8 percent in 2021, according to the House agency, while wage and salary income is projected to decline 9.9 percent in 2020 and climb 0.8 percent in 2021.

Fortunately for the Michigan economy and its prospects for 2021, the manufacturing industry was largely able to reopen its production 46 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

facilities early in the pandemic.

“Our anchor industry, the auto industry, was able to get a reasonable set of regulations applied to them early in the pandemic and has been able to manufacture vehicles and parts,” Anderson notes. “That’s actually a bright spot in what has been a dismal year for Michigan. I think manufacturing is going to be leading the way out of this Depression-level recession.”

Still, while automakers can produce cars, the economy has to be healthy enough for people to be able to buy those vehicles.

“The auto industry is a major accelerator for the state economy,” Dye says. “My expectation is that next year (car sales) will come back, (and there will be) a gradual increase by the second quarter.

There’s a cohort of people whose jobs haven’t been negatively affected

July 2019

by the virus, and (they’ll) be able to take advantage of the low interest rates and buy cars.”

Light vehicle sales are forecast to be 12.8 million units in 2020, 15.8 million units in 2021, and 16.6 million units in 2022, according to the House Fiscal Agency.

As it stands, around 70 percent of GDP is consumer spending, according to economists, and one more package of tax credits and other economic benefits may be needed.

“We’ve had several rounds of fiscal stimulus,” Dye says. “I’m hopeful that we’ll see at least a limited stimulus package that would, at the very least, focus on rounding off the cliff effects of the curtailments of unemployment benefits. That’s going to challenge the spending ability of middle- to lower-income households, and that’s a key challenge.

There’s still a possibility of another round of direct payments, but that remains to be seen.”

Kevin Voigt, who leads the Detroit office of KMPG, a global audit, tax, and advisory firm, says the economic support provided to date (via the CARES Act) has been unprecedented. “However, even those measures have an expiration date,” he says. “Again, depending on what happens with COVID-19, policymakers may feel pressure to provide further stimulus, which could have a significant impact on economic growth prospects.”

Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University in East Lansing, says one key to the economic recovery is the ability of schools to teach students in physical settings.

“With states opening and kids

2021 Michigan Economic Forecast || Perspectives

July 2020

going back to school — and, if schools stay open — I would expect GDP in the fourth quarter (of 2020) to be higher. If schools continue to operate virtually and parents have to stay home to take care of small children, I would expect it to be lower,” she says.

“I don’t see the GDP growing systematically until the fiscal response in the form of another stimulus package is in place, the vaccine is available, and there’s more certainty about small children returning to, and staying in, school,” Cook adds.

Cutting into unemployment is another factor that will boost the economy. Between February and April, Michigan lost more than 1.3 million payroll jobs due to the pandemic, but Michael McWilliams, an economist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says the jobs picture has improved every month since then.

“By August, the state had recovered over 50 percent of the lost jobs, and we currently expect that number to rise to 70 percent by the end of the year,” McWilliams says.

“We forecast the Michigan economy to continue its recovery in 2021, but at a more gradual pace.

By the end of 2021, we expect roughly 80 percent of the lost jobs to be recovered. That would put the total number of payroll jobs in the state at about 4 percent below the pre-pandemic levels.”

One sector of the Michigan economy that will have a difficult time bouncing back is hospitality and tourism, which took a tremendous hit from the pandemic and likely will be the last segment of the economy to recover.

“Hospitality, tourism, restaurants, and retail were hammered by consumers’ reluctance to go places and the government’s shutdown orders that prevented them from operating at anything close to a sustainable level,” Anderson says.

“We’re forecasting a ‘two-track’ recovery, where certain sectors will be able to recover faster than others,” McWilliams says. “The ‘slower recovery’ industries consist of leisure and hospitality, retail trade,

and other services. These sectors include restaurants, bars, gyms, and theaters, which were hit hard in the recession, and for which a full recovery will depend on the course of the pandemic, the availability of a vaccine and, ultimately, when consumers feel ready to re-engage with the more in-person sectors of the economy.

“How quickly will people return to previous comfort levels with restaurants, bars, gyms, and theaters? We believe those industries will gradually recover, but it will take longer than for other sectors of the economy,” he says.

Regardless of the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election, many economists say they don’t foresee a major change in policy that would affect an economic recovery in 2021.

“Changes in policy resulting from the election could, of course, affect the economy,” McWilliams acknowledges. “Our hope is that Congress, whether before or after the election, is able to come to an agreement on further assistance.

Other things being equal, the economic recovery will proceed faster if consumers are able to keep spending money, and state and local governments have the funds they need to maintain services as well as their own payrolls.”

Daniil Manaenkov, another U-M economist, says, “Short of the election yielding federal single-party control, I don’t anticipate dramatic shifts in federal policy. At this point, our baseline projection assumes continuation of a divided government, which will likely result in modest tweaks to economic policy.

A moderate fiscal stimulus is a possibility in 2021 regardless of who gets elected, but actual policy will depend on the balance of power.”

Dye adds: “In all my years studying economics, I’ve seen studies that show the effects each party has on the economy. What tends to happen is real-world events tend to overwhelm the differences. I don’t hold the view that one party is going to have a specific effect on the economy that the other party wouldn’t have.”

On the housing front, the longer the pandemic continues, the more precarious the market will become.

Renters and homeowners who have lost their jobs could continue to have a difficult time paying their rent and mortgage payments. In turn, if the government prevents landlords from evicting people, those same landlords will lose the income they need to live and to maintain their buildings.

“The 2021 outlook for the housing market is highly uncertain,” Manaenkov says. “The expiration of mortgage forbearance and a run-up in rental evictions threaten the housing market next year.”

In its annual forecast of the Oakland County economy, the U-M Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics predicts the county will lose 68,000 jobs in 2020, recover 39,100 next year, and add an additional 14,300 jobs in 2022. That would put it at 14,700 jobs, or 2 percent short of 2019 levels by the end of 2022.

“We expect a full economic recovery in Oakland County to take multiple years because of the depth of the initial recession,” says Gabriel Ehrlich, director of RSQE. “Thanks to Oakland County’s strong economic fundamentals, however, we expect it to enjoy a faster recovery than the state of Michigan overall.”

Oakland County's jobless rate, which dropped sharply in the years following the Great Recession, was 3.4 percent last year — below the U.S. mark of 3.7 percent. Researchers say the job losses forecast this year drive the rate up to an average of 9.1 percent, compared with the U.S. rate of 9.2 percent.

Area economists say the county is well-positioned for growth and they expect it to experience a faster job recovery than the state, owing to its educated population, high share of managerial and professional jobs, and attractive standard of living.

They predict modest job growth in most high- and middle-wage service industries, with engineering services a particular bright spot as the auto industry shifts toward electric and autonomous vehicles.

According to the forecast,

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 47

Perspectives || 2021 Michigan Economic Forecast

Detroit-area Employment as of July 2020 The leisure and hospitality industries saw the biggest percentage of job loss as a result of the pandemic.

Numbers are in the thousands.

Change from July 2019-July 2020 represented in percentage up or percentage down.

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Total Nonfarming: 138,513 -8.7%

employment in high- and middle-wage service industries will grow by about 5.5 percent between this year and 2022, and blue-collar industries and lower-wage service sectors will see growth of about 11 percent. Part of the faster growth in those sectors stems from their greater initial job losses in the pandemic.

Business leaders, meanwhile, are somewhat bullish on a national economic recovery. In August, KPMG released the results of a survey that showed many U.S. CEOs remain confident in the growth prospects of the domestic economy and their companies, and are accelerating investments in digital transformation.

“Forty-three percent of CEOs surveyed were more confident about their growth prospects for the economy than before the pan48 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

demic,” Voigt says. “Interestingly, the CEOs surveyed see climate change as the greatest threat to their organization’s growth, aside from the global health risk. Also, 83 percent of CEOs surveyed want to lock in the sustainability and climate change gains they’ve made as a result of the crisis.”

While the pandemic has posed challenges to all businesses, the majority of CEOs responding to the KPMG survey say they’ve accelerated their digital transformation as a result of the crisis. These areas include the digitization of operations and the creation of a next-generation operating model (74 percent), as well as the creation of new digital business models and revenue streams (70 percent).

“U.S. CEOs are resilient and remain optimistic as they continue to rise to meet the challenges and

opportunities resulting from the pandemic and ongoing economic uncertainty,” says Paul Knopp, chairman and CEO of KPMG in the U.S. “They’re accelerating the digital transformation of their businesses, but also see a multitude of risks apart from the pandemic — with talent risk becoming front and center in the current environment.”

According to Dye, an untold story of the future economy of Michigan is the 2020 Census. “It’s getting lost because of COVID-19,” he says. “But this is always an important issue for Michigan, because it’s a state that tends to be on the border of net in-migration and out-migration. It’s a low-population-growth state, so knowing who’s moving in and moving out has implications for political representation and government programs. The reset that comes from

the 2020 Census could be good for Michigan or it might be a negative, depending on the count.”

There’s a saying that the only certain thing about Michigan’s weather is its uncertainty. The same, it seems, can be said for how quickly the state recovers from the disastrous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The recovery primarily depends on people’s willingness to come to work and whether the government lets them come to work and lets customers show up,” Anderson says. “We have to remind people that Americans have come through pandemics before. Americans have been through World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, 9/11, and other crises. You cannot stop working, and stop producing the things you need to produce, and expect to survive.”

This holiday season, we send our best wishes to you and yours for a prosperous and healthy New Year.

Andrew Howard Senior Vice President Financial Advisor 130 Kercheval Avenue Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236 313-343-8471 andrew.howard@morganstanley.com HOL003 CRC3230883 09/20

Š 2020 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC.

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Cover Story || Technology

SENSOR LINE Michigan Avenue from downtown Detroit to Ann Arbor, including a short stretch of Wastenaw Avenue in Ypsilanti, is being planned as the world's first connected roadway.

52 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Technology || Cover Story

The development of the first dedicated digital roadway for connected vehicles is underway along Michigan Avenue from Detroit to Ann Arbor — powered by a team of local, national, and international designers, innovators, disruptors, and technologists.

BY R. J. KING

ILLUSTRATION BY GARTH GLAZIER

BUILDING THE WORLD’S FIRST

connected corridor for autonomous vehicles won’t be easy. A blueprint doesn’t exist for installing high-speed fiber cables, sensors, and communication platforms along Michigan Avenue (and a small stretch of Washtenaw Avenue) between downtown Detroit and Ann Arbor, in addition to linking the corridor to public destinations like Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus.

What’s more, latency interference compounds the challenge. At the outset, the vision calls for one dedicated interior lane for both the east and west side of Michigan Avenue. Those two lanes will need barriers at first, to separate autonomous from general traffic including pedestrians.

Special crosswalks will be needed, traffic lights must be coordinated, and all manner of hardware and software are required to connect GPS satellites, cellular arrays, Wi-Fi systems, sensors, and underground fiber cables. Latency interference also references the unpredictable nature of surface traffic, as humans and animals like dogs, cats, and squirrels running in the roadway can be inconsistent in their movements.

Developing a connected ground mobility system is, in many ways, much harder than providing for aircraft like unmanned aerial vehicles that in the future will serve as taxis and cargo haulers, as there are fewer things in the air to deal with than on the ground.

Lest anyone doubt the viability of developing aerial vehicles, and the need to connect future ground and aerial transportation systems over a single communication platform, consider recent remarks by Mary Barra, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corp. in Detroit.

In September, she referenced the evolving air

taxi market at an RBC Capital Markets virtual conference. "We believe strongly in our EV future, and not just for vehicles,” Barra said. “The strength and flexibility of our Ultium battery systems open doors for many use cases, including aerial mobility, which represents a natural next step in a zero-emissions vision."

But first things first. The complexity of developing a high-tech corridor along some 34 miles of Michigan Avenue, or U.S. Route 12, and six miles of Washtenaw Avenue (M-17) from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor — as well as connector arteries so riders inside a future autonomous shuttle can reach Detroit Metro Airport — must be solved before adding a communication platform that will integrate ground and aerial vehicles.

To an ambitious region like metro Detroit, where French settlers in 1701 laid the foundation for what would become the epicenter of the global automotive industry, the development of a dedicated digital thoroughfare, or tech track, that could be replicated around the world is the holy grail of a new industry, opening a vast consumer and business marketplace that drives revenue from connected transit routes, charging stations, e-commerce platforms, smart devices, and more.

Before peering into the brave, new world of connectivity, the groundwork required to cement Detroit’s standing as the mobility capital of the world began on a summer day in 2018 when Bill Ford Jr., executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, announced from a stage in front of the abandoned Michigan Central Station west of downtown Detroit that the storied automaker had acquired the iconic monolith. He also vowed the company would return to the city where his great-grandfather, Henry Ford, launched the industrial powerhouse in 1903.

“In my almost 40 years at Ford, rarely have I been as excited as I am about this announcement today,” he told a crowd of some 5,000 people — including employees, retirees, Ford family members, guests, media, civic leaders, and community members — gathered in front of the train station. “Michigan Central Station is a place that in many ways tells the story of Detroit over the past century.

“We at Ford want to help write the next chapter, working together in Corktown (and surrounding neighborhoods) with the best startups, the smartest talent, and the thinkers, engineers, and problem-solvers who see things differently — all to shape the future of mobility and transportation.”

That Detroit is protecting and expanding on its industrial heritage, which five years ago saw its standing as the world’s leading manufacturing hub of automakers, suppliers, and tool-anddie shops threatened by outside forces, is telling in an age where hardware and software advances had seemingly been ceded to Silicon Valley. But that was before tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft actually started down the road of building hyperconnected cars and trucks at mass scale.

Apart from Tesla, which actually didn’t start out as a traditional tech company, no one from the Palo Alto region of California or the hip enclaves of Seattle has come forward with one or several vehicles that offer all of the latest technological innovations while meeting stringent federal regulations for safety and reliability. Google, in fact, via its Waymo division, turned to FCA North America in Auburn Hills to package all of its autonomous technology into Chrysler Pacifica minivans — the retrofitting is being done in Detroit at a site near one of NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 53

Cover Story || Technology the world’s largest auto suppliers, American Axle and Manufacturing Inc. Waymo CEO John Krafcik, who participated in the Forbes Under 30 Summit event in Detroit last October, envisioned autonomous vehicles as “opening up new frontiers for ride-hailing, commercial delivery, and personal-use vehicles around the world."

To that end, Waymo is testing driverless technology in places like Phoenix. Closer to home, Ford has been operating autonomous vehicles (with a physical driver and passenger inside) around Michigan Central Station and up and down Michigan Avenue for more than a year.

Apart from Ford, additional research is being conducted on closed test tracks, either at various OEM sites, the American Center for Mobility next to Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti Township, or Mcity, the 32-acre dedicated mock city and proving ground for autonomous vehicles located on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Pulling all of those resources together, and connecting them through a first-of-its-kind corridor for connected and autonomous vehicles, has been a long-term goal of industry, government, and academia. Those efforts bore fruit in August when the State of Michigan, along with several businesses, announced a dedicated tech track as a way to both improve transportation for communities in southeast Michigan across all income brackets and set a template to expand the network to other cities and nations around the world.

To jump-start the effort, the state selected Cavnue, a subsidiary of New York-based Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (itself tied to Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google), to serve as master developer of the project. The public-private partnership will explore the opportunity and viability of the project by working with state and local partners, stakeholders, and communities.

Cavnue will also work with the Michigan Department of Transportation, Michigan Office of Future Mobility and Electrification, Michigan Economic Development Corp., the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, and industry and local project partners through phase one of the effort, which is expected to last about two years (concluding in the second half of 2022).

Trevor Pawl, Michigan’s chief mobility officer, says when the state issued an RFP for the project in April, it was looking for “the best of the best” in future road design, the creation of financial models, the integration of multiple communication platforms to drive the entire connected system, and the ability to tap into auto industry assets, work with local communities, and provide for equitable transportation solutions.

“Activating Michigan Avenue is Bill Ford’s vision, while at the state we were looking for ways 54 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

“THEY WERE IMPRESSED THAT ALL OF US AT THE STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL WERE WORKING TOGETHER WITH INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA. AND IF YOU CAN WRITE A PLAYBOOK IN DETROIT AND MICHIGAN FOR AUTONOMOUS AND CONNECTED ROADS, YOU CAN REPLICATE IT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.”

— Trevor Pawl

to develop the first connected corridor,” Pawl says. “Cavnue was created from Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, and they will be a co-developer of the first future corridor. With a company like that, they could have developed this someplace else — like in Long Beach, Calif. — but they selected Detroit.

“They were impressed that all of us at the state and local level were working together with industry and academia. And if you can write a playbook in Detroit and Michigan for autonomous and connected roads, you can replicate it anywhere in the world.”

The corridor is intended to create lanes that are purpose-built to accelerate and enhance the full potential of connected and autonomous vehicles. Cavnue will work with regional partners to plan, design, and develop the roadway, combining innovations in physical, digital, coordination, and operational infrastructure. The innovations are intended to help increase the safety, efficiency, resilience, and operations of connected roadways.

The project will be designed to evolve to meet transportation goals, but in the beginning the dedicated lanes will accommodate linked buses and shared mobility vehicles such as vans and shuttles, and expand to other connected and autonomous vehicles like freight and personal vehicles.

In addition, it will advance policy goals of achieving neutrality among vehicle OEMs through standards-based approaches; enhancing accessibility, affordability, and equity; and aligning with regional planning efforts. The tech track will also encourage R&D, economic development, and open data access, and will promote shared learning, cybersecurity, and replicability.

Before the 24-month planning cycle is over, Pawl says there will be a live demonstration of the technology to ensure its reliability before Michigan Avenue is outfitted with high-speed fiber, sensors, and cellular arrays as well as dedicated traffic lanes. With phase one underway, Pawl describes the process as “blueprint to recipe” before work on phase two — installing actual infrastructure components — can begin.

For the barriers that will, at times, separate autonomous from local traffic, Pawl says the planners must consider variables like providing for ambulances to get through a given area with no delays. While the barricades will enhance safety, other considerations for the tech track are digital signage, high-definition road maps, smart curbs, charging stations, sensors, and a seamless transition from one community to the next.

KEY PROPERTY The Godfrey Hotel at Michigan Avenue and Eighth Street in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood is set to break ground next year and open in 2023. The seven-story lodge will offer 227 rooms, banquet space, a restaurant and bar, and a rooftop deck. The project is being developed by Hunter Pasteur Homes in Farmington Hills and Oxford Capital Group in Chicago.

Hunter Pasteur plans to develop a residential project in the area, as well.

Technology || Cover Story

Pawl explains the development phase won’t be done in a vacuum. “We may bring in other roads like I-94, and everyone will have a say in what is built,” he says. “We want to improve upon what’s going on in Corktown, and improve transportation to Detroit Metro Airport, and connect Detroit and Ann Arbor. But it’s not a solely Detroit-to-Ann-Arbor solution.

“We know smart infrastructure saves lives.

(The connected roadway) also will help communities like Inkster because it will create new business models and new destinations to drive revenue. Plus, it creates equity and improves access. We want everyone who travels in this corridor to have access to equitable transportation.”

With Ford as an initial partner, Pawl says a big selling point in attracting Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners and Cavnue was that the automaker has the most assets along the corridor, including “two living laboratories” in the form of the emerging Michigan Central Station located 14 blocks west of downtown Detroit, and the Research and Engineering Center in Dearborn. The automaker also has one of the world’s most advanced data centers near its world headquarters, which also

flanks U.S. Route 12.

David Dubensky, chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Land Development Corp. in Dearborn, says his team is putting the finishing design touches on a new 2-million-square-foot building at the Research and Engineering Center, located across Oakwood Boulevard from the main entrance to The Henry Ford.

“Half of the new building will be studio space for designers, and the other half will be office space,” Dubensky says. “Our other transformational project, Michigan Central Station, will be an innovation hub for mobility. We still believe that, going forward, there will be an element of working at home that will be permanent and ongoing, and there will be a need for office space for work that’s collaborative. These two sites will be really important to our future.”

On top of those investments — the train station transformation will cost $744 million — Ford is pumping $700 million into the construction of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn to build an all-electric F-150 by mid2022. The neighboring Ford Rouge Center, where the F-150 has long been produced, along

with a soon-to-be-released F-150 PowerBoost hybrid, also benefit from the capital infusion. In turn, 300 new jobs will support battery assembly and the rollout of the electric and hybrid models.

Further west, in Wayne, the automaker is spending $750 million and creating 2,700 jobs at its Michigan Assembly Plant. The factory, located along U.S. Route 12, is already producing a redesigned Ford Ranger pickup, while three new Ford Bronco models will begin rolling off the assembly line next year. Part of the plant space will be dedicated to autonomous vehicles.

All told, between the investments at Michigan Central Station, the two assembly plants, future production space, and the transformation of the automaker’s Research and Engineering Center, Ford is spending more than $2.5 billion in southeast Michigan. The automaker also is a partner at both Mcity and the American Center for Mobility.

The most visible project of the total investment is Michigan Central Station, where in the first half of 2023 Ford will have some 5,000 people working on-site, split evenly between its own mobility-centered employees and those working NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 55

Cover Story || Technology

MICHIGAN AVENUE

FUTURE GREENWAY - Owned by Detroit RiverFront Conservancy

Worden 23

Ann Arbor Charter Twp

14

ANN ARBOR

Regent Court and ITEK Center

Ford World Headquarters and Data Center Dearborn Heights

275

U-M Ford Robotics Bldg.

Grand opening 2021

Garden City

Westland

153 Canton

Superior CharterTwp

24

Ford Michigan Assembly Plant

DEARBORN

Ford Research and Engineering Center

39

Ypsilanti

American Center for Mobility

Taylor 94

among its automotive partners. The hub of innovation for mobility overall will include four buildings, three existing structures, and one yetto-be-built facility on the west side of the train station (and a possible second parking deck; the first will open southeast of the depot in 2022).

Just east of the train station, the original Roosevelt Warehouse, which became a Detroit Public Schools Book Depository facility, is being transformed into an innovation hub, says Carolina Pluszczynski, Ford’s Detroit development director for Michigan Central Station. It joins The Factory at Michigan Avenue and Rosa Parks Boulevard, where 220 Ford employees are working on mobility and EV solutions.

“We need to collaborate because one company can’t do it alone,” Pluszczynski says. “The Book Depository has really open floor plates, and we see it as a space where these serendipitous collisions of people working together will occur to advance these solutions much quicker. We also have partnered with the surrounding neighborhoods. We host virtual community meetings, we have a neighborhood newsletter, and (we set up) an information center in The Factory that was closed due to COVID-19, but we’re using

56 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

12

Michigan Central Station River Rouge

Lincoln Park

Romulus

FUTURE ROAD MAP Ford's emerging campus west of downtown Detroit, top, is set to open in phases over the next three years.

Michigan Avenue, or U.S. Route 12, from Detroit to Ann Arbor, bottom, is poised to become the world's first connected roadway. The route includes a six-mile stretch of Washtenaw Avenue from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor, or M-17.

94

Melvindale

Allen Park 17

75

DETROIT

153

Rouge Plant

Inkster 12

Wayne

23

94

10

1 Livonia

14

Mcity

39

96 Plymouth

75

85

technology like digital windows (along Michigan Avenue) to help keep the public informed.”

Overall, among the three buildings, there’s more than 1.2 million square feet of commercial space. At the former train station, built in 1913, Ford and its partners will occupy some three-quarters of the space, while the rest will be split between hospitality offerings on the top floors and public space on the main level. The latter area will be available for restaurants, stores, art galleries, and other uses.

The investment by Ford west of downtown Detroit spans or is close to several neighborhoods, including Corktown, West Side Industrial, North Corktown/Briggs, Hubbard-Richard, Millenium Village, and Mexicantown. Over the past two years, several new initiatives have been instituted to provide for future development needs in the area, all of which will benefit from new high-speed fiber lines and other state-ofthe-art communication platforms.

The developments will be complemented by the upcoming Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, a 22-acre riverfront oasis being planned by the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, which has been building a 5.5-mile riverwalk that connects

Canada

Technology || Cover Story

the MacArthur Bridge at Belle Isle to the Ambassador Bridge in southwest Detroit. The conservancy also is working with Ford and others on a public greenway (formerly May Creek and railroad tracks) that will connect the train station and other areas to the Wilson park.

Among the new projects: The Corner, a $31-million mixed-use development at the site of the former Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull avenues, which opened last year, features 111 multifamily units of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments, with 20 percent designated affordable at 80 percent of area median income.

The four-story project by Larson Realty Group in Detroit, in which every residence overlooks the Detroit PAL Corner Ballpark, where the Detroit Tigers professional baseball team played for several decades before moving to Comerica Park in 2000, also includes 27,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. “Working with our partners to transform this site has been incredible, and we’re looking forward to continuing (to enhance) the energy and excitement throughout the community,” says Eric Larson, president and CEO of Larson Realty Group.

Immediately east of The Corner, Detroitbased Soave Real Estate Group has completed the first phase of Elton Park Corktown, a $150-million mixed-use development that has 151 residential units across six buildings and 11,400 square feet of retail space. It includes five new buildings and the renovation of the historic Checker Cab Building, which now houses 45 one-bedroom and seven two-bedroom apartments, as well as 2,500 square feet of groundfloor retail space.

Moving to the south side of Michigan Avenue at Eighth Street, Hunter Pasteur Homes in Farmington Hills, along with Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group, plan to break ground next spring or summer on the Godfrey Hotel. The seven-story, 227-room hotel is scheduled to open in early 2023 and will offer a rooftop lounge for up to 400 people, a large banquet room on the first floor, a restaurant, and a lobby bar.

“We have all of the equity raised for the project, and it’s nice that we have a property that will be just west of downtown Detroit,” says Randy Wertheimer, president and CEO of Hunter Pasteur Homes. “We see the Corktown areas as similar to other near-downtown projects in Denver and Chicago. We have three other properties in Corktown under contract, and we look forward to announcing a beautiful residential development.”

Getting all of the current residents, businesses, commuters, and visitors connected to the tech track along Michigan Avenue will be a Herculean effort. The different forms of communication that could come into play include high-speed fiber, small cellular arrays that make up 5G, GPS

CONNECTED CORRIDOR CHECKLIST

Multiple needs and technologies are being integrated into the world’s first dedicated autonomous roadway along Michigan Avenue from Detroit to Ann Arbor, as well as transportation routes that will connect to public destinations like Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus. The communication platform will provide for driverless vehicles while powering digital assets for passengers, visitors, pedestrians, joggers, bicyclists, and scooterists. For more information, visit michigancentral.com.

• Real-time traveler information • Incentives (discounts, travel vouchers, etc.)

• Real-time traffic management • Dynamic shuttles • Smart parking • Ride-sharing • Bike-sharing

• Multimodal transportation solutions • Road user charging • Autonomous vehicles • Integrated fare management • Connected vehicles • Personal travel apps Source: Ford Motor Co.

"WORKING WITH OUR PARTNERS TO TRANSFORM THIS SITE (OLD TIGER STADIUM) HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE, AND WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO CONTINUING (TO ENHANCE) THE ENERGY AND EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COMMUNITY"

— Eric Larson

satellites, Wi-Fi systems, sensors, DSRC (dedicated short range communications), and CBRS (citizens broadband radio service), says Chuck Irvin, director of network development at 123Net, a business internet service provider in Southfield.

The company, which has built out a fiber network of more than 4,000 miles in Michigan, developed the Detroit Internet Exchange, a notfor-profit Regional Internet Exchange Point that offers a collaboration of carriers, ISPs (internet service providers), and enterprise businesses where web traffic can be exchanged freely, rather than paying to make a connection.

Key members on the exchange include GM, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Merit.

“There’s a ton of excitement around this project, and while Detroit is the automotive capital of the world, we did see some slippage to Silicon Valley and Detroit was on defense,” Irvin says, “but now, with the connected corridor and other advancements coming from the Big Three, Detroit and Michigan are on the offensive. The installation of high-speed fiber will be a catalyst for Michigan Avenue, complemented by other communication platforms. The Detroit Internet Exchange is a neutral carrier network, meaning no one has complete ownership of the system. That means anyone can come on the system and use it.”

He adds the Detroit exchange promotes the use of dark fiber, where one company that has extra fiber capacity can allow someone else to tap into what’s not being used (for a fee). It cuts costs even further.

“Everyone can have safe access to the exchange, while at the same time no one organization controls it,” Irvin says. “For what’s being planned along Michigan Avenue, you’ll need a lot of redundancy. High-speed fiber is one part of the solution, but when you put everything together, our region and state can really drive the next generation of autonomous connectivity. That’s exciting.”

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 57

Feature || COVID-19 Workout

The coronavirus outbreak in March roiled the national and global economies, caused millions of job losses, and depressed financial markets. Some industries were hurt more than others. As the world awaits a vaccine, DBusiness proposes a workout plan for 10 affected business sectors and considers the opportunities that have come to the forefront for prospective investors.

BY R.J. KING | ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN BRITIGAN

tores large and small endured multiple — and, at times, conflicting — restrictions on their operations. In the early days of the pandemic, merchants deemed “essential businesses” had their work cut out for them. Home improvement stores, for example, were ordered to close off certain sections in a bid to contain the virus from spreading, but the measures were quickly loosened after state officials realized people couldn’t buy a baby seat or a garden hose.

Masks were required for all staff and shoppers, but the state left it up to individual stores to enforce the measures. Once additional retailers were allowed to reopen in June, it took time for shoppers to learn all the protocols.

Barbershops and salons were subject to longer closures, although Karl Manke, a longtime barber in Owosso, defied the shutdown orders and reopened in early May. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer subsequently pulled his license and imposed heavy fines, but he continued to operate. To challenge the state action, Manke sued the state and lost in a lower court before the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that he had every right to work.

Across the retail landscape, several storied department stores filed for bankruptcy. Other operators were able to pivot and add or expand their online sales. In some cases, digital retailers like Amazon have acquired 58 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

closed department stores and converted them into sorting or delivery operations.

One bright spot has been the franchise industry. Mark Cory, owner and franchise placement specialist at FranNet of Michigan in Grosse Pointe, says the industry typically receives more interest from prospective operators during an economic downturn.

“Our industry is counter-cyclical,” says Cory, a former Little Caesars pizza franchisee. “When times are bad, people have more time on their hands and they give the franchise industry a serious look. The period since COVID-19 broke out is no exception. We’ve also seen a surge in franchises that offer virtual services like education, IT services, or digital marketing.”

Other popular franchises include quick-service restaurants, home health care services, commercial cleaners, landscapers, and painters.

“Once we have a vaccine, there will be a lot of opportunities for good store locations and real estate,” Cory says. “And anyone who has digital offerings will see dividends long into the future.”

COVID-19 Workout || Feature

cross the spectrum of the restarant sector, confidence is rising after a near-collapse of the industry following the closing of bars and eateries due to COVID-19. Once the industry reopened in June, tables and chairs had to be spread out and capacity was limited to 50 percent. In July, bars that served minimal food were closed again due to safety concerns.

For those restaurants that opened their doors, the new normal called for operating “a business within a business” to meet new and numerous health

s the sports world returns to some normalcy following the outbreak of COVID-19, the arms race to offer the best stadiums and facilities among professional and collegiate teams has come to a halt. Every new stadium that opened or underwent a massive renovation typically set a new standard for fans, while the competition for top coaches and players sent annual salaries through the roof.

Metro Detroit, blessed with three relatively new stadiums for its four professional teams, is set for decades to come. The major colleges across the region and the state also have added extensive improvements to their athletic venues and practice facilities in recent years. While professional and college sports have returned to action, mostly without spectators, performing

arts venues aren’t as fortunate.

With so much new technology, live sports have long offered a virtual front row seat to all of the action. Multiple cameras, complemented by a wider array of player stats and trends that appear on TV and smartphones, provide plenty of compelling action. When the pandemic hit, sports owners were able to pivot fairly quickly and provide a wide array of virtual content to fans sitting at home.

But digital offerings in the performing arts world can’t capture the emotion of watching an operatic singer or hearing a drum solo. Such performances are best enjoyed live. What’s more, many performing arts venues are run by nonprofit organizations. Without a healthy endowment to carry a theater or a musical company through a long period of closure, some live venues

requirements, including masks and gloves for all employees and regular testing of staff members.

If one employee tested positive for COVID-19, the entire restaurant had to shut down, undergo cleaning, and pass health inspections.

Still, some relief was provided by the state and local communities. Takeout and delivery options flourished, especially among eateries that already offered such services. Discounted alcohol helped offset limited seating capacity, while many cities allowed restaurant owners to offer or expand sidewalk seating, often at little or no cost.

With the onset of cold weather, however, it’s not clear how long people can endure the outdoors.

Some eateries have acquired pods that are heated and set up outdoors. Other restaurants have fully enclosed their sidewalk seating and added heat. But the temporary spaces beg the question: How is an enclosed space outdoors better than being inside a spacious dining room, especially with upgraded air filtration systems?

“The larger restaurants will be better able to get through the crisis,” says Zaid Elia, founder and CEO of The Elia Group in Birmingham, which owns 220 Merrill in Birmingham and Parc in Detroit, as well as the DoubleTree by Hilton in Bloomfield Hills.

“If you have 60 seats and now you’re down to 30 seats, it’s pretty hard to make everything work and still pay all of your bills. For larger restaurants with good locations, you have a fighting chance to make everything work. The estimates I’ve seen show more than 25 percent of the restaurants that were closed will never reopen. They just can’t make the numbers work.”

may not be able to reopen their doors.

They also can’t afford to make multimillion-dollar investments in audio and visual equipment. While the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has long offered a popular online channel for its content, other organizations aren’t as fortunate. In turn, the loss of live performances has had a huge impact on all the people who work to produce a memorable event, from actors and singers to sound engineers and set designers.

“The power of music has served as an enduring beacon of hope and joy through one of the most uncertain eras of our lives,” says Anne Parsons, president and CEO of the DSO. “We are so passionate about restoring the presentation of live music for our audiences, whether that’s socially distanced and outdoors, or virtually in your living room with DSO Digital Concerts.”

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 59

Feature || COVID-19 Workout

s one of the top entertainment draws in the world, both for concerts and sporting events, metro Detroit’s stadiums and performance centers had no Plan B when their facilities went dark in March to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Little Caesars Arena, Ford Field, Comerica Park, the Detroit Opera House, the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, and every other indoor gathering venue was closed, along with outdoor facilities like DTE Energy Music Theatre and Meadow Brook Theatre.

In early October, as government restrictions were lifted, performance venues began to reopen with some limits on capacity, and patrons in most cases were required to wear masks. But it will be a long road back before fans can enjoy a sold-out concert by Beyonce or Elton John.

At the same time, many of the professional sports leagues returned to action, starting a condensed season minus any fans in attendance, or finishing off prior playoff activity. How the teams make money this year and next remains unclear, as so much of their revenue is derived from selling suites, season tickets, food, beverages, apparel items, and memorabilia. TV contracts only go so far, and some leagues renegotiated player contracts to account for a falloff in ticket sales.

For performing artists, online entertainment portals proved popular with fans. Virtual concerts, stripped-down outdoor performances broadcast live (for a fee), and special promotional items were made available.

Both the Detroit Opera House and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra held virtual performances or set up productions outdoors with limited capacity.

Other artists, meanwhile, took time to record new material.

The search for an alternative to live performances bore fruit for several longtime producers. In September, Detroit-based Paxahau, a dance music events promoter and producer of the annual Movement Music Festival, one of the longest-running dance music events in the world, announced an exclusive partnership with Twitch, an interactive streaming service for

he airline industry has suffered the most among transportation services, due to a steep drop in business and leisure travel caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. According to McKinsey, a large management consulting firm, all travel categories have suffered from the virus, although bright spots include car trips, RV and boat sales/ rentals, marinas, and RV trailer parks.

Based on consumer surveys by McKinsey, every travel sector — domestic and international flights, short-term home rentals, hotels and resorts, cruises, trains, rental cars, and buses — are cited at the bottom of the list for “intent to spend.” In one survey, airlines were rated higher by consumers for overall quality due to thorough cleaning measures and a lack of lines. What’s more, most viruses and other germs don’t spread easily on flights because of how air circulates and is filtered.

“You do see, across all this data, increased 60 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

reticence for consumers to resume travel versus other day-to-day activities, and versus spending on discretionary categories that was quite depressive at the beginning but is starting to come back,” says Tamara Charm, a senior expert at McKinsey. She adds vehicle service providers like Uber and Lyft have also reported a sharp drop in revenue due to the virus.

When the airline industry will reach pre-pandemic levels is anyone’s guess. Planes are getting fuller by the week, but the overall industry is down by 50 percent. The drop in passenger traffic also impacts hotel booking, vehicle rentals, airport parking lots, and dining and retail offerings both inside and outside airports. Private jet charters, meanwhile, have been on an upswing in recent months.

Road trips have increased, although most one-way trips average only 500 miles. Longer trips are typically family vacationers visiting national parks. General RV in Wixom reported

entertainment, gaming, and musical offerings.

As part of the deal, Paxahau, a boutique production company that specializes in booking, event management, and promotions, launched Paxahau.TV. Exclusive content is streamed weekly, while four Movement-themed virtual festivals will be made available on Twitch’s website.

“The Twitch community brings a unique energy to live-streaming that we didn’t find anywhere else,” says Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau. Considering the deal brings access to 17.5 million average daily visitors, the Detroit dance music culture can expand its wings.

200 motor homes and trailers were on its lot this summer, whereas they normally have up to 600 different models from which to choose.

On the infrastructure front, it’s been a boon year for road construction projects — fewer vehicles on the road has allowed more work to be completed. Still, reduced travel has impacted service stations, bars, restaurants, and retail outlets. Grocery stores, on the other hand, are enjoying record sales.

While the crisis has roiled traditional supply chains and logistic operations, a huge boost in e-commerce orders has impacted brick-andmortar stores; more merchants are now adopting online sales and delivery services to survive.

According to IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the e-commerce sector is expected to grow 20 percent this year. During the second quarter of 2020, e-commerce retail sales in the U.S. were $211.5 billion, up 31.8 percent from the first quarter and 44.5 percent from the same period a year ago.

COVID-19 Workout || Feature

ith filming back in action, from Hollywood studios to “No Sudden Move,” a Steven Soderbergh-directed HBO crime thriller being filmed in Detroit and starring Don Cheadle, David Harbour, Roy Liotta, Jon Hamm, and Kieran Culkin, the movie theater industry is back from the brink. Films that had been delayed are now making it to screens.

But the closures of theaters took a huge revenue source out of the movie business, impacting the traditional summer box office season, which normally accounts for 40 percent of annual ticket sales. According to an estimate

by Wedbush Securities, North American box office profits will total $4.4 billion in 2020, down 61 percent from last year. (In 2019, box office revenue was $11.4 billion, a 4 percent dip from the prior year.)

To recoup their losses, some operators rented out their theaters for business meetings and classroom activity, with mixed results.

Others, like Emagine Entertainment Inc. in Troy, found success setting up drive-in theaters that offered popular films.

MJR Digital Cinemas in Bloomfield Hills has a long runway going forward, given its theaters offer state-of-the-art audio, sound, and

screen technology, while smaller art houses like the Maple Theater in Bloomfield Township and the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak may have a harder time making ends meet with fewer seats.

With 5,500 indoor theaters nationwide and cold weather setting in, getting fans to return indoors will hinge on the installation of clean ventilation systems and acceptable safety standards, along with a blitz of advertising and word-of-mouth buzz about major film releases.

At the same time, theater owners have to deal with new expenses with the addition of sanitation equipment, protective gear, plexiglass barriers, and cleaning protocols.

So far, movie studios haven’t fared well in releasing movies with limited screens or through streaming services. There wasn’t one hit among several potential blockbusters released since March, including “Tenet,” “The New Mutants,” “Bill and Ted Face the Music,” and “Mulan.”

On the international front, where COVID-19 restrictions are often less restrictive, new films did fairly well, but in America the recovery awaits a blockbuster or two — hope lies with “Wonder Woman 1984,” “Coming2America,” “One Night in Miami,” and more.

hen Michigan’s gaming operations were allowed to reopen in early August, their facilities were limited to 15 percent of their capacity. By comparison, tribal casinos, which have few state restrictions to abide by, are operating at as much as 80 percent capacity, while Hollywood Casino Toledo and Las Vegas operators are running half full.

The new rules in Michigan mean all visitors to non-tribal casinos are subject to a temperature check and must wear masks. Indoor smoking and vaping have been moved to outdoor areas, while customers may not play poker. In addition, there are no self-serve buffets, hundreds of slot machines have been turned off to promote social distancing, and valet services are curtailed for the foreseeable future.

While casinos across Michigan have struggled to regain customers, the state and communities like Detroit that tax gaming revenue are facing major gaps in their respective budgets. Last year, MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino, and Greektown Casino collectively paid the state close to $118 million in taxes, while Detroit received $184 million, or about $600,000 a day.

One area where casinos were expected to benefit in an era of limited social engagement was the debut of on-site sports betting, known as sportsbooks, which began in early March. From there, the Michigan Gaming Control Board, which regulates casinos, was expected to allow internet gambling and mobile sports wagering by early 2021.

To generate revenue for the government, sports betting revenue is taxed at 8.4 percent, while the Detroit casinos will pay an additional 1.25 percent in city taxes. The state currently has an online lottery, 23 tribal casinos, three commercial casinos, and two race tracks that host pari-mutuel horse betting.

In mid-September, the gaming board held a public hearing to review the proposed rules for the two new forms of digital gaming. From there, the board submitted the draft of the rules to the state before the Legislature reviews the regulations for final approval.

“The gaming board has limited ability to license before the rules go into effect,” said Richard Kalm, executive director of the gaming board, in a statement. “The licensing timetable also depends on the applicants and their diversity of complete and timely applications to us.

Michigan must have at least one tribal and one commercial license approved before launch, which I hope can happen by (year’s end).”

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 61

Feature || COVID-19 Workout

s the fear of hospitals overrun by COVID-19 patients subsided once the initial wave of affected patients were treated and released, regional and local health care organizations were faced with a dilemma.

Stay-at-home orders had limited the spread of the disease, but it also cut down on a major revenue source for medical procedures as traffic levels and commercial accidents plummeted.

Elective surgeries and routine appointments with doctors, dentists, and other health care providers also were restricted for months. At the same time, less-expensive telemedicine services were offered in greater numbers and frequency.

In what was once a fairly steady industry, the rapid ebb and flow of today’s health care sector will lead to more acquisition and consolidation activity, according to a recent M&A Survey by Dykema, a large law firm based in Detroit, and the Association for Corporate Growth. The survey indicated health care, technology, food and beverage, and retail are the industries to watch for M&A activity in the next year.

“In light of the significant impact of COVID19 across our health care system, from increased hospitalizations to the expansion of telemedicine and accelerated vaccine/treatment research, we aren’t surprised to see that health care is the industry sector that comes out on top with regard to predicted M&A activity over the next 12 months,” the analysis of the survey states.

“After months of lockdowns, shelter-in-place orders, and virtual meetings, it also isn’t a big surprise that respondents selected technology,

he banking and financial sector, working with the Federal Reserve and the White House, has performed admirably during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. mortgage industry, for example, weathered the economic downturn much better than the 2008 global financial crisis, given the federal government moved quickly to pass the CARES Act to grant relief options for millions of mortgage holders and businesses.

Lending institutions like TCF Bank, PNC Bank, Comerica Bank, and others worked closely with a range of clients seeking PPP funds to help tide them over a steep drop in economic activity caused by stay-at-home orders and other 62 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

food and beverage, and retail as the next three sectors likely to see increased M&A activity over the next (year),” the analysis continues. “Just under 20 percent of all U.S. private equity deals in the first half of 2020 have been technology deals, according to Pitchbook figures.”

Last year, automotive, health care, and energy were identified as the industries to watch, but the recession has had a negative impact on vehicle sales and energy revenue. Health care, though, offers some upside following a merger or acquisition, but savings derived from reducing redundant staff positions or consolidating technology platforms has a finite timeline.

“Based on our experience in past crises, we’re planning for (overall) M&A activity to start picking up in the back half of the year as more businesses come back online and economic conditions improve,” says Brian Demkowicz, co-founder and managing partner of Huron Capital. “Barring any COVID-related setbacks, based on what we know today we would expect the market to continue improving.”

restrictions (the program ended on Aug. 8). In turn, the financial sector enhanced or launched digital and cloud-based technology platforms to assist customers with their needs.

The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, moved to drop borrowing rates in recent months, which accelerated refinancing opportunities for consumers and local mortgage firms like Rocket Cos. in Detroit, United Wholesale Mortgage in Pontiac, and others. A period of stable rates, prices, and inventory has kept the housing sector from growing too quickly, which helped set off the 2008 financial crisis.

The banking industry also has moved, over the past few years, to close branches due to the

growing use of digital services. In the U.S., the number of full-service bank branches fell from almost 95,000 to just over 83,000 between 2010 and 2019, according to a Quartz analysis of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. That’s 12 percent of all bank branches across the country prior to the pandemic. More than half of the top 100 U.S. banks reduced their footprint by more than 50 percent over the past five years, according to McKinsey.

In addition, a recent study by Troy-based J.D. Power shows nearly one-third of new account openings are now executed through a bank website or a mobile app, up from 22 percent in 2019.

At the same time, the number of new account

COVID-19 Workout || Feature

f anyone doubts the future of the hospitality industry, consider the interest in the Bravado Event Center in Clinton Township, which went up for auction in late September. The three-story, 14,500-square-foot facility, located along Gratiot Avenue, received unprecedented interest and is poised to be sold by the end of the year.

Still, the hospitality sector will need to record many more success stories as it looks to overcome a steep drop in demand for hotel rooms, banquet facilities, and convention centers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some large convention sites like TCF Center in downtown Detroit and the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi received an economic injection as the federal government leased out the facilities to handle a potential overflow of recovering coronavirus patients. But since those leases expired in August, the facilities are in the same boat as every other meeting site: waiting for business and leisure travel to return.

According to a forecast prepared for the U.S. Travel Association by Tourism Economics, total travel spending in the U.S. will reach $622 billion this year, down from $1.1 trillion recorded in 2019. By 2024, the market is projected to be $1 trillion. Next year, spending is expected to be $855 billion, the bulk of which will come from domestic sources.

“Toward the end of March everything fell off the cliff, and hotel occupancy levels were in the

high teens,” says Kevin M. Vessels, president of Hospitality Advisors, a hotel consulting firm in Ann Arbor. “Had doctors and nurses not stayed at hotels that were located close to their respective hospitals in the early days of the crisis, it would have been much worse.”

By May, hotel bookings started to creep up, while meeting and catering operations sought out new avenues of revenue — holding outdoor events, providing prepared meals to frontline workers, and selling healthy meal plans directly to families and fitness enthusiasts. As more government restrictions on travel and meetings are lifted, the industry will recover, although a spate of bankruptcies and lender workouts among hotels and meeting venues will likely continue.

“A bright spot in Michigan was the northern part of the state, as people (avoided) planes and jumped in their cars,” Vessels says. “As the cold weather sets in, it will be difficult for the northern hotels to draw the same demand, though (because) we have a four-season market, I expect the ski resorts and snowmobile trails to be busy. In metro Detroit and other major markets, business and leisure travel must return before the hotels pick up again.”

openings at branches has declined year over year by 10 percentage points, and now comprises just 55 percent of all new account openings. Those closed branches provide opportunities for landlords and small businesses.

One word of caution: As banks have increasingly gone digital, cyberattacks have been on the rise. New account fraud is fast becoming one of the biggest problems in digital banking, as 48 percent of all fraud value stems from accounts that are less than a day old, according to RSA Security. In addition, 57 percent of businesses have reported higher fraud losses associated with account openings and account transfers, rather than other types of fraud.

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 63

Feature || Disaster Relief

A Dam Two large earthen dams breached by heavy rains in mid-May wiped out hundreds of businesses and homes in and near Midland. Damages, estimated at $200 million, have property owners seeking relief through the courts while questioning the role state leaders played in the disaster.

BY NORM SINCLAIR SETH HERALD

64 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

F

or 96 years, the five-story-high Edenville Dam, which straddles the Tittabawassee and Tobacco rivers and is located 15 miles north of Midland in the middle of Michigan, created a 2,600-acre reservoir known as Wixom Lake. Thousands of families built their dream lakefront homes on its 49 miles of shoreline.

On the evening of May 19, however, those cherished settings were impacted tremendously when lake levels disappeared. More than 8 inches of rain fell over a 48-hour period, and rising water levels breeched the top of one side of the dam’s earthen embankment. By the next afternoon the dam collapsed, unleashing tens of billions of gallons of water downstream.

Seven miles south of the dam, the torrent of

water overwhelmed the three-story-high Sanford Dam, emptying out its 1,250-acre reservoir known as Sanford Lake. What’s more, the nearby village of Sanford was wiped out, hit with 6 feet of swirling lake and river water.

As a result of the historic flood, some 11,000 Gladwin and Midland County residents were evacuated. Homes were flooded and docks, boats, motor vehicles, a state roadway, and multiple bridges were washed away. At noon the next day, the city of Midland was under water as the Tittabawassee River crested at 35 feet. Basements of homes as far south as Saginaw and Bay City were filled with water.

Although it was one of the most spectacular dam failures in state history, miraculously no lives were lost, even as 2,500 homes and businesses were destroyed or severely impacted.

Disaster Relief || Feature

IT TAKES A VILLAGE A monumental rain in mid-May flooded a wide swath of central Michigan, wiping out the rural economy in the midst of COVID-19.

Shame Damages are estimated at nearly $200 million.

The once tranquil recreational lakes are now barren pits, with trees and other vegetation growing from the crust of the black sediment that remains.

So who, or what, is to blame for the failure of the dams? Was it simply Mother Nature, or was the dam ownership group at fault? Some say another factor may have been Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who ordered the dam owners to raise the lake levels prior to the storm.

In concert with Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE; formerly known as the Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ), the state was engaged in a confrontational relationship with the owner of the dams, Boyce Hydro, which exacerbated the maintenance neglect on the dams, writes Chris Krug, publisher of The Center Square, formerly

Watchdog.org, a national news website that reports on state and local government from a conservative perspective.

“Rather than working with Boyce Hydro by assisting it with grants and low-cost loans in order to protect public safety and the environment, EGLE and the state attorney general instead opted to litigate against the private company even after an EGLE inspection two years ago rated one of the dams in ‘fair condition,’ ” writes Krug.

Since the failures of the dams, nearly two dozen lawsuits have been filed by affected property and business owners in federal courts in Detroit and Grand Rapids, as well as state courts in Lansing and Gladwin and Midland counties. Targets of the legal actions are Boyce Hydro Power, the operators of the dams; Lee W. Mueller and several family members, who are heirs to three trust

funds that own the dams; the State of Michigan; Gladwin and Midland counties; and even a nonprofit homeowners group, Four Lakes Task Force, which is working with state and county officials to take over the dams and preserve the lakes.

In August, Boyce Hydro filed for bankruptcy protection. In addition to the two failed dams, the company owns two smaller ones upstream, known as Secord and Smallwood. They suffered damage from the torrential rain and subsequent flooding, but didn’t fail. All four dams produced hydroelectricity for sale to Jackson-based Consumers Energy, the state’s largest utility. They’re among about 100 hydroelectric dams in Michigan that are regulated by the federal government.

The four man-made lakes are home to 8,516 cottages and homeowners. The lakes have since been drained of water as engineers assess the NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 65

Feature || Disaster Relief

damages and investigators try to determine the cause of the dam failures. As a result, communities that have been impacted by the flooding, including those in Gladwin County, are still reeling from the damage as the property owners around three of the lakes were major economic drivers for the mostly rural area.

David Crawford, a commercial banker from Madison Heights who lost two cottages his family owned on Wixom Lake, says while many of the homeowners, including himself, lacked flood insurance, he’s more concerned about the local population.

“You look at the socioeconomic impact to the area, how devastating it is to businesses, the tax base — there are thousands of homes on that lake, and I heard there were 900 homes destroyed or severely damaged,” he says. “The properties are worth nothing now. There are so many people up there living in trailers because they have nowhere else to go. That was their home.

That’s not an area of wealth; they live on fixed incomes and they can’t afford to rebuild.”

For those living around Wixom Lake, their first inkling of trouble from their slice of paradise came just before winter set in two years ago.

Without any warning, the water level in front of their homes dropped 8 feet, leaving docks dangling and sea walls exposed above the muddy lake bottom.

Without authorization or permits to do so, Boyce Hydro had temporarily drained the lake, then refilled it in the spring of 2019. At the time, the power company said it took the action to prevent dangerous ice buildup on the dam. State and county officials said the dam operators drained the lake to avoid paying for ice control methods and the technology components dams install to prevent ice buildups.

Last winter, Boyce Hydro again lowered the lake level by 8 feet, despite court orders not to do so and a state denial of a permit to lower the lake level.

Lawrence A. Kogan of New York City, a lawyer who represents the power company, says the business owners had to lower the water to complete repairs on the gates of the dam to minimize ice damage. Until two years ago, while the dam was still producing hydroelectricity, it was under federal supervision and wasn’t allowed to lower the lake level more than 3 feet.

This spring, after Boyce refilled the lake to its summer level, and three weeks before the flood in May, Nessel sued Boyce Hydro and its owners over the drawdowns of the water level in Wixom Lake. At the time, Nessel accused Boyce and its owners of causing environmental damage to surrounding wetlands and streams and their ecosystems. In addition, the attorney general said the drawdowns killed millions of the 15 species of 66 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

mussels that inhabit the lake, including the Snuffbox, which is on the federal and state endangered species list and is protected by Michigan law.

The timing of the attorney general’s lawsuit, three weeks before the dam failures, sparked criticism from homeowners, affected residents, and lawyers involved in several of the lawsuits. They accused Nessel of being more concerned over mussels than public safety. The lawyers blamed the state for ordering Boyce to raise the lake water

“The properties are worth nothing now. There are so many people up there living in trailers because they have nowhere else to go. ... That’s not an area of wealth; they live on fixed incomes and they can’t afford to rebuild.”

— David Crawford level, which they say contributed to the dam’s collapse.

In a countersuit, Boyce argued that the state caused the Edenville Dam collapse because of its concern for the mussels and pressure by lake property owners who wanted high water for boating and recreation.

The manipulation of the lake water level was the fallout from action the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took in September 2018 revoking the company’s license to produce electricity at the Edenville Dam. All dams across the country that produce hydroelectricity are regulated by FERC. Those that do not are under state jurisdiction.

In revoking the Edenville license, the federal agency said it finally acted after the company “knowingly and willfully refused” for more than a decade to comply with “significant license and safety requirements” it mandated to protect the public.

Records show that problems with the dam’s noncompliance with federal safety rules and regulations go back nearly three decades, to previous owners of the Edenville Dam. Over the years, FERC repeatedly warned that

the facility could only handle 50 percent of a maximum flood event. The dam needed additional spillway capacity to dissipate rising water caused by a maximum flood. Federal law requires 100 percent maximum flood protection for hydroelectric dams, while state law dictates just half of that for dams under local control.

Court papers in lawsuits filed after the May 19 dam failures cite repeated meetings and dozens of correspondence between FERC officials and Boyce staff over safety concerns with the dam and the company’s missed deadlines to correct problems.

Rita Lewis, a retired Madison Heights school administrator who, with her husband, Earl, has had a home on Secord Lake since 2012, says over the years neither she, nor friends who live around the lake communities, realized there were such serious safety problems with any of the dams.

“When FERC pulled the license out of Wixom Lake two years ago and the Four Lakes Task Force was formed, I think that’s when lakefront (property) owners began to become aware of what had been transpiring for a number of years before that,” Lewis says. “With what we now know, we’re asking, how did this happen? How did the dams not get fixed? Why did it take them so long to pull the license?”

Since the failure of the two downstream dams, her life at the lake has been on hold as water levels have been lowered in the two upstream dams to allow for safety inspections.

“We’re kind of in limbo. Our lake is down 10 feet,” she notes. “There’s been no boating. You can see stumps sticking out of the lake bottom. When you drive by and see all these 100-year-old trees sticking out of the bottom, it’s surreal. You can see kayakers go by. Anyone who lives on a canal off the lake, they don’t have water at all.”

The shock of losing Wixom Lake two winters in a row motivated alarmed property owners to form the Four Lakes Task Force to ensure the future of their lakes. Working with Gladwin and Midland county officials, a plan was developed to create a tax assessment zone encompassing the lakes, with the goal of buying the four Boyce dams and doing the repairs needed to bring them up to the required safety standards.

The effort proved popular. Midland’s Dow Chemical Co. donated $250,000, and the two counties contributed the remaining $150,000 in seed money for the task force’s preliminary planning, inspections, and appraisals of the dams.

The state of Michigan said it would contribute a $5 million grant toward purchasing the dams and lakes from Boyce. In January, the group and Boyce signed a purchase agreement of $9.4 million, with a closing slated for January 2022.

The May 19 disaster upended that deal. Now, instead of paying Boyce Hydro’s asking price for

Disaster Relief || Feature

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the four dams, the task force, with the backing of the state and the county, is in court attempting to take those properties through condemnation proceedings.

Phil Dast, an 18-year Secord Lake resident who’s president of the lake’s homeowners association and a member of the task force’s board of directors, says residents were angry that federal and state officials didn’t resolve the dam issues.

“There’s a need for these lakes to exist and to be fixed because of all the millions in real estate investment here, so we need to get the dams fixed and the water level back up,” Dast says.

“This disaster caused millions of dollars in damages, and that can’t happen again.”

The fixes the task force envisions will be costly, and as of now it’s the only path forward for the property owners who want to rebuild their homes. Consultants hired by the Four Lakes Task Force estimate it will cost $338 million to restore the dams and refill the lakes. To raise the funds, annual assessments for property owners would be based on the number of residents on each lake.

Projected costs based on a 40-year financing plan would mean Secord Lake residents would pay $339 annually, with $585 for Smallwood

Lake, $2,110 for Wixom Lake, and $2,357 for Sanford Lake. The repairs would take about five years to complete. Dast is hopeful the task force and the counties can secure grant funding to pay for cleanup and erosion stabilization costs.

The flooding disaster in May also spotlighted the improbable story of the owners behind Boyce Hydro Power, outsiders who showed up 14 years ago as if they had stepped out of a Hollywood movie script.

Lee Mueller, listed as a co-manager of Boyce Hydro, is an architect who lives in Las Vegas. His cousin, Michel d’Avenas, is the musician son of a NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 67

Feature || Disaster Relief

French count who grew up in France and Carmel, Calif., and is a well-known professional bagpiper in Monterey.

The two men were heirs to the fortune amassed in the 1920s by a relative, William D. Boyce, a Chicago publishing mogul who founded the Boy Scouts of America. Both are trustees of three trusts set up to handle the Boyce estate.

According to news reports, in 2006 the trusts sold valuable property in Illinois that would have required payment of more than $600,000 in capital gains taxes unless it was reinvested in a favorable tax shelter. To achieve that outcome, Mueller was directed to mid-Michigan, where he purchased the four hydroelectric power dams.

Early on, Mueller and his newly created Boyce Hydro power company began jousting with FERC over directives to modernize the nearly 100-year-old Edenville Dam, including additional spillway capacity to handle a maximum flood.

Mueller and Boyce have maintained for years that they couldn’t afford the expensive upgrades FERC required because they didn’t make enough money off their underperforming, outdated electricity contracts with Consumers Energy.

In a statement after the May flooding event, however, Katelyn Carey, a spokeswoman for Consumers Energy, said that in the five years prior to the dam failures, the company paid Boyce Hydro nearly $14 million.

She added Consumers Energy pays a power producer like Boyce Hydro $65 per megawatt hour, while wholesale electricity plants and solar producers are paid less.

Mueller and Boyce also ran afoul of state and county authorities over other broken agreements and their failure to pay property taxes. State records show that as part of the license agreement, the power company committed to building a recreation area including a fishing pier, canoe portages, and hiking paths.

Instead, Boyce Hydro installed fencing and barbed wire to keep the public out. According to Gladwin County Sheriff’s Department records, Mueller apparently objected to public fishing on the Edenville Dam. In one incident in 2013, deputies said Mueller, then 71 years old, rammed his vehicle into a pickup truck parked near the dam as the occupants were preparing to go fishing on the lake. The following year, two men were fishing on the lake one night when they heard the sound of breaking glass; when they returned to their pickup truck, which was parked at the side of the road, they discovered the windows had been smashed out.

Mueller was charged with felony malicious destruction of property in both cases. He pleaded no contest to reduced misdemeanor charges, served five days in jail for smashing the truck windows, and was ordered to pay for the damages.

68 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

WHEN IT RAINS What looks like an empty lake bed in Sanford was a recreation center offering sports fields and a children’s playground. The massive flood impacted nearly every aspect of the village.

In 2010, Midland County foreclosed on 27 parcels of lake bottom property the company owned beneath Sanford Lake for $30,000 due to unpaid taxes. In an interview with MLive at the time, Mueller said he didn’t pay the taxes because the county’s property records were “greatly and massively flawed.”

Mueller, his relative Michele G. Mueller, Michel d’Avenas, and another cousin, Stephen B. Hultberg, who’s also a trustee of the Boyce Trusts, are listed on lawsuits against the company. Michel d’Avenas, however, says he resigned from the trusts years ago and has had no contact with Mueller and the operations of the dams.

While Mueller hasn’t spoken publicly about the dam failures, Kogan, his lawyer, says Mueller is devastated and feels terrible about what happened with the dams.

After its federal hydropower license was revoked in the fall of 2018, the Edenville Dam came under the oversight of EGLE. The agency has responsibility for more than 1,000 dams across Michigan.

A month after the federal hand-off to EGLE, a state dam inspector, Jim Pawlowski, examined the dam. He reported the facility was in “fair structural condition,” but noted that its “two concrete spillways showed signs of moderate deterioration

(spalling, exposed reinforced steel, minor cracking, and efflorescence) but appeared to be stable and functioning normally.”

The historic May rainstorm and dam failures were a wakeup call for state government as well as communities living near some 2,600 other dams in Michigan. Most are privately owned and date back as far as the late 1800s, and many are now either abandoned, in need of repair, or waiting to be removed.

Until the flood in Midland, oversight of some 1,000 of these structures was carried out by two state dam engineers and a supervisor in Lansing.

EGLE spokesman Nick Assendelft acknowledged that the small crew and their $397,000 budget indicate that dams haven’t been a priority.

Only after the May 19 dam failures did Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration move to add personnel, he says.

“We moved to hire another safety engineer in August, and in the budget that was recently signed, we put in for two more; that will give us six positions,” Assendelft says. The six positions will bring the state up to half the number of dam positions recommended by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO), a national nonprofit organization brought in by EGLE to critique the state’s dam program.

Disaster Relief || Feature

Following the May dam failures, the state agency established a 19-member Michigan Dam Safety Task Force to make recommendations on policy, budget, legislative, and enforcement reforms to prevent a repeat of the mid-Michigan disaster. The members have backgrounds in dams, business, academia, Native American issues, and public policy. The ASDSO’s critique and recommendations will be incorporated into the final task force report to the governor, expected to be completed early next year.

A 2018 report card on Michigan’s infrastructure prepared by the Michigan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers revealed that two-thirds of the 2,600 dams in the state are older than their typical 50-year design life, and more than 80 percent will soon be over 50 years old.

Dams are rated as high hazard, significant hazard, and low hazard under federal guidelines.

High-hazard dams have the potential to cause loss of life downstream if they fail. Those with a significant hazard rating indicate no deaths in a failure, but considerable property and economic damage may occur. A low-hazard designation, which covers just under half of the dams in Michigan, would affect the owner’s property with little commercial or environmental impact. Of the 1,059 dams regulated by the state, 85 are classified

as high hazard, 131 are significant hazard, and 835 are considered low hazard.

In addition, Michigan’s dam engineers grade the condition of dams as satisfactory, fair, unsatisfactory, and poor. According to state records, 69 state dams are in “unsatisfactory” condition, while 10 others are in “poor” condition. The

high-hazard Edenville dam was rated in fair condition when it failed.

Five other dams carry high-hazard ratings and are in poor condition, according to Assendelft.

They include Buttermilk Creek Detention Dam in Ottawa County, Cornwall Creek Dam in Cheboygan County, Manistique Papers Dam in Schoolcraft County, Little Black River Structure B in Cheboygan County, and Portage Plant Dam in St. Joseph County.

State officials report they’re working with three of the dams on safety upgrades, while the Manistique Papers Dam is in bankruptcy and is scheduled for removal within five years. The 98-year-old Portage Plant Dam on the Portage River may pose the most serious current danger. The Hoffman Pond reservoir it supports contains an estimated 56 million gallons of water, and is just a mile upstream from downtown Three Rivers.

The dam once produced electricity for Portage Power Co., and was last inspected in 2013. Its hydro capacity has been shuttered by Portage Power Co. since the 1970s. In a report earlier this summer, Luke Trumble, an EGLE dam engineer, said the power company has been nonresponsive and delinquent in submitting inspection reports required by the state.

“We set an Oct. 1 deadline for the owner to respond to us with a plan and schedule to have an in-depth evaluation of the dam completed by a consultant. We haven’t received a response back from the owner,” Assendelft says.

The next step could be the issuance of a notice of violation, which could result in fines of $10,000 per day. “Our intent is always to try to work with the dam owner to fix problems,” he says. “With fines, is it better to have the money an owner would allocate for fines put to use for repairs? We would prefer fixing the problem.”

RECOVERY MODE It took weeks to clean up sediment and debris left behind by the flood.

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 69

Feature || Disaster Relief

THE GREAT FLOOD ONE FAMILY’S HARROWING ESCAPE FROM MASSIVE RAINS AND A DAM BREAK.

BY NORM SINCLAIR |

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, DAVID AND SHERRY Crawford bought a lakefront cottage on Wixom Lake in central Michigan and began building family memories with their three children.

When grandchildren came along, the family bought a second cottage two doors away. “Life was good,” David says. “We spent our summers up there, with the grandkids growing up with us. We’re a tight-knit community of friends there, and our families have grown up together.”

In May, Crawford and his disabled daughter, Jackie, were at the lake, sheltering from COVID-19. The family thought it was a safer alternative for riding out the pandemic than their home in suburban Detroit, a virus hotspot.

On Monday, May 18, they woke up to a hard rain that continued all day.

By 7 p.m. the lake water was spilling over the seawall in front of the cottage.

“The wind was blowing hard out of the east, so I made a decision to start tying down all of the boats — my boats, our neighbor’s boats — and

tying them to hoists just in case the water level got any higher,” Crawford says. “At 9:30 p.m., the winds were still blowing. It was raining real hard.

My daughter was sleeping and I was keeping an eye on the weather.”

Then he noticed water seeping under the doors. As Crawford and his daughter rushed to gather up their personal items, a firefighter knocked at the door and directed them to leave immediately.

Crawford grabbed his work computer, picked up Jackie, who normally uses a wheelchair, and carried her out to their van, wading through knee-deep water. After taking shelter at a friend’s cottage on higher ground, he went to bed.

At 1:30 a.m., he awoke once again to a fireman banging on the door, shouting for everyone to leave. They were warned the upstream Smallwood Dam may breech, triggering a surge of water as high as 20 feet.

Rather than risk possibly exposing Jackie to COVID-19 by sheltering in a nearby high school crowded with

SETH HERALD

people, Crawford drove home to Madison Heights. The next morning, a friend at the lake sent him a text as he paddled in a kayak through 4 feet of floodwater in Crawford’s neighborhood. The friend suggested he return quickly and salvage what he could.

When he arrived at Wixom Lake about noon, Crawford took the final quarter mile in a canoe. Paddling past a stream of memories, he arrived at his cottage and disembarked into chest-high water. He took pictures off the walls and passed them and other items out the front door or windows to friends standing outside.

The boats he had tied down had broken loose, and were either leaning against trees or wedged against houses. With the floodwater under the boats, Crawford and his friends were able to fire up the motors and navigate to a safer area. All the while, helicopters were flying above and the Michigan State Police requested they leave. At 5:30 p.m., word came water had breached the Edenville Dam. “All the water was rushing out of

the lake. I saw the M-30 Bridge disintegrate and wind up in the river,” Crawford says. “It was there one second, then all of a sudden it all collapsed and it was gone. That’s how quickly the water was rushing out of the dam.

“We saw a 2,000-acre lake empty out in an hour and a half. In that time, the 4 feet of water we were standing in was gone, and the entire lake was gone.”

When he returned 48 hours later, his appliances were full of lake water and fish were flopping on the floor.

Since that time, his two cottages, along with scores of other homes, have been gutted for sanitary reasons. “I took my wife there a couple days later, and she just broke down. All the family memories are gone,” Crawford says. The lake they had enjoyed summer after summer is now a meadow, overgrown with vegetation 4 feet high. “It looks like there never was a lake there. I wake up some nights and relive it. It’s a nightmare.”

MAIN CANAL What was a commercial street in Sanford ,could only be accessed by watercraft for some time after the flood. The roads have since been reopened.

70 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

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Stuart A. Gold Gold, Lange & Majoros

Joseph R. Sgroi Honigman

Jonathan S. Green Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Howard S. Sher Jacob & Weingarten

Lisa S. Gretchko Howard & Howard

Ronald A. Spinner Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Wallace M. Handler Sullivan, Ward, Patton, Gleeson & Felty

Marc N. Swanson Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Robert S. Hertzberg Troutman Pepper Steven G. Howell Dickinson Wright Daniel G. Kielczewski Abbott Nicholson Kay Standridge Kress Troutman Pepper Stephen S. LaPlante Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Scott R. Lesser Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Lawrence A. Lichtman Honigman Elias T. Majoros Gold, Lange & Majoros Ralph E. McDowell Bodman Max J. Newman Butzel Long Yuliy Osipov Osipov Bigelman

Theodore B. Sylwestrzak Dickinson Wright Julie Beth Teicher Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Sheldon S. Toll Law Office of Sheldon S. Toll Brian R. Trumbauer Bodman Jaimee L. Witten Bodman Scott A. Wolfson Wolfson Bolton

Commercial Law Thomas G. Appleman Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Frederick A. Berg Butzel Long Jonathan S. Berg Bodman Gene P. Bowen Bodman James C. Bruno Butzel Long

Harvey W. Berman Bodman R. Edward Boucher Kotz Sangster Wysocki Michael D. Carroll Kerr, Russell and Weber James R. Case Dykema Gossett Mark M. Cunningham Kerr, Russell and Weber Michael C. Decker Butzel Long Ronald A. Deneweth Deneweth, Dugan & Parfitt Lawrence M. Dudek Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Patrick A. Facca Facca, Richter & Pregler Eric J. Flessland Butzel Long Kevin J. Gleeson Sullivan, Ward, Patton, Gleeson & Felty J. Christian Hauser Frasco Caponigro Wineman Scheible Hauser & Luttmann Kevin S. Hendrick Clark Hill Paul M. Mersino Butzel Long Sonal Hope Mithani Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Emily C. Palacios Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

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DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Jeffrey M. Sangster Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Timothy R. Damschroder Bodman

John M. Sier Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook

Edward C. Dawda Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Ronald P. Strote Strote Law

Copyright Law Kimberly A. Berger Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Jennifer A. Dukarski Butzel Long

Arthur Dudley II Butzel Long William Heritage Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton Laura E. Johnson Butzel Long Justin G. Klimko Butzel Long

Ashley Glime Butzel Long

Jeffrey L. LaBine Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Claudia Rast Butzel Long Rebecca Wilson The Dobrusin Law Firm, P.C. 29 W. Lawrence St., Ste. 210 Pontiac, MI 48342 248-292-2920 info@patentco.com patentco.com

Corporate Law Thomas G. Appleman Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone James C. Bruno Butzel Long Robert J. Cambridge Bodman James R. Cambridge Kerr, Russell and Weber Steven R. Cole Bodman Jennifer E. Consiglio Butzel Long

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Laurence B. Deitch Bodman

Eric I. Lark Kerr, Russell and Weber Carrie Leahy Bodman George M. Malis Abbott Nicholson Richard M. Miettinen Howard & Howard Daniel H. Minkus Clark Hill James E. Romzek Warner Norcross + Judd Marc K. Salach Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Michael N. Santeufemia Seyburn Kahn Jared A. Smith Dickinson Wright Gregory L. Wysocki Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Employee Benefits Law Orin D. Brustad Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Amy M. Christen Dykema Gossett Deborah L. Grace Dickinson Wright Roberta P. Granadier Dickinson Wright Edward C. Hammond Clark Hill Mark W. Jane Butzel Long Robert B. Johnston Howard & Howard Theresa C. Joswick Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Nancy Keppelman Butzel Long Samantha A. Kopacz Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Mary Jo Larson Warner Norcross + Judd Charles M. Lax Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Lynn McGuire Butzel Long Cynthia A. Moore Dickinson Wright Andrew Nickelhoff Nickelhoff & Widick Rebecca D’Arcy O’Reilly Bodman Thomas L. Shaevsky Butzel Long Andrew Stumpff Butzel Long

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

McAlpine, PC 3201 University Dr., Ste. 200, Auburn Hills, MI 48326 248-373-3700 | mcalpinepc.com Mark McAlpine has specialized in construction law and litigation for more than 35 years. He is the founding principal of McAlpine PC, a nine-lawyer construction and complex litigation law firm headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. McAlpine regularity represents owners, general contractors, specialty subcontractors, sureties, and design professionals in connection with large and complex commercial projects throughout the country. He has served on the adjunct law faculty of the Wayne State School of Law teaching contracts and construction law and is a frequent lecturer for a wide variety of industry associations, including the Associated General Contractors of America and the American Bar Association. ■

Tanoury, Nauts, McKinney, Garbarino PLLC 38777 W. Six Mile Rd., Livonia, Michigan 48152 313-964-4500 | tnmglaw.com Cullen B. McKinney is a founding member of Tanoury, Nauts, McKinney, & Garbarino PLLC. The law firm offers aggressive and experienced medical malpractice defense legal representation for health care systems, individual physicians, and physician groups.

For more than 25 years, McKinney has successfully defended health care providers in complex multimillion-dollar litigation. He has been named an American Law Society Top Lawyer, Top 100 Civil Defense Litigator; recognized by the American Institute of Trial Lawyers as Litigator of the Year; named 2020 Elite Advocate with the American Institute of Legal Advocates; recognized by Best Lawyers, and is an AV Preeminent Peer Rated Attorney by Martindale-Hubbell. ■

Fakhoury Global Immigration 5250 Corporate Dr., Ste. 300, Troy, MI 48098 248-643-4900 | employmentimmigration.com Fakhoury Global Immigration, USA PC (FGI) is a leading business-based immigration law firm, helping employers here and internationally fill their skill gaps with talent from around the world.

Businesses in critical areas, such as engineering, automotive, IT, and health care, have sought support from FGI to meet their talent mobility objectives.

Founded by Rami D. Fakhoury in 1997, the firm has been successful in achieving high rates of approvals for their clients. Additionally, Rami Fakhoury has been recognized as a thought leader in corporate immigration and has received numerous awards, including being named a Leading Lawyer and Equity Member of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers and a Fellow of the American Bar Association. ■

Cohen Lerner & Rabinovitz, P.C., is a law firm founded on the concepts of integrity and hard work. Our corporate, litigation, and transactional attorneys are available to provide a full range of services in the areas of business law, entertainment law, labor and employment law, personal injury, and intellectual property. We also provide additional services to executives including succession planning, estate planning, and family law.

26862 Woodward Ave. Suite 200 Royal Oak, MI 48067 Phone: (248) 691-2200 / cohenlerner.com CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR ATTORNEYS FOR BEING NAMED DBUSINESS TOP LAWYERS!

Kevin Hirsch • Joshua Lerner • Steven Cohen • Aaron Silvenis • Candace Yono

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DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

David B. Walters Bodman

Nathan D. Dupes Bodman

Jennifer Watkins Warner Norcross + Judd

Grant P. Gilezan Dykema Gossett

Warren J. Widmayer Ferguson Widmayer & Clark

Beth S. Gotthelf Butzel Long

Lisa B. Zimmer Warner Norcross + Judd

Mark D. Jacobs Dykema Gossett

Energy Law

Susan L. Johnson Butzel Long

Mark A. Bank Bank Rifkin

Karen L. Boore Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Steven C. Kohl Warner Norcross + Judd

Carol F. Breitmeyer Breitmeyer Cushman

Samantha S. Galecki Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Anna M. Maiuri Dickinson Wright

Kyle Bristow Bristow Law

Beth S. Gotthelf Butzel Long

Steven C. Nadeau Honigman

Sonia M. Cannon Cannon Law

Susan L. Johnson Butzel Long

Sharon R. Newlon Dickinson Wright

Gerald Cavellier Hertz Schram

Rodger Kershner Howard & Howard

James K. O’Brien Dean & Fulkerson

Kathleen L. Cole Cole Family Law

Sharon R. Newlon Dickinson Wright

Gary A. Peters Howard & Howard

Sabrina Shaheen Cronin The Cronin Law Firm

Emily C. Palacios Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Susan J. Sadler Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Roquia K. Draper Warner Norcross + Judd

Environmental Law Richard A. Barr Honigman Kurt M. Brauer Warner Norcross + Judd Brian J. Considine Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler George F. Curran III Kotz Sangster Wysocki Fredrick J. Dindoffer Bodman Christopher J. Dunsky Christopher J. Dunsky

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Erica J. Shell Bodman Arthur Siegal Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Tyler D. Tennent Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Thomas P. Wilczak Troutman Pepper Mark E. Wilson Dickinson Wright Jeffrey L. Woolstrum Honigman

Family Law Jeffrey Lance Abood The Abood Law Firm 470 N. Old Woodward Ave., Ste. 250 Birmingham, MI 48009 248-549-0000 jeff@aboodlaw.com aboodlaw.com

Laura E. Eisenberg Eisenberg & Spilman, PLLC 600 S. Adams, Ste. 100 Birmingham, MI 48009 248-358-8880 eisenberg@eisenbergspilman.com eisenbergspilman.com

Joshua Faber Berlin Family Law Group Erin C. Flynn Nichols, Sacks, Slank, Sendelbach, Buiteweg & Solomon Gary R. Glenn Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Lorne B. Gold The Gold Law Firm

Matthew R. Van Steenkiste Garmo & Kiste

John F. Youngblood Abbott Nicholson

Kirsten Irey-Iverson The Law Offices of Kirsten Irey Iverson

Matthew S. Weaver Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Health Care Law

Ryan M. Kelly Kelly & Kelly

Jessica Woll Woll & Woll

Channelle Kizy-White Kizy Law

Miriam Z. Wolock Law Offices of Miriam Z. Wolock

Kay Malaney Hainer & Berman

LeRoy H. Wulfmeier III Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Donald E. McGinnis Jr. McGinnis Chiappelli Spresser

Food and Beverage Law

David S. Mendelson The Mendelson Law Firm Sam E. Nuxoll Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Kelly A. Allen Adkison, Need, Allen, & Rentrop Thomas J. Azoni Secrest Wardle

Julia A. Perkins Varnum

Franchise Law

Jorin G. Rubin Law Office of Jorin G. Rubin

Courtland W. Anderson Bodman

Nazli G. Sater Warner Norcross + Judd

Stuart M. Bordman Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

Dawn M. Schluter Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Bernard J. Fuhs Butzel Long

Kurt E. Schnelz Schnelz Wells

Bruce W. Haffey Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Lynn Capp Sirich Dickinson Wright

K. Dino Kostopoulos Kostopoulos Rodriguez

Barbara Smith Smith Mediation Center

Brett J. Miller Butzel Long

Ivonne M. Soler Butzel Long

Donald V. Orlandoni Butzel Long

Lisa D. Stern Hertz Schram

Neil Patel Butzel Long

Genevieve D. Tusa Tusa Law

David Steinberg Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Robert Y. Weller II Abbott Nicholson

John A. Anderson Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton Jennifer L. Benedict Honigman Reesa Benkoff Benkoff Health Law Aaron Beresh Howard & Howard Brandon M. Dalziel Bodman Jovan Dragovic Kotz Sangster Wysocki Gregory Drutchas Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook, P.C. One Woodward Ave., Ste. 2400 Detroit, MI 48226 313-965-7930 greg.drutchas@kitch.com kitch.com

Debra A. Geroux Butzel Long Patrick J. Haddad Kerr, Russell and Weber John Paul Hessburg Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook Ann T. Hollenbeck Jones Day Robert S. Iwrey The Health Law Partners Eric S. Klein Dykema Gossett Mark S. Kopson Plunkett Cooney

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DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Mark R. Lezotte Butzel Long

Immigration Law

Theresamarie Mantese Mantese Honigman

Christian S. Allen Dickinson Wright

Jesse Adam Markos Wachler & Associates

N. Peter Antone Antone, Casagrande & Adwers

Nicholas P. McElhinny Bodman

Linda J. Armstrong Butzel Long

Gregory W. Moore Dickinson Wright

Edward Bajoka Bajoka Law Group

Joseph G. Nuyen Jr. Bodman

Elizabeth B. Baker Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Lori-Ann Rickard Rickard & Associates

Robert M. Birach Birach Law

Julie E. Robertson Honigman Alan T. Rogalski Warner Norcross + Judd

Rami Fakhoury Fakhoury Global Immigration 5250 Corporate Dr., Ste. 300 Troy, MI 48098 248-643-4900 rami@employmentimmigration.com

David L. Rogers Rogers & Associates

employmentimmigration.com

Meghan Kennedy Riordan Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook Julianne Cassin Sharp Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Andrew D. Stacer Stacer Suzanne K. Sukkar Dickinson Wright Lu (Kevin) Wang Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Information Management and Discovery Law Michael S. Khoury FisherBroyles Mark G. Malven Dykema Gossett Megan P. McKnight Tealstone Law

Daniel J. Schulte Kerr, Russell and Weber

Elise S. Levasseur Dickinson Wright

Phillip M. Shane Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Robert H. Schwartz Butzel Long

Clara DeMatteis Mager Butzel Long

Angela Emmerling Shapiro Butzel Long

E. William S. Shipman Bodman

Bushra A. Malik Butzel Long

Information Technology Law

Keith J. Soltis Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Eli Maroko Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Andrew B. Wachler Wachler & Associates

Kate M. McCarroll Kerr, Russell and Weber

Deborah J. Williamson Williamson Health Law

Michael P. Nowlan Clark Hill

Rose Willis Dickinson Wright

Reginald A. Pacis Butzel Long

Mark E. Wilson Dickinson Wright

Miroslava Orduno Rincon Kerr, Russell and Weber

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Jennifer A. Dukarski Butzel Long Ashley Glime Butzel Long Karl A. Hochkammer Honigman Michael S. Khoury FisherBroyles Jeffrey A. May Kerr, Russell and Weber

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Jill M. Miller Bodman

Stanley A. Prokop Plunkett Cooney

Christopher G. Darrow Darrow Mustafa

Joseph R. Morrison Jr. Bodman

Julie E. Robertson Honigman

Gregory D. DeGrazia Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Kathryn L. Ossian Ossian Law

Nicole E. Wilinski Collins Einhorn Farrell

Claudia Rast Butzel Long

Doug Young Young Insurance Law

Katherine Razdolsky Rothstein Bodman

Intellectual Property and Patent Law

Insurance Law Frederick A. Berg Butzel Long Timothy F. Casey Collins Einhorn Farrell Mark Cooper Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Michael G. Costello Bodman Michelle Thurber Czapski Bodman David J. DeVine Butzel Long Michael H. Fabian Fabian, Sklar, King & Liss Julie I. Fershtman Foster Swift Collins & Smith Deborah A. Hebert Collins Einhorn Farrell Harvey R. Heller Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Adam B. Kutinsky Kutinsky Jason J. Liss Fabian, Sklar, King & Liss John R. Monnich Sr. Ottenwess, Taweel & Schenk

William G. Abbatt Brooks Kushman Dean Amburn Amburn Law Courtland W. Anderson Bodman Frank A. Angileri Brooks Kushman Robin W. Asher Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Marjory G. Basile Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Andrew R. Basile Jr. Young Basile Hanlon & MacFarlane Thomas Bejin Bejin Bieneman Kimberly A. Berger Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Charles Bieneman Bejin Bieneman Mark A. Cantor Brooks Kushman John E. Carlson Carlson, Gaskey & Olds Anthony P. Cho Carlson, Gaskey & Olds

Eric M. Dobrusin The Dobrusin Law Firm 29 W. Lawrence St. Pontiac, MI 48342 248-292-2920 info@patentco.com patentco.com

Jennifer A. Dukarski Butzel Long Trent K. English Howard & Howard Ashley Glime Butzel Long Sam Haidle Howard & Howard John M. Halan Brooks Kushman Wyatt J. Istvan-Mitchell Warner Norcross + Judd Erin Klug Varnum Susan M. Kornfield Bodman David M. LaPrairie Howard & Howard John S. LeRoy Brooks Kushman Michael A. Lisi Bridge Intellectual Property Services Marc Lorelli Brooks Kushman Michael N. MacCallum Brooks Kushman Timothy J. Murphy Carlson, Gaskey & Olds TL 83 TL 11

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Katherine Pacynski The Dobrusin Law Firm, P.C. 29 W. Lawrence St. Pontiac, MI 48342 248-292-2920 info@patentco.com patentco.com

A. Michael Palizzi Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Randall J. Peck Warner Norcross + Judd Kristen Pursley The Dobrusin Law Firm 29 W. Lawrence St. Pontiac, MI 48342 248-292-2920 info@patentco.com patentco.com

Christopher W. Quinn Quinn IP Law Jeffrey G. Raphelson Bodman George Schooff Legal Services Group James D. Stevens Reising Ethington Brian D. Wassom Warner Norcross + Judd Mitchell Zajac Butzel Long

International Trade Law Joseph D. Gustavus Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Robert A. Hudson Butzel Long Gary A. Peters Howard & Howard

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James Y. Rayis Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Rebecca S. Davies Butzel Long

Jeffrey G. Richardson Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

David R. Deromedi Dickinson Wright

Nicholas J. Stasevich Butzel Long

Carey A. DeWitt Butzel Long

Bruce C. Thelen Dickinson Wright

Maria F. Dwyer Clark Hill

Richard A. Walawender Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Sue Ellen Eisenberg Sue Ellen Eisenberg & Associates

Labor and Employment Law

Gary S. Fealk Bodman

Laura S. Amtsbuechler Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler John T. Below Bodman John F. Birmingham Jr. Foley & Lardner Michael R. Blum Foster Swift Collins & Smith Kathleen L. Bogas Bogas & Koncius Darcie R. Brault McKnight, Canzano, Smith, Radtke & Brault Aaron V. Burrell Dickinson Wright John C. Cashen Bodman Randal R. Cole Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Paul W. Coughenour Clark Hill Katherine F. Cser Bodman Regan K. Dahle Butzel Long

Aaron D. Graves Bodman Susan H. Hiser Fisher Phillips Timothy H. Howlett Dickinson Wright Maurice G. Jenkins Jackson Lewis Mark C. Knoth Kerr, Russell and Weber David Kotzian Gasiorek, Morgan, Greco, McCauley & Kotzian Brian A. Kreucher Howard & Howard Frank T. Mamat Barnes & Thornburg Brett J. Miller Butzel Long Sam Morgan Gasiorek, Morgan, Greco, McCauley & Kotzian Megan P. Norris Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Michael L. Pitt Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers David R. Radtke McKnight, Canzano, Smith, Radtke & Brault James M. Reid IV Dinsmore & Shohl

Reginald M. Turner Clark Hill Richard W. Warren Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Kathryn S. Wood Dickinson Wright

Land Use and Zoning

Richard D. Rattner Williams, Williams, Rattner & Plunkett Ronald E. Reynolds Fisher Phillips Carol A. Rosati Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler

James S. Rosenfeld Butzel Long

Daniel P. Dalton Dalton & Tomich

Tyler D. Tennent Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Jennifer L. Sabourin Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Geoffrey S. Gallinger Butzel Long

Legal Malpractice Law

Craig S. Schwartz Butzel Long

Alan M. Greene Dykema Gossett

Brian Schwartz Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Lisa J. Hamameh Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler

Raymond J. Sterling Sterling Employment Law Andrey T. Tomkiw Dinsmore & Shohl Hannah E. Treppa Butzel Long Daniel B. Tukel Butzel Long

Thomas A. Kabel Butzel Long John Mucha III Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Gregory K. Need Adkison, Need, Allen, & Rentrop Jerome Pesick Steinhardt Pesick & Cohen

Lawrence J. Acker Lawrence J. Acker David C. Anderson Collins Einhorn Farrell Joshua I. Arnkoff Collins Einhorn Farrell Theresa M. Asoklis Collins Einhorn Farrell Donald D. Campbell Collins Einhorn Farrell Michael W. Hartmann Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Harvey R. Heller Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Kellie L. Howard-Goudy Collins Einhorn Farrell Thomas H. Howlett The Googasian Firm James J. Hunter Collins Einhorn Farrell Kathleen H. Klaus Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Edward G. Lennon Lennon Law David M. Saperstein Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

TL 85 TL 13

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Phillip E. Seltzer Lipson Neilson Michael J. Sullivan Collins Einhorn Farrell Bob Tyler Tyler Law Firm Steve M. Wolock Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

Litigation – Antitrust Theodore R. Eppel Butzel Long David A. Ettinger Honigman Fred K. Herrmann Kerr, Russell and Weber Howard B. Iwrey Dykema Gossett William R. Jansen Warner Norcross + Judd Sheldon H. Klein Butzel Long Kenneth J. McIntyre Dickinson Wright Paul F. Novak Weitz & Luxenberg Larry J. Saylor Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Bruce L. Sendek Butzel Long Joanne Geha Swanson Kerr, Russell and Weber Thomas J. Tallerico Bodman L. Pahl Zinn Dickinson Wright

14 86 TL TL

Litigation – Banking and Finance J. Adam Behrendt Bodman Robert J. Diehl Jr. Bodman Scott R. Lesser Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Steven A. Roach Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Joseph J. Shannon Bodman Marc N. Swanson Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Litigation – Commercial Alexander A. Ayar McDonald Hopkins Jordan S. Bolton Clark Hill Michael G. Brady Warner Norcross + Judd Keefe A. Brooks Brooks Wilkins Sharkey & Turco Evan M. Chall Wright Beamer Thomas W. Cranmer Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Homayune A. Ghaussi Warner Norcross + Judd Jennifer Grieco Altior Law, P.C. 401 S. Old Woodward, Ste. 460 Birmingham, MI 48009 248-594-5252 jgrieco@altiorlaw.com altiorlaw.com

Cynthia J. Haffey Butzel Long Mark E. Hauck Hickey Hauck Bishoff & Jeffers Patrick F. Hickey Hickey Hauck Bishoff & Jeffers Amy M. Johnston Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Kaveh Kashef Butzel Long Phillip C. Korovesis Butzel Long Dennis J. Levasseur Bodman Miles T. Macik Howard & Howard Patrick M. McCarthy Howard & Howard Thomas G. McNeill Dickinson Wright David A. Mollicone Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler John Mucha III Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Thomas J. Murray King and Murray Mahesh K. Nayak Dickinson Wright Kenneth Neuman Altior Law, P.C. 401 S. Old Woodward, Ste. 460 Birmingham, MI 48009 248-594-5252 kneuman@altiorlaw.com altiorlaw.com

Mark W. Peyser Howard & Howard

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Daniel D. Quick Dickinson Wright

Michael D. Carroll Kerr, Russell and Weber

Jeffrey M. Sangster Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Jeffrey G. Raphelson Bodman

Mark M. Cunningham Kerr, Russell and Weber

John M. Sier Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook

Wendy Wrosch Richards Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Michael C. Decker Butzel Long

Mark C. Rossman Rossman

Ronald A. Deneweth Deneweth, Dugan & Parfitt

Daniel R.W. Rustmann Butzel Long

Lawrence M. Dudek Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Thomas J. Azoni Secrest Wardle

Eric Scheible Frasco Caponigro Wineman Scheible Hauser & Luttmann

Timothy P. Dugan Deneweth, Dugan & Parfitt

Mark Cooper Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Eric J. Flessland Butzel Long

Sarah L. Cylkowski Bodman

Kevin J. Gleeson Sullivan, Ward, Patton, Gleeson & Felty

Michelle Thurber Czapski Bodman

Kimberly L. Scott Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Bruce L. Sendek Butzel Long Joseph J. Shannon Bodman Daniel N. Sharkey Brooks Wilkins Sharkey & Turco Thomas Van Dusen Bodman Joseph G. Vernon Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Michael Wais Howard & Howard Frances Belzer Wilson Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler I. W. Winsten Honigman

Litigation – Construction Harvey W. Berman Bodman R. Edward Boucher Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Kevin S. Hendrick Clark Hill Edward J. Hood Clark Hill Michael J. Laramie Bush Seyferth Mark McAlpine McAlpine, PC 3201 University Dr., Ste. 200 Auburn Hills, MI 48326 248-373-3700 mlmcalpine@mcalpinepc.com mcalpinepc.com

Sonal Hope Mithani Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Emily C. Palacios Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Edward D. Plato The Plato Law Firm Gary Reeves Kienbaum Hardy Viviano Pelton Forrest

James J. Urban Butzel Long

Litigation – Insurance

Nathan J. Edmonds Secrest Wardle Robert E. Graziani Howard & Howard Jonathan Hirsch Law Office of Ernest Friedman Deborah A. Lujan Collins Einhorn Farrell Frederick B. Plumb Garan Lucow Miller Thomas J. Rheaume Jr. Bodman Pratheep Sevanthinathan Seva Law Firm Stuart A. Sklar Fabian, Sklar, King & Liss David B. Timmis Vandeveer Garzia Nicole E. Wilinski Collins Einhorn Farrell

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DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Litigation – Intellectual Property

Thomas A. Lewry Brooks Kushman

Litigation – Patents

Marc Lorelli Brooks Kushman

Frank A. Angileri Brooks Kushman

Barbara L. Mandell Fishman Stewart

Gregory D. DeGrazia Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Jeffrey A. May Kerr, Russell and Weber

Glenn E. Forbis Harness, Dickey & Pierce

A. Michael Palizzi Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Andrew (Jake) Grove Howard & Howard

Jeffrey A. Sadowski Howard & Howard

Litigation – Real Estate

Steven Susser Carlson, Gaskey & Olds

LeRoy L. Asher Jr. Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Leigh C. Taggart Honigman

J. Adam Behrendt Bodman

Emily J. Tait Jones Day

Stephen A. Bromberg Butzel Long

Brian D. Wassom Warner Norcross + Judd

Alfredo Casab Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Michelle M. Wezner Howard & Howard

Lara L. Kapalla-Bondi Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Andrew (Jake) Grove Howard & Howard

Litigation– Labor Employment Benefits

Kaveh Kashef Butzel Long

Richard W. Hoffmann Reising Ethington

Randal R. Cole Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Marco C. Masciulli The Head Law Firm

J. Michael Huget Honigman

Carey A. DeWitt Butzel Long

Thomas C. Simpson Butzel Long

Kristopher K. Hulliberger Howard & Howard

Mark T. Nelson Butzel Long

Brian C. Summerfield Kostopoulos Rodriguez

Susan M. Kornfield Bodman

Rebecca D’Arcy O’Reilly Bodman

Mediation

John S. LeRoy Brooks Kushman

James S. Rosenfeld Butzel Long

Dennis J. Levasseur Bodman

Daniel B. Tukel Butzel Long

Matthew P. Allen Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Frank A. Angileri Brooks Kushman Robin W. Asher Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Justin P. Bagdady Bodman Thomas Bejin Bejin Bieneman Kimberly A. Berger Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Mark A. Cantor Brooks Kushman Catherine T. Dobrowitsky Rivenoak Law Group Glenn E. Forbis Harness, Dickey & Pierce Jonathan B. Frank Frank & Frank Law

Tracy L. Allen Global Resolutions Annette Benson Annette Benson Law Kathleen L. Bogas Bogas & Koncius

16 88 TL TL

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Keefe A. Brooks Brooks Wilkins Sharkey & Turco

Marc E. Lipton Lipton Law

Richard M. Bolton Dickinson Wright

David B. Calzone Calzone Mediations

Donna M. MacKenzie Olsman MacKenzie Peacock & Wallace

Brendan J. Cahill Dykema Gossett

Gene J. Esshaki Abbott Nicholson Harvey I. Hauer The Law Firm of Hauer & Snover Lori M. Henderson Law Offices of Lori M. Henderson Kevin S. Hendrick Clark Hill Bryan H. Levy Serlin, Trivax, & Associates Daniel P. Makarski Secrest Wardle Clarence L. Pozza Jr. JAMS James J. Rashid Judicial Resource Services

Stephen D. McGraw Kerr, Russell and Weber Brian J. McKeen McKeen & Associates Cullen McKinney Tanoury, Nauts, McKinney, Garbarino PLLC 38777 W. Six Mile Rd. Livonia, MI 48152 313-964-4500 cullen.mckinney@tnmglaw.com tnmglaw.com

John J. Moran Abbott Nicholson Norman H. Rosen McKeen & Associates

Jennifer E. Consiglio Butzel Long Timothy R. Damschroder Bodman Laurence B. Deitch Bodman Joseph J. DeVito Howard & Howard Forrest O. Dillon Bodman Daljit S. Doogal Foley & Lardner Michael D. DuBay Honigman David Foltyn Honigman

Robert F. Riley Riley & Hurley

Harry J. Sherbrook Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook

Michael D. Gibson Kerr, Russell and Weber

Jerome F. Rock Jerome F. Rock, Arbitration & Mediation

Judith A. Susskind Sommers Schwartz

Bruce W. Haffey Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Gerald Thurswell The Thurswell Law Firm

John J. Hern Jr. Clark Hill

Steve J. Weiss Hertz Schram

Mark R. High Dickinson Wright

Mergers and Acquisitions Law

Jeffrey A. Hoover Howard & Howard

Anthony Urbani II Urbani & Marshall

Medical Malpractice Law Jody L. Aaron McKeen & Associates Lori A. Barker Abbott Nicholson Bob Giroux Giroux Amburn Ven Johnson Johnson Law

Brad B. Arbuckle Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone J. Michael Bernard Dykema Gossett Robert S. Bick Williams, Williams, Rattner & Plunkett

Laura E. Johnson Butzel Long John P. Kanan Honigman Justin G. Klimko Butzel Long

TL 89 TL 17

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Jin-Kyu Koh Dykema Gossett

Aaron Sherbin Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Municipal Law

Donald J. Kunz Honigman

Thomas B. Spillane Jr. Foley & Lardner

Derk W. Beckerleg Secrest Wardle

Jeffrey L. LaBine Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Samuel T. Stahl Honigman

John A. Carlson Shifman & Carlson P. Daniel Christ Hafeli Staran & Christ John C. Clark Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton Timothy J. Currier Beier Howlett John J. Gillooly Garan Lucow Miller Lisa J. Hamameh Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler Stephen J. Hitchcock Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton Thomas J. Howlett Bodman Robert D. Ihrie Ihrie O’Brien W. Anthony Jenkins Dickinson Wright

Eric I. Lark Kerr, Russell and Weber

Peter Sugar Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Jeffrey A. Levine Couzens, Lansky, Fealk, Ellis, Roeder & Lazar

Thomas S. Vaughn Dykema Gossett

Steven P. Joppich Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler

Richard A. Walawender Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Steven D. Mann Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Shusheng Wang Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Patrick B. McCauley Gasiorek, Morgan, Greco, McCauley & Kotzian

Richard M. Miettinen Howard & Howard Alex L. Parrish Honigman Linda Paullin-Hebden Warner Norcross + Judd Alan S. Schwartz Honigman

Jeffrey Weiss Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Sarah J. Williams Bodman Gregory L. Wysocki Kotz Sangster Wysocki

18

TL

Edward D. Plato The Plato Law Firm Carol A. Rosati Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Thomas R. Schultz Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler T. Joseph Seward Seward Henderson James E. Tamm Kerr, Russell and Weber Amanda Van Dusen Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Sarah J. Williams Bodman PLC

Non-White-Collar Criminal Defense Richard S. Albright Ihrie O’Brien Goran Antovski Michigan Justice Molly Blythe Smith Blythe Aaron J. Boria Aaron J. Boria

John Freeman Law Office of John Freeman

Gabi Deborah Silver Cripps & Silver Law

Gerald J. Gleeson II Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Shannon Marie Smith Smith Blythe

David G. Gorcyca Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Shawn Patrick Smith Shawn Patrick Smith and Associates

Farris F. Haddad Farris F. Haddad & Associates Law

Andrew D. Stacer Stacer

Marc E. Hart The Law Offices of Marc E. Hart

Michael L. Steinberg Law Offices of Michael L. Steinberg

Shawn H. Head The Head Law Firm

David S. Steingold Law Offices of David S. Steingold

Mark J. Kriger LaRene & Kriger

Kathy J. Vogt Garton & Vogt

Daniel J. Larin Daniel J. Larin

Nonprofit/Charities Law

Joseph A. Lavigne Law Offices of Joseph A. Lavigne Mariell R. Lehman Smith Blythe Walter J. Piszczatowski Hertz Schram

Raymond A. Cassar The Law Offices of Raymond A. Cassar

Brian J. Prain Prain Law

Jeffery A. Cojocar Law Offices of Jeffery A. Cojocar

Jordan Rassam Rassam Law

Thomas W. Cranmer Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone David R. Cripps Cripps & Silver Law J. Dallo Dallo Law Loren M. Dickstein Lewis & Dickstein Frank Eaman Eaman & Gabbara

Michael A. Rataj Michael A. Rataj, PC 500 Griswold St.,Ste. 2450 Detroit, MI 48226 313-963-4529 ratajmi@aol.com michaelrataj.com

Neil S. Rockind Rockind Law

Celeste E. Arduino Bodman Christopher J. Dine Bodman Frederick H. Hoops III Bodman Nicholas S. Kovach Shifman & Carlson Mark R. Lezotte Butzel Long Jennifer M. Oertel Bodman Jayesh J. Patel Talati & Patel Duane L. Tarnacki Clark Hill David M. Thoms Varnum

Jorin G. Rubin Law Office of Jorin G. Rubin

TL 91 TL 19

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Personal Injury

Brian J. McKeen McKeen & Associates

Heather J. Atnip Atnip & Associates

Jeffrey Meyers Jeff Meyers Law

David E. Christensen Christensen Law

Michael J. Morse Mike Morse Law Firm

A. Vince Colella Moss & Colella

Jules B. Olsman Olsman MacKenzie Peacock & Wallace

Geoffrey N. Fieger Fieger Law Bob Giroux Giroux Amburn Steven Gursten Michigan Auto Law Christopher J. Hastings The Hastings Law Firm Paul Hines Gasiorek, Morgan, Greco, McCauley & Kotzian

Daniel G. Romano Romano Law James L. Spagnuolo Jr. Macomb Law Group Gerald Thurswell The Thurswell Law Firm Jason A. Waechter Law Offices of Jason A. Waechter Craig M. Weber The Googasian Firm

Jonathan Hirsch Law Office of Ernest Friedman

Steve J. Weiss Hertz Schram

Ven Johnson Johnson Law

John L. Weston Secrest Wardle

Helen K. Joyner Fieger Law

Product Liability

Joumana Kayrouz The Law Offices of Joumana Kayrouz Sarah E. Kuchon Hohauser Kuchon

Anthony A. Agosta Clark Hill David C. Anderson Collins Einhorn Farrell

Jody B. Lipton Lipton Law

Gerard J. Andree Sullivan, Ward, Patton, Gleeson & Felty

Marc E. Lipton Lipton Law

Cheryl A. Bush Bush Seyferth

Deborah A. Lujan Collins Einhorn Farrell

Thomas G. Cardelli Cardelli Lanfear Law

Frank Mafrice Mafrice Law

Michael P. Cooney Dykema Gossett

20 92 TL TL

John T. Eads III Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker Clayton F. Farrell Collins Einhorn Farrell James P. Feeney Dykema Gossett Patrick M. Fishman Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook Todd Grant Gattoni Dykema Gossett Kathryn J. Humphrey Dykema Gossett Amy M. Johnston Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Michael V. Kell Howard & Howard Peter M. Kellet Dykema Gossett William J. Kliffel Butzel Long Shannon M. Kos Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook Neil W. MacCallum Collins Einhorn Farrell Christina J. Marshall Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Jeffrey Meyers Jeff Meyers Law Donald B. Miller Butzel Long E. Powell Miller The Miller Law Firm Paul L. Nystrom Dykema Gossett

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Kevin C. Riddle Fieger Law

Michael W. Hartmann Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Real Estate Law

Daniel J. Scully Clark Hill

Kathleen H. Klaus Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

Geaneen M. Arends Butzel Long

Patrick G. Seyferth Bush Seyferth

Julie Chenot Mayer Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

James N. Candler Jr. Dickinson Wright

Gary D. Sharp Foley & Mansfield

Michael J. Sullivan Collins Einhorn Farrell

Alexander J. Clark Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Michael C. Simoni Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Steve M. Wolock Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

George A. Contis Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Bob Tyler Tyler Law Firm

Sharon M. Woods Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker

Alexandra E. Dieck Bodman

John C. Valenti Butzel Long

Public Finance Law

Joseph M. Fazio Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Mark A. Wisniewski Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti & Sherbrook James E. Wynne Butzel Long

Professional Malpractice Law Lawrence J. Acker Lawrence J. Acker David C. Anderson Collins Einhorn Farrell Joshua I. Arnkoff Collins Einhorn Farrell Theresa M. Asoklis Collins Einhorn Farrell Donald D. Campbell Collins Einhorn Farrell Thomas W. Cranmer Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Brian D. Einhorn Collins Einhorn Farrell Melissa E. Graves Collins Einhorn Farrell

Jeffrey S. Aronoff Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Laura M. Bassett Dickinson Wright Barbara A. Bowman Bodman Thomas D. Colis Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Terence M. Donnelly Dickinson Wright Steven M. Frank Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Robert J. Gavin Shifman & Carlson Craig W. Hammond Dickinson Wright Michael P. McGee Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Patrick F. McGow Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Amanda Van Dusen Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Thomas W. Forster Varnum Geoffrey S. Gallinger Butzel Long T. Scott Galloway Galloway and Collens Gregory J. Gamalski Bodman Edward S. Gusky Varnum Daniel M. Halprin Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Ronald E. Hodess Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Brian H. Holt Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Joseph M. Judge Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Thomas A. Kabel Butzel Long Brad Knickerbocker Howard & Howard Dana Kreis Glencer Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler TL 93 TL 21

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Mark Krysinski Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Securities Law

Mark W. Peters Bodman

Monica J. Labe Dickinson Wright

Matthew P. Allen Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Michael T. Raymond Dickinson Wright

Kelly M. Lockman Bodman

Thomas G. Appleman Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Gary M. Saretsky Saretsky Hart Michaels + Gould

Michael J. Lusardi Dickinson Wright

Brad B. Arbuckle Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Robert L. Schwartz Dickinson Wright

Brandy L. Mathie Kerr, Russell and Weber

Michael S. Ben Honigman

Alan S. Schwartz Honigman

Gregg A. Nathanson Couzens, Lansky, Fealk, Ellis, Roeder & Lazar

J. Michael Bernard Dykema Gossett

Stuart Sinai Kemp Klein Law Firm

Robert J. Cambridge Bodman

Peter Sugar Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Michael P. Coakley Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Tax Law

Arthur Dudley II Butzel Long

Jess Bahs FisherBroyles

Dennis K. Egan Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Steven R. Cole Bodman

David Foltyn Honigman

James H. Combs Honigman

Miles D. Hart Saretsky Hart Michaels + Gould

Sean H. Cook Warner Norcross + Judd

John A. Hubbard Hubbard Snitchler & Parzianello

Roger Cook Honigman

Robert A. Hudson Butzel Long

Anthony P. Cracchiolo Bodman

Mark Kowalsky Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

David R. de Reyna Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Donald J. Kunz Honigman

Randall A. Denha Denha & Associates

Carrie Leahy Bodman

Katrina Piligian Desmond Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Cyril Moscow Honigman

Lynn A. Gandhi Foley & Lardner

Alex L. Parrish Honigman

John D. Gatti Kerr, Russell and Weber

Stephen G. Palms Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Michael B. Peterman Bodman Mark Rubenfire Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Lowell D. Salesin Honigman Nicholas P. Scavone Jr. Bodman Todd A. Schafer Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Andrew Z. Spilkin Bodman Anna Valk Kerr, Russell and Weber Kurt R. Vilders Kerr, Russell and Weber Timothy M. Wittebort Howard & Howard Roxana Zaha Butzel Long Katheryne L. Zelenock Dickinson Wright

22 94 TL TL

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Gary R. Glenn Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

David M. LaPrairie Howard & Howard

Frank E. Henke Warner Norcross + Judd

George W. Gregory George W. Gregory

Michael A. Lisi Bridge Intellectual Property Services

Michael J. Jameson Bodman

Frank E. Henke Warner Norcross + Judd

Paul M. Mersino Butzel Long

Shirley Kaigler Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Michael A. Indenbaum Honigman

Alexander Stotland Hertz Schram

Robert D. Kaplow Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller

Jay A. Kennedy Warner Norcross + Judd

Trusts and Estates

David P. Larsen Bodman

William C. Lentine Warner Norcross + Judd

Michael J. Beals Howard & Howard

William C. Lentine Warner Norcross + Judd

Stewart L. Mandell Honigman

Thomas H. Bergh Varnum

Marguerite Munson Lentz Bodman

Jeffrey M. McHugh Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Kelly M. Burnell Bodman

Jeffrey D. Moss Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Suzanne M. Miller Butzel Long

Howard H. Collens Galloway and Collens

Jeffrey D. Moss Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler

Sean H. Cook Warner Norcross + Judd

Gregory A. Nowak Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Andrew H. Curoe Bodman

R. Peter Prokop Butzel Long

David R. de Reyna Kotz Sangster Wysocki

Lee A. Sartori Howard & Howard

Andrea M. DeFrain Bodman

Arthur Weiss Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss

Randall A. Denha Denha & Associates

Trade Secrets

Julius H. Giarmarco Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton

Dean Amburn Amburn Law Marjory G. Basile Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Bernard J. Fuhs Butzel Long Phillip C. Korovesis Butzel Long

Amy L. Glenn Butzel Long Gary R. Glenn Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone George W. Gregory George W. Gregory Henry M. Grix Dickinson Wright TL TL 2123

DBusiness 2021 || TOP LAWYERS SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Sam E. Nuxoll Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Julie A. Paquette Law Office of Julie A. Paquette Robert P. Perry Butzel Long Stephen C. Rohr Varnum Glenn G. Ross Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy & Sadler Richard F. Roth Maddin, Hauser, Roth & Heller Dawn M. Schluter Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Aaron Sherbin Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Kenneth F. Silver Hertz Schram Mark M. Snitchler Hubbard Snitchler & Parzianello Mark J. Stasa Kerr, Russell and Weber Jeffrey S. Sternberg Kotz Sangster Wysocki Rachel Tucker Joelson Rosenberg Harvey B. Wallace II Berry Moorman

White-Collar Criminal Defense Christopher Andreoff Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Jennifer Z. Belveal Foley & Lardner James W. Burdick Burdick Law

TL 22 24 TL

Raymond A. Cassar The Law Offices of Raymond A. Cassar Joshua J. Chinsky Butzel Long Thomas W. Cranmer Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone

Robert M. Morgan Attorney at Law Barton Morris The Law Offices of Barton Morris Eric M. Nemeth Varnum Walter J. Piszczatowski Hertz Schram

J. Dallo Dallo Law Loren Dickstein Lewis & Dickstein George B. Donnini Butzel Long David F. DuMouchel Butzel Long Damien DuMouchel Butzel Long Theodore R. Eppel Butzel Long John Freeman Law Office of John Freeman Gerald J. Gleeson II Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Harold Gurewitz Gurewitz & Raben, PLC 333 W. Ford St., Ste. 1400 Detroit, MI 48226 313-628-4733 hgurewitz@grplc.com detroitcriminaldefenders.com

Robert Harrison Robert Harrison & Associates Robert P. Hurlbert Dickinson Wright Mark J. Kriger LaRene & Kriger Victor Mansour Mansour Law

Julian J. Poota Law Office of Julian J. Poota Joseph E. Richotte Butzel Long Neil S. Rockind Rockind Law Abraham Singer Law Offices of Abraham Singer David S. Steingold Law Offices of David S. Steingold James C. Thomas O’Reilly Rancilio

Workers’ Compensation Law Barry D. Adler Adler Firm Joel Alpert Alpert & Alpert Thomas L. Fleury Keller Thomas Jeffrey S. Kirschner Law Office of Jeffrey S. Kirschner Adam Levitsky Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton Dennis P. Partridge Garan Lucow Miller Richard Warsh Alpert & Alpert

Exec Life INSIDE || CEO GIFT GUIDE | RETURN ON INVESTMENT | PRODUCTION RUN | OPINION

CEO GIFT GUIDE

Deck the executive halls at hometo ease the stress and replenish the spirit.

BY GRACE TURNER AND SELINA HERBERGER

MCINTOSH

SoHo I Music System The SoHo I Music System by McIntosh is powerful enough to fill the largest room in any home with premium sound while serving as a visual centerpiece. The system includes a compilation of music sources, media players, and audio enhancement products that can be mixed and matched, including one-channel solid state amplifiers, two-channel solid state preamplifiers, a room correction system, a power controller, and floor-standing loudspeakers. Enjoy music old-school style with an LP turntable, dust off the CDs for the SACD/CD player, connect the music streamer to your online song libraries, or simply listen to the radio with the AM/FM tuner.

Price: $123,500

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 97

Exec Life || CEO Gift Guide

Ultimate Home Office Package As the world awaits a COVID-19 vaccine, the CEO in your life can hunker down in a home office in style. A new intercom from Troy’s Spire Integrated Systems Inc., called the 2N IP Verso, provides reliable access control for high-level home security. For those Zoom calls, the Logitech Meetup allows for virtual face-to-face meetings through an all-in-one conference camera that includes an ultra-wide lens for small rooms, a speaker, and a microphone. It automatically adjusts camera position to find and frame people in the room. For digital tasks, consider Apple’s iMac Pro, which serves as a personal computer and workspace for serious professionals. A choice of background visuals can complement your presentations by installing a collapsible greenscreen from InstaHibit.

Price: Greenscreen – $159.99; iMac – $4,999; Intercom – $1,011.99; Camera – starts at $899.99. Total: about $7,071

Xbox and PlayStation

SkyTrak SIG10 Golf Simulator

The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are two of the very latest systems for video game junkies. The Xbox Series X presents unparalleled load-times, heightened visuals, and is fully compatible with all previous Xbox One accessories, controllers, and games. The PlayStation 5 allows gamers to experience lightning-fast loading time, 3-D audio that lets players “see with sound,” and a separate DualShock controller that allows gamers to feel the tension of their actions during game play. Both gaming systems launch in mid-November, and each is set to deliver more intense and graphically impressive gaming experiences than ever before.

Price: $499.99 each

Cold weather or a pandemic won’t affect the SkyTrak SIG10 Golf Simulator. A high-tech monitor provides measurements of all your swings, including launch angle, backspin, and carry distance, and the simulator enclosure offers a full-screen experience with visual feedback and ball performance data. The SkyTrak Play and Improve Software, compatible with Apple devices, offers virtual play on 12 world-famous World Golf Tour courses and a skills assessment feature, progress tracking, and environmental settings for humidity, wind, and more. Voted the Best Value Golf Simulator by Golf Digest, the set also includes a metal protective case, a projector, landing pad turf, a golf mat, and more.

Price: Starts at $7,799.99

98 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

CEO Gift Guide || Exec Life

Home Theater

Tempo Studio

For the CEO who likes to unwind with family and friends after a long day of work, an at-home theater is the perfect solution. Paulson’s Audio and Video in Farmington Hills provides a fully customized home theater including professional-grade projectors, custom-made screens, powerful acoustics, and specialty theater seating. All that hardware and furniture means movie fans can enjoy the all-encompassing entertainment experience as filmmakers intended. With an upgrade, the system can be completely controlled by a wireless tablet or a smart phone. To get the best experience, consider installing customized lighting to set the mood and dramatically complement any show or concert video.

Price: Around $20,000

This all-in-one home gym takes up about 3 square feet of floor space and offers live and on-demand classes. At 6 feet tall, the stand features a 42-inch high-definition touchscreen and stereo speakers. In live classes, coaches are notified in real time when a user makes a mistake so they can provide guidance. In on-demand classes, artificial intelligence offers the same capability. The set includes dumbbells, a barbell, collars, plates of various weights, a heart rate monitor, a workout mat, and a recovery roller. For the best experience, throw in a $39 per month membership, which offers personalized, artificial intelligence-powered training including rep counting, weight recommendations, and more.

Price: $1,995

All-in-one Home School Classroom For future CEOs, a few extra tools can’t hurt. Apple’s iPad allows students to participate in virtual lessons and complete schoolwork online. The Jamboard by Google, a connected 55-inch whiteboard, offers the same capabilities at a larger scale. Students can also listen to lessons through colorful Bluetooth-enabled JBL JR300BT headphones, which limit the maximum volume to a level that’s safe for young ears. Encourage creativity by adding the Ultimate Art Easel by Pottery Barn Kids, which includes a chalkboard, a magnetic whiteboard, and a dowel to hold paper. Introduce students to coding with the LEGO BOOST Creative Toolbox, which allows students to build and program five different models including a robot, a guitar, and an automated production line.

Price: Headphones – $49.95; Jamboard – starts at $4,999, plus a $600 one-time management and support fee; Easel – $199; LEGO set – $159.99; iPad – starts at $329. Total: about $6,337.

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 99

Exec Life || Return on Investment

FAMILY AFFAIR Adam and Brittany Levinson, with their three children, strive to live a simple life.

Earn, Return, Invest Investor Adam Levinson made a fortune on Wall Street and beyond, but he’s most proud of giving back to his hometown by creating the Detroit Children’s Fund.

100 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Moments later: “There it is,” he exults.

“Quarton. Lahser and Quarton. I went to Westchester Elementary School right around the corner, first through fourth grade, played baseball and other sports. Then my parents ended up getting divorced.”

Levinson’s younger sister and two brothers moved with their mother to New York City. He stayed behind with his dad, a cardiologist who had a practice in Detroit. “My dad was like an early adopter of the whole Detroit renaissance thing,” he says. “We moved to the Detroit Towers apartment building off of East Jefferson on the Detroit River. That’s really where I grew up.”

Levinson went to Friends School through the seventh grade, then switched to Liggett High School in Grosse Pointe Woods. With plenty of free time, every day after school was spent at the hospital where his dad worked.

“I mean, I lived in the doctors’ lounge at Sinai Hospital,” he says. “My dad was working all the time, you (had) limited transportation, so there was nowhere else to go. And I learned I had no interest in medicine.”

But he was intrigued by the economic collapse occurring in his hometown, triggered by the weakening of the auto industry, the 1970s energy crisis, a national recession, and a rise in the popularity of Japanese cars.

“I was acutely aware and observant of trends, the development of world history, and the arc of it,” he says. “I’ve always viewed Detroit as the original casualty of globalization. So being aware of that and thinking about who is winning from globalization, or where those forces were, I took a keen interest in Asia and started paying attention and studying it.”

When it came time to go to college he headed out of state, to Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., in large part because of its renowned Asia studies program. Levinson graduated in 1992 with a degree in government.

He applied to law school and graduate school, and was accepted. “But I also applied to Wall Street, just on the view that I would defer (my education) and go work for a couple of years, make some money, and have an interesting experience, right? That was my basic premise. I’m

COURTESY ADAM LEVINSON

A

s founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of Graticule Asset Management Asia, an alternative investment management firm, Adam Levinson oversees assets under management in excess of $3 billion. Like Levinson, Graticule is based in Singapore; it also has offices in New York City and San Francisco.

The very first place Levinson got to know, however, was Stuyvessant Road in Bloomfield Village, where he spent his earliest years. Looking back, he readily admits his memories are a tad hazy. “I was like 2, 3, 4 years old,” he recalls.

“The house was relatively close to a middle school, which I think was called Covington. And that was near — was it Lahser Road?”

He pauses here, then issues a disarming and self-effacing chuckle. “It’s so funny. I can drive myself there tomorrow, but the actual road I don’t remember. It’s not off Lahser, it’s off of whatever that is between — let me just pull up a Google map, because it will refresh my memory.”

BY TOM MURRAY

Return on Investment || Exec Life

always willing to do things that interest me and most likely will result in an experience that hopefully is positive.”

Levinson got offers from both Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs. He chose Goldman.

“Within five months, the guy who hired me in New York asked me if I would go on a business trip with him through Asia,” he says. “He was moving some people around and asked me if I would consider moving. I said sure. And he asked me how soon could I move? I said two weeks. I mean, I was 21 at the time, right? No attachments, no obligations. I moved to Hong Kong in the beginning of 1993.”

Relocating overseas turned out to be the first step in what quickly became Levinson’s stunningly successful career path.

“I was the first non-Chinese person for Goldman in (Hong Kong), and it was a great experience for me,” he says. “I mean, who gets a job at that age where you get to work with very limited adult supervision? And I was largely reporting back to people in New York, right? And so, you know, good or bad, in some ways I learned a lot of stuff about myself. There was sort of distant mentoring and so on, but I was lucky; I think I was very fortunate not to get stuck in a role that was particularly vocational or limited, or narrow in scope.”

That freedom, coupled with Levinson’s ambition and creativity, led to some audacious moments. “I could think about a lot of things, and I’m sort of the nut who was writing business plans and sending them to Lloyd Blankfein.”

At the time, Blankfein — on his own ascent up the corporate ladder and destined to be Goldman’s CEO and chairman — was running Levinson’s division. “I’m saying to him, you know, Can we do this? And people are like, Who is this? But what else am I supposed to do? I see the opportunities, you know. And that’s how it all started for me. I got a lot of responsibility very quickly — much sooner than I would have in New York.”

Levinson spent 10 years as a proprietary trader at Goldman, splitting his time between Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, and New York.

“It was a very limited niche group, with a so-called 007 license to trade anywhere, in both emerging and developed markets,” he says.

In 2002, Levinson and several of his partners left Goldman to become principals of Fortress Investment Group, where Levinson’s mercurial rise and reputation as a superstar trader exploded in 2008 when he received what was widely reported as a $300 million “sweetener” to prevent him from leaving. Described at the time as the industry’s biggest bonus ever, Levinson says the details of the payoff were a bit more complicated.

“Fortress was a confederation of separate

businesses with different equity ownership in those businesses,” he explains. “The $300 million was an equity exchange from the liquid market business line into a consolidated holding company, the structure of which was enabled when it went public.”

Graticule was launched in 2015, and when Levinson was interviewed in September, six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, he already had a clear vision of how his company would continue to operate in whatever turns out to be the “new normal,” post-pandemic reality.

“Two things have come out of it for me,” he says. “One is decentralization; requiring less office space — not zero, but somewhat of a footprint that’s going to be less — I think is pretty obvious. The other thing that I think is an unequivocal positive is the marginal travel that one used to do, right? I mean, I’d get on a plane and go to Sydney for a day and a half, or Tokyo for 48 hours. Those days, in my opinion, are all gone because the only reason you did it is it was socially sort of required.

“Now I don’t think anybody requires that.

People accept Zoom or the equivalent as an alternative, and therefore your travel now will be around … more meaningful, longer, higher value-added type stuff, and you can dispense with the so-called marginal travel. That’s not great for the travel or airline business, but it’s good for virtually everyone else in business because you become more efficient and can actually get a lot more done, given the expectations.”

Apart from global finance, Levinson is eager to assist his hometown. He’s an avid supporter of the Detroit Children’s Fund, a nonprofit focused on improving educational outcomes in the city through investments that expand already successful schools and improve those that are substandard. The ultimate goal is for every child in Detroit to receive a top-notch education.

Founded by Levinson in 2014, he helped launch the fund with a $10 million gift.

“It’s my biggest philanthropic endeavor,” he says. “I’m really pleased to be part of an organization that’s doing really good stuff and fostering real change in the city, and that’s

part of the requirement for the future growth and dynamism of the city.”

Levinson, 50, has gotten more than his share of publicity for some of the perks his stunning success has brought to the forefront — late last year he paid $20 million for fashion icon Tom Ford’s house in Bel Air, Calif., designed by famed architect Richard Neutra. The transaction came after he paid nearly $40 million for a two-acre lot across the street. Levinson also owns homes in Singapore, Tokyo, and Amagansett, N.Y. The wealth, as it turns out, was a lot for even Levinson himself to handle, along with his family. As a result, he and his wife, Brittany, made a commitment several years ago to a significant lifestyle adjustment for themselves and their young children.

“I made a big effort to simplify my life dramatically into just certain verticals or segments,” he says. “One is obviously work, the other is family, and the third is basically health and fitness. After that there’s not a whole lot of time for anything else. You just realize what’s important and you sort of dispense with all the B.S. And I work around each of those segments tirelessly.

“I really believe that if you’re doing something that you’re really excited about and you’re extremely interested and motivated, then it doesn’t feel like work.”

TRIPLE PLAY Levinson has split his life into three segments — work, family, and health and fitness.

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 101

Exec Life || Production Run

Liquid Return

I

In response to COVID-19, Stone Soap Co. in Sylvan Lake moved from producing car wash detergent to hand sanitizer in two weeks’ time.

n the midst of the Great Depression, Steve Stone’s father, Ralph, pivoted from collecting fat, grease, and oil from butcher shops, grocery stores, and restaurants and selling it to soap manufacturers to making soap himself.

Almost 90 years later, Steve has transformed the company again. Over the span of a fortnight in March, Stone Soap Co. in Sylvan Lake went from producing car wash detergent to hand sanitizer in response to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stone Soap long ago elevated its game by producing car wash presoaks, pressure washes, tire and wheel cleaners, rapid rinse aids and waxes, fast foam conditioners, shampoos, foam brushes, and other specialty items for customers across the United State and around the world.

An indication of the company’s commitment to the car wash industry, which usually comprises more than 50 percent of its manufacturing volume, is the on-site working car wash the ABOUT FACE When the car wash business all but closed down after the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, Stone Soap Co., which also makes bird-repelling chemicals, started producing hand sanitizer in two weeks’ time.

102 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

BY TIM KEENAN |

JOSH SCOTT

company uses to test promising product lines.

At one point, Stone Soap had a car wash academy to train operators how to manage and repair car wash systems.

The company also manufactures EPA-registered specialty biopesticides for another Stone company called Avian Enterprises. The chemicals, designed to keep birds away from places like farms and airports, makes up most of the balance of Stone Soap’s production output. Another 1 to 2 percent of revenue comes from a combination shower shampoo and body wash used in hotels and gyms.

“When the pandemic hit and all nonessential businesses were ordered closed, we didn’t have to close because our biopesticide business is an essential industry, especially since the majority of its market is agricultural,” says Stone, owner and CEO of Stone Soap. “Our dilemma was, with over 50 percent of our production sidelined since most car washes around the country were closed, we had a facility that was going to be open — but

how (would) we keep our people busy?”

The answer quickly arrived in the mail. Stone received a letter from the FDA that detailed new emergency rules in place for the production of hand sanitizer, which was in very short supply due to the outbreak of the virus.

“Prior to the pandemic, (hand sanitizer) was a niche market for makers of hand cleansers,” Stone says. “All of a sudden it became a dominant, must-have item for everybody. We looked at the guidance from the FDA and realized we were ideally suited to make this product.”

The company received a license to manufacture alcohol-related products 40 years ago, plus it had several large tanks designed to handle flammable liquid, all of which are set apart from the rest of the plant and protected by a special fire-suppression system.

The issue, according to Stone, was acquiring the raw materials, bottles for the finished product, and the labor to label and fill the bottles.

“It was a race to procure large quantities of

Production Run || Exec Life

THE RUNDOWN

$19 per half-gallon: MSRP for Stone Soap hand sanitizer

CLEAN TEAM Along with producing hand santizer in bulk, Stone Soap Co. manufactures car wash detergent and biopesticides.

ethanol,” Stone says. “It was also a race to get the bottles. Plastic bottles became very scarce very quickly.”

One reason for the bottle shortage was the same plastic blow-molding factories that produce bottles for hand sanitizer also manufacture containers for food from grocery stores. The plastic food containers were suddenly in high demand, with restaurants closed nationwide.

“We got into production inside of two weeks,” Stone says. “That was a Herculean effort.”

Once Stone Soap started hand sanitizer production, it was quickly clear that 25 employees working a normal shift couldn’t keep up with demand. Consequently, employees started working 10 to 12 hours per day, seven a days a week, from April until early July. “We got so busy with hand sanitizer that rather than having to furlough anyone, we were working overtime seven days a week,” he says.

Stone even hired extra help: husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and children of employees who had been furloughed from their jobs.

At least a dozen family members were brought in to do bulk labor like labeling and filling bottles, and putting together boxes. “It’s the bottleneck of the operation,” Stone says. “We have 120,000 square feet of space. We were able to keep social distance.”

The added workers came in handy when Stone Soap landed a contract to provide hand sanitizer for an automaker’s entire nationwide dealer network, which equated to about 200,000 half-gallon jugs of product. The hand sanitizer business has since settled down to 5,000 gallons per week, but Stone learned a lot about his workforce during the big push.

“The thing that was so gratifying was how

committed our people were,” he says. “How do you ask people to work 10- and 12-hour days, seven days a week? Our people were proud to come to work because I think they thought they were doing something really useful. Every one of them felt they were doing something special.”

Stone adds he refused to profit extensively from the demand for hand sanitizer. He priced his product at $19 per half-gallon retail. One competitor, he says, was charging $120 per gallon. “I realize that we’re able to buy in bulk and keep costs low that way, but some of those prices were way too high,” he laments.

Beyond pricing issues, according to Stone the alcohol content in some competing products, at times, was too low. The formula Stone Soap uses contains 80 percent ethanol, which is recommended by both the FDA and the World Health Organization for the prevention of coronavirus spread. “We’re stunned at how many products out there have active ingredients far below those numbers,” Stone says.

Fortunately for Stone Soap, as the hand sanitizer business subsided, the car wash business rebounded. “Even though (the car wash business is) slow during the summer months in the Midwest and East, it came raging back,” Stone says.

For the immediate future, Stone Soap plans to continue manufacturing hand sanitizer as well as car wash detergent and biopesticides — but, according to Stone, it may not be a permanent staple in its product portfolio.

“When you’re a manufacturer and have the flexibility to produce a variety of products, you go where the need is,” Stone says. “We were fortunate to have the infrastructure to ramp up very quickly when the need was critical. If in nine months hand sanitizer becomes a commodity item and too many people are making it, and we decide the need isn’t there, we’ll move our manufacturing to where it’s best suited.”

5,000 gallons: Current weekly production of hand sanitizer

50,000 gallons: Weekly capacity of plant

120,000 square feet: Stone Soap plant

Source: Stone Soap Co. NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020 || DBUSINESS.COM 103

S P EC I A L A DV E RT I S I N G S EC T I O N

STAFFING Q&A

EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON TOP STAFFING CONCERNS

Finding, placing, and maintaining top talent in workplaces can be a challenge even in the best of times. Today’s hiring and employment landscape is affected by a number of factors — not just COVID-19 — and agencies, HR teams, and legal counsel must adapt to help the employers they serve stay competitive and remain profitable.

Whether it’s staying abreast of emerging issues in the labor market to assure businesses are protected against loss; connecting the right, qualified individuals with the right organizations and positions; or creating an employee-focused environment that increases retention and reduces turnover, the realm of staffing and recruiting is both complex and nuanced.

As new circumstances unfold and dictate the course of actions, it pays to be nimble, aware, and adequately responsive. The experts in this section offer their knowledge and advice on the topics that most concern business leaders as they navigate an ever-changing, sometimes unpredictable climate.

S P EC I A L A DV E RT I S I N G S EC T I O N

STAFFING Q&A Q: Forbes has ranked Grand Valley State University No. 1 in Michigan of America’s Best Employers. What role did Human Resources play?

A: Grand Valley State University is a student-centered college and all 3,800 faculty and staff know it’s an important part of their role to keep that focus. We guide ourselves by creating a campus that is welcoming to everyone, including employees.

In Human Resources, we focus our attention on employees and their well-being — from pay and benefits to development and inclusivity.

We work hard to innovate and ensure we keep

our employees at the center when designing programs or implementing policies. It has paid off in low turnover and high engagement.

Working with the challenges brought by COVID-19 has meant providing resources on working remotely and communicating our employee assistance program, health and safety guidelines, and more, to ensure faculty and staff feel well informed and understand the decisions made by university administrators.

GVSU

Gregory Sanial Vice President of Finance and Administration 3080 James H. Zumberge Hall 1 Campus Dr. Allendale, MI 49401 616-331-2188 gvsu.edu/hro hro@gvsu.edu Advertisement on page 72

Q: Why should staffing and recruiting companies regularly review and update their noncompete agreements?

A: Many times, staffing companies don’t realize until it’s too late that their non-compete agreements and the restrictive covenants within them — if they’re present at all — are not defined well enough. In today’s business and employment climate, with vendors, subcontractors, and suppliers in the mix, the term “client” has become ambiguous, opening the door for employees to break their agreements with few or no repercussions. While the specialized labor and employment law team at Plunkett Cooney can assist in litigation in these instances, it may be difficult for staffing companies to receive a favorable ruling from the bench.

Instead, we at Plunkett Cooney advise a

preventive approach. Rather than using a boilerplate or outdated non-compete agreement with a restrictive covenant that could be too broad or potentially inaccurate, companies should be narrowly tailoring these documents in terms of the nature of the business and prohibited competition, temporal scope, and geographic coverage.

Investing just an hour or two, once a year, with one of our experts to make that up-front analysis could protect the time, effort, and money put into recruiting and placing employees — and save staffing and recruiting companies from heartache and financial loss down the road.

Plunkett Cooney

Labor and Employment Law Practice Group Courtney L. Nichols Partner and Co-Leader 38505 Woodward Ave., Ste. 100 Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304 248-594-6360 plunkettcooney.com plunkettinfo@plunkettcooney.com

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Q: What staffing strategies are recommended during COVID-19?

A: While we can’t completely predict the future, the basic strategy to protect your business has not changed. Robust workforce planning offers protection from unforeseen events. Involve managers in clarifying organizational goals and the talent needed to make the most of your current and future opportunities.

An important yet often overlooked staffing strategy is evaluating internal talent. Some current talent may be less visible due to furlough, lay-off or termination. Develop touch points to communicate with talent who have made positive contributions to your organization in the past. When an opening occurs, consider existing talent first.

Develop communication and retention plans to ensure your workforce has the support they need to excel. Does your organization have a solid brand as an employer? What is the perception of your organization with external stakeholders? Your employer brand affects

recruitment, retention and engagement of your current workforce.

Now is also the time to evaluate your staffing process to ensure the right talent is secured as quickly as possible. Are you conducting virtual conversations and interviews? What about virtual job fairs? Colleges and faculty are great sources of talent. Encourage employees to be active on professional networking platforms such as LinkedIn and involved with professional or industry associations.

In summary, understand how your current and recent internal talent compares to current and future opportunities. Communicate and support your talent supply. Ensure a solid employer brand and employee value proposition.

Innovate your staffing process. Be involved with the technologies, colleges, networking platforms, and associations relevant to your future. This time of pause is critical to pivoting your business in the wake of COVID-19.

Walsh

Chris Emmons, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP Professor, Management 3838 Livernois Rd. Troy, MI 48083 248-823-1600 walshcollege.edu Advertisement on page 15

Exec Life || Opinion

Brain Health

Recent studies suggest a large majority of people don’t fully recover from concussions, as was previously believed, which could lead to larger problems if left untreated.

C

BY DR. RANDALL BENSON

oncerns about head injuries have types of brain injury were shown to be demonreached the public’s awareness in strable with our advanced imaging methods.

CNS is delivering on its mission. With rethe past decade largely because they were recognized as the “sig- search studies involving former professional nature injury” of the Gulf Wars, football players, Gulf War veterans, and civilian in addition to growing worries TBI injuries, CNS is able to classify individual regarding the long-term consequences experi- patients by pathology and severity at millimeter scale. Demonstrating microhemorrhages as well enced by professional football players.

What is still underappreciated is the high as tiny tears in the brain’s white matter tracts, rate of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the ci- the previously undetectable can now be seen and vilian population owing to motor vehicle ac- even correlated with neurological impairments.

These advances are even being cidents, falls, and occupational “WHAT IS STILL used in the courtroom to demoninjuries and assaults, including UNDERAPPRECIATED IS strate injuries in TBI patients who domestic abuse.

THE HIGH RATE OF might otherwise be dismissed as According to the Centers for TRAUMATIC BRAIN malingerers or as having purely Disease Control, TBI has a highINJURY (TBI) IN THE psychological issues. Armed with er annual incidence (2.8 million) CIVILIAN POPULATION.” the ability to actually visualize the than heart attacks (800,000).

While there has been a trend toward milder se- damage to the brain tissue, CNS has been able to verity over the last few decades, the rate of con- determine when symptoms aren’t caused by incussion, or mild TBI, has been steadily increasing. jury to brain tissue but are caused by damage to Importantly, several recent studies suggest other structures, particularly the pituitary gland that the large majority of people do not fully re- or delicate structures of the inner ear. Being able cover from their concussions, as was previously to visualize damage to brain tissue allows clinibelieved. In fact, it appears very good outcomes cians to rule out brain injury and then perform occur in only half of all cases, with lingering diagnostic procedures for pituitary and inner problems in the other half, often reducing qual- ear damage, which are typically treatable and ity of life and vocational ability. Furthermore, a even reversible.

CNS is currently investigating the broad large study conducted at VA medical centers nationally has found that even a single concussion positive effects of human growth hordoubles the risk of developing dementia; more mone (hGH) in former NFL players severe brain injuries raise the risk to an alarm- who are deficient in the hormone because of multiple head trauma. While ing fourfold increase.

To improve outcomes in brain injuries, the the amelioration in many symptoms Center for Neurological Studies in Detroit, a with hGH leads to a greatly improved nonprofit organization, was founded in 2011. quality of life in most people, we’re inCNS has its roots in the departments of neu- vestigating the longer-term benefits rology and radiology at Wayne State University to cognition, brain structural metand the Detroit Medical Center, where Mark rics, and reducing the dementia Haacke — a professor of biomedical engineering risk in this high-risk group.

CNS also is beginning a secand radiology — and I co-directed the program in traumatic brain injury research that brought ond phase of research involving together an interdisciplinary faculty-sharing re- brain-injured military veterans who are experiencing extreme search interest in brain injury.

Our team developed a more sensitive and ac- difficulties reintegrating into cicurate way of imaging brain injuries. This devel- vilian life. Using a diagnostic and opment led to the founding of CNS, which has treatment algorithm developed by endeavored to leverage a new ability to refine CNS, the pilot study demonstrated sigdiagnoses and tailor treatments to optimize out- nificant improvement in quality of life and comes for individual patients. Eventually, other even cognitive measures for veterans.

DR. RANDALL BENSON is a nationally regarded behavioral neurologist and imaging neuroscientist. He is a co-founder and medical director of the Center for Neurological Studies.

106 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Insofar as the two studies cited involve highrisk populations, the goal is to apply what is learned to the broader population of persons with TBI. We’ve been evaluating the full range of patients with TBIs, and it’s clear that all patients with a head injury are at risk for any and all of the symptoms, including “non-brain” traumatic injuries, e.g., pituitary and neurosensory.

This capability is more vital now than ever, with the increasing rate of TBI in the U.S. and minimal advances in the management and outcomes of brain injuries in the last several decades. The CNS is changing this paradigm.

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“What I’m seeing is that manufacturing (in Michigan) is roaring back,” said Sime Curkovic, a professor of management at Western Michigan University’s Haworth College of Business. “If we get a handle on COVID-19, there is every indication that we are going to be fully fine and back to normal.”

virtual presentation

Please join DBusiness for a virtual presentation of its 2021 Michigan Economic Forecast, where we will examine what’s in store for the new year, how COVID-19 may continue to affect the economy, and how new leaders in Washington, D.C. can help or hinder growth opportunities in the region and state.

Out On The Town EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES SPONSORED BY DBUSINESS 2020 NATIONAL PHILANTHROPY DAY: CHANGE THE WORLD WITH A GIVING HEART

Each year, the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Detroit Chapter throws one of the nation’s largest local celebrations of National Philanthropy Day. This event honors our community’s individual, corporate, and foundation philanthropy. On November 22, National Philanthropy Day and our community’s honorees will be highlighted in a special Detroit Public Television show, which will profile our community’s philanthropy leaders and the organizations they support. The show will also include an important dialogue among Detroit leaders about the role of philanthropy as our community recovers from COVID-19 and addresses important racial and social issues. Please visit www.npddet.org for more information about the program, becoming a sponsor, or submitting your distinguished volunteers!

CRIME STOPPERS OF MICHIGAN’S RECOGNITION EVENT AND CHILDREN’S HOLIDAY WONDERLAND

Crime Stoppers of Michigan will present its Recognition Event and Children’s Holiday Wonderland on Saturday, Dec. 5, at Wayne County Community College, Northwest Campus, from 2 to 6 p.m. Crime Stoppers programs are a resource to seven southeast Michigan counties and more than 200 law enforcement agencies charged with keeping us safe. Monies raised help sponsor the Children’s Holiday Wonderland, which puts smiles on the faces of children who have endured enormous sadness resulting from being a victim of a crime or losing someone to criminal activity. Losing someone means no more birthday parties, backyard gatherings, holiday gatherings, or other family activities to share. The laughter, hugs, guidance, sense of security, and opportunities to say, “I love you,” are forever gone. Holidays approaching represent great challenges for these families. For sponsor opportunities or event details, please contact Shirley Schuler at shirley@michiganalliance.org or 313-922-5000, ext. 114

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From the Top || Largest Hospitals

Largest Hospital Systems in Michigan (Listed by 2019 Operating Revenue) 1. SPECTRUM HEALTH 100 Michigan Ave. NE Grand Rapids 866-989-7999 spectrumhealth.org President/CEO: Tina Freese Decker 2019 Revenue: $7.2B 2018 Revenue: $6B 2019 Employees: 31,000 Operations: Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital; Spectrum Health Reed City Hospital; Spectrum Health United Hospital; Spectrum Health Special Care Hospital; Spectrum Health Zeeland Community Hospital; Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital; Spectrum Health Ludington Hospital; Spectrum Health Big Rapids Hospital; Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital; Spectrum Health Lakeland; Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial; Spectrum Health Kelsey Hospital; Spectrum Health Pennock; Priority Health 2. HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM 1 Ford Place Detroit 800-436-7936 henryford.com President/CEO: Wright Lassiter III 2019 Revenue:$6.3B 2018 Revenue: $5.8B 2019 Employees: 33,000 Operations: Henry Ford Hospital; Henry Ford Allegiance Health; Henry Ford Macomb Hospital; Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital; Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital; Henry Ford Kingswood Hospital 3. MCLAREN HEALTH CARE One McLaren Parkway Grand Blanc 810-342-1100 mclaren.org President/CEO: Philip Incarnati 2019 Revenue: $6B 2018 Revenue: $5B 2019 Employees: 26,000 Operations: McLaren Bay Region; McLaren Caro Region; McLaren Central Michigan; McLaren Flint; McLaren Greater Lansing; McLaren Lapeer Region; McLaren Macomb; McLaren Northern Michigan; McLaren Oakland; McLaren Port Huron; McLaren Thumb Region; Karmanos Cancer Institute 4. BEAUMONT HEALTH 26901 Beaumont Blvd.

Southfield

248-898-5000 beaumont.org President/CEO: John Fox 2019 Revenue: $4.7B 2018 Revenue: $4.7B 2019 Employees: 38,000 Operations: Beaumont Hospital, Dearborn; Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills; Beaumont Hospital, Grosse Pointe; Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak; Beaumont Hospital, Taylor; Beaumont Hospital, Trenton; Beaumont Hospital, Troy; Beaumont Hospital, Wayne 5. MICHIGAN MEDICINE/ UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CENTERS 1500 E. Medical Center Dr. Ann Arbor 734-936-4000 uofmhealth.org Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs University of Michigan, Dean, U-M Medical School, CEO, Michigan Medicine: Marschall S. Runge, M.D., Ph.D. 2019 Revenue: $4.3B 2018 Revenue: $4.7B 2019 Employees: 26,468 Operations: University Hospital; C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital; Von Voightlander Women’s Hospital; Frankel Cardiovascular Center; Rogel Cancer Center 6. ST. JOSEPH HERCY HEALTH SYSTEM AND MERCY HEALTH 1600 S. Canton Center Rd., Ste. 310 Canton 844-237-3627 stjoeshealth.org; mercyhealth.com CEO: Rob Casalou 2019 Revenue: $3.77B 2018 Revenue: $3.8B 2019 Employees: 27,545 Operations: St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor; St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea; St. Joseph Mercy Livingston; St. Joseph Mercy Oakland; St. Mary Mercy Livonia; Mercy Health Muskegon; Mercy Health Grand Rapids; Mercy Health Lakeshore Campus 7 ASCENSION MICHIGAN 28000 Dequindre Rd. Warren 586-753-0911 President/CEO/Interim Ministry Market Executive, Ascension Michigan: Tim Stover, M.D. 2019 Revenue: NA 2018 Revenue: $3.86B

110 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

WELLNESS CENTER Spectrum Health System, Ludington Hospital

2019 Employees: NA Operations: Fifteen hospitals and more than 150 sites of care across 30 counties, including Ascension Borgess Hospital; Ascension Borgess–Lee Hospital; Ascension Borgess–Pipp Hospital; Ascension Brighton Center for Recovery; Ascension Genesys Hospital; Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital (Warren Campus and Madison Heights Campus); Ascension Providence Hospital (Southfield Campus and Novi Campus); Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital; Ascension River District Hospital; Ascension St. John Hospital; Ascension St. Joseph Hospital; Ascension St. Mary’s Hospital; Ascension Standish Hospital 8. SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM 1215 E. Michigan Ave. Lansing 517-364-1000 sparrow.org President/CEO: Dennis Swan 2019 Revenue: $1.34B 2018 Revenue: $2.7B 2019 Employees: NA Operations: Sparrow Hospital; Sparrow Ionia Hospital; Sparrow Clinton Hospital; Sparrow Carson Hospital 9. DETROIT MEDICAL CENTER 3990 John R St. Detroit 313-745-1250 dmc.org President/CEO: Audrey

Gregory, Ph.D., R.N. 2019 Revenue: $1.1B (est.)

2018 Revenue: $1.1B (est.)

2019 Employees: 9,192 Operations: DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan; DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital; DMC Harper University Hospital; DMC Heart Hospital; DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital; DMC Hutzel Women’s Hospital; DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan; DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital 10. MIDMICHIGAN HEALTH 4000 Wellness Dr. Midland 989-839-3000 midmichigan.org President/CEO: Diane Postler-Slattery 2019 Revenue: $959.1M 2018 Revenue: $831.3M 2019 Employees: 8,208 Operations: MidMichigan Medical Center – Alpena; MidMichigan Medical Center – Clare; MidMichigan Medical Center – Gladwin; MidMichigan Medical Center – Gratiot; MidMichigan Medical Center – Midland; MidMichigan Medical Center – Mount Pleasant; MidMichigan Medical Center – West Branch; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Auburn; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Beaverton; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Clare; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Farwell; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Gladwin; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Harrison;

MidMichigan Medical Offices – Midland; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Roscommon; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Sanford; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Shepard; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Alma; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Breckenridge; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Edmore; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Ithaca; MidMichigan Medical Offices – Pigeon; MidMichigan Health Park – Freeland; MidMichigan Health Park – Bay; MidMichigan Health Park – Gladwin; MidMichigan Health Park – Harrison; MidMichigan Health Park – Houghton Lake; MidMichigan Health Park – West Branch; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Alma; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Clare; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Freeland; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Gladwin; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Houghton Lake; MidMichigan Urgent Care – Midland; MidMichigan Urgent Care – West Branch; MidMichigan Home Care; Advanced PET Imaging Network*; ConnectCare*; MidMichigan Health Network*; Great Lakes Bay Surgery and Endoscopy Center*; MidMichigan Collaborative Care Organization; MidMichigan Health Foundation; MidMichigan Physicians Group; Mount Pleasant Surgery Center*; Open MRI – Mount Pleasant* * Joint venture

From the Top || Largest Multitenant Office Buildings

Largest Multitenant Office Buildings (Listed by Size) ONE CAMPUS MARTIUS 1 Campus Martius, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 1,697,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 366,123 Office Rent Avg.: NA Owner/Broker: 1000 Webward ONE DETROIT CENTER 500 Woodward Ave., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 1,000,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 66,439 Office Rent Avg.: NA Owner/Broker: 500 Webward PENOBSCOT BUILDING* 645 Griswold St., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 996,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 398,000 Office Rent Avg.: $21-25 Owner/Broker: Triple Properties Detroit DOMINO’S FARMS OFFICE PARK 24 Frank Lloyd Wright Dr., Ann Arbor Total Sq. Ft.: 937,203 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 40,000 Office Rent Avg.: $32-36 Owner/Broker: Domino’s Farms Holding FIRST NATIONAL BUILDING 660 Woodward Ave., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 831,918 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 51,411 Office Rent Avg.: NA Owner/Broker: 660 Woodward Associates BEAUMONT SERVICE CENTER (FORMERLY FIRST CENTER OFFICE PLAZA) 26901 Beaumont Blvd., Southfield Total Sq. Ft.: 687,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 125,000 Office Rent Avg.: $15 Owner/Broker: Beaumont Health GUARDIAN BUILDING 500 Griswold St., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 470,557 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 14,806 Office Rent Avg.: $20-25 Owner/Broker: 400 Monroe Associates and Beanstalk Real Estate Solutions THE FISHER BUILDING 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 635,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 111,000 Office Rent Avg.: $24 Owner/Broker: Fisher 2015 Acquisition/JLL DETROIT EXECUTIVE PLAZA* 1200 Sixth St., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 612,890 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 600,000

FOCAL POINT One Campus Martius, Detroit

Office Rent Avg.: $25.75 Owner/Broker: Detroit Executive Plaza SOUTHFIELD TOWN CENTER – 1000 TOWN CENTER 1000 Town Center, Southfield Total Sq. Ft.: 597,346 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 204,803 Office Rent Avg.: $16 + $8 for electric Owner/Broker: SL Town Center Realty RENCEN – TOWER 200* 200 Renaissance Center, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 593,480 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 277,000 Office Rent Avg.: $25.50 Owner/Broker: CBRE RENCEN – TOWER 100* 100 Renaissance Center, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 587,973 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 88,000 Office Rent Avg.: $25.50 Owner/Broker: CBRE SOUTHFIELD TOWN CENTER — 3000 TOWN CENTER 3000 Town Center, Southfield Total Sq. Ft.: 586,038 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 50,289

112 DBUSINESS || NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

Office Rent Avg.: $16 + $8 for electric Owner/Broker: SL Town Center Realty RENCEN – TOWER 300* 300 Renaissance Center, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 584,531 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 0 Office Rent Avg.: $25.50 Owner/Broker: CBRE RENCEN – TOWER 400* 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 576,449 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 55,000 Office Rent Avg.: $25.50 Owner/Broker: CBRE SOUTHFIELD TOWN CENTER – 2000 TOWN CENTER 2000 Town Center, Southfield Total Sq. Ft.: 556,014 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 77,062 Office Rent Avg.: $16 + $8 for electric Owner/Broker: SL Town Center Realty 444 MICHIGAN AVE. 444 Michigan Ave., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 551,453 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 402,538

Office Rent Avg.: NA Owner/Broker: Cushman and Wakefield MASONIC TEMPLE 434-500 Temple St., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 550,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 125,000 Office Rent Avg.: $19 Owner/Broker: Masonic Temple Association PNC CENTER 755 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy Total Sq. Ft.: 535,000 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 133,233 Office Rent Avg.: $22.50 Owner/Broker: 755 Towers Associates/Friedman Real Estate AMERICAN CENTER 27777 Franklin Rd., Southfield Total Sq. Ft.: 512,374 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 58,254 Office Rent Avg.: $22 Owner/Broker: Cushman and Wakefield THE QUBE (FORMERLY CHASE BUILDING) 611 Woodward Ave., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 528,932 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 47,724

Office Rent Avg.: NA Owner/Broker: 611 Webward STROH RIVER PLACE 300 River Place, Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 502,308 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 236,641 Office Rent Avg.: $22-24 + electric Owner/Broker: 300 River Place NEW CENTER ONE BUILDING 3031 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit Total Sq. Ft.: 507,587 Avail. Sq. Ft.: 79,673 Office Rent Avg.: $19.50 Owner/Broker: NAI Farbman Group *Did not respond to inquiries; shows 2019 data Source for both lists: DBusiness research

Change the World with a Giving Heart 2 0 2 0 A N N U A L N AT I O N A L P H I L A N T H R O P Y D AY Each year, the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Detroit Chapter throws one of the nation’s largest local celebrations of National Philanthropy Day. This event honors our community’s individual, corporate and foundation philanthropy.

In mid-November, National Philanthropy Day and our community’s honorees will be highlighted in a special Detroit Public Television show, which will profile our community’s philanthropy leaders and the organizations they support. The show will also include an important dialogue among Detroit leaders about the role of philanthropy as our community recovers from Covid-19 and addresses important racial and social justice issues.

Please visit www.npddet.org for more information about the program, becoming a sponsor, or submitting your distinguished volunteers!

Closing Bell || Architecture

Master of Modernism

Albert Kahn revolutionized industry, yet never lost sight of classical architecture.

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had its own glassy “Crystal Palace” in Highland Park, where the automaker built the revolutionary Model T. Another aspect of modernism is reproducibility; the gridwork gigantically repeated itself not only on-site, but it was also imitated worldwide.

Acclaim for Albert Kahn Associates (the company existed under a variety of names during the years) led to commissions not only for copies of Ford’s Rouge Works of the 1920s but also for original houses, hospitals, ornamental office towers, and even the graceful Livingston Memorial Lighthouse on Belle Isle.

Kahn did two dozen projects on the U-M campus in Ann Arbor, including wonders like Hill Auditorium. He developed military installations for the United States government in World War I and, with Henry Ford’s crucial blessing, he built an industrial base of several hundred factories for the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1932.

Kahn liked to credit good luck and hard work for his success, which led to personal earnings of $219,070 in 1922 ($3.4 million today). His staff totaled about 650 people, as huge commissions came in during World War II. It was quite a testament to the man who had gone to work at 13 years old, grinding ink and running errands for architect John L. Scott. Another German immigrant, Julius Melchers, the woodcarver, gave him Saturday-morning drawing lessons.

Eventually landing at George Mason’s practice, Kahn found his drawing ability paid off,

DESIGN FOR THE AGES Albert Kahn’s use of steel reinforced concrete columns accelerated production in the manufacturing industry.

and he emerged as the firm’s top designer of private houses. Winning a scholarship in 1890, he spent months scrutinizing Europe’s architectural masterpieces and gained fluency in traditional styles so he could reinterpret neoclassical features on the General Motors Building or a Renaissance apartment in the Detroit Athletic Club’s Fresco Room.

The firm’s principal died in 1942, but Albert Kahn Associates still flourishes in Detroit, having recently moved to the Fisher Building, the architect’s 1928 masterpiece. Spokeswoman Caitlin Wunderlich says observances of the company’s 125th anniversary started in September, with a walking tour of Kahn’s downtown buildings. A book is planned for 2021, and the Albert Kahn Legacy Foundation has been launched. “For having designed 20,000 projects, he hasn’t been given enough recognition,” Wunderlich maintains.

Claire Zimmerman, an associate professor of architecture history at U-M, who also has a book on Kahn coming out next year, elaborates on the notion the profession’s elite members disapproved of Kahn’s work for industry and the military. She writes: “So on two points he struck out with his fellow architects — and more importantly with their historians and critics.”

But he had the last laugh — his work still dazzles the mind and soul.

COURTESY OF ALBERT KAHN ASSOCIATES INC.

P

utting his brother, Julius, through the University of Michigan paid off big while Albert Kahn was still a young man. A prodigy and the oldest offspring in a family of German-Jewish immigrants, Kahn was the 22-year-old design chief at Mason & Rice — a Detroit architectural leader — by 1891, and had the means to help with Julius’ tuition.

The engineering graduate returned the favor by patenting a unique means of reinforcing concrete with steel. The innovation, a marked improvement over wooden structures, fully established Kahn’s own firm, founded with partners in 1895, and changed the march of industry.

Packard Building No. 10 in Detroit, the method’s first full expression, astonished the world in 1903. The two-story building stood on a footprint of 19,320 square feet and its support columns were spaced an unprecedented 32 feet apart. Bracing heavy machinery, the new design doubled as a purveyor of natural light and ventilation.

“The resulting airiness must have dizzied the first workers to walk in, accustomed as they were to the dark, dungeon-like nature of early factories,” writes Michael H. Hodges in his new book, “Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit.”

The design’s purity and symmetry fascinated European modernists. Across town, Henry Ford took notice. By the decade’s end, Ford Motor Co.

BY RONALD AHRENS

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