Joe Giacomino, 35

Chef and Co-founder, Four Man Ladder Hospitality, Bloomfield Hills

Employees: 100 •

Revenue: NA

College: Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts

Joe Giacomino has had a rather meteoric rise in the restaurant industry, from a dishwasher as a teenager in his hometown near Madison, Wis., to co-founder of the Bloomfield Hills-based Four Man Ladder Hospitality group in his mid-30s.

“When I was 16, one of the cooks at the restaurant I was working at asked me if I wanted to learn how to make an omelet,” Giacomini recalls. “I figured that was better than washing dishes, so I started doing that. When I was 18, I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago.”

After graduating and doing a couple of internships, Giacomino landed a position at the now-closed Table Fifty-Two in Chicago. He also served as chef de cuisine at Quince Restaurant in Evanston, Ill., and at Jam Restaurant in Chicago. He closed out his Chicago era as executive chef of A10 Hyde Park. That establishment closed in 2018, two years after he came to metro Detroit, where his three business partners were raised.

“We’d been talking about doing our own thing for years,” he says. “Between the four of us, we’ve been part of opening 24 different restaurants for other people.

“They started talking about the resurgence in downtown Detroit and were really excited about it. I came up for a visit and I could sense there was something happening here, for sure. We found the space Grey Ghost is in and thought it was a good opportunity to get off the ground.”

After Grey Ghost came Second Best Detroit, and now Basan, which recently opened in the historic Eddystone Building near the northwest entrance to Little Caesars Arena.

With more corporate responsibilities, Giacomino’s time in the kitchen is waning. “We have great culinary teams at each location,” he says. “A lot of my day-to-day activities are in more of an advisory role.”

That advisory role is likely to expand as he says the group’s goal is to grow, which shows that his instinct to make the move to the Motor City was the right one. “It was a little bit risky when we first made the move (to Detroit), but it’s turned out to be the best thing we could have done.”

Tim Keenan

While still a student at Novi High School, Jeff Glover sold overstuffed sofas at Art Van Furniture Inc. and says he was “pretty successful” at it. Noticing his acumen, another salesperson at the store suggested he try real estate.

“As soon as I turned 18, I went for my license,” Glover says. “I sold 32 homes my first year in the business.” He soon took on a managerial role with Coldwell Banker Schweitzer Real Estate, where he was “essentially a broker” in the company’s Livonia office. During his early 20s, he also recruited, trained, and coached agents.

“In January of 2009, I decided to open up my own shop,” he says. The move came just after the national economy took a wicked turn, but proof that he managed to thrive is seen in today’s Live Unreal Cos. (the name comes from the mission to live “unreal” experiences in order to deliver similar excitement to customers). Besides the high-volume Glover Agency, the holding company has six Keller Williams Realty Inc. franchises in Detroit and a seventh in Kalamazoo.

But there’s more: Glover’s shop is one-stop. Titleocity handles title and escrow work, Spotlight Staging & Design “deliver(s) magazine-worthy staging” of homes for sale, and Glover Group Property Management promises clients a “stress-free” experience. Glover U. is for coaching and training, and Live Unreal Media, a recent addition, provides photography and video services for in-house productions and for clients.

The marketing and media represent “an area of creativity I have that’s unique,” Glover says. A good example of how strong that knack is can be seen in the videos supporting Glover’s Heroes, a nonprofit organization that assists nurses and caregivers, teachers, first responders, and military veterans with the cleanup and renovation of properties.

With so many simultaneous enterprises, it’s natural to wonder if Glover has any spare time. “I definitely spend a good amount of time working, there’s no doubt,” he admits, but he says he also enjoys snowmobiling in northern Michigan, plays golf, and frequents the Detroit Yacht Club. It’s the same formula he wants for his employees: to love life and be proud of their company.

Ronald Ahrens

Jeff Glover, 38

Owner, Live Unreal Cos., Plymouth

Employees: 600 agents • Revenue: $38.5M

College: Attended Oakland Community College

Before there was Silicon Valley, Milwaukee Junction in Detroit was considered the brain center of America. Streets such as Milwaukee, Baltimore, Piquette, and others, located in the greater New Center neighborhood, were the birthplace of mass production, the first moving assembly line, and the Ford Model T, among other innovations.

In a nod to that history, Myles Hamby, senior development manager for The Platform, a multifaceted real estate company in Detroit, is overseeing the conversion of a former Studebaker plant, originally built in 1920, into 161 units of workforce housing. Construction on the project, called Piquette Flats — part of a National Historic District — is set to begin this spring. The development is expected to open in summer 2024.

“There’s strong demand throughout Detroit for affordable housing,” says Hamby, who grew up in Southern California, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in global studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “As the city seeks to grow its population, projects like Piquette Flats offer a great opportunity to enhance the quality of life.”

Before earning a master’s degree in urban planning at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Hamby worked in Kansas City in the real estate field, where he met his future wife. “After we got married, we moved to Detroit in 2012 when I attended U-M and she was going to Wayne State University (in Detroit),” he says. “I wanted to practice what I was learning in the classroom and apply it to the city.”

In addition to working as food access coordinator at Eastern Market, Hamby and two fellow students took on the redesign of two adjoining structures at Woodward Avenue and Baltimore Street (today Baltimore Station) as part of a final class project. From there, they pitched the project to Peter Cummings, principal of The Platform, and proceeded to offer 23 residential units (a third floor was added) and commercial offerings including a Huntington Bank branch.

“Peter went on to hire all three of us, and now we’re working on projects across Midtown and New Center,” Hamby says. “I have a passion for understanding the role land plays in providing vibrant properties and communities, and what should go on a particular piece of land. I also want to understand the social and justice implications, and how a development plays a positive role in economic development, promotes community engagement, and fits into the fabric of a neighborhood.”

R.J. King