Steve Ryan, 37

Partner and Head of Operations, Detroit Steel Wheel Co., Detroit

Employees: 12

Revenue: NA

Detroit-born Steve Ryan spent most of his formative years in the Upper Peninsula, but he returned downstate as a young adult, believing the Motor City would be a better place to make a living. What he didn’t anticipate was the experience he had when working for a Tier 1 tool and die shop.

“I realized the way employees were treated was, for that company, just as an expendable part,” Ryan recalls. “They believed there was nothing the employee brought to them (other than) the fact that they made the CEOs and people like that money. I watched key people get let go for no reason. I was working 100 hours a week, and this wasn’t something I wanted to invest in.”

He decided to start his own company, and he knew he would only take on a partner who was in alignment with his vision. Enter Adam Genei, who teamed up with Ryan to launch Mobwheels. Initially, the partners focused on aftermarket treatments for custom cars, particularly black Lincolns, but eventually they wanted to create real wealth by introducing their own product. In 2013, they developed Detroit Steel Wheel, a large-diameter steel wheel that’s custom-built for each car.

While many people advised Ryan and Genei to utilize overseas manufacturing facilities for the product, they were determined to build Detroit Steel Wheels in Detroit — and find a way to make it affordable. “We continually invest in our infrastructure,” Ryan says. “We’ll go back monthly and ask, How can we do this better and cheaper without cutting out quality or sacrificing corners?”

It looks like a brilliant move today, considering the snarled supply chains between the U.S. and places like China. But it took a lot of commitment to make it work.

“When we started, there was one machine in the country that could even handle the product we make,” Ryan says. “Everything else was shipped overseas, and it was a real challenge to shore up domestic supply.”

The partners were committed to their vision, and today the company is hitting its 10-year mark in a strong position. For Ryan, who never went to college, the journey has inspired him to encourage students to pursue education in skilled trades. “Not everyone learns through a textbook,” he says. “It doesn’t mean you’re dumb. It just means you learn from a hands-on experience.”

Dan Calabrese

Jimmy Saros, 34

Astar wide receiver in high school and college, Jimmy Saros didn’t dedicate his entire summers to preparing for the next season. Rather, he replaced roofs for his family’s business, Saros Real Estate in Grosse Pointe, and earned a real estate license when he was 18 years old.

“Growing up, my primary focus was athletics, but my dad worked seven days a week and I was very much around the business,” Saros says. “In 2012, right out of college (at Brown University), I joined Marcus & Millichap in New York City and became an investment real estate broker. It was like earning a business degree in and of itself.”

In 2017, he and his wife decided to return home, and Saros joined the family company full time. Two years later, he was running the majority of the operations, which includes residential and commercial real estate sales, leasing, and research and advisory services. At the same time, he launched D Land Group Property Management in Grosse Pointe, which today maintains more than 500 homes.

“When I took over all of the operations (in 2021), we brought on some new people, and I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with a very good team,” says Saros, who, over the last decade, has personally closed more than $400 million in transactions. “Coming from Marcus & Millichap, and seeing how they operated and what the structure was, I brought some of that back with me.”

Since he joined the company six years ago, Saros Real Estate has increased annual sales by an average of more than 40 percent. Along the way, he became the youngest member appointed to the Wayne County Building Authority, and he’s also the youngest commissioner on the City of Grosse Pointe Park’s Planning Commission.

“I love the competitive spirit of real estate, and I love supporting our team,” he says. “We have the right people in the right seats, we’ve hired some younger agents, and we have two support team members who each have been with us for more than 20 years. I also brought on a director of operations, who was my first hire. She’s been instrumental to our growth, and she allows me to focus on revenuefocused activities.”

R.J. King

President and CEO, Saros Real Estate, Grosse Pointe Employees: 24 Revenue: $80M College: Brown University

Dr. Nishtha Sareen, 39

Inter ventional Cardiologist and Medical Director, Women’s Hear t Program

Ascension Michigan, Warren

Employees: 139,000

Revenue: $28B (FY) College: University of Nevada-Reno

Arecent Thursday for Dr Nishtha

Sareen started with a 4 a m call on the urgent case of a 50-something female heart-attack patient at Ascension St Mary ’ s Hospital in Saginaw

As Sareen must remain within a 30 min utes ’ drive from the hospital when on-call, she dashed in from her pied-à-terre less than 20 miles away in Frankenmuth.

“I did a heart catheterization on her, and what we found was that she didn’t have the blockage that you open up with stents,” she says “ What she had is something called microvascular dysfunction It’ s very interesting, because that’ s the kind of heart disease that affects women disproportion ately compared to men, particularly women of color”

Testing for microvascular dysfunction is generally inadequate, so the chest pains may be misdiagnosed as anxiety or gastric distress, while patients bear increased risk of fatal heart attack or strokes “We have failed as a medical community to recognize and treat it,” Sareen notes

The practitioner has risen early since she was 3 years old and lived in Udaipur, India. Before school, her mother, Madhu Sareen, trained young “Nish” and her sis ters in two classical dances: Kathak and Bharatanatyam “She instilled that disci pline in us early,” Sareen recalls

Devendra Sareen, a pediatrician, got his daughter started in medicine. “He would bring me to his clinic and have me listen to these little children who had valve disease from rheumatic fever,” she explains

After primary studies at the Rabin dranath Tagore Medical College in India, she brought her dreams and passion to the United States Today, as director of the women ’ s heart program at Ascension Mich igan, where she splits time between the St Mary ’ s cath lab and an office at Providence Park Novi, she’s opening new clinics this year in St. Johns, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, and — “I’ m still working on it” — Macomb County, another underserved area

“I hope, by 2025, we will be able to spread it nationally Then we ’ re partnering with international organizations. Rotary is one of them. So that’s my dream project, by 2028, to have a global impact ”

The accomplishment will be as much the result of her parents’ and mentors’ actions, she says, as her own

— Ronald Ahrens