Traverse City Business News - February 2025

A WARM

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RELOCATION: BLACK WALNUT WEALTH

Black Walnut Wealth Management in Traverse City has relocated to 13919 S. W. Bay Shore Dr., Suite 104. Eric Braund, founder and CFO, says the move to the larger space allows the firm to add more staff and advisors to accommodate its growth.

DEFENSE CONFERENCE: MARCH 6

The Northern Michigan Defense Conference will be held March 6 at The Delamar hotel in Traverse City. The event, hosted by Traverse Connect and Century, LLC, is designed to connect businesses, government officials, and thought leaders to advance collaboration and innovation in Michigan’s growing defense and aerospace ecosystem. Attendees will gain insights into the federal procurement process, emerging opportunities in defense and aerospace, and best practices for doing business with the federal government. Registration available at traverseconnect.com.

ASPIRE NORTH ANNOUNCES ‘25 LEADERS

Aspire North REALTORS recently installed its board of directors for 2025. They include Deirdre Carroll, Century 21 Northland, president; Douglas Swartz, Century 21 Northland - Elk Rapids, president-elect; Jessica Brutzman, Key Realty One, immediate past president; Joe Van Antwerp, Keller Williams Northern Michigan, secretary-treasurer; Kelly Clark, The Mitten Real Estate Group, director; Tommy Corbett, RE/ MAX Bayshore, director; Jamie Grace, Century 21 Northland, director; Ken Kleinrichert, Coldwell Banker Schmidt, director; Kathy Neveu, Real Estate One - Beulah, director; Jules Yates, RE/MAX Bayshore, MLS committee chair; Kristin Hunt, Mid-Michigan Title, affiliate ambassador committee chair; and Cherese Villareal, Real Estate One - Bellaire, reverse mentor. The organization is also moving into 2025 with its new leader, CEO Alan Jeffries, who succeeds former long-time CEO Kim Pontius.

NEW HOME FOR THIRLBY CLINIC

Thirlby Clinic, PLC in Traverse City has moved after 50 years at its Front Street location to Copper Ridge. The new suite in Building D provides additional space for growth. The new address is 4110 Copper Ridge Dr., Suite 100.

HOME EXPO: FEB. 15-16

The 2025 Home Expo, hosted by the Home Builders Association of Northwest Michigan, will take place February 15-16 at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa in Acme. It will feature nearly 200 booths showcasing home design trends, innovative products, and expert advice. Tickets are available at hbagta.com ($10), or at the door ($12).

JETBLUE COMING TO TVC

JetBlue will provide seasonal service to and from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), beginning June 5 and running through October 25. The non-stop route, on an A220 aircraft that seats 140, will run three times a week on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. “We continue to make it easier than ever to get to thrilling destinations across North America this summer, while welcoming more visitors from the East Coast to our award-winning northern Michigan communities,” said Cherry Capital Airport CEO Kevin Klein in a statement. “The addition of our seventh airline continues to bolster our dedication to growing air service in and out of our region.”

GTRCF ADDS TWO DIRECTORS

The Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation recently welcomed two new community members to its board of directors, the organization’s voluntary governing body comprised of individuals from across the region. Tom Kaczynski of Grand Traverse County retired in 2023 as an executive office of Marathon Petroleum Corp., serving the organization as senior vice president, finance and treasurer. Mark Wilson, also of Grand Traverse County, is an enrolled citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Wilson’s background is in multimedia,

and leadership.

NEW LOCATION: VENTURE NORTH

Venture North Funding has moved to an office at the Commongrounds Cooperative building in Traverse City. The move puts the organization closer to a group of nonprofits and small businesses that share its mission of supporting small businesses in northwest Michigan. The office can be found at 414 E. Eighth St., Unit 201.

MENTAL HEALTH CENTER OPENS

The Grand Traverse Mental Health Crisis and Access Center has opened its doors to patients offering select services Sunday through Thursday. Located at 410 Brook St. on the Munson Medical Center campus in Traverse City, the center is open to patients of any age, regardless of their ability to pay. As part of a four-phase plan, Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority operates its welcome center in this initial phase, providing services that include behavioral health assessments, face-to-face crisis intervention, psychiatric pre-admission screening, crisis phone screening, mobile crisis services, peer support services, and referral to community services and outpatient therapy. “This is an exciting first step in a year-long journey to expand access to much-needed mental health services for our community,” said Terri Lacroix-Kelty, MHC executive director of behavioral health. “As we begin providing services, we also remain actively engaged in recruiting staff and working with the state on licensing of our adult and pediatric crisis residential units.”

CAREER & MAJORS FAIR: MARCH 6

Northwestern Michigan College’s Career & Majors Fair 2025 will be held on Thursday, March 6, at the Park Place Hotel & Conference Center in downtown Traverse City. The expanded event format allows employers to sit with faculty from NMC’s academic programs to showcase how NMC pathways can lead to employment opportunities in the region. The fair is in partnership with Northwest Michigan Works! and Networks Northwest. Employers interested in registering for the event can visit nmc.edu/career-fair.

ASPIRE NORTH REPORTS 2024 HOME SALES

December home sales marked a strong close to 2024, a year that more or less followed the same year-over-year price jumps experienced in the last half decade. According to data from local real estate group Aspire North, 188 single-family home sales in December raked in about $95 million in total sales, good for an average sale price of $505,755. That’s a bump from the average price of $457,406 across 189 sales in December 2023.

NOW OPEN: FITNESS BUSINESSES

Two new fitness-related companies are now open. Hot Yoga Grand Traverse has opened at 517 South Union St. featuring Hot/Bikram Yoga and Yoga ShapeShifting classes, plus a fresh juice program from Traverse City Juice Co. Form Modern Pilates – specializing in 50-minute XForm er high-intensity, low-impact classes – is now open at 1201 East Front St., unit B in Campus Plaza. All 10 instructors are XFormer Academy-certified.

CHEFS NOMINATED FOR TOP CULINARY AWARD

The Cooks’ Hous e chefs and co-owners Jen Blakeslee and Eric Patterson have been named semifinalists for the 2025 James Beard Awards, one of the top culinary awards in the country. The duo, who run the farm-to-table restaurant on Wellington Street in Traverse City, were announced in the “Best Chef” category in the Great Lakes region, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Finalists are planned to be announced April 2, with the winners unveiled June 16 at The Lyric Opera in Chicago. Photo credit: The Cooks’ House

Taylor Schuch, DO Kirsten Crosby, PA

Accounting for a substantial amount of workforce globally and also a large economic driver, the meetings, events and incentive industry hasn’t stopped ramping back up post pandemic. Overall, industry articles, blogs and surveys show a positive outlook trending and favorable conditions in the industry overall. Meeting planners must be experts in understanding and negotiating contracts, insurance, supply chain, operational logistics, accounting, communications, human resources, the industry of each client and sometimes magic. So, the areas of concern are vastly ranging. Across the country, there is still some strain on staffing operationally that hasn’t bounced back post COVID and some past typical behaviors for booking meetings pre-COVID are forever changed.

Global Climate Change

Felt at home by local ski hills and other winter destinations, the changing climate and natural disasters continue to be a strain on the industry. This year alone, a hurricane hit a destination of an incentive that we were planning just two weeks after the program. A fall meeting was cancelled as the impact on North Carolina was felt by many of our attendees. We host several meetings in February each year, my heart breaks thinking about how our industry will be affected by the fires in California. If we hosted one in L.A. this February, how could we even think about moving forward while people are without homes? These factors keep me on my toes and up at night.

Hotels Still Operationally Short-Staffed

Overall, I have yet to see the hotel operations across the country ramp back up to pre-pandemic staffing. For most large meetings that I am managing, staff

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‘FOREVER CHANGED’

The state of the meeting industry (aka, what keeps me up at night!)

are spread noticeably thin. Managers are managing more meetings than in the past. They are working on multiple meetings at the same time and the service level isn’t the same, even at some high-end hotel chains.

AV & Wi-Fi Costs

In 2019, global leader of in-house AV, Encore Event Technologies, was acquired by another industry heavy hitter, PSAV. Now operating under Encore, the meetings industry is often at the mercy of obscene price gouging. For the simple needs, like a screen, projector, microphone package, it comes with a price so high you could have purchased the equipment yourself… and owned it forever. I’ve seen the price for simple (not even good) Wi-Fi connectivity for attendees skyrocket post COVID and I don’t see that slowing down. In the chat groups amongst planners, I am not alone with this sentiment. While I often bring in an outside AV team with us as our producing partner, I have to negotiate with the hotel out of the gate to not pay a penalty to bring the other company with us. These prices continue to grow each meeting in our meeting budgets.

Shorter or Longer Lead Times for Booking –  It Doesn’t Matter

Pre-COVID, lead times for booking hotel space for most meetings of a certain size were predictable in that you knew what you could expect to be available at hotels given the size and timeframe before a meeting. You could count on having availability at enough hotels and have options in a short or long planning window where you didn’t feel like you were settling on your choice. That is not

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always the case now.

With six month’s notice for a mid-size meeting of 100-ish attendees, I often have to settle on an unfavorable start date or not have enough inventory for hotel rooms at the property I would prefer. There may only be one hotel as an option. I may have to be flexible with set up times or start time for the meeting.

Looking two years out, sometimes peak weeks are already filled with repeat business locking in their preferred dates, making it nearly impossible to find what I need when I need it.

We’re pushing to book as far out a possible to help with finding the best fit for our clients and still feeling like we have a choice about the property we select.

For fall meetings, when I block out religious holiday and industry conferences for our clients from optional dates to host meetings, there are very few dates to meet between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Fall is still the hottest time for most educational-based meetings.

Locally Speaking

While hotel occupancy may be high and new hotels continue to pop up in Traverse City, until Traverse City offers a few more options for hotels with ample meeting space (or even a full convention center) and supports a destination management company (DMC), it will not be a destination for all corporate business meetings. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fine and we host plenty of meetings in town. We do not have to be everything to everyone. But all of the accolades in the world won’t help our region lacking these two resources.

Many corporate groups want to come to a location and speak with a DMC for

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turn-key operations and one-stop shop. They don’t have time to call and coordinate three or four more vendors and are used to having these services readily available. DMCs manage arrival and departures at the airport, transportation, fully manage offsite dinners and venues, local décor and entertainment, optional activities in town, onsite support staff and connection to local gifts. They act as an extension of the meeting planning team. They do this work so that the busy meeting planner may focus on the meeting content, registration, attendee experience, speaker management and more. All major destinations have one or even multiple DMCs that fill this need. DMCs are a necessary function of meeting planning.

Changing Regulations

While keeping the changing meetings industry in mind and the changing industries of my clients, I also have to stay on top of changing government regulations. Thankfully, the Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM) keeps an eye on this for me so I can stay in the know and stay compliant. SBAM is the largest association for business owners in the country. They are tracking legislative changes and informing members. Currently, I’m working on plans to be ready for the new Earned Sick Time Act and I’m thankful that SBAM created a tool kit to help make sure compliance is easy.

Allison Beers is the founder and CEO of Events North. Headquartered in Traverse City, Events North is a full-service meeting management agency specializing in corporate meetings, incentives and events. Events North’s clients are based across the country and they operate meetings all over the world; EventsNorth.com.

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FROM THE DESK OF...

Mattias Johnson, Criminal Defense Attorney

By Art Bukowski

Mattias Johnson is an attorney and Traverse City native who practices mostly in criminal defense law. He was gracious enough to show us around his office high atop the city. If you have an idea for a future From The Desk Of feature, please contact Art Bukowski at abukowski@tcbusinessnews.com.

1. This is a signed Isaac Guerendo jersey. I won our fantasy football league this year (called the Big Daddy League) and the main reason was the final points scored by Guerendo of the 49ers against the Lions (but the Lions still won!) The guy who got second place in the league sent that to me.

2. I’ve been trying to get back into shape, so I’ve been doing lunchtime training with Brendan Booth at Formative Fitness downtown with a couple of friends. My staff knows that nothing gets scheduled in the lunch hour. And it’s a group thing, which has always worked better for me because then there’s people who notice if you’re not there.

3. This is the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines Manual. In Michigan, you’re sentenced on a variety of variables, so I’m in that book pretty much every day trying to figure out for people what their best and worst case scenarios are.

4. I’m a walker and I walk to court a lot, so I have to have my earmuffs. It’s cold out, and I’m not one of those guys who’s lucky enough to have that hair where they can wear a hat and take it off and their hair still looks fine.

5. I was recently informed by an old friend, current Charlevoix County Prosecutor Kit Tholen, that I was a crime victim in Charlevoix County. Apparently there was a person at a restaurant that we went to who

was adding on to tips quite frequently. I don’t usually get to be on that side of things.

6. This was the book my wife got me for Christmas. I’m really trying to be better about reading instead of screens.

7. My dad Mark Johnson was the founding winemaker at Chateau Chantal, and before that worked at Chateau Grand Traverse. He passed away in 2017. We recently did a wine dinner there, and they let me pull this bottle, which is their very first vintage (1993), off a dusty old rack. We opened and drank it, and it was actually very good.

8. This says Best Daddy Ever and was a gift from my daughter, Vita. I keep that here as reminder of her and her brother, my son Ezra.

9. This is a book about the Constitution by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Breyer spoke together with current Justice Samuel Alito at our law school. It was really cool to see two people who are as far opposite on the constitutional and political spectrums as possible still be such good friends.

10. You can see Community Mental Health from my office. My mom was a counselor there for many years, and I learned a lot from her about compassion. I still frequently bounce ideas off of her or talk to her about resources that may be available.

By Jon Sluis, columnist

As Michigan prepares to implement the Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA) on February 21, businesses across the state are gearing up for significant changes.

This new law, which replaces the Michigan Paid Medical Leave Act (PMLA), expands employee eligibility for sick time benefits and introduces new requirements for employers. While the primary focus tends to be on compliance and operational adjustments (which are still critical and if you haven’t previously considered it, you should do so sooner than later), it’s crucial for businesses to also consider the cash flow, budgetary and tax implications of this legislation.

Understanding the Earned Sick Time Act

The ESTA mandates that all Michigan employers, regardless of size, provide paid sick leave to their employees - including part-time and potentially seasonal employees.

Businesses with 10 or more employees must offer up to 72 hours of paid sick time annually, while smaller businesses must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick time and an additional 32 hours of unpaid sick time. This expansion aims to ensure that more workers have access to paid sick leave, promoting a healthier workforce and reducing the spread of illnesses.

However, this comes at a potential unplanned costed for employers – especially where benefits have historically not been provided.

Proactive Strategies for Business Owners

To effectively manage the transition to the new law and integrate it with year-end financial planning, business owners can adopt several proactive strategies:

1. Aligning with Year-End Raises and Bonuses

• Communicate clearly: Inform employees about the upcoming changes and how they will benefit from the new sick leave policy. Transparency can help build trust and morale.

• Integrate with raises and bonuses:

EARNED SICK TIME ACT:

Navigating cash flow, budget and tax implications of state’s new law

Consider timing the implementation of the new sick leave policy with year-end raises and bonuses, especially where the benefits are entirely new for the employee. This can help offset any perceived financial burden and demonstrate the company’s commitment to employee well-being.

2. Enhancing Overall Benefits

• Review benefit packages: Use this opportunity to review and potentially enhance overall benefit packages. Adding or improving benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans or wellness programs can complement the new sick leave policy and make the company more attractive to current and prospective employees.

3. Budgeting and Financial Planning

• Allocate funds: Set aside specific funds for the costs associated with paid sick leave. This proactive budgeting can help manage the financial impact more effectively.

• Leverage tax credits: Small businesses may be eligible for tax credits related to paid sick leave, particularly if they meet certain criteria under federal tax laws. These credits can offset some of the costs associated with providing paid sick leave.

Preparing for Compliance

To ensure compliance with the ESTA and

minimize tax-related issues, businesses should take the following steps:

1. Review and Update Policies

Employers should review their current sick leave policies and make necessary adjustments to align with the new law. This includes updating employee handbooks, com-

The Earned Sick Time Act mandates that all Michigan employers, regardless of size, provide paid sick leave to their employees, including part-time and potentially seasonal employees.

municating changes to staff, and ensuring that payroll systems are configured to handle the new requirements.

2. Maintain Accurate Records

Accurate record-keeping is crucial for both compliance and tax purposes. Employers should track the accrual and use of paid sick

leave, maintain documentation of sick leave requests, and keep detailed records of payroll taxes withheld and paid.

3. Consult with Professionals

Given the complexities of regulations and the potential for penalties, businesses should consider consulting with payroll and tax professionals and legal advisors. These experts can provide guidance on compliance, help identify potential tax credits, and ensure that all obligations are met.

Conclusion

The implementation of Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act represents a significant shift for businesses in the state. While the primary goal is to provide employees with necessary sick leave benefits, employers must also navigate the associated cash flow, budgetary and tax implications. By understanding these implications, preparing for compliance, and seeking professional advice, businesses can successfully adapt to the new law and continue to thrive.

Jon Sluis, CPA, is president of Intrust CPA in Traverse City. With a background in public accounting and private industry, he has more than 20 years in the industry. Specific areas of expertise include federal taxation, financial accounting and reporting, long-range strategic planning, and entity structuring; (231) 9351590 or visit www.intrustcpa.us.

A CHUNK OF CHANGE

Local CPAs on their ‘what to watch’ lists for 2025

By Craig Manning

Tax season is nearly upon us, a new president is in the White House, Michigan is in the midst of sweeping changes to employment law, and a massive federal tax reform is set to expire at the end of the year, unless Congress has something to say about it. Oh, and that aforementioned new president has indicated that he’d seriously consider getting rid of the federal income tax.

Bottom line, 2025 could go down as one of the wildest years in recent memory for taxes, wages, accounting and financial planning, so we sat down with two of northern Michigan’s leading experts – Chris Kindlinger of Kindlinger & Company, PC and Jon Sluis of Intrust CPA – to find out what issues and trends are topping their “what to watch” lists this year.

Issue #1: The fate of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Passed in 2017 and in effect since January 1, 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was a sweeping Congressional tax reform that, among other things, significantly increased the standard tax deduction for individual taxpayers, put a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, shifted tax bracket boundaries, doubled the indexed estate tax exemption, reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and more.

As written, most elements of the TCJA are set to expire on December 31, 2025 –though many of the business-specific tax cuts don’t sunset until 2028. However, with President Donald Trump back in the White House – and with the TCJA widely considered to be one of his first administration’s key accomplishments, with the legisla-

tion often referred to as “the Trump tax cuts” – many pundits are expecting an extension of some sort for the TCJA this year.

Kindlinger, for instance, says he is “as confident as you can be” that the TCJA is either going to be extended or made permanent. He also believes that the tax cuts are high enough on Trump’s priority list that Americans won’t have to wait long for clarity on the TCJA’s fate.

“I think we’ll probably have some answers soon, hopefully before the end of tax season, so that we can quickly update from there,” Kindlinger said. “Either way, I expect I’ll be a bit busier than usual after tax season, just in terms of reaching out to our clients and helping them pivot one way or another.”

Sluis is also expecting an extension to at least some parts of the TCJA, though he predicts a “back and forth” in Congress where some of the legislation’s provisions become permanent and others go away. In any case, he’s encouraging vigilance among his clients, to make sure they’re ready for whatever comes next.

“There will be 100% chance of some form of change to the tax law in 2025,” Sluis said. “During the presidential election, the quote I would tell my clients was, ‘I don’t know what the result is going to be, but there is going to be a result, whether it’s Democrat or Republican or another party that takes power.’ Our approach was, ‘Let’s plan for what you do in the event Democrats win and what you do if Republicans win.’ And sometimes, the answer was, ‘Do nothing’ or, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’ But at least having thought through that ahead of time, I think, will be critical and key for our clients.”

When asked which specific provisions of the TCJA they’re keeping an eye on, Kindlinger and Sluis have slightly differ-

ent answers. For Kindlinger, things like the TCJA’s bonus depreciation provisions, the SALT cap, and estate tax exemptions are top-of-mind. For Sluis, the 20% qualified business income deduction and the standard deduction for individual taxpayers are the big fish.

Issue #2: Sweeping changes to Michigan wage and hour law

After a lengthy debate that spanned multiple courts, the Michigan Supreme Court in July reinstated a pair of 2018 ballot initiatives as state law. Both of those laws will go into effect on February 21, 2025, and Kindlinger and Sluis agree they have the potential to transform industries that are key to northern Michigan’s economy and employment landscape.

The first of the reinstated laws, the Improved Workforce Opportunity Wage Act, will implement gradual annual increases to Michigan’s hourly minimum wage structure. According to the state’s Office of Labor and Economic Opportunity, the standard minimum wage will jump from $10.56 to $12.48 on February 21. Subsequent increases will follow on that same day each year, hitting nearly $15 per hour by 2028.

Additionally, the act mandates increasing the tipped minimum wage from its current point of $4.01 to $5.99 on February 21, and then applying incremental increases in the years to follow. The goal is to up the tipped minimum wage annually until it matches Michigan’s standard minimum wage, thus eliminating the state’s “tip credit” by 2030. Under current law, the tip credit is what allows restaurants, bars, and other hospitality or service industry businesses to pay employees below the minimum wage, as it acknowledges that workers in those industries often make a

majority of their income in gratuity.

The elimination of the tip credit has brought significant protest from Michigan’s hospitality industry. The Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association (MRLA), for instance, has stated that the changes would have “disastrous effects on Michigan’s restaurant industry.” In a statewide survey, many MRLA members reported that the shift would require them to increase prices, lay off employees, reduce operating hours or even close their businesses altogether.

Because of that ongoing backlash, Kindlinger still isn’t ruling out an eleventh-hour move from the Michigan legislature to preserve the tip credit. And even if no such maneuver happens before February 21, Kindlinger thinks restaurants and other tip-dependent businesses will continue to make noise in hopes of making change – especially if the president follows through on one of his key campaign promises.

“I think this goes hand-in-hand with Trump suggesting that he wants to make tips not taxable,” Kindlinger said, noting that many restaurant workers – from servers to busers to bartenders – already make more in tips than they’d make from any version of a state-mandated minimum wage law.

“So, if you raise the minimum wage in a way that will potentially impact tips, then you’ve already taken people who are making much better money and given them a pay cut. And then, if something happens to make it so tips wouldn’t be taxable, that’s adding insult to injury (for restaurant workers),” he said. “The restaurant industry could have some real negative impacts if that all happens.”

For his part, Sluis thinks the damage of an eliminated tip credit would actually prove less of an existential threat than it’s

been made out to be. In fact, he’s already noticed a few local restaurants implementing changes to adapt to the legal change.

“The crepe place downtown, on Union Street, I like how they did it: They have a sign now that says something along the lines of ‘We’re increasing our rates, but it’s to include the tip (in the price),’” Sluis said. “I think you’ll see more of that. ‘Don’t tip us, because it’s already included here.’ It will be a change, and if (businesses) don’t adapt ahead of time, it’s going to be really rough. But for those that have thought about it ahead, it will be fine.”

Sluis does acknowledge that many hospitality workers have likely remained in those jobs because they make such good money in tips. If the state’s shifting wage structure takes gratuities away without compensating workers with salaries that are “well above minimum wage,” he wouldn’t be surprised to see a reckoning.

“There are a lot of people in the bar and restaurant industry here that are making $40, $50, $60 an hour, especially during the summer, because people are tipping so well,” Sluis said. “If people stop tipping, those wages go down. So, the piece that no one wants to say is that, if a restaurant worker is making $40 or $50 an hour with tips, and now the tips go away and the restaurant has to pay them a normal living wage of $25, that server just

took a big pay cut. And now, maybe that person goes to a different industry.”

The other law going into effect on February 21 is the Earned Sick Time Act.

“That one is huge, because it applies to everybody except federal agencies that employs anyone at all,” Kindlinger said of the law. “There’s a lot of overreaching situations that I think weren’t intended. We’ve got a disabled child who pays for caregivers as a household employer, and he’s affected. So, there’s a lot of pieces to it, but it’s anybody that works for you, and you have to accrue one hour of sick leave for them for every 30 hours worked. If you’re under 10 employees, you have to pay up at 40 hours a year, if they’ve accrued that much. And if you’re over 10 employees, it’s up to 72 hours per year.”

While Kindlinger says some larger companies already have “robust paid time off policies” in place and therefore won’t be as affected by the shift in paid sick leave, most smaller employers – including many in northern Michigan – haven’t had these types of policies before.

“It’s definitely the smaller employers that maybe didn’t have as robust PTO or sick leave policies that are going to be hit hard by this,” he said.

Similarly, Sluis sees potentially severe effects for many local industries.

“If you think of all the construction companies out there, or industries like hospitality, there are certain industries

“There will be 100% chance of some form of change to the tax law in 2025.”

– Jon Sluis, President/Owner, Intrust CPA

that don’t provide benefits to part-time individuals. That’s part of the theory of having part-time employment,” Sluis said. “Well, now all of a sudden, you’re going to have to be providing paid sick leave, and potentially up to two weeks of it. So, let’s say you’re a landscape company, and you have 30 employees during the summer, and all of a sudden, you have to give those 30 employees two weeks of paid time off that you didn’t have before. It’s a pretty big hit to the bottom line – and a good benefit for the employees too! So, keeping in front of that, and keeping in compliance with that, both from the legal side and then the cost impact, is going to be important for employers of all sizes.”

Issue #3: The

Corporate Transparency Act

Enacted in 2021, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is intended “to curb elicit finance” by requiring com -

panies that do business in the United States “to report information about the individuals who ultimately own or control them.” Since January 1, 2024, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury has been accepting these reports from businesses.

The initial deadline for filing Beneficial Ownership Reports with FinCEN was New Year’s Day 2025, though that deadline was extended to January 13. More recently, though, questions about whether the CTA requirements are even consti-

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tutional – including a key lawsuit out of Texas – have resulted in a nationwide injunction that effectively halts enforcement of the CTA. The federal government has appealed the injunction, and briefs on the matter are due in February, with oral arguments scheduled for March. In the meantime, though, the injunction remains in place, which is creating some uncertainty about FinCEN reporting requirements and how businesses should approach them.

“There are definitely a lot of people up in arms about the overreach of this particular act,” Kindlinger said of the CTA. “I don’t know where that’ll end up, but they’re letting businesses voluntarily register (with FinCIN) if they want to; otherwise, you’re not required to, for now.”

Kindlinger didn’t share any specific stance on the CTA, or say whether he’s urging his clients to register voluntarily just to be safe. He did warn, however, that failing to register – even for a small LLC – will carry a penalty of $500 a day, up to $10,000 total, if/when the injunction gets lifted and the law is allowed to go into proper effect.

“I’ve got some clients that have filed and some that haven’t, but if they haven’t, then they need to watch this issue closely, because if it does come back, they really don’t want to be subject to the penalty,” Kindlinger said.

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has defended the CTA and the FinCEN requirements, arguing that “(c)orporate anonymity enables money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorism, and corruption. It harms American citizens and puts law-abiding small businesses at a disadvantage. Having a centralized database of beneficial ownership information will eliminate critical vulnerabilities in our financial system and allow us to tackle the scourge of illicit finance enabled by opaque corporate structures.”

Issue #4: No more income tax?

While hardly one of his central campaign promises, President Trump has mused several times over the past year about eliminating the federal income tax and replacing it with sizable tariff increases on foreign goods.

“When we were a smart country, in the 1890s…this is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was. It had all tariffs. It didn’t have an income tax,” Trump said on the campaign trail in October. “Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying. They’re paying tax, and they don’t have the money to pay the tax.”

More recently, Trump seemed to gesture toward that possibility once more. In a January 14 post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump promised to

create a new governmental agency called the “External Revenue Service.”

“For far too long, we have relied on taxing our Great People using the Internal Revenue Service. Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change,” Trump wrote. “I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources. We will begin charging those that make money off of us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share.”

When asked about the possibility of the Trump administration actually putting an end to the federal income tax, Sluis expressed his doubts.

“My opinion would be that there’s virtually no chance that that will happen right now,” he said, before adding, “I’m not afraid of that. In fact, I’d welcome it. I think it would be fairer to most of my clients.”

Kindlinger

Sluis notes that there are several states in the U.S. – like Florida and Texas – that don’t have state income taxes. Those states make up the revenue in other areas, usually with higher sales taxes or property taxes. While those systems can work, Sluis thinks they also offer some insight into why an elimination of the federal income tax might not be a politically savvy move for Trump at this point.

“Typically, as you shift to a sales tax or a flat tax, it’s going to hurt the lower income earners more than the higher income earners,” Sluis said. “And like I said, I would actually welcome that possibility for most of the people we work with, because most of them would actually see a decrease. But the average American would see an increase, and I think, politically, to be able to account for that is going be pretty tough.”

Bank Partner Detroit Traverse City Strangers Neighbors Number Name

>> FINANCIAL SERVICES

1 - Paige Schuchardt has joined Cardinal Insurance Group in Traverse City as a licensed executive agent. With five years of insurance industry experience, Schuchardt assists clients with home, auto, and personal liability insurance needs.

2 - Carl Stewart has joined TBA Credit Union in Traverse City as commercial loan originator. Stewart brings an extensive commercial lending, credit risk management, and business development background to the team.

>> HEALTH CARE

Munson Healthcare in Traverse City recently announced the following personnel news:

3 - Matthew Lederer, D.O., is now on staff at Cedarwoods Internal and Geriatric Medicine. Dr. Lederer chose family medicine because it allows him to build long-term relationships with patients while using preventative medicine to combat chronic disease.

4 - Matthew Schuch, D.O., has joined the Munson Orthopedic Institute. Dr. Schuch chose to specialize in orthopedic trauma because it allows him to make the biggest impact in his patients’ lives after a traumatic event.

5 - Jill Swinning, a clinical n urse specialist, is now part of the team at Traverse Heart & Vascular. Swinning has a special interest in cardiac implantable electronic devices and electrophysiology, and experience with both pediatric and adult cardiology patients.

>> LAW

6 - Danica Powell has joined Kuhn Rogers PLC in Traverse City as associate attorney. Powell moved her practice from Chicago to Traverse City in 2014 and joined Kuhn Rogers in 2024, where her practice centers on estate planning, trust administration, and probate litigation, as well as commercial litigation, real estate, and creditors rights.

7 - Caroline R. Quandt has joined Kuhn Rogers PLC in Traverse City as associate attorney. Quandt was admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in November 2024 and has returned home to launch her career.

>> MARKETING

8 - Jonathan Davila has joined Flight Path Creative in Traverse City as a graphic designer. With a background in graphic design and web strategy, Davila specializes in creating compelling visual identities and improving user experience.

9 - Cor rinne Mica has joined Flight Path Creative in Traverse City as office administrator. Mica brings 10 years of experience in the film and hospitality industries, specializing in workplace organization and operations.

>> OTHER

10- Craig J. Pullen has been named president of Gosling Czubak Engineering Sciences in Traverse City. Pullen, with more than 35 years of surveying experience, served as director of surveying services since 2013. He succeeds former president Kevin D. Ringwelski.

11 - Michael P. Stocking has been named director of surveying services at Gosling Czubak Engineering Sciences in Traverse City. He first joined the organization in 2016 as a project manager and has more than 20 years of surveying experience.

12 - Sar ah Webb, licensed in real estate for more than 12 years, recently joined Century 21 Northland in Traverse City. Webb has more than two decades of experience in marketing, sales, and contract negotiation.

Please send Newsmakers by the 10th of the month to news@tcbusinessnews.com

2 // CARL STEWART 3 // MATTHEW LEDERER 4 // MATTHEW SCHUCH

1 // PAIGE SCHUCHARDT

5 // JILL SWINNING

8 // JONATHAN DAVILA 9 // CORRINNE MICA 10 // CRAIG J. PULLEN

7 // CAROLINE R. QUANDT

11 // MICHAEL P. STOCKING

6 // DANICA POWELL

12 // SARAH WEBB

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From 10-Key Calculators to AI Tools

By Craig Manning

The 52-year history of Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth

It started with a resignation.

As Karen Gartland recalls it, her husband, the late Thomas Gartland, had offers from two different coworkers to leave the accounting firm they worked for – Seidman & Seidman, now part of accounting giant BDO USA – and strike out on their own. Gartland chose to go with a CPA named Maurie Dennis, and the pair quit their jobs at Seidman & Seidman to move to Traverse City and start their own firm.

That company, now known as Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth, celebrated its 50th year in business in 2023, employs dozens of northern Michigan residents, and is the largest independent full-service public accounting firm north of Grand Rapids.

This month, with DGN now pushing forward into its second half-century of existence, the TCBN sat down with key players from the organization to chart its evolution over time, its staunch insistence on remaining independent, and what comes next.

The Timeline

Today, DGN occupies an entire floor in a Traverse City office building, has a satellite office in Petoskey, employs more than 60 people, and does some $11 million in annual revenues.

Over the years, the firm has serviced just about every type of local business you could think of, from school districts and medical practices, to farms and wineries, all the way to golf courses and ski resorts. The reach has broadened over time, too, taking DGN’s services out of

state – and sometimes even out of the country – to major clients in industries like agribusiness, oil and gas, manufacturing, and more. And somewhere along the way, DGN’s leaders turned into some of Traverse City’s foremost business leaders, with two of the company’s name partners going on to serve stints as Chamber of Commerce presidents.

It’s all a far cry from the humble operation that Thomas Gartland and Maurie Dennis found themselves running in their first months in business. To chart the evolution, we’ve compiled a timeline of DGN’s major milestones, including key hires, acquisitions, growth junctures, and more.

1973: On October 1, after quitting their jobs at Seidman & Seidman, Gartland and Dennis officially opened their own firm, Dennis & Gartland, out of an office at 410 S. Union Street in Traverse City.

According to DGN retrospective materials, Gartland often described the foundations of the business in humble terms: a couple of desks, ten-key calculators, an IBC Selectric typewriter, a “very basic single sheet copy machine,” liberal use of white-out, a single part-time secretary, and some lofty goals.

What Gartland and Dennis didn’t have a whole lot of, at least right away, was clients.

“They had a few clients that had already committed before they decided they were going out on their own, but not a ton,” said Karen Gartland. “The joke the first year was they were going to stand out on the sidewalk on April 14 and say ‘We’ll do your taxes!’ Even if people came in at the very last minute with a shoebox full of

disorganized documents, Tom and Maurie would take them as clients. But then, friends became clients, and clients became friends, and there was a lot of local word-ofmouth that helped the firm grow.”

That “we’ll take anyone” mentality, Karen says, was critical to the growth of the business. The goal from the start was to build a full-service accounting firm, and since Traverse City was quite a small town at that point, Gartland and Dennis had no intention of specializing in any one industry. As a result, the pair could have an open-door policy of sorts for any business owner in town.

“It’s amazing to me, now, how much we do business in other states, because our foundation really was that face-toface relationship,” recalled name-partner Brad Niergarth, who would join the firm several years later. “I think you’re more successful if you know your client and their life and can help them have a better life, and we could do that because we ran in all the same circles as our clients. The Rotary Clubs, the Kiwanis Clubs, the different ways of meeting people locally here. Tom wasn’t really an extrovert, and yet, he became president of Rotary, he was president of the Chamber of Commerce, he was Munson’s board chair, he did Toastmasters; he was extremely active. He did what he had to do to network.”

“Most of those relationships, even though you do them for the purpose of serving the community, they turn into people following you back to the office when they see that you have a business sense about you,” Niergarth added. “And so, that’s how DGN really grew.”

1979: Niergarth, a young CPA fresh off

a three-year stint for a national accounting firm in Grand Rapids, moved to Traverse City to join the team at Dennis & Gartland. His expertise, according to the DGN website, includes audit and tax services, business valuation, litigation support, strategic planning, business sales or acquisitions.

That same year, in August, the growing firm moved from its original digs on Union Street to the Delta Center, a two-story office building at 415 Munson Avenue that Gartland and Dennis had recently purchased.

“At the time, we had just one little corner of the building, with nine people on staff,” Niergarth said. “Fast-forward to 2025 and we occupy the entire second floor – and I think they want me to move out of my office soon to make way for someone else!”

1984: Niergarth became a partner

Gartland, in the early days.

Brad Niergarth and the late Thomas Gartland.

and the firm’s name changed to Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth. Niergarth would ultimately go on to become DGN’s longest-running managing partner, serving in that capacity for 25 years.

1986: Long-time employee Jim Shumate – who still works for DGN to this day – came aboard. A veteran of Seidman & Seidman himself, Shumate says he was drawn to DGN because of the firm’s independence.

“I really wanted to go to a firm where decisions were made locally – where, if you had an idea or you wanted to try something, you didn’t have to run it through Grand Rapids or New York to get approval,” Shumate said. “So, for me, it was a pretty easy decision. DGN felt like a local firm. They definitely had the desire to grow, but they were also all about quality and all about people, and that included both the people that worked at DGN but also their clients. They really tried to take a very active role with their clients, of trying to make their businesses better. It was an environment that I really wanted to be part of.”

Shumate, who has specialized in tax planning for his entire career, filled what Niergarth describes as “a desperate need for a really strong tax person” at DGN.

“Jim came in and really helped our tax side of things, and then rose quickly to leadership at the company,” Niergarth said. Shumate would go on to become a

DGN partner in 1991.

Beyond tax expertise, Niergarth says Shumate helped establish another critical aspect of DGN: the company’s focus on employee education and development.

“I remember when we expanded the conference room and made it twice the size, and Jim’s idea was to name it our ‘Learning Center,’ because we really wanted to encourage our people to educate themselves and get more knowledge, more capability to give world class service,” Niergarth said. “Sometimes, companies get almost too big to do business with because they don’t empower their people. They take away the ability to provide good customer service. From early on, we knew we didn’t want that to happen at DGN. We wanted to hire the best people we could, and give them the best education, too.”

1995: Maurie Dennis departed DGN to start his own financial advising firm.

That same year, Gartland was named board chairman of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce. And also in 1995, Heidi Wendel and Shelly Ashmore, a pair of current partners at DGN, started their careers with the company.

1996: Shelly Bedford, DGN’s current managing partner, started her career with the company, coming aboard as a multistate tax specialist.

2000: In November, DGN started a sister company called DGN Wealthcare

Advisors, “to bring a holistic approach to financial and tax planning” to the table for clients. DGN Wealthcare continues to operate today.

2001: DGN joined CPAmerica, a national trade association self-described as “a trusted source of advice, training and events for over 200 independent accounting and advisory services firms in the U.S. and abroad.”

According to Niergarth, CPAmerica was significantly smaller at the time –“approximately 80 firms nationwide, all about our size and with similar goals.”

One key takeaway of joining that group, for DGN, was the ability to see metrics from other firms in the association.

“You could see what everybody else had, in terms of number of employees, average growth rate, things like that,” Niergarth explained. “One of the statistics they had was your employee turnover percentage, and we were always one of the lowest five firms in the group for turnover. I think that told us we were doing something right.”

“That was a great step for us, and it’s paid a lot of dividends over the years,”

A business announcement for the new Dennis & Gartland firm.

Shumate said of joining CPAmerica. In particular, Shumate thinks that having a network of CPA firms nationwide has been invaluable as DGN has grown from a totally local accounting company to one that services clients nationwide.

“For example, we have taxpayers that do business in Colorado,” Shumate said. “Thanks to CPAmerica, if we have a tax question pertaining to that state, we can call somebody in a firm out in Colorado to get advice. And actually, we initially got into CPAmerica because it also gave us exposure to the international markets. At the time, we had a large client that was doing business overseas. CPAmerica gave us an avenue to both international tax people and international audit people, which was hugely beneficial for us.”

2002: Dennis, though no longer part of the DGN team, scored a prestigious local honor when Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) named him its “Outstanding Alumni” for the year 2002. Dennis had attended NMC in 1965.

2006: Rick Garner came aboard as a key team member for Wealthcare Advisors, which he now leads. That same year, future DGN partner Jim Taylor joined the company, bringing expertise in tax planning and financial planning for both individual and business clients. Taylor was promoted to partner in 2014.

Also in 2006, Niergarth becomes the

president of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce.

2008: Trina Ochs joined the DGN team as an audit manager, going on to become a DGN partner in 2019.

2015: Bedford became managing partner, succeeding Shumate, who himself took over after Niergarth’s lengthy tenure. Still in the role today, Bedford is the first female managing partner in DGN’s history.

2017: DGN was recognized by INSIDE Public Accounting (IPA) as a “Top 400” firm in the United States. As of 2024, the company has received that same honor for the past seven consecutive years, including an additional “Best of the Best” honor from IPA in 2019.

2019: On November 1, DGN closed a deal to acquire Hill, Schroderus & Co., a full-service accounting firm based in Petoskey. Hill, Schroderus & Co. had been around since 1961, and DGN absorbed the company’s entire staff to function as its second office.

“That was a big moment in the firm’s history,” Taylor said of the acquisition. “It helped us to get better at remote work and communication between offices, and helped us utilize our technology more effectively. It also allowed us to expand into a great market, and made us more of a northern Michigan firm rather than just Traverse City.”

2020: Forbes named DGN to its annual list of “America’s Top Recommended

“We absolutely could have merged into Rehmann or Plante Moran. Once, there was a firm out of Peoria, Illinois that flew someone in to talk to us about merging, and we did consider it. But every time we got one of those offers, we always came to the same conclusion, which is that we wanted to remain locally owned...”

– Brad Niergarth, partner, DGN

Tax and Accounting Firms,” an honor it bestowed on the firm once again in 2021.

2021: On July 5, at the age of 74 years old, DGN founder Thomas Gartland passed away. His obituary not only highlighted his 45-year career at DGN, but also his local involvement – including as Chamber president, chairman of the Gladhander Auction, treasurer and chairman of the Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools (GTACS) board, chairman and long-time member of the Munson Healthcare board, member and past president of Rotary Charities, supporter and volunteer for the Father Fred Foundation, and more.

2023: DGN marked its 50th anniversary, celebrating the milestone with past and present team members at a party held at Bonobo Winery on Old Mission Peninsula.

On November 2, Jack Bergman – a United States Representative for the northern Michigan district – spoke at length about DGN on the Congressional floor, congratulating the company on its 50th anniversary and praising its “emphasis on teamwork and a focus on client success.”

“Sticking to these founding principles, the company quickly became northern Michigan’s largest, full-service, public accounting firm,” Bergman said. “For the

past 50 years, DGN has been committed to elevating their clients, providing extraordinary attention to detail, and handson service to businesses and individuals in their community.”

2024: Bedford is named to Forbes’ inaugural list of “America’s Top 200 CPAs,” with the honor intended to indicate “reputation for integrity, record of excellence, and Forbes’ recognition as the best in the business.” Bedford is one of just three Michigan CPAs to make the list; both of the other Michiganders featured hail from Detroit and work for major accounting firms.

Also in 2024, Brad Niergarth celebrated his 45-year anniversary with DGN. Speaking to the TCBN in 2025, he classifies himself now as “semi-retired,” something he says is crucial for allowing pathways of advancement for the next generation.

“You have to set it up so that the new, young partners have a pathway to the income that the old partners have had,” Niergarth explained. “So, by people like me being semi-retired – and this might be a secret – but we aren’t paid what we used to be. You have to turn over those earnings capabilities and the salaries to have an effective succession plan. That’s how we tee it up for our younger partners, and then hope they can move into these leadership roles and be successful. They’ve done a wonderful job of that, so far.”

The Future

To hold steady, or to evolve radically?

For any business at the crossroads of a 50-years-and-change milestone, some version of that question bears asking. It’s an especially challenging one to answer in 2025, though, amidst a technological sea change that could completely reshape the landscape of work and business as we know it – not just for accounting firms like DGN, but for everyone.

“We don’t want to be afraid of change,” Bedford said, when asked about the worldwide rise of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on DGN. “We can’t put millions of dollars into AI technology, but we know that we’re going to have to adapt.”

“It will be integrated into every product we use at some point,” added Taylor. “I think if you look back in the last decade, we’ve changed this firm dramatically in terms of scope and how we operate day to day. I see that happening again: that in the next 10 years, we’re going to reinvent ourselves again with the technology that’s in the marketplace now.”

Bedford’s motto with AI adoption is “cutting edge, not leading edge” – as in, don’t be the very first adopter, but try to get to new, beneficial technologies when they still offer a strong competitive advantage. As for what those competitive advantages might be, both Bedford and Taylor see a lot of possibilities, from tools to streamline basic data entry to AI-assisted research tools, which could help accountants stay on top of the constantly-changing rules and regulations in the tax world.

“If it allows us to remove some of the

“We don’t want to be afraid of change...We can’t put millions of dollars into AI technology, but we know that we’re going to have to adapt.”

– Shelly Bedford, managing partner, DGN

mundane tasks or repetition from our process, then everyone in the organization can operate at a higher level, in less time,” Taylor said. “That’s a win-win.”

Bedford is also hopeful new technology – and the elimination of the more menial, “boring” tasks of a CPA – will draw more young people to the field.

“I don’t have exact numbers off my head, but I do believe the number of students going into accounting is down dramatically,” Bedford said. “With these new technologies coming up, it’s honestly going to be a different field that we have to sell to people. It’s going to turn the accounting industry into more of a consultant/advisor career, and I really do think that career path will be more attractive to the next generation.”

Beyond AI, Bedford and Taylor both see further growth for DGN in the future, whether it comes from taking more out-ofstate or international clients or expanding the local footprint with the acquisition of more northern Michigan accounting offices.

One thing that likely won’t happen? Selling out to a larger accounting firm.

“We know we want to stay independent, stay local, and service this community,” Bedford said. “Sure, we have businesses that we service all over the U.S. and overseas, but it’s almost all tied to relationships that started in this community. So, that’s something we value and don’t want to lose.”

According to Niergarth, DGN has gotten at least a dozen offers over the years to sell

or merge with other firms. The business has consistently resisted those advances.

“Once we had joined CPAmerica, I kept hearing and seeing a lot of firms merging up,” Niergarth said. “We absolutely could have merged into Rehmann or Plante Moran. Once, there was a firm out of Peoria, Illinois that flew someone in to talk to us about merging, and we did consider it. But every time we got one of those offers, we always came to the same conclusion, which is that we wanted to remain locally owned. Like Jim said, we didn’t want our decisions to be made in Detroit or New York or someplace else. And I think the partner group today is just as committed as we were back then to growing independently.”

For Shumate, that commitment to local grounding and independent operation is the single most important thing about DGN. He credits the decision to stay (relatively) small as the reason that DGN has not only tended to retain its team members for long periods of time, but also its clients.

“Many of Tom’s early clients, they ended up staying on with him – and with us –for 40 years or longer,” Shumate said. “As a firm, we didn’t tend to turn over a lot of clients. And that was maybe the thing I’m most proud of throughout the years. Once we got a client, if we took care of things, we tended to keep them forever, which is really important in a CPA practice. You can go back and look at our number 6 or number 7 client, and I think we still do work for them.”

PARTNER IN CRIME: AI promises to transform criminal justice system

By Michael Naughton, columnist

The criminal justice system, particularly in rural areas, is facing a growing crisis due to a shortage of legal professionals and law enforcement officers. This has led to decreased access to justice for all involved.

However, artificial intelligence (AI) offers a transformative solution to alleviate this burden and enable the system to do more with less.

AI’s capabilities extend far beyond conversational chatbots. It now encompasses audio and visual tools that can convert audio to text, analyze speaker sentiment, generate 3D crime scene representations from video, and analyze crime scene images for relevant information.

There is potential to revolutionize the criminal justice system by leveraging AI. Some forms of AI can modernize evidence collection, enhance courtroom efficiency, and deliver equitable justice through advanced AI, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) technologies. These efforts could lead to a focus on fostering clarity, accuracy and fairness in legal proceedings while protecting privacy, promoting accountability and bridging collaboration among stakeholders.

Enhancing Evidence Collection and Courtroom Efficiency

One of the key areas where artificial intelligence is making a significant impact is in evidence collection. Body cams, dash cams and mobile devices are transformed into advanced tools for capturing detailed 3D scenes. This technology preserves critical details for legal cases and utilizes state-ofthe-art chain-of-custody systems to ensure integrity and transparency. Additionally, it enhances collaboration in investigations within a secure digital environment.

Furthermore, immersive 3D visualizations with AR, XR, and 4K video can be used for impactful courtroom demonstrations.

The technology integrates data from various sources, including holographic evidence capture, GPS, satellite imaging and event data recorders. By leveraging physics-based simulations, exceptionally accurate recreations can be achieved. This allows for a more comprehensive and immersive presentation of evidence, aiding in the understanding of complex scenarios and ultimately leading to more informed decisions.

Streamlining

Legal Processes with AI-Powered Data Management

AI-powered data management systems

are also playing a crucial role in streamlining legal processes. These systems provide legal professionals with fast access to essential documents and automate error-free report generation. This significantly reduces administrative time and allows legal professionals to focus on more strategic tasks.

Moreover, predictive analytics and trial simulations offer data-driven insights for strategic planning. By equipping legal professionals with the tools to anticipate every possible outcome, AI has the potential to revolutionize the legal field. This enables them to make more informed decisions, develop stronger arguments and consequently increase the chances of success in legal proceedings.

Ethical Considerations and the Future of AI in the Justice System

As with any powerful technology, the use of AI in the criminal justice system raises important ethical considerations. It is crucial to ensure that AI algorithms are unbiased and do not perpetuate existing societal inequalities. Additionally, privacy concerns must be addressed to safeguard individuals’ rights.

Despite these challenges, the potential benefits of AI in the justice system are undeniable. By automating routine tasks, improving evidence collection and analy sis, and providing data-driven insights, AI can help create a more efficient, equitable and transparent legal system.

The future of AI in the justice system is promising. As technology continues to advance, we can expect even more so phisticated applications that will further enhance the capabilities of legal profes sionals and law enforcement officers. However, it is essential to proceed with caution and ensure that the develop ment and implementation of AI tech nologies are guided by ethical principles and a commitment to justice for all.

In conclusion, various forms of artifi cial intelligence are paving the way for a future where AI plays a vital role in the criminal justice system. By embracing this technology and addressing ethical considerations, we can create a more just, efficient and accessible legal system for everyone.

Michael Naughton is a Traverse City-based criminal defense attorney. He created Justice Optimized, LLC, an AI-startup, with Isaac Krauss, a Los Angeles-based creative director.

W I N T E R C L E A R A N C E S A L

STILL GOING STRONG

Longtime Traverse City attorney firing on all cylinders

By Art Bukowski

It might be tempting to assume that Craig Elhart’s edge has dulled after nearly five decades practicing law. His hair is mostly gray, the lines in his face are deep and his slightly graveled voice is downright soothing as he relays folksy anecdotes of Traverse City’s days gone by.

“I was raised on the Old Mission Peninsula before it was cool to live up there,” he said. “When we were kids, you could ride your bike on the peninsula anywhere you wanted to go. And if you got in trouble, which we often did, the neighbor – who might have been eight miles away – knew your parents and would reprimand you and send you on your way. Spanked bottoms weren’t something that only parents gave out at that point.”

But it would be a grave mistake to conclude that someone with Elhart’s grandfatherly charm moves at a slower pace. The work ethic, wit and aggressive tendencies that led to his reputation as one of northern Michigan’s most effective lawyers – and one of the state’s top trial attorneys – are all still very much driving

him to succeed every day.

“I still get up at five in the morning every morning and have two cups of coffee, and I’m typically here by 7:30 or 8 and work until 5:30. I still very much enjoy it, and I still have the stamina to sit here and pound this stuff out. I can and still do go to trial 20 or 30 days in a row,” said Elhart, 74. “I’ll dial it back eventually, but there’s no big rush.”

A large part of this drive is ideological.

oversteps by the government.

“To be a defense attorney is to be an instrument that attempts to reduce the great unbalance between the awesome power of the government and those that are governed – the people,” he said. “The constitutional rights of all people are protected by the work that we do.”

Criminal law is only one portion of his work, which also includes family law, business litigation and other matters. The

“I’m extremely uncomfortable in a crowd. I hate crowds. I hate going to a party. I’ll sit in the corner and sip a Diet Coke while I’m at a party. But if you give me a courtroom, it’s show pony time.”

– Craig Elhart, Attorney, Elhart & Kreinbrink, PLLC

Elhart came of age in the turbulent 1960s, and he’s quick to tell you that criminal defense attorneys are the “foot soldiers of the Constitution” whose work is one of the most important bulwarks against

variety keeps him engaged and focused, he says.

“I very much enjoy the intellectual challenge. With the type of practice I’ve got, it’s a different case every day. I talked

to an attorney the other day in California, and all he did was tax law for a multinational corporation. Boy, that’d be boring,” he said. “I have cases all over, of all different kinds, and it’s just a lot of fun.”

He’s also not naïve enough to think he knows everything.

“I’m in a huge case right now downstate, and I told my wife I learned more from a lawyer in that case than I learned the last 40 plus years of practicing law,” he said. “It’s an every day learning experience about what you do and how you do things.”

Elhart is proud of his work as a trial attorney, something he describes as a sort of dying art. (“They really aren’t making trial lawyers anymore,” he said.) In a world in which more than 95% of all cases are settled before trial, Elhart is proud to be known as someone who will take his case to court and aggressively fight for his client.

“There are very few of us in the state that do what I do. I’m held in high regard all over the state,” he said. “I can go into any courtroom in the state and the judges will have heard of me, and will know who

I am and what I do.”

It doesn’t mean he wins all his cases, he says. The government simply has very strong evidence in most criminal cases, for example, making victory difficult. But having at least some lawyers regularly take cases to trial is the only way to keep the establishment honest, he says.

“The fact of the matter is unless you decide that you’re going to try a case, you really can’t protect people’s rights,” he said. “Frankly, the prosecution’s typically got a better case. But until you hold their feet to the fire, you don’t ever know that.”

Trials are hard work, Elhart says, and require a certain set of skills to be successful.

“More than anything else, it’s preparation. If you don’t know your case extremely well, you’re in trouble,” he said. “You’ve got to have almost a photographic memory. And if you don’t have that, you might as well hang it up.”

Ultimately, though, there’s no place Elhart would rather be than inside the four walls of a courtroom. Doesn’t matter when or where – just give him a judge and jury and let him do his thing.

“I’m extremely uncomfortable in a crowd. I hate crowds. I hate going to a party. I’ll sit in the corner and sip a Diet Coke while I’m at a party,” he said. “But if you give me a courtroom, it’s show

are almost always in a tough spot. He prides himself on not only providing the best legal advice, but also healthy doses of perspective and support.

“The hardest time we can have is when we put our head down at night and we’re ready to go to sleep and we think, ‘Man, I really screwed up. This is going to affect the rest of my life,’” he said. “But in most cases, it rarely affects the rest of your life. I try to spend enough time with them that I get them through that rough spot, because it is certainly difficult.”

Elhart watches changes in his field with a careful eye. Artificial intelligence is now writing briefs, for instance, something he’s certainly not sold on. But he’s also seen the patterns of practicing law change, with younger attorneys less likely to succumb to the “jealous mistress” of law. You only have so much bandwidth, he says, and ultimately you have to choose between family and work.

“I know I sound like the guy who walked to school in 12 feet of snow, but I think the biggest thing that I think we all agree on as older lawyers is that younger lawyers have a healthier way of life and that they don’t dedicate themselves to the practice of law as we did,” he said. “When I was a young lawyer, I’d come home, I’d put my kids to bed, and then I’d work

FORMER PROSECUTOR JOINS ELHART

Though he’s not retiring right away, Craig Elhart brought on a partner with the plan of having her eventually take over the firm.

Elhart Law became Elhart & Kreinbrink last year with the addition of Lauren Kreinbrink. Kreinbrink is a Ludington native who was an assistant prosecuting attorney in Manistee and Mason counties from 2017 to 2020 before serving as Mason County prosecutor from 2021 until mid-2024, when she resigned to join Elhart.

Kreinbrink said she was attracted to handling different types of law and to the idea of building her own business. She knows that Elhart has built a respected practice, and she hopes to honor that legacy by working at a high level.

“I want to continue all of those points of excellence that Craig has worked so hard to establish – things like zealous advocacy, being an attorney who’s not afraid to go to trial and treating people with the respect they deserve,” she said. “My hope would be that as the firm transitions, people can continue to expect that high quality of the team.

“She is an extremely bright and capable person in the courtroom, and she wants to do what I’ve done, which is to go to court and try cases,” he said.

“I think she’s only been here six, seven months now. I think she’s tried five or six cases already.”

Elhart doesn’t have a timetable for retirement, though he says it’s likely he will begin to scale back soon. In the meantime, he now has more flexibility to focus on what he enjoys most.

“I’m going to start handing over

CHASING THE DREAM

Inside Wilson Kester’s big statewide push

By Art Bukowski

It was, as Shelley Kester is fond of calling it, a “big, hairy, audacious goal.”

After more than 30 years of practicing law, including more than 20 with her own firm, Kester felt a strong desire to spread her wings in the last act of her career by creating something she’s always wanted: a truly statewide firm with an established, respected presence throughout Michigan.

Most firms fitting that bill are downstate, with perhaps a satellite office or two up north. But Kester, a Traverse City native, wanted to flip that script. She set out to build Wilson Kester, the local divorce firm she started with her father, Pat Wilson, into a statewide authority on divorce and family law.

“I gave myself permission to not worry about if that was normal or traditional, or if it was something someone else would do,” she said. “I just set out to create the masterpiece dream of what I wanted it to be.”

“I

has a staff of 26. In addition to its strong base in northern Michigan, the firm now has established attorneys in the Detroit and Grand Rapids areas who serve clients in those regions and beyond.

gave myself permission to not worry about if that was normal or traditional, or if it was something someone else would do. I just set out to create the masterpiece dream of what I wanted it to be.”

–

Shelley Kester, president, Wilson Kester

Wilson Kester, which averaged perhaps five employees over most of its run and had only 11 at the start of 2024, now

Kester stresses that the goal of this aggressive expansion wasn’t just adding more bodies to handle more cases. Growth that’s

not handled properly can harm the quality of any organization, and she was wary of that throughout this process.

“I love my dad and his name, and I carry on that name. I care what we stand for, and we’ve been successful because of that reputation,” she said. “It’s easy to ruin a reputation pretty quickly, so you have to be guarding it. I’m not just hiring any lawyer.”

After three decades in family law, Kester is involved in several professional organizations and groups that have given her an excellent network of divorce and family law attorneys. She tapped into that network as she searched for the right people to join her team.

“It starts with hiring very experienced lawyers who love family law, and that fit the same culture I’ve had in terms of authenticity and commitment,” she said.

Shelley Kester and Jennifer Zeleznik

“There’s an integrity component, there’s a professionalism component, there’s a relatability component.”

These things might sound like cliches, but they make all the difference in terms of high-level attorneys who can most effectively support and advocate for their clients, Kester says.

“(I don’t want) to be one-size-fits-all or this commercial, churn-and-burn mill kind of thing,” she said. “I want to bring the boutique feeling in each community that we serve.”

This desire stems from Kester’s many years immersed in the high stakes and emotions of divorce and family law. She wants only the best for the people that place their trust in her firm.

“I put myself in the shoes of my clients, and I’m also a parent. Imagine your kids are at stake and you’re trusting someone else with that. How would I want someone to take care of me if the most important thing in my whole life was at stake? What does that look like?” she said. “That’s the standard.”

Wilson Kester is a known commodity in town (having its offices and an “Empowered Divorce Source” sign at the immensely busy intersection of Front and Division streets helps), and a good reputation means plenty of referrals. Referrals will still be a big deal downstate, but the firm is also engaged in a big

marketing push to get the word out about its services there.

“Fortunately, we have a talented marketing and sales director who’s very helpful with that and we have experience, like probably a lot of businesses, working with different marketing vendors,” Kester said. “We’ve had to test those waters a little bit and learn some things the hard way, but I think it’s probably that way for a lot of professions.”

Among the most exciting recent promotions was a “Legal Lions” partnership with standout Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and his brother, New Orleans Saints wideout Equanimeous St. Brown, who together host a podcast. Amon-Ra recently plugged Wilson Kester on the podcast.

Ultimately, she is learning by doing when it comes to growing her firm.

done), continued work to shore up the foundation is on the docket.

“I give Amy Johnson, our chief sales and marketing officer, a lot of credit because she found that opportunity,” she says. “The Lions are doing really well, so this is exciting.”

There are, of course, growing pains with expansion. Maintaining the company’s internal work culture has been a challenge with lots of new faces, many of them working remotely. But Kester says they’ve been powering through and exploring new ways to build camaraderie.

“We’re certainly going through some adjusting as we grow,” she said. “It’s sort of like a client going through a divorce. They’ve never done a divorce before and they don’t know what it’s going to be like at the end, whether it’s going to turn out right or not. But there’s a good chance they’re going to be happier in the end. It just takes a certain amount of courage, a certain amount of resilience and a certain amount of faith.”

As the firm continues to hire and grow this year (Kester says they’re not

“Are we all rowing in the same path? For the most part. Could we improve on that? Could we tighten the bolts and tweak things? Sure,” Kester says. “Building on our foundations and our systems is probably one of the biggest things I’ll be working on this year.”

From a bottom line standpoint, things are working well. The firm saw 185% client growth in 2024, and Kester expects this trend to continue.

“I’m feeling very optimistic about 2025,” she said.

By Ross Boissoneau

Michigan’s auto insurance rates are the highest in the country. It’s all over the news, so it must be true, right?

Maybe, maybe not. Detroit business journal DBusiness indeed claims it is the most expensive. Value Penguin places it as the third most-expensive. Insure.com places Michigan sixth in the country.

The latest annual report from the finance website Bankrate pegs Michigan’s average cost for annual full-coverage car insurance at $3,356, making it the fifth most expensive in the U.S. The national average is $2,543. The percentage of income spent on car insurance in the state is 5.01%, which is 1.60% higher than the national average.

Regardless whether it’s the most expensive or “only” the fifth or sixth most expensive, Michigan drivers pay more for insurance than the vast majority of Americans. The questions are why and what can be done about it.

Local agents lay the largest share of the blame on Michigan’s insurance laws.

“There have been lawsuits in Michigan from people without unlimited personal injury protection (PIP) insurance,” said Linda Fisher, the founder and CEO of Cardinal Insurance Group.

“We were the only state with unlimited medical coverage. It’s built into policies automatically,” said Cathy Neer, an agent with Front Street Insurance in Traverse City. Michigan eliminated the mandate for unlimited PIP on all auto insurance policies in 2020. Unfortunately, that hasn’t resulted in cost savings as hoped for, she says.

“We should see a break (in rates), but it doesn’t seem to be working,” Neer said. Michigan’s laws aren’t the only reason rates are high.

“Collisions cost more because of all the electronics,” Fisher said.

Not only do they cost more for parts,

availability may be limited, particularly for newer models and electric cars. Fisher says even a relatively tame fender-bender might mean a five-month wait for parts. That can cost the consumer and the insurance company time and money, like paying for a rental car. Sometimes the insurance company may simply determine the car is totaled due to the lack of parts to fix it in a reasonable time.

So, should you turn your insurance over to a gecko? Or an emu? While commercials for nationwide insurance carriers may be cute or include Super Bowl MVPs, they’re not necessarily any less expensive than local carriers. Some may not even be available in Michigan, despite what Flo, Doug or Jake might have you believe.

What can consumers do, besides lobby the state government for change? Neer says some insurers determine rates based in part on the driver’s credit rating. It’s called insurance scoring or rate scoring, and companies believe credit scores correlate with lower risks of accidents and claims.

“It’s what actuaries and insurance companies say,” said Neer.

While insurance companies in Michigan can’t use credit or credit-based insurance scores to deny, cancel or refuse to renew an auto or homeowners policy or determine rates, they may weigh credit ratings when deciding which installment payment options to offer for your policy. Regardless, it always behooves people to do what they can to improve their credit rating. That includes things like paying your bills and paying your loans on time and not getting too close to your credit limit. You’ll also want to check your credit report to make sure there aren’t any errors.

Sometimes it is beneficial to carry a higher deductible. Other times you might find going with another company saves money.

“The biggest thing is to educate

‘DOESN’T

SEEM TO BE WORKING’:

Despite changes, auto insurance remains costly in Michigan

Michigan drivers pay more for insurance than the vast majority of Americans. The questions are why and what can be done about it.

(clients),” said Cardinal. “Look at the umbrella and protect yourself.”

Neer agrees.

“Be aware. One of the biggest things is to find an agent you trust,” she said.

Agents help find the best policy for you as an individual, from rates to benefits.

“Compare apples to apples for different companies,” Neer said.

Will including car and auto insurance under the same insurer save money? Maybe, but not always. Neer says bundling can provide a multi-policy discount, but consumers may still find it cheaper to use different companies.

“Bundling is nice,” said Neer, but as an independent agency representing various companies she can check to see if utilizing different companies can actually work to the consumer’s benefit, despite losing the multi-policy discount.

Fisher is a licensed insurance counselor and often reviews policies from compa-

nies other than Cardinal. She says she sometimes finds that people have bundled policies but could find cheaper rates by ungrouping them and insuring auto, house and other items separately.

Will fixing the damn roads have an impact on insurance rates? What about the Los Angeles wildfires? Probably not, according to Neer, who says wear and tear is not covered. Even if you hit a pothole and cause major damage, it still may make more sense to pay for the repair out of pocket rather than taking a chance it increases your rates more than what you pay.

She says it’s also important to make sure consumers have all the facts. She recalls a client from Charlevoix recently calling to complain that his rates were higher than his brother’s.

“His brother lives in the Upper Peninsula,” she said. “The rates are different because there’s less population. That makes a difference.”

Neer Fisher

By Josh Traeger, columnist

Having grown up in western Pennsylvania with parents born and raised in the Steel City, a deep love for the Pittsburgh Steelers has always been at my core. Memories of Jerome Bettis driving through defenders or Hines Ward flashing a smile after a big hit color my childhood. In fact, I can still picture my grandfather stomping his feet and banging his boomba on the kitchen floor after a playoff win.

Oh, you don’t know what a boomba is?

Picture a shoulder-height wooden pole, bearing tambourines, bells, wooden blocks, cymbals, and cowbells as attachments, with a spring at its base. Bounce it hard, and you’ll enjoy an alarming melody of clangs, rings, and thumps.

Or better yet – hop on YouTube, search “The Happy Boombadeers,” and resist the urge to dance. You can thank the Pennsylvania Dutch for that “instrument.”

Sure, my Steelers struggled from time to time. All historic teams do. But what they fundamentally demonstrated to me is a legacy of winning. In fact, in my mind, the Steelers provide a master class in creating heritage and tradition, building resilience, and adapting to change –lessons that can translate directly to your business.

As a small business attorney, I’ve worked with countless entrepreneurs who pour their hearts into building something extraordinary. But what happens when it’s time to step back? Whether you’re thinking about retirement, a potential sale, or simply future-proofing your business, it’s vital to create a plan that ensures stability and continuity. Let’s explore how my Steelers’ approach to succession and legacy can inform your forward-looking strategy.

Establishing and Upholding Core Values

The Rooney family has owned the Pittsburgh Steelers since 1933, and their success can be traced to one simple fact: They’ve never lost sight of their core values. Known for integrity, loyalty and community engagement, these values are reflected in every aspect of their operations. For instance, the Steelers consistently emphasize team cohesion over

STRONG AS STEEL

Pittsburgh Steelers’ story a model for future-proofing your business

individual stardom, a philosophy that has fostered long-term success.

In business succession planning, clearly defined values act as a “true north.” These values should guide decisions about who will lead the business, how transitions will occur, and what the future should look like. When drafting key documents like your operating agreement, shareholder agreement, or trust, consider including language that emphasizes your mission and values.

Long-Term Leadership Development

One of the most striking aspects of the Steelers’ history is their stability in leadership. Since 1969, they’ve had only three head coaches: Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin. This consistency is no accident. Each coach was chosen not only for their skills but also for their alignment with the team’s philosophy. This stability has allowed the team to weather challenges and maintain focus on long-term goals.

Business succession planning is about more than choosing a replacement, it’s about cultivating future leaders who align with your vision. Start by identifying potential successors within your organization and providing them with opportunities to develop their skills. From a legal perspective, consider tools like buy-sell agreements and key person insurance to protect the business during transitions.

The Ripple Effect of an Exit

When Art Rooney Sr. passed the reins of the Steelers to his sons after 55 years at the helm, the transition was seamless. Why? Because it had been carefully planned. By the time Art’s son became the face of the franchise, he was fully prepared to lead. The ripple effect of this thoughtful transition extended beyond the family, ensuring that players, coaches, and fans experienced no disruption.

An exit plan doesn’t just impact the departing owner; it affects employees, customers and other stakeholders. To manage this ripple effect, create a comprehensive plan that includes clear timelines, defined roles and communication strategies. Tools like trusts, succession agreements, and estate plans can help ensure a smooth transition.

Building Stakeholder Trust

The Steelers have cultivated trust among their players, coaches and fans by fostering loyalty and demonstrating fairness. For example, the Rooney family’s introduction of the “Rooney Rule” – which requires NFL teams to interview minority candidates for vacant head coaching positions – shows their commitment to equity and inclusion. This culture of trust has strengthened their brand and ensured stakeholder support.

Trust is critical in succession planning. Involve your stakeholders early in the process to ensure transparency and buy-in. Legally, this might mean holding regular meetings with key employees, establishing advisory boards, or creating written agreements that outline roles and expectations during the transition.

Practical Steps to Forge Your Legacy

Inspired by the Steelers’ example, here are actionable steps to create a strong succession plan for your business:

1. Define your vision and values: Start by articulating what’s most important to you and your business. This will guide every aspect of your succession plan.

2. Identify and develop future leaders: Look for individuals who share your vision and invest in their growth. Provide mentorship, training, and opportunities for them to take on leadership roles.

3. Engage stakeholders: Communicate

openly with employees, customers, and partners about your plans. Their support will be critical to a successful transition.

4. Document everything: Create or update key legal documents, including operating agreements, succession plans, and trusts. These documents should reflect your values and ensure a smooth transition.

5. Plan for the unexpected: The game of life is unpredictable. Use tools like key person insurance and contingency plans to protect your business in the event of an unexpected departure.

6. Review and revise: A succession plan is not a one-and-done document. Regularly review and update it to account for changes in your business, industry, and personal goals.

And at all steps along the way, engage with trusted advisors – legal, finance, strategy, and industry experts – to ensure you are making fully-informed decisions, successfully navigating transitions, and strengthening trust while mitigating risk.

Creating a Lasting Legacy

Ultimately, succession planning is about more than ensuring your business survives; it’s about creating a legacy that reflects your values and impacts your community for years to come.

The Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t just build a successful football team – they built a dynasty rooted in integrity, loyalty, and trust. By adopting a similar approach, you can future-proof your business and create a lasting legacy of your own.

And don’t worry, northern Michigan readers, the Lions are my NFC team.

Josh Traeger is the founding attorney of True North Legal Group, a community-centered law practice based in Traverse City. He can be reached at (231) 800-8654 or josh@truenorthlegalgroup.com. Learn more about True North Legal Group at www.truenorthlegalgroup.com.

By Lindsay Raymond, columnist

After a Michigan Supreme Court ruling in September 2024, Michigan employers have been cautiously preparing for the implementation of the Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), as well as the systematic increase to Michigan’s minimum wage and correlated tip credit phase-out. These changes are set to become effective on February 21, 2025. However, on January 9, two bills were introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives that could potentially change the fate of these new legal requirements yet again.

While these new bills provide welcomed hope for Michigan employers, the perceived back-and-forth has caused whiplash as employers try to understand what is expected of them and attempt to assess the possible impact on their businesses. Employers with tipped employees are facing a potential “one-two punch” if the paid sick leave provisions of ESTA and the minimum wage increase/tip credit phase-out provisions take effect without change. This article is intended to explain the impending minimum wage increase/ tip credit phase-out provisions, understanding that these may change not only before February 21, 2025, but perhaps even before this goes to press.

Minimum Wage Increase

Unless employees are specifically exempt under the law, employers must ensure that employees are paid at least minimum wage for every hour worked, and overtime of time-and-one-half for each hour worked over 40 in a workweek. The federal minimum wage in the United States has been $7.25 per hour since July 2009. However, because Michigan’s minimum wage is higher, Michigan employers must comply with that rate, which is currently $10.56 per hour. If the new provisions are implemented unchanged, as of February 21, 2025, the minimum wage in Michigan will increase to $12.48 per hour. Thereafter, the minimum wage will climb incrementally every year, until it reaches $14.97 on February 21, 2028. This change amounts to a surge of approximately 42% in just three

JUST A PHASE?

Employers face uncertainty regarding tip credit phase-out

years. Applying that increase across any employer’s workforce drastically compounds the impact and the employer’s payroll obligation. Further, many human resources professionals understand that raising minimum wage often times leads to increases in wage rates for other jobs as well. Thus, the impact of this change could be far-reaching and substantially affect the employer’s bottom line.

Tip Credit Phase-Out

Michigan employers are currently allowed to pay tipped employees a reduced minimum wage under the law (38% of the standard rate, or $4.01 per hour), crediting tips received by the employee towards the standard minimum wage amount. If the employee does not receive sufficient tips to reach that standard minimum wage amount, the employer is required to pay the difference. Under this approach, most tipped employees receive far more than minimum wage, as their total tips are significant. If the new provisions are implemented unchanged, as of February 21, 2025, the new tipped employee wage will increase to $5.99 per hour. Thereafter, the tipped employee minimum wage will increase incrementally every year, until the tip-credit is ultimately phased-out or eliminated by 2030. Thus, as of February 21, 2030,

Michigan employers will have to pay tipped employees the regular minimum wage for every hour worked.

This change will drastically increase the payroll costs for employers who have historically utilized the tip credit for their tipped employees. The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association indicated that this amounts to an almost 250% increase in the wages of tipped workers, and could result in two-thirds of restaurant operators laying off employees, and up to 60,000 jobs lost due to raising costs. The Employee Policies Institute, an employer-funded group based in Washington, D.C., estimates that the loss of the tip credit will increase employers’ payroll costs by $48.2 million.

Further, according to the Small Business Association of Michigan’s website, recent surveys show that 83% of servers do not want the tip credit system to change. Hundreds of restaurant and bar workers gathered outside of the State Capitol after the Michigan Supreme Court decision last year to protest against the change. Many workers fear that customers will stop tipping if their minimum wage is raised. Others are concerned that the loss of the tip credit will lead to significantly increased prices for customers, less business and even closures of their workplaces in slower months, especially in tourist destinations.

Potential Relief

On January 9, 2025, Representatives Jay Deboyer, R-Clay Township, and John Roth, R-Interlochen, introduced House bills 4001 and 4002, to modify ESTA and the new provisions eliminating the tip credit. The bill related to ESTA would exempt employers with fewer than 50 employees and tighten up notification requirements. The bill related to minimum wage and the tip credit proposes a graduated increase to the minimum wage, staring with $12.00 on February 21, 2025, followed by subsequent annual increases, culminating in $15.00 by 2029, giving employers one more year to reach the $15.00 level. Importantly, this bill would restore/preserve the tipped wage and tip credit for tipped employees.

Employers will need to keep an eye on the progress of these bills in case they ultimately change their legal requirements. In the meantime, employers should also be working with counsel to prepare for the February 21, 2025 implementation date, just in case the legislature fails to act by then.

Lindsay Raymond of DAR Law is a business owner and an experienced employment law attorney who counsels employers on workplace compliance. You can reach her at lraymond@ darlawyers.com

BOOK REVIEW

By Chris Wendel

Over the past few years, plenty of books have been published centered on ways to become rich, wealthy or to sustain wealth. A recent entry in this category would be “The Algebra of Wealth” written by Scott Galloway.

Galloway is a marketing professor at New York University and a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur.” If you haven’t yet heard of him, likely you will soon. His books, podcast newsletters, YouTube videos, and major TV appearances launched him as an expert influencer in the areas of wealth- and career-building and social commentary on our country’s path. It’s likely that we’ll be seeing even more of him in mainstream media channels in the coming months.

“The Algebra of Wealth” is packed with well-vetted guidance for audiences finding their way early in their careers or actionable material for those needing to recalibrate their personal finance acumen. The book is broken into four major sections on stoicism, focus, time and diversification, all four of which suitably make up the variables in his formula for attaining prosperity.

These variables also touch on the tenets of building a strategic career, adopting a strong work ethic, diversifying risk, and updates of old school financial advice. To make sure that readers understand that the emphasis on wealth is more than money, Galloway establishes early on that “…wealth is the absence of economic anxiety.”

Galloway lays out a necessary framework of stoicism, centering on character and discipline habits. The chapter reminds me of the old adage, “The hard way is the easy way,” meaning that one has to develop a foundation of discipline and grit. In addition, Galloway’s definition of stoicism includes understanding the circumstances we can control (or not) and building a strong community that becomes a supportive extension of one’s self.

The chapter on focus relates to understanding the essential parts of establishing a stable career over the long-term. This section has a fascinating discussion about the difference between passion and talent. Galloway explains how following one’s passion as a way of finding long-term success is misguided. Looking at the long view, he contends that one has to find their “talent” (something that you can do that no one else can or will do) and combine it with a career that will maximize their income over time. Galloway does a nice job breaking down different careers (everything from entrepreneur to airline pilot to construction trades) revealing their advantages and flaws.

The chapter on time has advice that I imagine many older readers wish they had understood better early in their lives. Time is an asset which deals with mastering the remarkable concept of compound

THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH

A Simple Formula for Financial Security

By Scott Galloway

interest, but also how time impacts the short- and long-term spending choices we make in things like houses, cars and education. The timing of spending is closely tied to how and when we save and invest money.

The most lengthy chapter is on diversification. It provides a thorough overview of the principles of investing as well as how the financial marketplace operates. In logical order, he presents investing terms, the impact of taxes and strategies that emphasize a balanced approach to achieving prosperity.

“The Algebra of Wealth” fits a wealth of resources and advice into its 300 pages. Parts of the book harken back to classic books written in a similar vein, like “The Wealthy Barber,” “The Richest Man in Babylon,” and “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” In fact, Galloway freely references other relevant books to reinforce the concepts he is discussing.

Galloway’s formula fits it all together into a fun, relatable, first-person narrative that serves as an essential guide and reference book for its readers. Marketed a book for general audiences, “The Algebra of Wealth” is the perfect read for someone in their early earning years or just out of college, who have plenty of ambition but could use some valuable perspective.

Chris Wendel works for Northern Initiatives, a mission-based lending organization based in Marquette, Michigan. Northern Initiatives provides funding to businesses throughout Michigan and online business resources through its “Initiate” program to organizations and small business owners throughout the United States. Wendel lives and works in Traverse City .

STEWARDSHIP

OVERVIEW

KEEN has had the pleasure of linking efficiency and sustainability solutions throughout MR Products facility.

SOLUTION

New LED lighting throughout

Working with KEEN Energy was a fantastic experience from start to finish. They guided us seamlessly through the entire grant process, utilized high-quality materials throughout the project, and consistently followed up to ensure everything was perfect. We wholeheartedly recommend KEEN Energy for their exceptional service and commitment to excellence.

Ryan Schultz President

M R Products, Inc., home of MR. CHAIN

Cherry Capital Airport’s Leader Looks To Another High-Flying Year

TCBN: Some people can say they had a good 2024. Yours was off the charts!

Klein: That’s true. We passed our record year of 2023 and set another passenger record in 2024, hitting 787,114 passengers, up around 12.3 percent. It was amazing.

TCBN: And now that we’re fully into winter, how’s that going? I assume a lot different than last winter?

Klein: Definitely very different. It went from nothing to full-on, with heavy, wet snow and freezing rain. Basically since Thanksgiving, we’ve been operating with snow almost 24 hours a day. It’s been busy, but overall I think it’s been going really well.

TCBN: I’ve heard about de-icing [aircraft in cold weather] has sometimes caused delays. Why don’t airlines build that into their schedules?

Klein: They do, but remember how short-staffed the airlines were last year? Now they have the staff, but they’re relatively new, so instead of de-icing taking 2025 minutes, it can take longer. But they’ve made big improvements since those first snowfalls. There’s also a lot of new equipment, so that’s good but also caused a bit of a learning curve.

TCBN: Isn’t there innovation coming with de-icing?

Klein: Over in Europe, they use infrared heat in a sort of drive-thru: Think of an outdoor dome, where you pull up and drive through on a taxiway that melts the snow and applies anti-ice. But it’s so costly still. At some point, we will expand and be large enough to have a de-ice pad with

a single contractor doing all the work for all airlines. If you have someone doing it all day, every day, their talent and efficiency improves and safety improves. We’re pushing the airlines to think that way, but it’s an added expense and will take time.

TCBN: How’s spring break looking?

Klein: There are a lot of people wanting to travel. There were a lot of early bookings this year, whereas the last two years there was more of a later booking period. The airlines are reacting to it by putting in larger aircraft to handle it here, which is great. United typically flies with 124 seats and they’ve added flights with 174 seats, so there’s extra capacity being put in. Allegiant has added some flights. At this time last year for advance seats in next 90 days, we’d be around 90-92,000 seats. I just looked at the report this morning; we’re at 98,000 seats, so demand is really up.

TCBN: Talk more about the demand for air travel these days.

Klein: It’s insatiable, honestly. Which is surprising. And yet it’s not translating necessarily to other parts of the travel industry. Typically people would package their airline trip with a hotel stay and a car rental. Now they’re not booking hotels or cars until well within 90 days of travel. It’s interesting to us.

TCBN: Clearly the number of people traveling to northern Michigan for leisure has exploded. But is anyone coming here this time of year?

Klein: People visiting here this time of year for leisure tend to be visiting family. In the winter we’re typically a 50/50

business/leisure split or even a 60/40 this time of year.

TCBN: So how is 2025 looking?

Klein: We’re really excited. Very positive. Basically all our airline partners are adding flights or seats or somehow building on amazing 2024 momentum.

TCBN: Are you willing to share the news here?

Klein: Sure! Starting in March, Allegiant will be bringing back the Phoenix route two months earlier, so that should run March-August. That performed really strong in the summer with folks coming here from Arizona. They’re also growing their Fort Lauderdale route in 2025. Avelo will be back again for summer 2025, adding an additional frequency. They’ll do Saturday and one more day each week with a route to New Haven, Conn. I think they’re interested in doing more in our market, too.

TCBN: Great. And the rest of the players here?

Klein: Delta has been pretty consistent but also has loaded Atlanta for sale in December, which is almost three months earlier than last year. They’ve been conservative in the past, so that’s really good news. We’re meeting with American very soon. Everything there is focused on Charlotte year-round, and that’s already looking very positive. Sun Country will be back doing Minneapolis, similar to last year with a mid-June to Labor Day schedule. We met with United in December and had an awesome meeting. All routes are doing great.

Denver will start earlier than last year and we’ll try to extend it to almost November. Their goal is to keep pushing it to eventually become year-round, which would really be fantastic. And Houston that was for six weeks on Saturdays only will be for the same six weeks but on a daily basis June 28-August 9. Only 14 seats went unsold all season on that route. Unreal.

TCBN: Seems like the demand from Texas has grown so quickly. It’s incredible. Klein: You’re right. Their summers are so hot, it’s easy demand. Texans have traditionally traveled west on vacations but now they’re trying new experiences east and north. And they’re seeing our real estate prices are a lot better, too!

TCBN: Switching gears a bit, your terminal expansion should take some notable steps forward in 2025. What can we expect this year?

Klein: Our design phase is now complete, and we’ll be looking to get final approval of using the full faith and credit from Grand Traverse County. Hopefully we will bid out the project in late 2025 and maybe even get started on some utility work late in the year, with shovels in the ground in 2026!

TCBN: Obviously much of the work is specialized to airports, but will there be any opportunity for local contractors to work on the expansion?

Klein: Absolutely. Once we get a lead partner identified, there will be several pieces of this large project that local companies will have a chance to work on. That’s a priority of ours.

READY FOR ACTION

Meeting and event spaces prep for busy 2025

By Art Bukowski

Some of us get to live here. The rest have to settle for a visit.

And while the bulk of those visits come from those on vacation, the Grand Traverse region has long been a very strong draw for conventions, events, and other professional gatherings that bring countless thousands of additional folks Up North each year.

The TCBN checked in with some of the region’s notable event venues to see what’s in store for 2025.

Katie Leonard, Director of Sales

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

As with many industries, the meetings and events space world continues to face supply chain challenges, particularly affecting property maintenance and repairs. In a good way, availability for large groups is another concern, as we have contracts extending through 2031 – so the demand is there and we are booking far out. Despite these challenges, we see opportunities in curating unique experiences by introducing new packages and ticketed events tailored to our group guests. Adapting to the evolving needs of large-scale gatherings will remain a priority.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

In August 2024, we began an exciting

partnership with the Detroit Lions and unveiled the new Touchdown Suite in November. This has been exciting for all guests, including group business. Additionally, we have enhanced our marketplace with an improved guest experience and expanded offerings – a very popular spot in the morning for guests and throughout the day for a pick-me-up. Significant updates also include the refreshed outdoor Pavilion venue with new landscaping and a tent cover, as well as upgrades at Spa Grand Traverse, such as a brand-new plunge pool. These enhancements aim to provide elevated experiences for all guests.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees.

This year, we are hosting several large company employee appreciation events, with many bringing 500-700 attendees. We’ve also seen an increase in national programs, driven by the expansion of our airport and additional direct flights. Notably, we have events drawing up to 2,000 attendees.

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

Our beautiful meeting space combines with a waterpark to allow us a truly unique option to enhance the experience of our guests. Many hospitality experts cite enhancing the guest experience as their priority for the coming year. We continue to be challenged to elevate the experience for our planners and their guests, offering new technologies like remote check-in and mobile ordering in our outlets, keeping convenience and efficiency in mind. Anticipating evolving expectations continues to be our goal, and we love the challenge.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

We continue to offer day waterpark

passes, which is a great way for our community to enjoy our waterpark. We also offer indoor cabanas and premier seating for an enhanced waterpark experience. We are an excellent day and social meeting option for local organizations, who rave about our food, quality of meeting rooms and ease of working with our sales department.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees. We are very honored to host some incredible groups! Some of the larger groups include: North American MGA Register 2025 GT 50 Car Club, Great Lakes Veterinary Conference, Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, Michigan State Association of Letter Carriers, and Impact 100. In addition to large groups, many host meetings to discuss topics of influence on various aspects of our society. We are all privileged to play a small role in providing a welcoming setting to these groups.

THE GRAND TRAVERSE RESORT, ACME

Tori Piersante, Director of Sales and Catering

GREAT WOLF LODGE, TRAVERSE CITY

HAGERTY CENTER, TRAVERSE CITY

Chad Schenkelberger, NMC’s Director of Food Services

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

Staffing continues to remain the biggest issue facing the hospitality industry. While it has gotten better over the last few years due to wage increases, we still struggle with maintaining an adequate staffing level throughout the entire year.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

The Hagerty Center has recently completed a renovation of our courtyard. This includes the addition of lighting, a patio area for entertainment, resurfacing of the courtyard and new outdoor furniture. We are excited to offer a space that will allow our clients to fully enjoy the beautiful northern Michigan summers!

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees.

The Hagerty Center is looking forward to hosting several events that are tied to NMC academic programs. As a professional development center, we take pride in being the home for the Great Lakes Culinary School’s Taste of Success and the Lakebed Conference held in partnership with the NMC Marine Center. Our largest event is the Cherry Festival’s Great American Picnic, which happens to be one of the longest-standing community partnerships.

Chelsea Harland, Sales and Social Media Manager

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

I suspect technology and audio visual will continue to bring us more options to make it easier to bring people together. For groups looking into venues but unable to view them in person, there are a lot of great options to see spaces virtually that we didn’t have before. Additional opportunities in the rise of immersive experiences and more hybrid events, but with continuing challenges of the high cost of living in TC in terms of finding and retaining talent.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

It’s an exciting year for audio visual. We have a new 85” TV screen for our 18-person conference room, and are in the process of replacing our projector with a higher-lumen, laser projector which will enhance presentations in Kirkbride Hall. We’re confident this will help further provide a great meeting experience in a venue with plenty of natural light, which is often a rarity to find for large groups. For clients looking for fun ideas to present their group, we continue to see a rise in private group tours on property, and are able to get creative and flexible with their needs while offering them a fascinating tour of one of the most historical places in Traverse City.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees.

We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with the Candlelight Concert series, bringing additional string quartet concerts in the winter months. Additionally, we have a handful of non-profit events that will bring in over 150 people per event.

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

The meetings and events industry in 2025 presents robust opportunities, particularly in our group meetings and group golf segments, which are showing unprecedented demand for spring through fall bookings. The challenge comes with the opportunity, which includes managing capacity for both segments during our peak seasons.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

Our signature OneRate guarantee continues to be a game-changing differentiator in the industry, offering transparent, all-inclusive pricing that eliminates hidden fees and unexpected charges. This straightforward approach streamlines the planning process and provides peace of mind for our group organizers. The rate includes everything needed for a successful event, from meeting spaces and audio-visual equipment to dining and recreational amenities.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees.

We’re proud to host the prestigious Hall Financial Michigan Open Championship this June, showcasing our world-class golf facilities to members of the Michigan PGA. Our largest group event remains the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police conference, a cherished partnership for more than 30-years that brings together the state’s largest gathering of law enforcement leadership at our facility.

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

There is growing demand for experiential events that go beyond the ordinary, providing tailored experiences. There is also significant opportunity to capitalize on the shift toward regional and smaller-scale meetings, offering personalized service and unique local touches that make each event feel special. One of the biggest challenges will be navigating tighter budgets which could affect the scale of events. Additionally, staying ahead of technological advances, such as AI-driven event platforms, will require ongoing investment and training. Lastly, the heightened focus on sustainability means venues must proactively adapt their operations to meet greener standards which, while rewarding, can also involve upfront costs and logistical hurdles. At Delamar, we are focusing on creating dynamic and bespoke options for meetings and events, leveraging our beautiful location, culinary expertise and commitment to sustainability and wellness to address these trends and challenges.

What opportunities or challenges do you expect in the meetings/event space world in 2025?

The Traverse City and Michigan meetings market offers significant opportunities in 2025, thanks to our scenic beauty, vibrant downtown and unique venues that cater to experiential and eco-conscious events. Investments in infrastructure and our focus on sustainability position us to attract corporate and social gatherings year-round.

However, challenges remain. Rising costs and wage inflation impact competitive pricing, while the tight labor market complicates staffing for complex events. Additionally, shifting perceptions of Traverse City as a seasonal destination is crucial to drive demand in quieter months.

As hybrid and virtual meetings evolve, continued investment in technology and training is essential. Despite these challenges, Traverse City and Hotel Indigo are uniquely positioned to adapt and thrive with strong collaboration between tourism boards, venues and the business community. By leveraging our natural assets and innovative approaches, we can solidify our place as a premier meetings destination in 2025.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

Hotel Indigo Traverse City is excited about several

updates aimed at enhancing our offerings for the meetings and events market. This winter, we’re undergoing a soft renovation, refreshing our public spaces, guest rooms and meeting facilities to provide an elevated experience. Additionally, we’ve partnered with a national audio-visual company to install stateof-the-art technology in our meeting spaces, ensuring they meet the latest standards for seamless hybrid and in-person events.

Looking ahead to summer, we’ll be reimagining our rooftop deck with new décor, creating a refreshed, stylish space for gatherings and celebrations with stunning views of downtown and the bay. These updates underscore our commitment to delivering exceptional experiences for meeting planners and guests alike, further positioning Hotel Indigo as a premier choice for events in Traverse City.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees.

Hotel Indigo will see the return of loyal groups with 50-140 attendees, as well as quite a few new programs this in 2025 and 2026. The majority will utilize our ballroom, which also allows for two breakout rooms. The district boardroom seats up to 10, and our extremely popular boardroom capacity is 25. Every space has an abundance of natural light, with the ballroom and boardroom featuring views of West Grand Traverse Bay.

What’s new or exciting in terms of your facilities, services or amenities this year?

We are really excited about our new national and local partnerships. We have been working with Moet + Chandon, Veuve Clicquot on a partnership so you’ll see several experiences throughout the year with that partnership, including our upcoming Veuve Cozy Cabana. We also recently partnered with Brys Estate Vineyard & Winery, locally. They are featured in our new Winter in the Vines package and will be featured in our spring and summer experiences. Both also offer plenty of opportunity for our group teambuilding program.

Please name a few interesting groups you have booked for this year, along with the largest in terms of attendees. We are grateful and proud to be home for the Detroit Red Wings during their time in Traverse City every September for Training Camp. Additionally, we have booked our first hotel buyout for a company’s incentive trip which will bring nearly 200 people on property.

Tracey Ramsey, Vice President, Lodging and Sales

SHANTY CREEK, BELLAIRE

Lisa Monache, Area Director of Sales and Marketing

HOTEL INDIGO, TRAVERSE CITY

Taryn Miracle, Director of Sales and Marketing

DELAMAR TRAVERSE CITY, TRAVERSE CITY

By

As our elected officials guide the country through the choppy waters of taming our unruly national debt, healthcare is poised for change – again. Upcoming improvements will foster greater flexibility and choice for organizations managing employee benefits.

The Affordable Care Act: What May Happen?

In contrast to President Donald Trump’s first term, dedicating resources to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) appears unlikely during Trump 2.0. The spotlight will likely move to gradually adjust rather than another attempt to completely dismantle the law. An easy starting point could begin with simplifying or even eliminating ACA large employer reporting requirements. Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) must transmit annual data to the IRS outlining details about their employees’ health coverage. This information helps enforce the employer-shared responsibility provision that requires an ALE to offer “affordable and compliant” medical insurance or incur hefty penalties (a.k.a., ACA “pay or play”). Potential relief from this obligation comes at a timely moment, as Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act will be contentiously launched this month.

Further alterations could include rolling back full-time eligibility to its original 40 hours per week or adjusting eligibility based on regularly scheduled hours. In addition, efforts to grant states autonomy in administering federal regulations may be emerging. This could allow states to modify or even opt out of certain ACA requirements, including specific components of the 10 Essential Health Benefits.

Healthcare Alternatives: A New Horizon

Term one, President Trump showed a willingness to explore new pathways for healthcare, including Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRA) and Association Health Plans

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

The landscape is on the brink of transformation

(AHP). Term two, developing upon alternatives like these could serve as a crucial catalyst, bolstering recruitment and driving talent acquisition.

What is an ICHRA? An employer-funded benefit that allows businesses to reimburse employees for their qualified medical expenses and individual premiums. Employees who maintain their own coverage that best meets their personal needs would no longer rely on furnished group programs.

This is particularly advantageous for small and medium-sized businesses that may struggle with group health programs. ICHRAs present an attractive, cost-effective way to provide health benefits while giving employees more choice and flexibility.

It is highly probable that Republicans will seek to codify ICHRAs into law. Transitioning the ICHRA framework to a statutory basis would significantly increase stability and refreshes reassurance to those uncertain about adopting this type of benefit.

The new administration may also aim to reinstate Association Health Plan (AHP) rules, which were reversed by the Biden administration. AHPs were designed to enable small employers and the self-employed to join together for health coverage, aiming to reduce premiums and

expanding access to a broader selection of options. In essence, AHPs are a viable solution for providing comprehensive health insurance, bypassing some of the constraints found in the individual and small-group markets.

Savings Account Expansion and Wellness: 2.0

Incoming policymakers may advocate for a broader adoption of Health Savings Accounts (HSA), recognizing their potential to offer both employers and employees greater flexibility in managing healthcare. By increasing contribution limits and expanding upon qualified expenses (IRS Publication 502), these changes could spur individuals to save more while benefiting from tax advantages. For employers, this could extend solutions that support workforce health needs, while employees gain more control over their spending and savings. This approach aligns with efforts to build a more efficient, consumer-driven healthcare system that encourages personal responsibility in managing costs.

Additionally, we may see the introduction of new benefits, such as Dependent Care Savings Accounts, which would empower employees to save and invest for child

and elder care expenses. The escalating price tag of dependent care has outpaced the available pre-tax benefits provided by Flexible Spending Accounts. With Trump’s support for working parents, there could be greater opportunity to develop worthy dependent care benefits, modeled after the structure of HSAs, and delivering the same triple-tax advantages.

Future policy changes could encourage employer-sponsored wellness programs by offering financial incentives like tax credits and deductions. These programs would not only address physical health but also emphasize mental well-being. The goal would be to improve health and create a more productive workforce. Stay tuned, Traverse City, it is going to be an exciting year! The landscape of employee benefits is on the brink of transformation. Key changes will focus on expanding choices while easing restrictive insurance regulations that have hindered employment. This shift will give businesses more room to innovate and stay competitive.

Andi Dolan is the owner of Traverse Benefits, a local independent insurance agency advocating and providing health, life and disability solutions for employers, individuals and Medicare beneficiaries across northern Michigan.

Andi Dolan, columnist

TRAVEL AGENCIES ARE BACK

Travel has changed, and so have the clients

By Ross Boissoneau

Back in the day, when you wanted to travel somewhere (other than grandma’s house), it was almost a given that you would stop in at one of the many travel bureau offices. There someone would help you choose your departure and arrival times, assist in purchasing your airplane tickets, and help you with all the other details, such as transportation and accommodations. And if you simply had the urge to go somewhere but weren’t sure where, the agency displayed all manner of brochures and posters extolling the virtues of this Caribbean destination or that European port of call.

That was then, and now you can purchase airline tickets, rent a vehicle, make hotel reservations and plan your itinerary on your phone, all from the comfort of your sofa. Why would you even need a travel agent?

That’s a question Tammy Ensman often gets. She runs Journese Travel in Traverse City, and has devoted a large section of her company website to answering it.

“The biggest reason is (people) go somewhere, get overwhelmed, don’t know where to stay,” she said.

The top item on her list of 10 reasons to hire a travel agent?

“They’re educated and experienced,”

she said. “Simply put, they know more than you.”

Another reason: troubleshooting. When something goes wrong, the travel agents know who to call, and they are more likely to get results than the average traveler, who has little or no leverage when things go awry.

Travel suppliers value the travel agent’s business much more than that of any individual traveler, giving the agent more influence and troubleshooting ability.

“It helps having a travel agent as an advocate,” agreed Abby Schimke of Grand Traverse Travel.

She says when people try to solve their problems themselves, they often get frustrated using online tools or navigating through endless menus on the phone.

“You have to jump through a lot of hoops just to talk to a human,” she said.

Schimke, a certified luxury travel advisor, says her ability to learn what her clients enjoy enables her to not only provide what they need but add fun surprises along the way.

“We can get them to the right restaurant, get a local tour guide and navigate the culture,” she said. If she learns a client likes a specific type of wine, she can have it waiting for them when they check in.

According to Ensman, that’s another reason to work with a travel agent: Estab-

lishing a relationship is mutually beneficial. That way they can take care of their clients’ needs and wants, and the clients don’t have to worry about every detail. Schimke and Ensman are not alone, though it may seem like it. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there

were 124,000 full-time travel agents in the United States in 2000. As of 2023, that number had dropped to just over 58,000

That change has been seen locally. One of the largest and most successful agencies operating in this area was Passageways. Tom McIntyre started the company in

Tammy Ensman (front left) with a group of fellow mountain hikers in Nepal.

Croatia

1980 when he purchased a small local travel agency with one office and four employees, which generated about $900,000 in sales. Over the next 30 years, the company grew to 17 locations throughout the state with 150 employees and sales approaching $100 million, making it the largest travel agency in Michigan.

In 2012 McIntyre sold 50% of the business to Altour International Travel. Six years later, Altour purchased the other 50%. Today, Altour bills itself as “a global team of business travel experts,” and touts its presence in 90 countries, including one office in Traverse City doing business as The Travel Authority.

Its reputation locally and among the staff was first-rate, Ensman says, who moved to Traverse City in 1988 and worked at Passageways.

“I loved working there. It was wonderful, a lot of camaraderie,” she said. “It was a great place to work.”

While those days may be gone, the industry overall is seeing an uptick after a two-decade downturn. The 58,000 agents represent an increase from 53,000 in 2022. The industry bottomed out in 2021

counting those in the role.

Whatever the true number, the industry is rebounding, with Career Explorer predicting growth of 3.5% between now and 2032. Articles in Travel + Leisure and

“We have clients who are younger, newlyweds or younger families – they say it takes too much time online to do their own.”

– Abby Schimke, Owner, Grand Traverse Travel

with fewer than 37,000 agents, according to the statistical research company IBISWorld.

Career Explorer actually claims a current figure of 66,300 U.S. agents, which points to the challenge of defining and

TravelAge West both note that younger travelers – millennials and Gen Z – are using travel agents more than their older counterparts.

Schimke says she sees that in her work.

“We have clients who are younger,

newlyweds or younger families – they say it takes too much time online” to do their own, she said.

Another reason people use travel agencies is they can offer experiential packages.

Experiential travel can include culinary travel, with wine and vineyards, local restaurants, cooking classes and more; musical tourism, from concerts and festivals to cruises featuring rock, blues, jazz, or progressive rock; wellness tourism, focusing on spas, yoga retreats, hiking trails, and other activities; and various other interests and activities.

Both Ensman and Schimke say one narrative they want to dispel is the notion that it costs more to use a travel agent. On her Journese Travel site, Ensman notes that given their relationships with vendors, hotel and airlines, travel agents can match or beat prices.

“It’s a myth they pay more. I know the deals,” she said.

Schimke

TC RESTAURANT WEEK

By Kierstin Gunsberg

With 42% of adults eager to dine out more often, the National Restaurant Association reports a pent-up demand that could mean more spent in restaurants this year. That’s a bright spot in an otherwise gray and chilly shoulder season for the northern Michigan restaurants gearing up for the 14th annual Traverse City Restaurant Week.

Running from February 23 to March 1, 35-40 restaurants participate annually, offering prix fixe menus priced at $25, $35, or $45, with $25 menus featuring at least two courses and the higher tiers including three courses.

Selling the experience

The European-inspired bistro Amical has been a staple of the event since its launch in 2011, with its management viewing it not just as a midwinter boost but as a major part of their off-peak game plan. The influx of diners “is very important to the winter business,” said general manager Jeff Libman, explaining how the event ramps up traffic for the bistro along with other hospitality industries Up North, by attracting both locals and visitors from downstate to play, stay, and dine despite the frigid temps.

“With Traverse City becoming so popular, Restaurant Week is now a destination for midwinter vacation for a lot of people,” Libman said, adding that in a typical February, Amical serves about 40 diners on weeknights and 90 on weekends.

During Restaurant Week, guest numbers more than double, with weeknight covers exceeding 80, climbing into the triple digits on the weekend. The uptick in reservations is driven by the $35 prix fixe menu, which includes an appetizer, entrée, and dessert at half the regular price – or less – designed to attract curious but dollar-shy diners.

Yet, Libman observes, while the initial draw for the first few years of the event seems to have been that value menu, diners are now cross-selling themselves on extras, like cocktails and appetizers, generating tens of thousands of dollars during the week-long event.

“What we’ve seen is that people are really making an experience out of it,” he said, noting how that behavior equates to tabs close to what Amical would normally see during the rest of the winter. “The idea and spirit of Restaurant Week isn’t necessarily to make money but to give everyone something different that they haven’t seen before.”

How restaurants are prepping for the influx

Libman adds that the event allows restaurants to “reintroduce” themselves to the local dining community before the rush of spring visitors fills up reservations. It also provides an environment to test new dishes. Top sellers from past events, like their homemade peanut butter cup – which “sold a shocking amount” – and

Stella’s pasta dish (Courtney Kent Photography)

duck crepes, have even earned spots on the regular rotating menu.

“We track everything, we look at everything,” Libman said.

Leaning into local

Over at Bushell’s Kitchen + Cocktails, building visibility with northern Michigan diners is the main goal for their debut Restaurant Week.

“This is our opportunity to really deliver,” said co-owner Andre Bushell. Bushell, who also co-owns Foundry

opened his namesake restaurant with wife, Kelci, in a soft launch this past summer. The opening was intentionally low key to give his team time to acclimate to their new space in downtown TC.

“We were very quiet because we don’t like to make mistakes,” Bushell explained.

Despite the low profile, the restaurant saw a steady stream of hungry tourists. Now, Restaurant Week is their time to reach nearby foodies “who might not have had the chance to check us out yet,” said

While their regular menu includes rich takes on classics like a gruyere mac and cheese and hot honey popcorn chicken, the Restaurant Week menu will lean into seasonal produce offerings.

Along with a focus on braised meats, “(w)e’re going to be featuring our relationships with our local farmers..and utilizing those root vegetables,” he said.

With an average temp that hits just above freezing and outdoor seating out of the question, Bushell notes that navigat-

ing their indoor dining room’s 64-seat space will be the biggest priority for pulling off a successful Restaurant Week.

“We’ll be making sure we manage those reservations appropriately and give everybody the opportunity to come,” he said.

Aiming for approachability

For Trattoria Stella, a mainstay of Restaurant Week, the event provides a welcome lift during an otherwise slow season.

Chef Myles Anton calls it a “shot of

Craft Grillery in Elk Rapids and Dreloco Taco in Traverse City,

Bushell, describing the eatery’s offerings as elevated comfort food.

Andre and Kelci Bushell

energy,” for his team.

“It’s something we can rely on. All of my employees get nice overtime, and it’s a big chunk in the middle of a usually slow winter.

“It gets us fired up to produce a lot of food and make a lot of people happy,” he said.

Preparation for Restaurant Week kicks off as early as Christmas for Anton and his culinary team when they start coordinating with the local vendors they source their ingredients from.

As part of their strategy for managing

the increased volume of orders, the team adjusts their winter hours – which are usually 5pm-9pm Wednesday through Monday – by extending them to 4pm-9pm for each day of the week-long event.

“During Restaurant Week, we’ll bump up to 300, 350 people (eating in) every day,” Anton said. “It’s always full, and we’re cranking.”

Anton’s restaurant partner Amanda Danielson adds that staffing remains consistent throughout the year, allowing them to handle the whirlwind week without hiring additional help.

“Our staffing levels don’t fluctuate very much. Our year-round, full-time staff is sufficient to manage the increase,” she said.

The scratch-made tasting menu doesn’t shift much for Restaurant Week either.

“We’re not changing for Restaurant Week,” Danielson said. “Everything’s still made in-house, with the same ingredients we always use. It’s a chance for people to come in and see what Stella is all about.”

Danielson’s main objective for the week is to demystify Stella’s, noting that

past Restaurant Weeks have converted first-timers into loyal, repeat guests.

“Even after 20 years of us being in business, there are still people who haven’t been here because they think it’s too fancy or a special occasion-only place,” Danielson said.

She says their regular menu strategically includes varying price points.

“Restaurant Week helps show that we’re accessible, and it’s not just about special occasions,” Danielson said. “It’s about having a great time without feeling like it’s out of reach.”

COMPASSION IS AT OUR CORE

At Munson, expert hands are aided by leading-edge technology to uncover and treat what ails you. But the core of our commitment comes from within. It’s the call to serve. With listening ears and determined hearts. Committed to answers. To your healing. And to you.

Learn more at: munsonhealthcare.org/commitment

Stella Chef Myles Anton (Courtney Kent Photography)

Bushell’s

Justine Pearl, MD Neurosurgery

Photo by Captured by Grace Photography

Tools available for family business transitions

Tax season surprise? Take steps to reshape your strategies.

Tax season surprise? Take steps to reshape your strategies. If tax season resulted in you owing more to the IRS than you expected, you may want to revisit your investment-related tax strategies. Doing so can help put you in a better position and avoid having to face unexpected surprises. These steps can help. Review your investment portfolio for tax efficiency

Transitioning your family business to your heirs may sound simple enough, but in fact, doing it successfully can prove difficult. To help improve your transition’s chances for success, consider family business governance.

This is a system of correlated tools and actions to support the next generation with controlling, owning, and operating the business. It also puts in place a framework that contains business protocols, describes how future ownership changes occur, and estab lishes a precedent for making business decisions.

1. Review the location of your investments.

Frequently used tools

• Do you have investments in taxable accounts that distribute nonqualified divi dends or taxable interest?

There are several tools that can be employed as part of a family business governance system, including:

• Do you have actively managed funds that are generating significant capital gains?

• Could these investments be held in tax-advantaged accounts instead?

A buy-sell agreement is a legally binding contract that stipulates how an owner’s share of a business may be reassigned if triggering events occur, the price that will be paid, and the payment structure.

2. Evaluate the tax impact of the types of investments you select for your taxable accounts.

A family employment policy document can be kept within the family for private use or incorporated into the business’s human resource documentation. It sets expectations for heirs, spouses, and extended family members about such issues as how they can obtain employment in the business, the requirements to attain key positions, the compensation standards to be used, and incentive language for family members.

• Compare taxable bonds or bond funds with tax-exempt bonds or bond funds. Determine which are better for your situation.

A distribution or dividend policy is key in setting expectations with family members regarding what distributions they should expect to receive from the business. Business owners must balance the need for cash to maintain or grow the business with the desire to receive distributions.

• Work with a financial advisor to identify investments that will distribute primarily qualified dividends. Qualified dividends generally are taxed at the preferential long-term capital gain rates while nonqualified dividends are taxed at ordinary income tax rates.

A professional board of directors is a governing body that helps oversee the business and makes major decisions. A board generally comprises three, five, or seven professionals from various industries that have the subject matter expertise to assist the company strategically.

• Mutual funds can distribute capital gains at year-end, delivering income that may be difficult to predict. If this is a concern, review other investment options that could offer more control over the recognition of capital gains.

A family board or council is a group within the family — or may include the entire family — that comes together to make decisions about the business on the family’s behalf.

3. Identify any unexpected taxable events that occurred. Determine if they are going to reoccur and think about actions you may want to take to help mitigate that impact.

A company mission statement can be valuable to your employees and your family as it addresses the business’s purpose and vision and can help guide future company leaders.

Formulate your plan

Your estate plan can address ownership, control, distributions, and several other factors.

Work with both your tax advisor and your financial advisor to build your overall plan.

The business’s governing documents should be reviewed at the same time the family business governance system and tools are put in place. Revisions to these documents or corporate resolutions stored in the corporate minutes may be needed to align these documents with the company’s governance system.

Helping ensure a successful transition

First, schedule an appointment with your tax professional to discuss your situation and review your tax projection. Running multiple-year projections can assist with determining when to increase or decrease income and/or deductions. Then, follow up with your financial advisor to evaluate your portfolio strategies and any investment changes that may help reduce your tax bill. If you’re nearing retirement, a financial advisor can also run multiple scenarios to help you understand the potential portfolio and tax implications of your retirement income strategy.

Transitioning the family business to the next generation is much more than transitioning shares. A well-thought-out and documented plan that addresses ownership, control, and operations helps build a strong governance system for your business. This system, combined with communication with the next generation, can be key to helping ensure your transition’s success.

JULIAN | BLACK

Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors

A Fresh Start

LOGO LOGIC

Local designers take TCBN inside the process of creating the perfect logo

By Art Bukowski

There’s plenty of things in the mix when it comes to making a business or organization successful.

Great customer service, excellent communication, a track record of delivering results – the list goes on. But there’s also tremendous power in a good brand. The visual and thematic elements of a brand set an organization apart and help it build trust with customers or stakeholders. And when it comes to strong branding, few things are more important than a killer logo.

Whether it’s an established organization refreshing its logo after many years or a new company looking to put its best visual foot forward, enormous amounts of thought and work go into crafting the perfect logo. The process is sometimes challenging, often surprising and almost always rewarding.

The TCBN connected with professionals in town – one freelance designer and two agencies – to discuss the logo design process. We also asked them to provide two logos each and talk about how these designs came to be.

Doing the Research

The first thing designers stress is that the logo design process (a good one, anyways) doesn’t start with designs. In addition to honing in on the client’s creative or design preferences, designers want to know all about a company or organization’s missions, goals and much more before putting pencil to paper.

The process of gathering this information largely varies depending on the

designer and the client. Longtime local freelance designer Mike Erway (who has crafted some of the region’s most recognizable logos) has a very detailed questionnaire he wants clients to complete prior to getting started. Agencies like Brand Tonic and Flight Path Creative usually employ extensive discovery processes to get to the bottom of the many things that should shape a logo.

“It all goes back to what you’re trying to achieve. What are your goals of your business or organization? Who are you trying to draw to you, and why?” said Jen Lake, founder and creative director at Brand Tonic. “And what is going to resonate with that audience?”

Some clients are surprised (and perhaps even bothered) by all the legwork. Plenty come in and press for a logo as soon as possible so they can get their business up and running. Lake gently encourages those clients to not put the cart before the horse.

“Sometimes they think, ‘Well, I’m just selling a product,’ but there’s so much more around that that they haven’t figured out,” Lake said. “And it’s the same thing with an organization doing a rebrand. Why exactly do you want to rebrand? How have you evolved as an organization? Have your goals shifted?”

In terms of gathering input on the logo design itself, opinions and methods differ. Designers interviewed for this story are big fans of using the discovery process to get an idea of a client’s color, font and other preferences.

“It’s best to ask a lot of questions up front,” Erway said. “I have found that having free rein is ideal, but getting

“One thing that’s always a huge challenge is when a client expects too much out of their logo. They expect it to say too much, to do too much, to answer too many questions. And we constantly have to reference some of the most successful national brands (that have very simple logos).”

– Aaron Swanker, Founder and Creative Director, Flight Path Creative

at least some input from the client is important. You want to be going in the right direction.”

Plenty of times the client doesn’t even know what they want, and the designer or design team will use mood boards (collections of visual elements) or other tactics to best determine a client’s design preferences. Doing so ensures that the first few

drafts are much closer to the finish line, designers say.

It’s a fine line, however. Input is important, but creative professionals also need room to breathe.

“If a client comes and says we really know exactly what we want, we just need something to put it together, we’re probably not the right fit,” Lake said.

The Swankers

“It all goes back to what you’re trying to achieve. What are your goals of your business or organization? Who are you trying to draw to you, and why? And what is going to resonate with that audience?”

– Jen Lake, Founder and Creative Director, Brand Tonic

Once all the info is gathered, it’s time to start sketching out some ideas. This is when designers are reminded of why they got into the business in the first place.

“I think of logo design as a puzzle. And you’re creating the pieces at the same time you’re trying to complete the puzzle, so it’s very strange in that way,” Erway said. “When you see the pieces start to form … and see the different routes you can take to a solution, that’s really fun. But right up there with finding the perfect solution is the flood of ideas that can come once you’ve sort of cracked the code of the puzzle.”

Sometimes the idea spills onto the paper fully formed. Far more often, it slowly reveals itself starting with the sketchbook and moving to design software.

“I have to remind myself, even this many years into it, is there are no bad sketches in the sketchbook,” Erway said. “There are no bad ideas.”

Both Brand Tonic and Flight Path have multiple designers working on a logo, sometimes (but not always) leading to a first draft that blends elements of their individual concepts.

“Everyone does their individual process first … and then we come together as a group,” said Aaron Swanker, Flight Path’s creative director. “With us, you’re paying for a team, and that’s how we differentiate ourselves from freelancers. You’re getting that full team effort.”

Eventually, it comes time to get one or two concepts in front of the client.

“Going into a first draft presentation, I want to make sure that I’m really excited about a couple of the ideas. And I want to be able to talk about each one, which is as important as the visuals they’re looking at,” Erway said. “I want to give an explanation and a reasoning behind how I arrived

at these ideas.”

The goal at this point is not necessarily a home run – but a triple would be nice.

“In that first draft presentation, what I’m hoping for is that one of the ideas is very close, and it usually is,” Erway said. “Usually, with the information I’ve gathered before I start designing anything, I can get those early drafts to a point where (we just need minor tweaks).”

Balancing act

But sometimes a logo needs more than minor tweaks, even if the designer or design team carefully explains exactly how and why they designed it that way. Sometimes it just falls flat, and there’s no choice but to go back to the drawing board.

“We’ve learned in the business that you can have a 90-minute presentation and talk a ridiculous amount of lingo, and they might leave the room saying it’s great,” Swanker said. “But then then you get an email the next day saying they don’t like any of the concepts.”

This is where a relatively delicate balancing act comes in. Creative professionals take pride in both the art and science of their work, and sometimes they have to push back against client requests.

“One thing that’s always a huge challenge, for example, is when a client expects too much out of their logo. They expect it to say too much, to do too much, to answer too many questions,” Swanker said. “And we constantly have to reference some of the most successful national brands (that have very simple logos).”

Ultimately, a little give and take goes a long way.

“Sometimes I will try to steer a client in a different direction, but I’m also trying to remain open and respect that they can have some good ideas, too,” Erway said. “So I’ll l definitely go back to the drawing board for another revision and maybe

“Creating something and having it stamped on things around your environment or out in the world is really fun to see.”

– Mike Erway, freelance graphic designer

incorporate what they suggest and try to make it work within what I feel is best for the logo going forward.”

Feedback is both necessary and important, but designers wince if the logo drafts are being passed around to too many people in the client’s organization, something that can greatly bog down the process.

“I have to be sure up front that I’m talking to a decision-maker,” Erway says. “Because if it becomes designing by a committee, 95% of the time it turns into a very difficult situation.”

But often there’s no way around it. Brand Tonic frequently works with nonprofits, and they may interview or interact with dozens of employees, donors and stakeholders throughout the design process. Lake and her team are capable of making the most of this situation, she says.

“You get all of these varying views or opinions, but what we’re able to do is sort of find the thread line, find those common pieces,” she said. “We design with intention, and we can say ‘Here’s everything you told us, here are those thread lines that makes sense, and here’s a concept that works.’”

And while all designers want the client involved, things can get hairy when the client wants to get too involved.

“A lot of times we’re told we have a blank canvas, but we really don’t … and we don’t love it when we’re just creative suite monkeys,” Swanker said. “We’ve had scenarios where people want us to design while they’re watching on Zoom,” Swanker said. “Or they’ll want to come in and stand behind (the designer). And it’s like, are you crazy?”

The Finish Line

Despite occasional bumps in the road, stalemates or impasses, designers say the effort put in during the discovery process means clients almost always end up with

a logo they genuinely love. Even when things get sticky, about the worst thing that can happen is the designer or design team has to relent on certain elements of their creation that they feel strongly about.

“Sometimes we definitely have to swallow our pride, but we’re professionals and we can handle it,” Swanker said. “At the end of the day, after all the client’s revision and maybe some compromises, it’s still going to be a design that we stand behind.”

Lake says the designer and client “find common ground in almost every instance.”

“You go through all of it, and (that logo) is kind of like your baby. But ultimately, it’s about what’s best for that organization and what they’re trying to achieve,” she said. “I would much rather make sure that they feel good about the result than pushing my own agenda.”

Whether it happens early in the process or later, a satisfied client is a well-earned reward to the artists who put in the effort.

“When you see the eyes light up around a room, that for me is so enjoyable,” Lake said. “You can see them get excited, and that’s when I feel like we did our job. That’s what it’s all about.”

There’s also tremendous pride taken in creating a logo that’s out there for everyone to see.

“It’s great. I really get a charge out of it,” Erway said. “Creating something and having it stamped on things around your environment or out in the world is really fun to see.”

Lake echoes those sentiments, adding that her trophy case also includes the friends and colleagues she’s made over the years.

“I’m a relationship person. I love knowing that we worked with that client, had a great experience and gave them something they are really proud of,” she said. “How we work together is probably the best part for me.”

Design header

Organization: Norte Youth Cycling

Designed by: Mike Erway

What direction did you get from the client?

To be honest, there was not a lot of direction from the client up front. I remember being told to stay away from Green Bay Packer colors, I think! (Norte Founder Ty Schmidt) was a cyclist and I was a cyclist, so he trusted me to kind of go nuts and have fun with it.

How did you arrive at this design?

As usual, I just started sketching and doodling in my sketchbook. I found that I kept thinking of different badge shapes and logos on the head tube of older bikes, so my sketches went in that direction. Since this was for a youth cycling organization, I wanted to find a symbol for a kid’s sense of freedom while riding a bike, so that’s where the wings came in.

What do you like best about this logo?

It says to me that you can take flight on a bike. Also, it would look cool on the head tube of an old Schwinn Varsity ten speed.

What does the client think?

“We couldn’t have been more happy with the Norte Youth Cycling logo! The organization was more awesome because of it. Thankfully, Mike made it super easy because we weren’t even sure what direction to take with it. He’s a creative genius.” – Ty Schmidt, Norte’s founding executive director

Organization: Traverse City Comedy Fest

Designed by: Mike Erway

What direction did you get from the client?

The direction was mostly on what not to do. No images of a laughing mouth, no silhouette of a comic at a mic and try to avoid using a cityscape. We discussed having the feel of Traverse City in winter since the fest was going to be in February.

How did you arrive at this design?

After asking some key questions of the client up front, I started doing some brainstorming of different words pertaining to comedy and to Traverse City and then began doing some pencil sketches. The main tool of a comic is the microphone, so I incorporated that into a snowflake, which is appropriate for Traverse City in the winter. I found a font I liked for its boldness and made the letters different sizes for a sense of fun.

What do you like best about this logo?

I like the snowflake-mic-exclamation point concept a lot. It came to me under the pressure of a tight deadline while sketching and I just began trying out variations and refining it. I knew early in the sketch process that I could make it work.

What does the client think?

“The festival’s logo embodies everything we aspired for it to represent: It’s fun, memorable, and a unique portrayal of what TC stands for.” – Mike Geeter of Sam Rose Entertainment, which produces the festival

GROW

Organization: Leelanau Conservancy

Designed by: Brand Tonic (thoughts from founder/creative director Jen Lake)

What direction did you get from the client?

The Leelanau Conservancy asked for a refresh of their logo to better convey their mission and represent the evolving work they do for Leelanau County. Because the current identity had been with them for 35 years, it was important to honor their history and the well-established brand. They were open to our process of deep-dive discovery and brand development to establish a brand voice, visual theme and tone that would then translate into their new logo.

How did you arrive at this design?

By starting with high-level mood boards, we were able to narrow down favorable styles of logos and iconography with the client before getting into design. This process helped everyone align on the elements that should be included. Then we provided a range of designs from something closely related to their current logo to something completely new. This allowed the client to find their comfort level of change and helped them feel confident in their new direction.

What do you like best about this logo?

I love this logo because it truly captures the essence of the organization and Leelanau County. The ‘peek through’ the trees provides an emotional connection, and the style is artistic, yet approachable. The oval shape harkens to their past brand visual, making a connection between the past and the future. There was great collaboration across many stakeholder groups and the client trusted us in the process, which resulted in a successful refresh.

What does the client think?

“Brand Tonic did an exceptional job of shepherding our organization through the logo refresh process after having the same logo for more than 35 years. They understood the importance of bringing along stakeholders. They were thoughtful, creative and insightful, ultimately creating a look that felt familiar yet fresh, an evolution we all felt was right for us.” – Claire Wood, Leelanau Conservancy’s communications director

Organization: Compass Junior High (The Children’s House)

Designed by: Brand Tonic (thoughts from founder/creative director Jen Lake)

What direction did you get from the client?

The Children’s House Montessori School expanded their junior high program to a new downtown location and wanted to create a logo that reflected this next step in their educational offerings. The client asked that the new logo fit within their family of logos, but have a distinct feel for the middle school community. Everything was open, including the name for the school, which we created.

How did you arrive at this design?

Knowing the Montessori philosophy is about engaging students in hands-on learning, we offered to create a workshop with the junior high students to have them help create the new logo. We had weekly sessions about branding development, color theory, icons and meanings behind logos. We used the input from parents and staff and concepts from the students to bring to life a logo that represented important features to the students — the region’s sun and water, collaborative learning, independence and new directions.

What does the client think?

“Working with Brand Tonic to develop a logo that embodies what our school means to our students was a powerful experience. Brand Tonic led our students through a multi-day workshop on the many aspects of branding before engaging them in conversations about creating a logo for their school. This direct, immersive learning with professionals supports our students’ learning beyond academics. Having the students involved in the process gives even more meaning to the logo - we are all proud of it and how it represents Compass Montessori Junior High.” – Renee Hintz, director of advancement, The Children’s House

Company: Lil Bo

Designed by: Flight Path Creative (thoughts from Senior Art Director Heather Swanker)

What direction did the client provide?

The client initially wanted to revitalize the original Lil Bo character (a little man holding a mug of beer) to match the establishment’s history, dating back to the 1930s. They also expressed an interest in a vintage feel, particularly drawing on the aesthetic of the 1970s for color and interior design, which informed the overall style of the logo.

How did you arrive at this design?

The design team experimented with modernizing the original character, but eventually found more success shifting to a female barmaid design. This pivot not only responded to the client’s preference but also celebrated the client’s unique identity as one of the 7% of female restaurant/bar owners, which brought a fresh and personal dimension to the logo.

What do you like best about this logo?

The final design combines the celebratory energy of a woman-owned establishment with the vibrant, retro aesthetic of the 1970s. The enclosed style of the logo makes it versatile for different uses — like signage, uniforms, and retail items (e.g., hats, shirts) — while maintaining a friendly, inviting feel that reflects the lively atmosphere of Lil Bo.

What does the client think?

“I am in love with our logo. Heather and her team truly listened and gave us exactly what we wanted, when we didn’t even know it was what we were looking for! When they showed us the final, it felt perfect. We have great brand recognition. I hear all the time customers tell us how much they love our logo. Our merchandise sales definitely show how much they dig it!” – Jenny Scott, owner, Lil Bo

Organization: East Bay Beach District (East Bay Township)

Designed by: Flight Path Creative (thoughts from Senior Art Director Heather Swanker)

What direction did the client provide?

The client was looking for a logo and brand identity that would represent the East Bay Beach District. This branding had to capture the area’s natural beauty and amenities, including the sun, beach, water and iconic pine trees along the shore. The goal was to create a cohesive identity that not only communicates the essence of the location but also supports its tourism promotion efforts.

What do you like best about this logo?

The logo effectively captures the essence of northern Michigan’s shorelines, blending elements like the water and pine trees into a harmonious design. It is versatile, ensuring strong legibility across various formats (signage, stickers, digital platforms, and print materials). The logo is also flexible in its use, working as effectively in monochrome as it does in full color, which ensures adaptability across different media and promotional materials.

How did you arrive at this design?

The design team created two concepts: one staying close to the original design and colors, and another offering a refreshed, modernized style with a new color palette. After reviewing both concepts with the decision-making team and the implementation team, the new, cleaner design was chosen for its stronger visual impact and relevance to the brand.

What does the client think?

“Flight Path Creative worked with a steering committee composed of township officials, local businesses and other partners to develop a new logo to help brand the East Bay Beach District. I love the logo because it pays tribute to the iconic white pines and East Grand Traverse Bay shoreline that line the corridor and create a unique identity. We have used the logo to partner with the business community to promote the district and create a stronger sense of community.” –Claire Karner, director of planning and zoning, East Bay Township

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AI, SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICS

Three marketing trends for 2025

By Craig Manning

The end goal of marketing – reaching an audience and getting them to buy your product – never really changes. The best ways of achieving that goal, however, change just about every day.

What changes are impacting the landscape in 2025, you may ask? From new technologies to changing consumer sentiments, here are the key trends local marketing pros are watching this year.

Artificial intelligence

ChatGPT released in 2022 and became a global fascination in 2023. But according to Aaron Swanker – creative director and co-founder of Traverse City’s Flight Path Creative – ChatGPT and AI more generally did not start to permeate the world of marketing until last year. And when the technology did hit, it didn’t necessarily have the impact many marketing professionals expected.

“Out of the gate, I think a lot of people in our industry really viewed ChatGPT and tools like it as some kind of threat,” Swanker said.

That fear was an existential one: What if AI precludes the need for marketing experts by giving the average business owner an extremely easy way to generate website copy, create their own graphic design assets and more?

“If you think about it, there have always been do-it-yourself type things out there,”

Swanker said. “Consider the Adobe Creative Suite that our graphic designers use extensively for their work. Technically, a client could get a license to that software and learn to do things themselves. Or consider website development, which Flight Path Creative is also heavily involved with. Over the years, platforms like WordPress and Wix and Shopify have sprung up that make it easier for people to build their own websites. I definitely remember people telling me, ‘Oh, this is a threat to your business.’”

Despite generative AI’s rise to prominence, though, Swanker says Flight Path is as busy as ever and hasn’t lost any clients to the DIY path.

“As it turns out, most business owners don’t have the time (to do it themselves),” Swanker said. “They’re usually hiring us as a resource for capacity that they don’t have internally. And so, as long as we can help them in that way and be an expert with the tools we’re using, I think we’re

going to be fine.”

While generative AI isn’t the existential threat marketing pros might have feared, Swanker acknowledges that ChatGPT and its ilk have become important tools in the arsenal for companies like Flight Path. The technology is particularly important, he says, for helping create a shared vision between the client and the marketing team.

“We’ve had clients design things with AI, like logo designs, but I’ve never seen it get someone to the finish line on a project,” Swanker explained. “We really do like to think of it as a tool: It’s aiding, like an initial draft of a proposal. It helps us understand the direction that the client is interested in, and then we can get it to the finish line.”

Swanker emphasizes that the human touch element is still important. In logo design situations, for instance, he says generative AI platforms often produce low-resolution images or flattened files, which

are difficult to use in print or on the web. In the case of written copy, meanwhile, ChatGPT deliverables can often include factual inaccuracies, plagiarized phrases or sections, misspellings, or an overall tone that doesn’t jibe with a business’s marketing approach.

Swanker

Dean Rose, who owns Windstorm Marketing in Traverse City, concurs with Swanker’s take on AI: a useful copilot, of sorts, but no good without a firm, steady (human) hand on the wheel.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t use AI; it is pretty amazing, and getting better every day,” Rose said. “It really is a great copywriter, but it takes me more time to go over what it wrote to be sure it is reading correctly for the customer who is reading it. Someday, maybe I will trust it just a bit more, but not yet.”

Social media’s changing tides

In the wake of November’s presidential election, the future landscape of social media seems more uncertain than it has in years.

On November 13, NBC News reported that X (formerly known as Twitter) had seen its “largest user exodus” since Elon Musk bought the company in 2022. Musk, an ardent Trump supporter and a likely part of the new president’s cabinet, has been widely accused of using the former Twitter to influence the outcome of the election, with NPR writing in October that he had “remade X as a conservative megaphone.”

Similarly, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew intense backlash in January after announcing that his networks – which include Facebook, Instagram, and Threads – would eliminate

fact-checkers, boost political content, and “dramatically” reduce the amount of censorship.

“Mark Zuckerberg’s MAGA makeover will reshape the entire internet,” proclaimed a CNN Business headline in the wake of the announcement.

Add the question of whether TikTok –a massively popular social network among younger demographics – will be banned in the United States, and we simply had to ask our panel of experts: What could this fraught situation mean for the use of social media in marketing and advertising?

While he’s cognizant of the shifting landscape, Karl Bastian, creative director at PB&J Marketing, says social media remains “one of the most effective and cost-effective ways to promote our clients’ businesses.” Controversy or not, Bastian sees long-running platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, and Pinterest as the best options for most clients. The uncertain future of TikTok and the unproven nature of various apps pitched as Twitter replacements – examples include Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon – makes those platforms riskier and less stable bets.

“For social media to be truly effective, you have to commit to it long term,” Bastian explained. “You have to post regularly. You have to create relevant, compelling, and timely content. You have to maintain that ongoing conversation with

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t use AI; it is pretty amazing, and getting better every day. It really is a great copywriter, but it takes me more time to go over what it wrote to be sure it is reading correctly for the customer who is reading it.”

– Dean Rose, owner, Windstorm Marketing

your audience. And so, when developing social media strategies, you need to pay attention to the trends, but without just chasing the next shiny thing.”

For Rose, “keeping up with the pace of change” in the social media world means paying attention to where different types of people – and different types of customer demographics – are congregating online.

“I tell my clients that all advertising works: TV, radio, billboards, heck, even placemats in a restaurant,” Rose said. “It’s all about getting the right message to the right people at the right time at the right budget. If your potential customer is always eating at a specific restaurant, then that placemat may be where you should be.

It’s the same with social media: If your customer is on X, then advertise on X; if they are more of a Snapchat user, use that.”

That “go where your customer is” approach only works if the place where your customers go still exists, though, which – for American users, at least – remains to be seen about TikTok. Since its launch in 2016, that platform, which trades in shortterm video content, has built up a monthly user base of more than 1 billion people worldwide. The majority of those users are under the age of 30, making TikTok a potentially powerful way to reach younger demographics.

But TikTok’s future is uncertain, thanks to a move from Congress last year to compel ByteDance, the social network’s

parent company, to sell its U.S. assets or be banned on American soil. The concern is that ByteDance’s status as a Chinese company poses national security risks because the Chinese government could hypothetically lean on ByteDance to access sensitive user data of American citizens.

Swanker says he has clients who rely on TikTok live events to connect with followers. Those livestreams allow for a uniquely personal direct-to-consumer interactivity, which spurs huge engagement and sales for the company. Losing TikTok and the following they’ve built there, Swanker says, would be massively detrimental to his client.

“They sell thousands and thousands of dollars of product while they’re live on Tik-

“For social media to be truly effective, you have to commit to it long term...”

– Karl Bastian, creative director, PB&J Marketing

Tok,” Swanker said. “When they’re not live, (their sales) are more like a faucet dripping.”

Changing political and social sentiments

It’s been a pattern in marketing for years: more and more companies going out of their way to highlight the work they do in addressing systemic social or environmental issues. From brands turning their logos rainbow during Pride Month to businesses underlining their sustainability or DEI initiatives – especially around occasions like Earth Day or Black History Month – it’s become commonplace for companies to cast themselves as entities that aren’t just doing business but

also doing good.

Now, a national changing of the political and social tides has our experts wondering whether that particular trend has come and gone.

“I see companies trending away (from social or political statements) and staying a little bit more neutral,” Swanker said, pointing to Bud Light as an example. For years, that brand executed successful marketing campaigns steeped in LGBTQ+ allyship, including a star-studded 2016 Pride commercial with comedians Seth Rogan and Amy Schumer.

In 2023, though, Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a promotion that generated significant backlash – including an infamous Instagram video of northern Michigan’s own Kid Rock shooting multiple cases of Bud Light with a machine gun. A subsequent boycott of Bud Light significantly hampered the beer’s sales – some publications reported a sales dip as big as 30% –and prompted Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch, to promise a more neutral future.

“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” Whitworth wrote in a statement.

For his part, Rose doesn’t see a total retreat from social or political stances in marketing, but he does expect a shift in motivation.

“Using sustainability or other issues in

your marketing can be two things,” Rose explained “One, your company really cares about that issue, and it’s important to you that people know that. Or two, you are just using that issue as a marketing angle to attract customers. Companies do both. I would never tell my clients to use an issue like that if they didn’t believe in it, because people are cynical and can see BS a mile away.”

If a retreat to neutrality does happen, Swanker sees it going in both political directions. While things like LGBTQ+ rights and sustainability initiatives are typically viewed as left-leaning causes, Swanker’s prediction is that most businesses will be just as shy about expressing particularly right-leaning beliefs.

As an example, he cites one of Flight Path’s clients: Fresh Coast Market, the west side grocery store that rebranded from Fieldstone Market in 2019.

“It’s a great store with great products, but we’re working with a new business owner there that has some significant reputation management work ahead of them because of the positioning of the previous owner,” Swanker said. “That previous owner utilized point-of-sales communications tools to express political views, and had political signage around the facility and anti-abortion messages on the marquee. So, we’re dealing with that, because it had a very negative impact on total revenue.”

By Marsha Stratton, columnist

In today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, businesses face a dynamic mix of digital and traditional marketing options. To connect with consumers effectively, it’s essential to evaluate the new opportunities while acknowledging the value of time-tested approaches.

Traditional media encompasses non-digital advertising and marketing methods that have been foundational for businesses for decades. These include:

• Television advertisements

• Radio and print advertising

• Direct mail campaigns

• Billboards and off-site signage

For years, these channels reliably delivered results, helping businesses reach audiences and drive profit. However, as consumer preferences and behaviors evolve, the dominance of these methods has waned, paving the way for the rise of digital marketing.

Digital media encompasses online marketing techniques including:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

• Social media marketing

• Email campaigns

• Content marketing

While often referred to as “emerging” media, many digital methods have been in use for years. The distinction lies in their adaptability to changing consumer needs and technological advancements. As digital marketing matures, businesses must

BALANCING OLD AND NEW A mix of digital and traditional optimizes marketing campaigns

remain agile to shifts in both consumer attitudes and platform algorithms.

Understanding the differences between traditional and digital media helps businesses make informed decisions about their marketing strategies.

Key factors to consider include:

Distribution and access. Traditional media relies on physical or broadcast channels like television, radio, or print, making it less accessible in the modern on-demand era. Digital media, on the other hand, thrives on platforms such as social media, search engines, and email, offering instantaneous access to global audiences.

Cost. Digital media is often more cost-effective. Online advertisements typically require lower budgets and yield higher returns, particularly when targeting specific audiences. Traditional media – such as TV spots or print ads – often involve higher costs and less precision in reaching potential customers.

Audience interaction and communication. Traditional media provides limited opportunities for interaction. Consumers passively engage with ads on TV or in newspapers, and any direct communication requires additional effort, like calling a business. Digital media fosters real-time interaction. Audiences can click on social media ads, visit websites, comment on posts, or respond to emails. This immediacy enhances customer engagement and allows brands to address inquiries or concerns promptly.

Results tracking. Tracking campaign performance is significantly easier with digital media. Analytics tools provide

detailed insights into user behavior, such as clicks, conversions, and time spent engaging with content. Traditional media lacks this level of precision, often relying on indirect methods like surveys or general sales trends to gauge effectiveness.

Targeting capabilities. Digital media excels in targeting. Advertisers can refine their reach based on demographics, interests, location, and more, ensuring ads are shown to those most likely to convert into customers. Traditional media offers broad exposure but lacks the precision to focus on specific audience segments, often resulting in wasted efforts on uninterested viewers.

Finding the right balance. Determining the ideal mix of traditional and digital media depends on your business goals and audience. While many marketers report declining effectiveness in traditional methods, some channels remain valuable for specific purposes:

•Billboards can increase brand awareness in localized areas.

•Print advertising may resonate with niche markets that favor physical media, such as magazine readers or senior demographics.

Combining traditional and digital strategies can amplify marketing efforts. For example, a TV ad might drive viewers to visit a brand’s website or follow its social media pages, bridging the gap between old and new methods.

Maximizing marketing performance. No single approach guarantees success. Regularly evaluate the performance of your campaigns to identify what works

best for your unique business needs. Metrics to monitor include:

• Return on investment (ROI): How much revenue is generated relative to your advertising spend?

•Engagement rates: Are consumers interacting with your ads?

•Customer acquisition costs: What does it cost to gain a new customer?

Adaptability is key. If traditional methods no longer yield desired results, consider phasing them out gradually in favor of digital techniques. However, don’t hesitate to maintain or scale up successful traditional campaigns. The ultimate goal is to optimize your marketing mix for maximum reach and effectiveness.

Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Both traditional and digital media have strengths and weaknesses, and their effectiveness varies based on industry, audience, and goals. By leveraging the unique benefits of each, businesses can craft a holistic strategy that captures attention, drives engagement, and delivers results. Stay vigilant, track performance, and remain open to evolving your approach. Success lies in striking the right balance between the old and the new.

Marsha Stratton is a seasoned marketing professional who began her career in the greater Detroit area, amassing 17 years of experience in marketing before joining Idea Stream in 2004 as its business manager and becoming owner in 2010. For more than 25 years, Idea Stream has been a trusted partner to hundreds of businesses across northern Michigan, providing a full suite of marketing services.

ZOOMING IN

What’s bringing (and keeping) national marketing pros Up North

By Kierstin Gungsberg

With a county population of less than 100k, Traverse City has become an unexpected hub for marketing professionals – particularly those who live Up North but work with clients all over the country. The latest addition to the NoMi marketing scene is Goodbeast, an experiential marketing firm that relocated its headquarters to Traverse City this past fall when its president, Marivi Bryant, moved her home office from Fort Lauderdale to northern Michigan.

“Traverse City has been my favorite place in the world for the past 15 years,” said Bryant, whose family ties brought her to the area.

When occasional visits turned into summer-long stays, she leveraged her ability to work remotely and made northern Michigan her year-round home.

“We wanted to be closer to family,” she explained, adding that the seasons, school system, and more “wholesome” environment were other factors in relocating.

Now Bryant is building a local client base while managing immersive, tech-driven national campaigns.

“Experiential for us is about merging creativity with technology to foster meaningful connections,” Bryant said, adding that their recent immersive campaign for D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital raised $70 million in funding.

Merging tech and creativity is also how Bryant approaches managing the fully remote agency and its employees, who span the country from California to New York.

“We do a lot of virtual meetings,” said Bryant, adding that tech tools like Miro and Google Meet create a “very

collaborative” workflow. “It allows us to do whiteboard exercises together virtually and we have all-hands meetings, small celebrations, birthday celebrations. We’re always together. We always see each other and are constantly communicating.”

Trading bays

SarahBeth Ramsey, another once-far away admirer of northern Michigan, first came Up North for a paddleboard race in 2021. An East-coaster, she’d never been to Michigan before.

“The area blew me away,” she said. “It’s not only beautiful, but I found it really easy to connect with people here.”

That same year, Ramsey, a digital marketer, was contemplating a move to

recent immersive campaign for D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital

million in funding.

San Diego, but chose northern Michigan after that paddleboard race, and soon became involved with Traverse Connect and TCNewTech events.

“I just got really plugged into the community,” she said.

In contrast, San Diego, while appealing for its weather, felt more “siloed” and reminiscent of the big-city environment she was used to in Baltimore.

“I was looking for something different,” she said.

Now based in Traverse City, Ramsey has shifted her focus, with local and regional clients making up 75% of her business, though she still works remotely with many in Baltimore, where she first established herself.

“Knowing when to turn it off,” – as in

Bryant

Ramsey Randall

Goodbeast’s

raised $70

clock out – “is important,” to that remote work, she noted, adding that having a coworking space at 20Fathoms has helped her maintain a work/life balance. Something unique to northern Michigan compared to other places she’s worked is the emphasis on in-person networking.

“It’s so different from a large city,” Ramsey said. “Getting to know people and forming relationships is really important here.”

From Traverse City to Tinseltown (and back again)

Longtime northern Michigan resident JoDee Randall, owner of Show Style Brands, has no plans to relocate her boutique product placement agency to a metropolitan hub, despite catering to a West Coast market. Specializing in connecting brands with celebrities, influencers, and high-net-worth individuals, Randall frequently travels cross-country to Los Angeles, where her work includes placing products in Oscar nominees’ swag bags or in the background of major film scenes.

Though, most of her product placement work (which has included local clothing and wine brands), is for television – like Showtime’s dramedy Shameless where Randall strategically integrated clothing, jewelry, and snack brands onto the decade-long series. Her most recent

“It’s so different from a large city. Getting to know people and forming relationships is really important here.”

– SarahBeth Ramsey, Digital Marketer, Traverse City

work includes a Paramount+ drama that premiered this past fall and a popular Netflix rom-com recently greenlit for another season. “It’s like a prop or one of the actors,” Randall explained, describing the evergreen value of embedding products in TV shows and films. “Brands pay once to be part of a series or movie, and they remain there as long as people are streaming it.”

Randall’s niche is in demand as Hollywood increasingly relies on brand and product placements to supplement shrinking production budgets. As those budgets

shrink, Randall’s business is growing, and she anticipates adding to her remote team over the next couple of years. “It’s clear the industry is shifting to rely even more heavily on remote collaboration to maintain momentum,” she said.

But, being based in northern Michigan doesn’t shield her from Hollywood’s turbulence.

The most recent writer’s strikes seriously slowed Randall’s business, as film and television productions came to a halt during the summer of 2023. “That was

a challenge,” she reflected. In January, devastating wildfires swept across Los Angeles, affecting not only her friends and colleagues out West, but also the productions she was involved in.

“This period has been a test of adaptability and resilience for everyone in the industry,” said Randall, who has been leveraging her remote connections to help studios scout for safer filming locations. “It’s a delicate balance – we’re not fully back to filming at full scale, but there’s still filming happening.”

Lil Bo Bar & Restaurant in downtown Traverse City hosted the Detroit Lions’ “We Want More” Tour event, which marked the beginning of the Lions’ playoff push and brought fans together for giveaways, tailgate games and interactions with Lions staff.

Joe VanAlstine and Jordan Shananaquet, members of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and Kelly Lively, Northern Michigan Regional Director for U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, were among several community members at a party for Hans Voss, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities’ longtime executive director who is leaving the organization after 30 years. The gathering also served as a welcome for new Groundwork executive director Elizabeth Palchak.

DDA staffers joined Andre and Kelci Bushell for a December ribbon cutting at their restaurant, Bushell’s, at 127 South Union St. The restaurant serves up soul food and craft cocktails. (Photo by Madison Taylor)

Kellie Sergent and Cindy Price joined dozens of other attendees at the TC Ticker’s first Recess of the year held Jan. 8 at Cherry Capital Airport. The Feb. 5 Recess will be held at The Workshop Brewing Company.

Munson Healthcare has made a commitment to donate $100,000 over the next two years to Safe Harbor of Grand Traverse as part of a broad effort to support the needs of those in our community experiencing homelessness. Pictured l-r: Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Megan Brown, MHC President and CEO Ed Ness, System Director of Community Health Christi Nowak, Safe Harbor Treasurer Wayne Sterenberg, and Safe Harbor Fundraising Chair Joshua Brandt.

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