Six West Michigan companies were among the 50 honored at the fourth annual “Michigan Celebrates Small Business” for entrepreneurs and small business l ... Read More eaders April 24 in Lansing. The honorees are second-stage companies, the category accounting for most new job creation. All are based in Michigan, privately held, past the start-up stage and growing with between 6 and 99 employees and from $750,000 to $50 million in annual revenue or working capital in place.

The event was hosted by the Edward Lowe Foundation, MEDC, Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center, Small Business Association of Michigan and U.S. Small Business Administration – Michigan. The West Michigan companies recognized include:

• D&D Logistics LLC, Muskegon Heights, Freight Transportation Logistics
• Modern Fire & Security Systems Inc., Grand Rapids, Electrical Contractor
• ProNAi Therapeutics Inc., Kalamazoo, Biopharmaceutical Products
• StelterPartners LLC, Grand Rapids, Furniture for Commercial Spaces
• The DECC Co. Inc., Grand Rapids, Industrial Coating Application
• Workforce Strategies Inc. (WSI), Kalamazoo, Staffing Services
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Source: MEDC

Workstage, a Grand Rapids real estate development and design/build firm, was the only Michigan company named to Entrepreneur Magazine's 2008 Hot 100 fastest growing companies.

The magazine ranks each business by sales, which must exceed $1 million, and the amount of positive job growth over a four-year period.

Jack Cottrell, Kent Riddle and Donald Slaght founded Workstage in 2000 with just four employees. Last year's sales logged in at $61.6 million and, by 2009, the company will employ some 60 workers.

"We identified the need for buildings people want to be in," Cottrell says, "and we're on the books for 2.5 million square feet of LEED projects. Our whole take on buildings is to make them wonderful for the people who use them. That's our passion."

Notable West Michigan buildings by Workstage include the GVSU MAREC building and the renovation of the Custer Office Furniture Building. The company operates in some 30 states, serving customers such as Royal Caribbean and PayPal.

"We've added 10 to 15 designers, architects and construction project managers over the past year," says Cottrell. "We hope to add another five to ten jobs over the next six months."

Entrepreneur Magazine selected Workstage from almost 21 million entries.

Source: Rapid Growth
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The idea came to Rick DeVos while he listened to church leaders describe how they were going to use email to help people get involved in church activities.

"It seemed like a nightmare of useless emails filling up everyone's mailboxes, and an administrative nightmare," DeVos says. The more he thought about it, the more he realized there was no online tool to help organizations connect people in need with the people who could help.

So DeVos talked to Ben Gott and the two created TheCommon.org, an online site that helps people lend a helping hand.

For just $1 per user per month, churches and organizations authorize interested members to list their needs, such as a ride to work, car repairs, or home repairs. Members with the abilities to meet those needs receive notices through the web site and can choose to offer their services. Once the need is met, the messages disappear from the members' queue.

"There's a high level of security, integrity and accountability," says Gott. "Everything is done through an administrator assigned by the organization, everyone attends an activation event and brings a photo ID, and community leaders have to okay your membership."

Members list their abilities, which are matched with different needs as the needs come online. In addition to connecting individuals, the site also can connect organizations.

Ada Bible Church launched TheCommon.org in February.

"We're using it to match abilities and needs within our congregation because it's so large," says spokesperson Janet Conzelmann of the 5,000-member church. Some 350 members have signed up, so far. "People are actually meeting each other. One elderly gentleman needed a ride to work and a young man is meeting that need. They might not have met otherwise."

Source: Rapid Growth
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You don't have to be famous to write a memoir. Everyone has a story to tell. In fact local writer Deb Moore has developed a business around telling them

Source: Rapid Growth
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Green building has become the standard in West Michigan. But what, exactly, is the standard? How much does it cost? And, in the end, are the economic, environmental, and social returns on that investment worthwhile? To sort it all out Daniel Schoonmaker went to the construction site of an inner city office building aspiring to achieve sustainability

Source: Rapid Growth
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Miller Canfield, a Detroit-based law firm that's been around 155 years, celebrated the 25^th anniversary of its Grand Rapids office this month. The celebration marked another year of growth and the addition of three attorneys and two support staff to its 99 Monroe location.

"The vision for our Grand Rapids office is the vision for our whole firm," says Rick Gaffin, managing director. "We're focusing on biotech and life sciences, and on intellectual property. We've added a number of lawyers with PhDs throughout the firm and expect to keep adding people."

Locally, Miller Canfield's attorneys handle all types of legal matters, but specialize in healthcare and emerging technology companies. Some of those companies are located in Boston.

"We follow what companies are doing and with the new emphasis on technology we try to expand our services to meet the needs," Gaffin says. "Boston is a hotbed of technology development, biopharm, biotech, and with MIT and Harvard, there's a lot of talent, and we advise some of those companies. The clients aren't just down the street anymore, they're around the world and down the street."

Miller Canfield employs 350 lawyers company-wide and has 14 offices, including three in Poland and two in Canada. A Shanghai office opens later this year.

Source: Rapid Growth
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The West Michigan Strategic Alliance announced last week its intent to offer the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) to help West Michigan job seekers show they are competent in basic skills needed for most jobs, and especially for those jobs of interest to them.

WMSA announced the plan at its annual State of the Region conference.

Some 203 employers, who, collectively, employ 35,000 Michigan residents, are requesting or requiring the certificate for employees and new hires. The certificate is based on a system called WorkKeys, which provides skills assessments, job analysis and training to prepare workers to meet basic job requirements.

The Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) WorkKeys Innovation project successfully piloted the NCRC program in 2007, issuing 11,732 certificates. But full-scale implementation will cost an estimated $60 million. WMSA leaders hope to garner that money through donations and government grants.

Source: Rapid Growth
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During the 2007 NP20/20 conference for nonprofit professionals held at GVSU's Johnson Center, it became apparent to many of the 20- and 30-something attendees that the emerging leaders in the industry needed support within the industry if they were to develop their career paths and be successful.

And so, in October, 20 young nonprofit professionals showed up for a meeting and the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Greater Grand Rapids (YNPN) was born.

The vision of the organization is "fostering the development, recruitment and retention of young and emerging professionals." The YNPN plans to provide training, personal and professional growth opportunities, resources and services to its members, who must be between the ages of 21 and 35.

"We have a lot to learn from each other," says founder Tera Wozniak, who works at the Johnson Center. "Whether you're a board member of a nonprofit and work in the business sector, or you're a volunteer, or you work for a nonprofit, you can be involved. We're also planning quarterly social events so we can get to know each other."

The organization is affiliated with the national YNPN.

"Networks are really important in the nonprofit sector," Wozniak says. "Grand Rapids is a unique area for nonprofits and there are a ton of emerging leaders here that we want to bring together."

Source: Rapid Growth
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With an eye to transforming a child's environment into a hands-on learning and growth experience, the Grand Rapids Children's Museum was one of three to garner national attention this month for its innovative programs, bringing home honors and a cash award.

Source: Rapid Growth
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Amid a nationwide movement to harness wind power and reduce greenhouse gases, three Wisconsin developers have launched a feasibility study for establishing wind farms offshore in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.

Source: Rapid Growth
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On May 7, the great grandniece of Thomas Edison will bring her unique style of teaching innovative thought methods to Frederik Meijer Gardens for a one-day workshop.

Sarah Miller Caldicott, author of Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America's Greatest Inventor, says that for America's workforce to become globally competitive, employers and employees need to take risks, engage in whole-brain thinking and work collaboratively or they will never move from the industrial mindset to the information-age mindset.

"Most of us think of Edison as the lone guy in the lab and it's not true; he created teams," says Miller Caldicott, who also founded the consulting firm Power Patterns. "He started over 150 companies and had thousands of employees in his organizations. In the information age, information and authority needs to flow horizontally in a flat organization. Edison"s organizations were set up as flat organizations."

She goes on to say that Edison taught his teams how to think innovatively.

"Using his methods, we can teach employers and employees how to shift their patterns to more innovation oriented patterns," Miller Caldicott says.

Workshop participants will learn about Edison's Five Competencies of Innovation through a series of hands-on exercises. The afternoon session focuses on the fifth competency: how to generate volume.

"Edison was a master at commercializing his ideas. We'll demonstrate how to bring innovation into the business plan and how to look at markets and customers from new perspectives."

Hosts of the workshop are The Right Place, Inc. and its InnovationWorks team. For more information, click here.

Source: Rapid Growth
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West Michigan companies and entrepreneurs will soon be able to access innovations from across the country thanks to a new partnership between innovati ... Read More on guru Doug Hall, Founder and CEO of Cincinnati-based Eureka! Ranch and The Right Place Inc. The collaboration includes creating a standardized evaluation system for assessing the market value of ideas and building a national network of ideas for companies to electronically access via the internet.

Today at a special program open to the public, Hall and the InnovationWorks team presented the results of recent collaborative efforts and shared best practices for creating an innovation-driven company. Through the national network, West Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs can gain access to vetted ideas from around the country, and inventors whose ideas cannot effectively be commercialized locally can gain national exposure. InnovationWorks’ recently launched Idea Portal, accessed through its website at www.innovationworkswestmichigan.org, will serve as West Michigan’s conduit to the national network.

“The work we had already done with the Idea Portal and our commitment to accelerating innovation and commercialization in West Michigan positioned us perfectly to create this partnership with Doug,” said Jim Ross, Vice President, Innovation & Technical Services for The Right Place. “As the beta site for this new system, West Michigan companies will be among the first in the U.S. to access a wealth of proven, validated innovations they can use to increase market share, improve competitiveness and, ultimately, grow our regional economy.”

Although vetting and accessing new ideas is at the heart of the new network, Ross notes that InnovationWorks goes far beyond matchmaking.

“So much of what you see happening nationally is based on brokering inventions,” he said. “As part of an economic development organization, our goals are much more holistic. We are focused on collaborating regionally to increase West Michigan’s capacity to create and develop innovations at all stages of the commercialization process. West Michigan is already a center of excellence for advanced manufacturing; we want it to become a center of excellence for innovation as well.” View Less

Source: The Right Place

Three West Michigan cities have been awarded $800,000 in brownfield grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – the first time any such fun ... Read More ding has come to the region.

Part of a $74 million release of grant funds to communities in 43 states, the money will be used to fund brownfield site assessments in targeted redevelopment areas within Grand Rapids, Wyoming and Kentwood.

“Michigan has been a leader in brownfield redevelopment for more than a decade,” said Rick Chapla Right Place Vice President, Urban Redevelopment, noting the state’s passage of groundbreaking brownfield legislation in 1996, which subsequently served as a model for other states. “West Michigan has taken full advantage of that leadership, becoming one of the most active redevelopment regions in the state. It is a credit to that momentum that we were able to work with these cities to secure this funding.”

The brownfield redevelopment is a large part of a growing regional commitment to sustainable principles, and is at the heart of projects like Grand Walk – a sustainable business park in northern Grand Rapids – as area municipalities use public dollars to make at-risk urban properties financially competitive with suburban and rural greenfields.

“The strong urban center Grand Rapids enjoys is due in part to the dedication we have to making urban properties attractive for investment,” said Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell, noting that Grand Rapids’ Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has approved over 65 brownfield redevelopment projects to date resulting in over $800 million in private investment and over 7,000 jobs. “The Right Place and our city Economic Development Department collaborate to make best use of tools such as state tax credits and these federal grants so that we can assist businesses and developers, thereby enhancing their investment in our community.”

“Kentwood has matured to the point that we have many of the same land use issues that are typically thought of in core cities like Grand Rapids,” added Kentwood Mayor Richard Root. “Working with partners like The Right Place to leverage resources like these grants is another way we are attracting investment and jobs for our community and showing that Kentwood is open for business.”

“Manufacturing has been a core industry in Wyoming’s economy and we are working to rebuild that investment,” said Wyoming Mayor Carol Sheets. “This funding will help us revitalize our available industrial properties making them more attractive for investment and expediting the re-growth of our manufacturing sector.”
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Source: The Right Place

West Michigan regional economic development leaders today got a first look at InnovationWorks’ (IW) new Idea Portal during a special demonstration ses ... Read More sion. A critical tool of IW, the session was designed to familiarize key partners with the Portal so they can actively engage area businesses and entrepreneurs in the new initiative, dedicated to advancing innovation throughout West Michigan by accelerating the commercialization of inventions and new technologies.

The Idea Portal serves as a central, web-based repository of innovations, entrepreneurs and commercialization resources, using sophisticated algorithms to identify and accelerate the linking of new ideas to commercialization resources in the region. Powered by Microsoft Sharepoint software and developed in collaboration with Metrics Reporting and People Design, the Idea Portal electronically matches new or orphaned intellectual property from inventors and companies with entrepreneurs looking for new ideas. Once a successful match is made, IW staff can assist the commercialization process with additional coaching and resources.

“What is really critical at this point, however, is stocking the Portal with IP and those looking for it,” explained Jim Ross, Right Place Vice President of Innovation & Technical Services and MMTC-West Regional Manager, who manages IW. “Helping our strategic partners understand the tools will support their efforts to grow West Michigan’s economy and increase our ability to extend IW’s services throughout the region.”

Serving a seven-county West Michigan region, IW provides an integrated system of resources designed to mine inventions and new technologies, connect companies to ideas and coach individuals on commercialization. The initiative will expand innovation capacity in West Michigan resulting in increased prosperity and new wealth for the region. IW is funded by WIRED West Michigan and developed by The Right Place in collaboration with its economic development partners throughout West Michigan.

In addition to managing the Portal, IW also hopes to harness needs and ideas through its newly formed collaborative networks, where the region’s top companies, academic institutions and professionals work together to share best practices on innovation and intellectual property and co-develop new technologies.

“Directly assisting individuals, companies and entrepreneurs is a large part of what we do, but we have seen first hand the power of collaboration in innovation,” said Ross. “As the West Michigan regional office of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC), The Right Place has developed opportunities for companies to share best practices and work collaboratively on shared issues. We are taking that model and applying it to the acceleration of new technologies, materials and processes that will take West Michigan companies to the next level and secure our region’s position in the global marketplace.”
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Source: The Right Place