The Entrepreneurial Spirit of Detroit

In an effort to feature metro Detroit’s up-and-coming business leaders, DBusiness presents the first annual MBA Entrepreneur Spotlight. Our criteria was simple: We asked several business schools in southeast Michigan to recommend up to three MBA students who launched or developed for-profit companies before or during their enrollment. From that list, we’ve selected five exceptional entrepreneurs. This is not an awards program, but a recognition of regional startup companies that, despite the faltering local economy, appear destined for success.

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Ian Dailey

President, Husk Insulation, Ann Arbor
Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Finding investors for a startup company is never easy, but armed with a business plan developed last fall in an MBA class at the University of Michigan, Ian Dailey and his team of fellow students raised more than $250,000 in seed money for their environmental insulation company.

How? The group of six entrepreneurs, which includes five MBA students and a postdoctorate graduate, won or finished second in a number of recent business-plan competitions offered at U-M, Carnegie-Mellon University, MIT, and others. “The great thing for us is we don’t have investors yet, and the money we’ve raised will allow us to continue developing prototypes for potential customers,” says Dailey, 28. “But at some point, we will need investors.”

Dailey says he wasn’t interested in creating a generic business plan to complete a class assignment, so the group decided to launch a real company. To get started, they partnered with a local inventor to develop rigid insulation panels made from rice husk ash. While such ash is typically placed in landfills, the group converted the material into a solid state, wrapped it in a foil laminate, and then vacuum-sealed the final product.

The resulting insulation is six to 10 times more efficient than conventional offerings, Dailey says. “We see great potential in the refrigeration market,” he adds. “A typical fridge has 2 inches of insulation, but we can offer the same, if not greater, insulation properties with a half-inch of our product.”

The company has already reached out to a number of appliance-makers as potential customers. The product could also be used for refrigeration trucks, water heaters, and prefabricated panels for residential and commercial use. “Our goal is to begin production in early 2011,” Dailey says. “And we’re currently looking for around 40,000 square feet of production space to get started.”

Joining Dailey at Husk Insulation are Erica Graham, vice president of sales and marketing; Shally Madan, vice president of business development; Siddharth Sinha, vice president of product development; and Elizabeth Uhlhorn, vice president of finance and sustainability. Min Kim, who serves as vice president of technology, recently completed his postdoctorate in materials science at U-M.

Dailey credits his business-plan class with setting the company on a path for success. “We really refined our thinking, and I must say it was difficult to have our plan critiqued by the whole class, especially when you don’t know all the answers,” he says. “But we have a product that will not only help society ... it really cuts down on energy use.”

In addition to taking on private investors, the company has been approved for a grant from the Michigan Initiative for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (the exact dollar amount hasn’t been determined), and is researching whether it would qualify for federal stimulus funds geared toward product development.

Kathy Abramczyk

Vice President of Administration, Visca LLC, Troy
School of Business Administration, Wayne State University, Detroit

A soldier in the battlefield might not know that a particularly violent explosion has triggered a post-traumatic stress disorder. And any further harm on the battlefield can be lethal. To help warn soldiers to leave the battlefield before it’s too late, Wayne State MBA student Kathy Abramczyk is working with Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak to develop a small sensor called a wireless data transmitter, which would monitor and send a GI’s physical data to a base camp. “The sensor would fit inside a helmet and would tell the base that one more hit will likely kill or further harm the soldier,” says Abramczyk, vice president of Troy-based technology research firm Visca. “So the base would [contact] the soldier to leave the battlefield immediately. We also have sensors that could alert a driver to change the oil in their car, or their oil filter. We’re even studying sensors that could be used inside golf clubs or hockey pucks.”

In 2004, Abramczyk co-founded Visca with Bill Harris, the company’s CEO; retired Brigadier General Roger Burrows, who serves as COO; and Gregory W. Auner, chief technology officer and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Wayne State.

The company works with numerous clients on the development of micro sensors, including the Department of Defense, various subcontractors, and private companies. Some of the projects include sensors that can monitor agricultural fields for potential diseases. Other devices, meanwhile, warn public-safety officials of pollution in Lake St. Clair, for example, or determine whether shipping containers have been tampered with.

“Research and development is something I understand very well, but I wanted to get my MBA because I needed practical business experience,” Abramczyk says. “I interact a great deal on business applications for my Department of Defense contacts, but it wasn’t until I started taking MBA classes that I really understood the challenges of running a day-to-day company.”

Last year, the company, which leases lab space at the science and technology park near Wayne State called TechTown, generated $800,000 in revenue. That’s up from $150,000 in 2004. Next up is full-scale production, including the use of clean rooms to assemble electronic devices or micro-fluidic systems.

In the near future, the company plans to begin producing drugs fitted with sensors that direct medicine to a particular area of the body. Visca also markets and licenses its technologies to a range of business sectors, including homeland security, aerospace, health care, and automotive.

Abramczyk is on pace to complete her MBA next year. Since 2005, she’s been taking one or two classes per semester. “It’s been a long road,” she says, “but by working full-time and going to school at night, I’ve really been able to benefit from the synergies between the classroom and the company.”

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