Home January-February 2022

January-February 2022

  • January-February 2022

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  • Illustration by Austin Phillips

    The Path to Gold

    Under the bridge that leads north and downhill into downtown Rochester sits a building that’s nondescript from the outside — a retrofitted old warehouse that fits nicely among the collision […]

  • 2022 Michigan Investment Organizations

    DBusiness unveils its inaugural list of investment organizations in Michigan in conjunction with its venture capital report.

  • May Mobility in Ann Arbor, an autonomous mobility company, is on track to be another unicorn company out of Michigan. // Courtesy of May Mobility

    Unicorn-Bound

    It’s no wonder Ann Arbor should spawn Michigan’s two most promising near-unicorns in May Mobility and Groundspeed Analytics, as well as two of its actual unicorns, DuoSecurity and Llamasoft. Ann […]

  • chart topper Alex O’Neill went from learning to write and record songs in his parent’s basement in Grosse Pointe to landing a record contract and performing at sold-out concerts. // Courtesy of Angelina Golt

    Kings of Summer

    Alex O’Neill’s transformation from a student at Grosse Pointe South High School experimenting with electronic music in the basement of his parents’ home into Ayokay (A-OK), a Gold Record singer-songwriter-producer, […]

  • The Graduate, Ann Arbor

    Top Hotels in Metro Detroit 2022

    Selected by AAA and DBusiness for hospitality excellence

  • Robot Showroom - Greg Sandler and Vince Mileto launched Dynamic Machine in 2001. The Troy headquarters includes multiple machines from global tooling giants. // Photographs by Josh Scott

    Need for Speed

    Twenty years ago, Greg Sandler was working in the local machine tooling sector when his employer cut sales commissions across the board. Rather than accept a pay reduction, Sandler decided […]

  • Courtesy of Phiston Technologies

    PDA Q&A: The E-Interview, Marina Schloff

    DB: Where are you? MS: In Miramar, Fla., to attend our ribbon-cutting ceremony to open Phiston Technologies’ new state-of-the-art R&D, engineering, design, and manufacturing facility. DB: What’s driving the growth? MS: […]

  • Catch-22

    Catch-22

    As the economy continues to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers in Michigan and around the nation are booking new orders yet are struggling to fulfill them, due to a […]

  • Detroit Sewn saw a dip in PPE orders during the pandemic when China released the ships containing them and large purchasers sided with those lower-price, disposable goods. // Courtesy of Detroit Sewn

    Buy Local

    Supply chain issues and labor shortages are affecting manufacturers of all sizes, but small businesses have another question to answer: How can they compete with lower-priced overseas competitors, particularly those […]

  • Air conditioner units VRV (HVAC), big fan and a water cooler on a roof of new industrial building with blue sky and clouds in the background.

    Peak Savings

    At a time when energy costs are on the rise, the City of Dearborn is sitting in comfort due to a novel program that saved the municipality more than $600,000 […]

  • A New Day - Members of BasBlue, a new women's club in Detroit, cut the ribbon on the renovation of a historic mansion in the Midtown district near the Detroit Institute of Arts. The club opened last October. // Photos by Rosa María Zamarrón

    A Lady’s Place

    Clubs for women aren’t a new concept in Detroit; the Detroit Association of Women’s Clubs was organized in 1921 with eight clubs. It still exists, but right around the corner […]

  • Comeback Story - As an accountant, Crysta Tyus found it difficult to drive revenue outside of the tax season until she learned to become an expert adviser. // Photo by Martin Vecchio

    Tax Shelter

    The road to success has been a roller coaster ride for Southfield’s Crysta Tyus. That ride also carried her to more than $1 million in revenue in 2020. Tyus, 33, […]

  • slice and dice Ken Knife Co. in Southfield considers multiple factors in designing and crafting kitchen blades, including the point, edge, spine, heel, tip, scales, bolster, and handle fasteners. // Courtesy of Ken Knife Co.

    Blade Runner

    Ryder DelSignore was bartending and working as an expeditor in the kitchen at Bacco Ristorante in Southfield, which is owned by his father, Luciano, when the COVID-19 shutdown happened. Looking […]

  • 2021 Top Corporate Counsel

    Top Corporate Counsel in Michigan 2022

    Selected by private attorneys in metro Detroit via DBusiness’ Top Lawyers annual peer-to-peer survey.

  • Freedom Team - Then Gen. William Knudsen, center foreground in military uniform, led the U.S. war effort during World War II. To his left is Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor Co., and to Ford’s left is Charles E. Sorensen, a vice president of Ford who oversaw the automaker’s defense contracts. The group was photographed in August 1942 at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti Township. The Danish film crew filming Knuden’s life story, opposite page, gathers at Willow Run Airport in front of a B-25D Mitchell bomber owned and operated by the Yankee Air Museum. // Courtesy of the Detroit Public Library

    Genius of Production

    Stephanie Surrugue likes to fly and enjoys, as she says, the “experiences that are not just, you know, the Boeing experience.” Her personal bests were helicopter flights over Iraq and […]

  • silhouette of michigan (left) and denmark (right)

    Michigan and Denmark

    The Kingdom of Denmark is a small Scandinavian country that has one land border — in the south, with Germany — which extends just 42 miles. With a population of […]

  • Sonic Sculptor

    As The Romantics burst through the opening chords of a recent rehearsal at 54 Sound, a legendary recording studio in Ferndale, the band was in the presence of something exceedingly […]

  • String Sessions - Siobhán Cronin and Starset perform in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2019 at a sold-out performance from the band’s world tour.

    Breaking the Rules

    Siobhán Cronin is best known these days as a classically trained violinist who regularly performs around the world with internationally celebrated artists and touring shows. Her very first steps on […]

  • Market Performer - After Temeria Heard received the Jackie Robinson Most Valuable Diverse Business Partner award in 2016, she threw out the first pitch at a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park. // Photograph by Matthew Lavere

    Brand Awareness

    Temeria Heard, an aspiring entrepreneur, was working as a marketing manager for a Detroit-based automotive supplier when she came across a Detroit Tigers booth at a Pure Michigan business matchmaking […]

  • Inside Out

    Nearly six years after former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced the first round of criminal charges against state and city officials involved in the Flint water contamination crisis, none […]

  • Judge and Prosecutor

    The life and career of one of the great crime fighters in Detroit history, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Homer S. Ferguson, whose name and grand jury became synonymous in […]

  • Courtesy of the Athlete Lab

    Body and Mind

    Most workouts are routine, but at the Athlete Lab, a new high-performance training and sports science center in Farmington Hills, the body and the mind get equal treatment. The 13,000-square-foot […]

  • Live and Local - The Romantics — Coz Canler, Wally Palmar, Clem Burke, and Bruce Witkin — perform at a private concert in Detroit last September. The group got its start in 1977 in the Motor City. // Photographs by Sal Rodriguez

    Revenue Streams

    For anyone with talent, making money in the music industry used to be simple. Artists signed with a record label and created albums that were sold to consumers. In exchange, […]

  • Sound Waves - A Neve 8028 soundboard at 54 Sound in Ferndale, right, is one of a few still in use. To the left of the Neve is a recorder the studio uses to digitize master tape recordings. // Photograph by Sal Rodriguez

    Back Track

    A scientific oven isn’t a standard item in a recording studio, but for 54 Sound in Ferndale, the device is an essential element of preserving the voices, instruments, and yes, […]

  • Illustration by James Yang

    January — February 2022 Commentary

    “The next 10 years will be a landmark decade for the automotive industry.” — Trevor Pawl, Chief Mobility Officer, Michigan Research and Development – Defense Gains Michigan has an opportunity […]

  • Smart City

    The way to revive a city like Detroit, which 150 years ago established the world’s first and largest manufacturing economy, is to rebuild from the roots of its success. Like […]

  • all aboard The first Michigan Central Railroad Depot operated along Third Street, between Fort Street and the Detroit River, from the 1840s until 1884, when a new station was built on the same site. The original structure included a passenger depot, center, and a freight terminal, left. // Artist unknown, etching from "History of Detroit and Michigan" by Silas Farmer

    Deriding the Rails

    John Pierce had some sheep that were killed on the Michigan Central Railroad’s tracks, so he sent a letter to a Marshall newspaper. “No heathen altar ever smoked more continually […]

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