2010 – Page 61 of 78

Hook adds 4 people in downtown Ann Arbor, plans more hires

By Newsroom

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March 10, 2010

Hook is growing in just about every way imaginable. The downtown Ann Arbor-based firm is adding people, clients and office space as it starts to assert itself in the city's growing service-based economy."We've been lucky," says Aaron Schwartz, co-founder of Hook. "We have some great clients who keep coming back to us. There is a great demand for our services right now."That means the commercial-art start-up has expanded its payroll to 10 people by adding four new employees since the last time we checked in with it in late 2008. It has also quadrupled its office space to 2,500 square feet.The 4-year-old firm has also grown its client base and moved itself up the advertising food chain. It has gone from producing auto show materials to moving onto a broader range of interactive advertising. Think: Building micro sites and taking over Internet homepages.The refocusing has allowed the firm to plan for even more growth. It hopes to hire three more people this year and take over some more of its space in its second-floor commercial space in downtown Ann Arbor."We hope to continue growing," Schwartz says. "We get new business every other day. We hope to add more people."Hook got its start when two former University of Michigan students, Schwartz and Michael Watts, decided to take the entrepreneurial leap. Some of its first work incorporated 3-D imagery into commercial art, such as animation and illustrations. One of the firm's first clients included part of Toyota's North American International Auto Show display in Detroit.Source: Aaron Schwartz, co-founder of HookWriter: Jon Zemke

Miilo targets Internet sales for minority cosmetics

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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March 10, 2010

The problem: Finding the best cosmetics for people of color. The solution: Miilo.At least that's what the three budding entrepreneurs at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business are hoping happens with their new start-up. Kimberly Dillon, Oswaldo Maxwell and Kelley Washington are creating a website that specializes in selling cosmetic and hair-care products for women of color."There is a contingent of us who regularly go to Ypsilanti or Detroit to buy beauty products," says Dillon, a U-M MBA student and founder of Miilo. "It's a universal problem. Anytime you go to a new city you have to find the store that sells the products b because they aren't sold at mass retailers."The Ann Arbor-based start-up recently won $1,000 from the Michigan Business Challenge, which is sponsored by U-M's Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. The trio of women is using that cash to finish developing their website, which they hope to launch before the end of the year. Source: Kimberly Dillon, founder of MiiloWriter: Jon Zemke

U-M helps lead new transportation consortium

By Newsroom

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Innovation News

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March 10, 2010

If there is one thing Ann Arbor knows its research. And if there's one thing Metro Detroit knows its transportation. The two areas are combining these two strengths to create Transforming Transportation: Economies & Communities.The University Research Corridor's new program promotes multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research that supports industry, community and government policy-making and planning. The University of Michigan and Wayne State University will lead the charge with this new effort that hopes to serve as a nerve center for transportation innovation in the regional, state, national and global economies."It's an idea who's time has come," says Allen Batteau, an anthropologist who heads Wayne State's Institute for Information Technology and Culture.Both U-M and Wayne State (along with Michigan State University) are holding meetings to help organize the program's first transportation summit in Detroit in October. The idea is to leverage the region's location and assets, along with creating synergies between university, community, government and business when it comes to moving people and good from Point A to Point B.Batteau believes the new program will help spearhead innovation in the sprawling transportation sector and create economic opportunity locally. In fact he sees this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink fundamental assumptions through a unique collaboration of regional leaders."Every time we make a lead ahead in transportation infrastructure, whether it's the Intercontinental railroad or the Erie Canal or the expressway system, it is what kicked economic development into overdrive. In other words, transportation investment is vital."Source: University of Michigan and Allen Batteau, an anthropologist who heads Wayne State's Institute for Information Technology and CultureWriter: Jon Zemke

Ypsilanti biz helps IdeaPaint become reality

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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March 10, 2010

When only family and friends believed in IdeaPaint, a promising Massachussetts-based start-up, Ypsilanti's CAS-MI Laboratories gave them a shot at the big time.Excerpt:The young entrepreneurs refused to believe it. "Our joke was, if we could put a man on the moon, we can make dry-erase paint," says Newman, 25.Then they found CAS-MI Laboratories in Ypsilanti, Mich., where the scientists were willing to give their plan a shot and even cover some of the development costs.With the help of $1 million from family, friends and a few angel investors, the group spent the next four years fine-tuning their recipe.Read the rest of the story here.

U-M continues to build, no matter what

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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March 10, 2010

Continual growth for the foreseeable future is the name of the game at the University of Michigan, which makes it a point to keep building up its campus and curriculum even if its local peers are not.Excerpt:The University of Michigan and Michigan State University are separated by 60 miles and a few billion dollars. Both are public universities. Both have fiercely loyal alumni and are a few thousand apart in numbers of students. Yet MSU is enacting painful program cuts and layoffs, while U-M is adding staff and is in the midst of one of the biggest building booms in school history. The budget gap between the two schools has ballooned to almost a half-billion dollars per year and is growing.Read the rest of the story here.

Unique Ann Arbor house turns heads

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Arts and Culture

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March 10, 2010

No two houses are exactly alike in Ann Arbor, and this little cottage is definitely one of a kind.Excerpt:Tim and Cyndy Vachon took a 500-square-foot, single-story, cinder block house, added creative touches that come from being artists and eco-friendly touches that come from being green to create what they call the "Curious House."This whimsical, eclectic and - yes - curious house is hidden behind a stand of trees on South Maple Road near Pauline Road in Ann Arbor. It is a showcase for stone and tile, with leanings toward Arts and Crafts style and a cottage look. But it is also a repository for discarded material that could have ended up in the landfill: A sturdy glass light shade that turned on its head and is used as a bathroom sink, the soapstone kitchen countertops with a rich patina that once served as the tabletops in a chemistry lab of a old Detroit high school and the walnut and oak discarded by relatives used for trim and to make the stairway that leads to the second floor.While the Vachons had the artistic and architectural skills to create the Curious House, they also had the building skills to turn the vision into a house. Except for part of the framing, the drywall and the roof, the couple built Curious House themselves, adding another 1,200 or so square feet to the original structure.Read the rest of the story here.

Sakti3’s Sastry points way to Mich recovery with green jobs

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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March 10, 2010

Green businesses are the path to sustainable firms that produce long-lasting jobs and improving the over all environment in Michigan. At least that's what one of Ann Arbor's best known entrepreneurs believes.Excerpt:Ann Marie Sastry, CEO and co-founder of Ann Arbor-based Sakti3, said Michigan can lead the way in vehicle electrification and, in doing so, reduce the state’s carbon footprint and oil dependence and create green jobs.Read the rest of the story here.

Tech Brewery comes of age as home for Ann Arbor start-ups

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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March 10, 2010

The Tech Brewery in Ann Arbor is more about the former than the later (Ie. tech not beer) as a good cross section of Tree Town's new economy entrepreneurs continues to congregate where the good beer is made.Excerpt:Ann Arbor’s technology entrepreneurs chose office space in the Northern Brewery building on Jones Drive over the years because of its location, its historic loft-like offices and its reputation as a creative hub.But for nearly a year, a portion of the building has been building its own identity as a unique collaboration among many early-stage companies.Dubbed the Tech Brewery, a vacant 2,000-square-foot space now offers short-term desk space in a collaborative environment that makes it unique among Ann Arbor offices.Most office incubators provide services and shared resources, founder and entrepreneur Dug Song said."That's not really what we're doing here," he said. "…There's a lot more social interaction. More synergistic relationships, since there are a lot of companies doing similar kinds of things."Read the rest of the story here.

U-M’s silver medalist skaters recount Olympics

By Newsroom

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Healthy Communities

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March 10, 2010

It ain't gold but it's hardly a loss. After all, second best in the world is still second-freakin'-best in the world. Two University of Michigan students have quite the story to tell after doing just that in the Winter Olympics.Excerpt:It's not every day that University President Mary Sue Coleman calls students on their cell phones.But after University students and ice dancers Charlie White and Meryl Davis won silver medals in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games last month, Coleman did just that. "I was just listening to my voicemails after the free dance, and I came upon one that said, 'Oh, hi Meryl, this is Mary Sue Coleman,' and I was a little shocked but very excited and honored," Davis said in an interview last week. Read the rest of the story here.

Ypsilanti’s Clean Energy Coalition wins $50K energy grant

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Community Development

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March 10, 2010

The Clean Energy Coalition continues to rake in the government grant money, taking in another six figures to help spread the gospel of energy efficiency.The Ypsilanti-based non-profit received $58,300 from the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, & Economic Growth to help communities become more energy efficient and utilize more clean energy outlets. The Clean Energy Coalition's money will allow it to do this in 37 communities in south and south-central Michigan. The Clean Energy Coalition has received millions of dollars in state and federal grants over the last year. Most of that money is geared toward pushing for more energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions in transportation. The Michigan Municipal League Foundation, also received a $58,396 state grant. The Ann Arbor-based firm will use it to do the same thing in the southwest, western and northern portion of the state.The grants are part of a $195,996 grant from the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, & Economic Growth. The money originally came from the federal stimulus package. That money will help 125 municipalities receive technical assistance on becoming more sustainable from four non-profits. That basically means it will help these communities make their facilities more energy efficient through things like energy audits and harness renewable energy sources.The other two non-profits to receive funding are the WARM Training Center in Detroit, which will cover southeast Michigan, and the Michigan Energy Options in East Lansing for communities in the state's Upper Peninsula. Source: Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, & Economic GrowthWriter: Jon Zemke