Ann Arbor

MedHub adds to staff, expands client list in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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April 1, 2009

MedHub is a small company enjoying sizable growth and is now leveling its sights on some significant clients.The 7-year-old start-up has just added a software developer to grow its staff to five people. It's also looking for another two people now and probably a couple more by the end of the year. It can do this because is has enjoyed nearly 40 percent growth each year it has been around. "This year is on pace to almost double growth," says Peter Orr, president of MedHub. The University of Michigan spin-off uses web-enabled enterprise residency management solutions to improve communication, collaboration and residency information management. That translates to a system that tracks what medical school students do during their residencies from their first round till the end of their residency.The idea is to track all of this information so hospitals can receive all of the Medicare reimbursement they are entitled to for the patient care they provide. That has meant more than $85 million at U-M Hospital alone.The company has a number of large teaching hospitals across the nation, such as Stanford. It recently took on Fairview Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic affiliate, as a new customer. It expects to sign a couple more major hospitals both in the U.S. and abroad later this spring. Source: Peter Orr, president of MedHubWriter: Jon Zemke

RiskMetrics moves to accommodate up to 20 new jobs in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 1, 2009

Given its history of success it's a pretty safe bet that RiskMetrics will continue to grow and add jobs to its Ann Arbor office.The New York City-based firm opened its office in Ann Arbor with six people nine years ago. There were only 70 people in the company then. Today it employs 1,200 people, including 18 staff and five summer interns in Ann Arbor.This growth has caused RiskMetrics to outgrow its downtown office. It just signed a six-year lease in local developer Peter Allen's building on North Main Street just north of downtown. The move will allow RiskMetrics to accommodate up to 20 new jobs."I expect to continue at our current pace of 2-3 people per year," says Paul Schmitter, manager of the Ann Arbor office for RiskMetrics. RiskMetrics creates software that determines and tests financial risk. Often this means it runs simulations on investment portfolios. The Ann Arbor office creates much of that software. It's looking to add another person right now and expects to hire another 2-3 people this year.They will all end up in Allen's Limestone building that is adjacent to the railroad bridge and overlooks the Huron River. RiskMetrics will occupy about half of the two-story structure.Source: Paul Schmitter, manager of the Ann Arbor office for RiskMetricsWriter: Jon Zemke

Team Algal Scientific turns wastewater into energy, seed money

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 1, 2009

Most people want dirty, wastewater to just go away. Not the people at Team Algal Scientific. The University of Michigan/Michigan State University spin-off is hoping the day comes when they simply can't get enough of the stuff.A group of mostly U-M graduate students and a MSU graduate student created a wastewater treatment system that uses algae to remove nutrients from contaminated water leaving the raw materials for biofuels. The idea was good enough to take first place at the inaugural Clean Energy Prize.The competition, hosted by U-M and DTE Energy, offers $100,000 in seed capital to start-ups so young they aren't yet proven enough for venture capital or angel investors. Team Algal Scientific took the grand prize of $65,000, which it plans to use developing its product's first phases.Right now that crew of four co-founders and a slew of advisors have been working on the idea at U-M since November. They hope to move its research to the MBI International technology incubator in Lansing ...and try not spend all of that money in one place."Our one-year plan is to scale up at MBI," says Robert Levine, the chief technology officer at Team Algal Scientific and a PhD student in chemical engineering at U-M. "The second phase is to team up with a brewer or other waste producer to prove the technology."The other team members include Geoff Horst, an ecology doctoral student at MSU, U-M master of business administration students Jeff LeBrun and John Rice.Source: Robert Levine, the chief technology officer at Team Algal ScientificWriter: Jon Zemke

Ann Arbor’s iSold It on eBay breaks into upper echelon of sellers

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 1, 2009

It might strike some people as strange that something like iSold It on eBay Ann Arbor is flourishing in a town that prides itself on its geeky knowledge of all things technoloical. But that's what happening with the 4-year-old firm.The three-person company recently reached the 10,000 feedback in eBay sales milestone, moving it to the "shooting star" level as one of the top sellers on the eBay market. So far iSold It on eBay has sold more than 20,000 items, ranging from musical instruments to electronics.It's been able to service the Ann Arbor area's senior population, which often has concerns about identity safety on the Internet or just isn’t familiar enough with web markets. Then there is also the 'I don’t have enough time' crowd."Doing an eBay sale requires a lot of work," says Carol Kamm, owner of iSold It on eBay Ann Arbor. "A lot of homework needs to be done beforehand to make an item sell. We answer the questions during the sale. We wrap it and ship it."And apparently it's doing it well, hitting 99.7 percent positive feedback from its customers. That in turn makes Kamm a happy person. It's not exactly the career move she envisioned making when graduating from the University of Michigan's School of Engineering in 1982. She worked several IT and software development jobs before seeing an ad for iSold It on eBay franchises. Suddenly such a move made sense for her with her family history in antique selling."I saw that, showed it to my husband and said I can do that," Kamm says.Source: Carol Kamm, owner of iSold It on eBay Ann ArborWriter: Jon Zemke

MASTERMIND: Eve Aronoff

By Amy Whitesall

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Arts & Culture

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April 1, 2009

When it comes to Ann Arbor restaurants there's eve and then there's everyone else. Since opening in 2003, Eve Aronoff's initmate bistro has emerged as an ambassador to the city's hipster/ foodie scene. From her curried mussels to Thursday night's popular cocktail scene to the sublime ginger-lime martinis, Eve has help redefine the local culinary landscape.

Video The New UMMA

By Keith Jefferies

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Education

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April 1, 2009

$41.9 million dollars and 53, 000 extra feet later the U-M Museum of Art reopened with an around-the-clock celebration that brought out a whole lotta local love. Concentrate takes you on a tour of this beautifully renovated center for arts and culture.

Ann Arbor’s Wright-designed Palmer House sold

By Newsroom

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Arts & Culture

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April 1, 2009

One of Ann Arbor's most architecturally significant homes, designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, has a new owner.Excerpt:The Palmer House in Ann Arbor, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's final residential projects and among his best, has found a new owner.San Francisco-based attorney Jeffrey Schox and his wife, Kathryn, both University of Michigan graduates, bought the house from its original owners, the Palmer family, this month. The purchase price was $900,000, according to public records.Read the rest of the story here.

Why we grieve The Ann Arbor News

By Newsroom

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General

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April 1, 2009

A long-time Ann Arbor News insider reminisces on the paper's death from the other side of the digital divide.Excerpt:It’s Monday afternoon and I’m sitting in a terminal at Detroit Metro airport, waiting for a flight to Texas to be with my father and sister.News of my mother’s death and the planned closing of The Ann Arbor News came inside a 12-hour span. The two events are orders of magnitude apart in their emotional impact on me, but in an odd way I find myself processing both and finding a metaphor for one in the other.My mother was ill for a long time. Once a woman who loved to sing, she became unable to articulate the simplest concept. She grew to be fearful of even the shortest trips outside her home, though once she’d once been eager to travel – so much so that all our family vacations when I was young were camping trips, far before it was popular. Piling us into a station wagon hauling a pop-up camper was the only way my parents could afford to see the country.By the time she died, my mom was a shadow of her former self. And for the people who knew her only in the final months of her life, I’m sure it’s hard for them to imagine the woman I knew, and loved.All of this was on my mind when word came about the decision to close The Ann Arbor News. And what I’ve heard from people in the aftermath of that decision looks very much like grief.For the people who work at The News, or those who work at any of the hundreds of other struggling newspapers nationwide, it’s a grief linked to the uncertainty of their livelihood, for sure. But for the many journalists who are deeply committed to the idealistic goals of their profession – that the very foundation of a democracy relies on an informed public, which a free press serves – the closing of a newspaper is a frightening symbol. For them, it’s not a business. It’s a calling – even when it sometimes fell short of that idealistic goal.Read the rest of the story here.

Ann Arbor entrepreneur Rick Snyder wants to take start-up vision to governor’s mansion

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 1, 2009

Rick Snyder, one of Ann Arbor's start-up icons, wants to put the innovation lessons he learned from Gateway and Ardesta to use on a state level as Governor. Excerpt:An entrepreneurial investor as Michigan gubernatorial candidate? That's the value proposition that Rick Snyder, who is officially considering a gubernatorial race in 2010, would be offering Michigan. But Snyder, chairman of Ann Arbor SPARK and former president of Gateway Computers, faces significant challenges related to name recognition and funding competition.Snyder, also CEO of Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm Ardesta and former chairman of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s executive committee, hinted that he may seek to overcome those obstacles by relying on entrepreneurial business skills."Fortunately I've been in the startup world for the last 10 years plus. There's a tremendous amount of analogies from doing a startup and running a campaign in the sense that you have to come up with a vision, you have to build a team, you have to raise funds and you have to get something done," said Snyder, who also briefly ran Gateway as interim CEO.Read the rest of the story here.

ForeSee Results moves into new headquarters in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Development News

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April 1, 2009

ForeSee Results has gotten big so it got another set of britches. The company recently moved into its new headquarters on the northeast side of Ann Arbor. It's expanded digs clock in at nearly 40,000 square feet, 2.5 times larger than its old home. It houses close to 100 employees for the 7-year-old start-up, which employs 140 people. ForeSee plans to hire another 30-60 people this year."We think this will accommodate about five years of growth," says Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee Results.The new home is at 2500 Green Road near the intersection of Plymouth Road. Freed and his co-workers choose that section of town because it is denser and closer to the city center than the office parks on the city's far south side. They decided to stay in Ann Arbor for a number of other reasons."The Ann Arbor community provides us a number of great things," Freed says. "There are a lot of emerging companies here. The workforce is great and there is the university. It's a great environment."ForeSee Results captures "voice of customer" feedback and uses it to measure customer satisfaction for the likes of as Kohler, Citibank and Ameriprise. It uses uses the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index to find out the satisfaction of website visitors and pinpoint opportunities to improve the site.Source: Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee ResultsWriter: Jon Zemke