ProModel grows step by step with Ann Arbor’s economy
ProModel's Ann Arbor office has hired 38 people over the last couple of years, and expects to add yet more. Good thing the predictive analytics firm moved into its office before downtown's real estate market started feeling the squeeze.
ProModel is a tech company that risen with Ann Arbor’s tech economy over the last decade. The predictive analytics firm opened its Ann Arbor office in 2004 at the behest of the firm’s CTO Daniel Hickman, an Ann Arbor resident born and raised in the region.
“I love Ann Arbor,” says Daniel Hickman, CTO of ProModel. “In the early days we found it really easy to hire really smart people with all of the universities around here.”
Today the company employs 38 people in Ann Arbor out of its 100 total employees. It has hired 38 people alone in the last years and expects to add more.
“We went from one person to three to six to 24,” Hickman says. “We have steadily grown.”
And the company found room to grow in the mid-2000s. Back then the automotive industry was in a perpetual slump, Pfizer was pulling up stakes from Ann Arbor and the Great Recession was just around the corner. Hiring talented people and finding cost-effective office space was much easier back then. ProModel carved out a home with room to expand on the city’s south side.
“It’s not true today,” Hickman says.
Real estate in downtown Ann Arbor is tight. ProModel is glad it got in early. Today its managing a growing client list with project work ranging from military projects to shipbuilding. Hickman expects that workload will continue to grow and ProModel will be able to take advantage of it because it got a head start when the getting was good.
Source: Daniel Hickman, CTO of ProModel
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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