Innovation + Job News

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

On April 20, Grand Rapids' Right Place Inc. and Cincinnati-based Eureka Ranch International launched an innovative online initiative with an eye to connecting innovators, investors and manufacturers nationwide.

The National Innovation Marketplace, developed by Eureka Ranch founder Doug Hall, takes its cues from Right Place's InnovationWorks IdeaPortal.

"The program takes the ideas we've been mining and putting on our IdeaPortal to give them national exposure," says Bill Small, Right Place innovation director. Small has spent the last two years developing two programs: InnovationWorks and Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center-West (MMTC-West), one of 59 national Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers.

"MMTC-West helps manufacturers be more efficient and helps them diversify their products," Small says. "We help them understand what it would mean to have their own proprietary product, to help them understand how having their own intellectual property would make them more attractive to other industries like medical devices and alternative energy."

Inventors input their product ideas on the National Innovation Marketplace where investors and manufacturers can connect with them. Likewise, manufacturers and investors can load their profiles indicating the type of products they're interested in funding and producing.

In West Michigan, users load their information to the IdeaPortal. If an idea isn't picked up by an investor or manufacturer in 100 days, InnovationWorks moves it to the National Innovation Marketplace web portal.

"It's important that a West Michigan idea stays in Michigan to try to keep the wealth here before the idea gets national exposure," Small says. "The idea never leaves the IdeaPortal web site, but once it's moved to the national portal it's available on both sites."

Source: Bill Small, Right Place Inc.

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Holland-based Kenowa Industries, an automotive materials handling supplier, recently made its first foray into the alternative energy field, adding one more industry to its diversified customer base. Kenowa's diversification efforts have kept the company afloat in a turbulent economy. 

Kenowa designed and manufactured a precision solar panel work-in-process cart for Grenzebach Corporation, Newnan, GA, an international supplier of conveyors and robotics. Grenzebach's end user, a solar panel manufacturer, needed a cart to move custom-formed 2-by-3.5 foot glass panels through a conveyor system without breakage.

"A robotic arm loads the panels into 40 shelves on the cart, so the measurements for each shelf have to be very, very precise," says Mark Doyle, sales manager for Kenowa. "Grenzebach tried to source it down there, but couldn't find anyone to meet their critical lead time or to manufacture the carts holding the tight tolerances – corner to corner, side to side and top to bottom the measurements could only be off less than a millimeter.

"This project is by far the most intricate and most precise of any project we've ever done," Doyle adds.

Five years ago Kenowa went looking for new clients in the medical, aerospace, lumber and retail industries. Today, about 40 percent of the company's business comes from those diversification efforts; the rest comes from the automotive industry.

Government contracts are next on the to-do list, which prompted Kenowa's leaders to enlist help from Right Place Inc. to make crucial business connections and to become a certified minority-owned business.

Kenowa celebrates 30 years this year and logged $4 million in revenue in 2008. The Grenzebach work generated four permanent jobs and two temporary positions, bringing employment to 25.

Source: Mark Doyle, Kenowa Industries

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Grand Rapids law firm Rhoades McKee has formed a new practice group whose focus is to assist physicians and health care organizations with health law issues. The Health Law Practice Group pulls together lawyers who each have expertise in health law and expertise in other areas of law, as well.

The legal issues physicians and hospitals face can touch on tax law, real estate law, environmental law, fraud, criminal defense work, liability and more.

"Health care is the highest regulated industry in the country because it's driven by taxpayer dollars and because we care about the quality of care we're receiving," says John Lichtenberg, an attorney and chair of the practice group.

"There's significant movement back to hospital-based or hospital-owned physician practice groups," Lichtenberg says. "It's a product of economic pressures on physicians and the structure of the payment systems where they're left to try to negotiate with large insurance companies and the federal government for Medicaid and Medicare. They form physicians' groups to provide themselves with some sort of protection and seamless health care to patients."

Lichtenberg expects the new health practice group will focus on physicians and their physician practice groups.

"These issues become unusually complicated with the huge nonprofit entities that are major players in the health care industry," Lichtenberg adds. "Because they are so involved in so many transactions, they touch many individual physicians and practice groups and they touch other nonprofits such as the Van Andel Institute, as well as for-profit entities."

This year, Rhoades McKee added four experienced lawyers and a lawyer just out of school. Another new grad joins the firm later this year.

"My hope is to see our health law practice group grow," Lichtenberg says, "and to help in the transformation of the health care industry here in Grand Rapids."

Source: John Lichtenberg, Rhoades McKee

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

A coalition of bicycle enthusiasts is gearing up to host Bike Summit I, an event it hopes will be the catalyst for making Grand Rapids a League of American Bicyclists (LAB) Bicycle Friendly Community. The coalition, Bike Grand Rapids, aims to get more residents riding bicycles for recreation and transportation.

LAB's Bicycle Friendly Community program recognizes communities that offer numerous safe bikeways, secure bike storage centers, and bicycle education programs. Bike Grand Rapids has asked that metro Grand Rapids to be designated as a Bicycle Friendly Community by demonstrating achievements in bicycle-related engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and planning.

Bike friendly cities attract young talent seeking vibrant, sustainable communities in which to live and work. Portland, OR is one example where urban workers are finding they don't need to own vehicles, freeing up discretionary spending for non-auto-related items. Some workers have even become bicycle industry entrepreneurs.

"The summit will include breakout planning sessions for on road, off road, education and advocacy," says Kevin McCurren of Bike Grand Rapids. McCurren was involved in a similar program in Louisville, KY before he moved to Heritage Hill last summer.

"At the breakouts we'll talk about which roads you want to ride on, which need bike-friendly improvements, improving trails and easy connections to parks, and what programs we have now and what programs we want," he says. "We'll hopefully get some concrete ideas to keep this going."

Featured speakers include Bill Nesper, director, Bicycle Friendly Community program; Ann Freiwald, consultant, Alta Planning and Design, a national leader in bicycle, pedestrian and greenway design; and Suzanne Schulz, planning director for Grand Rapids and Green Grand Rapids.

The summit runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 24 at Grand Valley State University's Loosemore Auditorium. Click here for the agenda or to register.

Source: Kevin McCurran, Bike Grand Rapids; Green Grand Rapids

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

This year's Embracing a Green Future conference has adopted a new twist that helps organizers practice what they preach – the conference will become carbon neutral by purchasing carbon credits from local green energy endeavors.

"The purpose of this conference is to help manufacturers get on, or continue, on their sustainable journey," says Anne Saliers, innovation director, Right Place, Inc. Right Place and MMTC-West are hosting the conference. "One of the new topics is carbon management, and one of the ways to make the conference as sustainable as possible is to purchase carbon offsets."

Right Place has partnered with Holland-based Viability to make the conference carbon neutral.

"Through our Green Events Program, we marry a local nonprofit that is, for example, putting up a wind turbine or solar panels and is eligible for carbon credits, with events happening in the area," says Chris Byrnes, Viability president and founder. "The projects come from Viability's registry, and are not on any global registry."

For Embracing a Green Future, Viability assesses the electric usage, waste, heating usage, and transportation for speakers and attendees to determine the carbon footprint. The carbon credits will be purchased and retired, and the nonprofit gets the money to help pay for their green energy project. In return, the conference lists Viability as a sponsor.

"It's primarily a marketing program for us," Byrnes says. "We intend to promote the program around the country."

The conference features presentations on greening your company through environmental management systems, product/service design, facilities, purchasing/supply chain, operations, packaging, and more. Attendees can choose two half-day workshops on operating lean and green, green materials and chemistry, carbon management 101 or green marketing guidelines.

The conference is April 28 and 29 at Grand Valley State University's Eberhard Center. For more information or to register, click here.

Source: Anne Saliers, Right Place Inc.; Chris Byrnes, Dan Kuipers, Viability LLC

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

The last 16 months have been a whirlwind of activity for Grand Rapids’ Founder’s Brewing. The company moved its taproom and brewery to much larger digs, boosted capacity from 5,000 barrels a year to 23,000, added 48 employees and increased revenue a forehead-slapping 121 percent to $4.1 million.

Nearly as amazing is the projected growth. Company officials predict an increase in revenue to $7.5 million and an addition of about 12 jobs for this year. Next year the brewer may increase production capacity by 50 percent.

“People are drinking beer, which is a good thing for us,” says Mike Stevens with a chuckle. Stevens and Dave Engbers founded the brewery in 1997.

“Look at where the economy’s at,” he adds. “With the whole buy American, buy local thing, people are starting to realize some of the craft brewers are making excellent products. Domestics have been stagnant for several years and imports are declining. Craft beer’s been growing in double digits, and in 2009, it’ll grow 7 to 8 percent.”

The additional jobs at Founder’s caused another first for the company: the formation of individual departments. Production now operates two shifts with several new manufacturing employees; there’s a director of sales, accounting positions, three assistant manager positions, and numerous servers and kitchen employees.

“When we moved, I quickly learned we were growing so fast we had to departmentalize the business,” Stevens says. “That was a big shift. We created sales, marketing, retail operations and brewing operations. The heads of all those areas except brewing operations are all new hires."

Source: Mike Stevens, Founder’s Brewing

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

The 68-year-old Grand Rapids law firm of Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge has hired eight lawyers with an eye to broadening the firm’s offerings and bringing more young talent into the company.

“A couple of the new people are younger lawyers who have clerked with us, and one is a young woman who is coming back to Grand Rapids where she was born and raised,” says Pat Geary, CEO of Smith Haughey, 250 Monroe NW. “Of the new attorneys, four will work in Grand Rapids and four in our Traverse City office.”

The firm has a third location in Ann Arbor.

With the addition of the new attorneys, the firm broadens its offerings in bankruptcy law and land conservation issues.

“We added a lawyer in the Traverse City office whose specialty is bankruptcy, and he is really going to be able to open the bankruptcy rights area of practice for us,” Geary says. “And we can now offer a land conservancy opportunity because one of the new attorneys is established in that. That’s an up and coming area of practice in Michigan because of our significant amounts of farm land.”

Geary credits opportunity and a proven business model for the growth of the firm, which now employs 85 attorneys.

“We’ve had the opportunity to meet and attract some very good lawyers to the firm, and when you have that opportunity you really want to make the most of it,” he says. “We’ve followed a business model to keep us, to use the old cliché, lean and mean. We haven’t been in a position where we’ve been required to lose people, and our clients have been supportive and loyal, for which we’re immensely grateful.”

Geary expects to hire one to five more attorneys this year.

Source: Pat Geary, Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

U.S. Energy Engineers is less than 18 months old and already the energy efficiency consulting company operates in five states, has eight employees and plans to add six engineering positions in West Michigan.

“We’re expecting to double our revenue this year,” says President and founder Felix Goto. “We know we need to add another six mechanical, electrical and energy engineers for the highly specialized work that we do to tackle the energy issues of the day.”

The company works with large and mid-sized industrial firms and other businesses to help the companies reduce their gas and electric bills. The engineers analyze systems such as compressed air systems and HVAC systems using ultrasonic leak detectors, light sensors and sophisticated mapping systems that can redraw a facility from scratch.

“We attack the utility bills and see ways to reduce energy costs,” says Goto. “Some companies we’ve saved over $200,000 a year—it depends on the company. We never do work unless it’s a two-year or less payback.”

U.S. Energy Engineers detects the energy inefficiencies, but does not do the repairs in order to keep their work free of bias.

The firm recently received authorization to work with utility companies as an energy consultant in Oregon, and currently does the same type of work in Illinois, Wisconsin and Colorado.

“We assist with energy efficiency strategies and help the client get specific energy rebates or reduced energy costs,” Goto says. “We’re operating out of Grand Rapids and flying to the client. Hope to open offices in Portland, Oregon soon.”

The company recently moved to 3,500 square feet at 2960 Lucerne Drive in Cascade. Chris Beckering of Grubb & Ellis Paramount Commerce brokered the transaction.

Source: Felix Goto, U.S. Energy Engineers

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Design West Michigan and Creo Productions have teamed up to create what they believe is the first-ever video case study highlighting the economic value of design. The study will follow the design and development of Whirlpool’s innovative Duet Series washers and dryers.

“Good design, classic design and economically valuable design starts with design at the beginning of the process,” says John Berry, Design West Michigan director. “Part of the issue of understanding design is the difficulty in defining design, and the all too often assumption that design is styling done at the end of some process.”

Berry says design is actually problem solving. Everything gets designed, and constraints like time, money and production capability are problems to be solved. Good design considers all the factors up front to help manufacturers determine how and where to cut costs.

Creo Productions will produce a 10-minute video that highlights the ethnographic research that identified the need for modern efficiencies in laundry appliances. That research resulted in the Whirlpool Duet series, which revolutionized the industry, Berry says. Some of the conveniences consumers wanted include faster drying time, side-by-side appliances, water conservation, wrinkle prevention, variable heights to reduce bending and stooping, and reduced noise.

The video will highlight interviews with Whirlpool researchers and designers, the ethnographic research, the incorporation of drawings and prototype concepts, and a visual timeline.

Berry will make the video available to individual businesses and online.

“The goal of Design West Michigan is to use design to help grow the economy of the region,” Berry says. “The case study will educate non-designers on the value of design where design has the ability to enhance their profits and markets. We hope to produce several case studies representing different design disciplines, such as graphic design, architectural design, digital interactive media design, et cetera."

Source: John Berry, Design West Michigan

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Some 75 new jobs may be coming to West Michigan soon, if the predictions of DK Security’s leaders are accurate.

Last week the Kentwood company announced its acquisition of Mason-based security firm Joseph A. Young & Associates. The acquisition will add some 125 positions, 75 of which are new, and will boost revenues to more than $10 million this year—up from $7.9 million in 2008.

“We’re primarily a security provider, but the secret is that we’re a full service company providing security guards, armed guards, investigators and detection dogs,” says John Kendall, president and CEO. “We also do background screenings, fingerprinting and drug testing.”

Kendall, a retired FBI agent, hopes to hire other retired agents, former police officers, former military personnel and students and graduates of area criminal justice programs.

Ninety percent of the company’s clients are located from central Michigan to the west lakeshore. The firm also is licensed in Ohio, Arizona and Florida.

“We do a lot of investigative work,” Kendall says. “We put people in businesses to investigate things like sexual harassment and drug and alcohol sales.”

The company provides security at schools and its K-9 unit has dogs trained to detect illegal drugs, alcohol, prescription drugs, firearms and ammunition.

“At one school there was a boy who had smoked marijuana at a party and his jacket smelled like it,” Kendall says. “The dogs smelled it and when the school opened his locker they found nunchucks. The dogs can’t sniff nunchucks, of course, but they detected the marijuana on the jacket and things went from there.”

DK Security grew 63 percent over the last five years. The acquisition will bring its employment rolls to about 750.

Source: John Kendall, DK Security; Andrea Groom, Wondergem Consulting, Inc.

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Creo Productions has taken a big step in its plans to offer sophisticated audio recording services with the hire of its first full-time position, an audio engineer to run the firm's new recording studio.

Last year, the company moved from 200 square feet in owner Aaron Carriere’s Eastown home to 1,425 square feet at 40 S. Division, Grand Rapids. Some 475 square feet of the lower level is dedicated to the audio studio completed in December, dubbed 40 South.

Carriere, 26, and business partner Andrew Tingley, 27, moved downtown with the intention of eventually adding the audio studio for recording musicians.

“With the growth of the video business we decided to make the jump to add a full-time audio engineer,” says Carriere. “We’re primed to grow very quickly with this move.”

The audio studio consists of a soundproof recording room, mixing room and post-production area. Musicians, voice overs, sound effects and more are recorded directly into the mixing room computer system where the audio engineer controls the sound quality, special effects and track layering.

Carriere says there is “tons of collaboration” between the video studio upstairs and the audio studio downstairs. One advantage is that Creo draws upon a network of local musicians, including Carriere and Matthew Korn, to write custom music for any video the company produces. Korn is the new audio engineer.

“Original music increases the value of your video production,” Carriere says, “and you can fit the music to the video.”

Creo Productions’ produced the audio and video for a new short film, Celebrate Heartside, which debuted last month as part of an initiative to bring projected art to downtown Grand Rapids.

Source: Aaron Carriere, Creo Productions

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Tissue tracking—knowing the whereabouts, inventory and recipients of biologic tissue—has been a challenge for hospitals, especially since the government began regulating tissue handling a few years ago. A Grand Rapids-based software development company has a solution.

LPiT Solutions, 25 Commerce SW, created and markets Tissue TrackCore, a web based system that tracks the handling, storage and chain of custody of biologic tissue and implants (skin grafts, tendons, bones, etc.) that hospitals use every day.

“Hospitals are required to document the date and time they received tissue, verify the package is intact, verify the expiration date, verify that the temperature range is acceptable for each tissue and track which patients receive which tissue” says John Post, a partner with Scott MacGregor in LPiT Solutions. “When anyone in the hospital touches any of these tissues they’re supposed to document it, which has caused quite a workflow shift for these hospitals.”

Before Tissue TrackCore, hospital staff tracked the tissue manually using log books—a time consuming, cumbersome, and often error-filled process. Now, with a couple of mouse clicks, the system tracks inventory, where it’s stored (freezer, refrigerator), the name of the surgeon who used the tissue, the patient’s name and even the financials involved. Tissue TrackCore also notifies the hospital of tissue nearing the expiration date or if inventory is getting low.

“If you have a $10,000 bone, you don’t want it to expire,” Post says. “

“We have a national partnership with the world’s largest provider of tissue, the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation,” he adds. “We have 76 hospital systems under contract, which represents 150 hospitals. In addition, 23 hospitals are in the process of being implemented, and outstanding contracts and agreements representing nearly 200 more. We do the training, implementation and tech support.”

Source: John Post, LPIT Solutions; Chris Beckering, Grubb & Ellis Paramount Commerce

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Boxed Water Is Better.

That’s not just the name of a new Grand Rapids company, it’s the company owners’ inspiration to create an eco-friendly alternative to bottled water.

Eleven months ago, Ben Gott and Kevin Hockin, twenty-something entrepreneurs at 25 Ionia SW, started to explore the possibility of creating a bottled water that wouldn’t add more plastic bottles to landfills; a bottled water that would be as eco-friendly as it could be. Two weeks ago the first Boxed Water shipped to local stores.

“We looked at the old milk cartons and found inspiration in the classic shape of them,” Gott says. “One of the first visions we had was that we were going to create a cool sustainable product that can be shipped flat to the filler. And we wanted to do something really iconic with the design so it stands out on the shelf.”

The cartons ship to Minneapolis where they’re filled on-demand with filtered water. That’s a scenario similar to most bottled water companies. The difference is that Boxed Water cartons are shipped flat. Two pallets of flat containers take up just five percent of a truckload, Gott says. For competitors to ship the same number of plastic bottles it takes five trucks.

Unlike plastic water bottles, the cartons can be reused, composted or recycled. And the paper pulp to make them comes from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests.

“We consider this an art project, a sustainability project, and an R & D project,” says Hockin. “We plan to always be growing and changing to become better and better.”

“This is a step in the right direction,” Gott adds. “The carton can be refilled and reused, even though it won’t last as long as a plastic bottle. But that’s the whole point.”

Local stores carrying Boxed Water include Health Hutt, Grand Central Market and The Sparrows Coffee Tea & Newstand.

Source: Ben Gott and Kevin Hockin, Boxed Water Is Better

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Dan Calabrese

Students at Kentwood’s Explorer Elementary School are interacting with their learning material in a new and modern way – thanks to an anonymous donor and a Steelcase-owned, Georgia-based company that produces high-tech educational tools.

The interactive whiteboards from PolyVision have been a hit with Explorer students, especially – but not limited to – the boys, according to Evan Hordyk, the district's executive director of instruction and technology.

“They engage students in their own learning,” Hordyk says. “Students that are coming into school these days are what we call digital natives. This is something that’s a normal piece of their lives.”

Explorer acquired 23 PolyVision boards that are spread throughout the school, and the school district has six other PolyVision boards in use. The boards allow users to perform a variety of high-tech functions, including presentation projection, advancing slides, navigating to web sites, writing and revising notes, highlighting, sending e-mails and saving and reloading sessions.

“When I was a kid, teaching was teacher-led,” Hordyk says. “The teacher presented the information. That’s not the case anymore, in our classrooms in Kentwood at least. We try to engage students in what they’re doing. So this technology allows students to go up and manipulate media and make changes.”

For example, students studying physics can use a projection simulating gravity that can be adjusted to different levels, so they can observe the changes of varying gravity fields when they drop an object on the screen, Hordyk says.

He describes the interactive expectations of current-generation students as a dramatic break from those of the generation just past.

“I didn’t have all of this technology when I was in fourth grade,” Hordyk said. “It wasn’t a normal piece of my life. But for these digital natives, it engages them in their own learning.”

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

By: Dan Calabrese

Touting progress in emerging markets, the engineering firm DornerWorks intends to add several positions in the upcoming quarter, following an increase of nine jobs in the first three months of this year and 25 positions last year.

DornerWorks, located at 3445 Lake Eastbrook SE, provides consulting in the field of electronics engineering to companies in a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace and medical. Tim Walker, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, says a concerted effort to pursue business in the latter two industries has played a crucial role in driving DornerWorks’s growth.

“In the last year, we moved into the medical market, so that turned out to be a good driver for us,” Walker says. “We also had a lot of growth from some of our aerospace customers.”

At present, DornerWorks employs 70 people, including electrical and software engineers. The company is owned by President and CEO David Dorner, who founded DornerWorks in 2000 after a seven-year career at GE Aviation, which was then known as Smiths Aerospace. The company moved to its present location in 2008.

Source: Tim Walker, DornerWorks

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.