Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSeeResults, talks about the recent move by his company to buy out Compuware Corp. and bring in two Venture Capital firms that will help the web site customer measurement company fuel growth. ForeSeeResults, based in Ann Arbor, will be looking for about 30 professionals this year to join its staff of 70 - good news for Michigan’s hard pressed economy.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2007.
Art DeMonte, executive director of the Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest, said the new FastTrac TechBusiness seminar series attracted so much attention in April that the business plan writing contest plans to triple it starting next fall. Seminars will be offered in West Michigan, Central Michigan and Southeast Michigan for entrepreneurs seeking to kick start their businesses.
Paul Neeb, a vice president at Southwest Michigan First and head of the economic development group’s First Angels investment group, offers entrepreneurs some tips on how they can attract investors. Neeb was part of Great Lake Entrepreneur’s Quest’s seminar series in April. His remarks were recorded in Grand Rapids.
Interview with Mike Rogers, spokesman for the Small Business Association of Michigan, which just published its annual Entrepreneurial Scorecard ranking Entrepreneurial Dynamism in all 50 states. Michigan just avoided failing with a grade of D Minus.
Interview with Clara Mager, Immigration Group practice lead for Butzel Long. The law firm will host a day-long conference on April 27 at the Troy Marriott to talk about the latest news in Immigration Law, including the fact that all 85,000 H-1B temporary worker visas for fiscal 2007-2008 - used heavily by the high tech industry to recruit skilled foreign professionals - were all spoken for just a day after applications were accepted.
David Van Andel, chairman of the Van Andel Research Institute, talks about what the Phase II expansion of the center funded by his parents, Jay and Betty Van Andel, means to him personally. He also discusses how the VAI has become the catalyst for a nearly $1 billion construction boom on “Pill Hill” in Grand Rapids. He also urges Michigan’s legislative officials to stop the partisan politics and becomes the leaders the people of the state hoped they would be when they were elected.
Interview with George VandeWoude, director of the Van Andel Research Institute, talks about the Phase II expansion of the cancer R&D facility in downtown Grand Rapids, and how it will create 550 new jobs, pour $170 million into the local economy, and lead to the labs bright future which could one day help eradicate diseases that effect an aging population, including cancer.
Interview with Art DeMonte, executive director of the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest, discussing GLEQ’s new FastTrac TechVenture program, an intensive five session, 15 hour program to help tech entrepreneurs create business plans that win them money from investors. The first session starts in Ann Arbor on April 18.
Interview with Skip Simms, Executive Director of the Business Accelerator for Ann Arbor SPARK, who says its time for the state of Michigan to develop incentives for Angel Investors to pour their cash into promising Michigan technology and life sciences startups. Simms outlines what he says some of those incentives should be.
Interview with Tom Anderson - Director of Automation Alley’s Technology Center and Senior AA Vice President, who talks about the $6 million that the technology networking group has to invest in promising Michigan technologies that can be commercialized - read create high tech jobs for the state.
Interview with Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance on the proposed $50 million fund that would help Southeast Michigan accelerators, like Automation Alley, Ann Arbor SPARK, and Wayne State University’s TechTown, provide seed capital to promising Michigan technology and life sciences companies.
Interview with Martyn Coombs, the new CEO of Detroit human tissue bank company Asterand. Coombs, like founder and outgoing CEO Randal Charlton, is from the United Kingdom and has a lot of experience working with the life sciences industries in Europe and Asia.
Interview with Tom Hines, co chairman of the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, who talks about how the security group has appointed Michigan Sen. Valde Garcia as the head of its new Roundtable, a combination lobby-public opinion-industry insider collaboration.
