MACOMB DAILY: LAWMAKERS TOLD: HELP FIRMS ALREADY HERE

Macomb Daily: Saturday, August 22, 2009

By Jameson Cook, Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Focusing more on helping existing companies, industries and workers in addition to trying to lure new business to Michigan was a thread of suggestions given Friday afternoon to a group of state lawmakers.

Members of the Republican Strategic Task Force on Jobs listened to comments from representatives from business, education and government at two Macomb County locations as part of its research for a November report on how to improve Michigan's job climate.

Ron Lamparter, head of L-Tech Holdings in Sterling Heights, told state Rep. Kim Meltzer, R-Clinton Township, and a handful of other lawmakers more emphasis should be placed on the state's rich talent pool in technology, much of it leftover from the retracting automobile industry.

"Any company that wants to be a producer of high-tech products related

to transportation industry, they have the technological support right here in Michigan," said Lamparter, whose company operates out of the Macomb County-Oakland University business "incubator" in the SmartZone district created in 2008 in the Van Dyke-Mound Road corridor in Sterling Heights and Warren.

The days of Michigan leaning on "nuts and bolts" style manufacturing to pump up the economy are gone. "Our strength in Michigan is technology," he said.

Mohan Tanniru, a dean and professor of management information Systems at Oakland University in Rochester, said in a later discussion at Macomb Community College in Clinton Township that little effort is being made to help former white-collar workers who have prematurely left the auto industry but don't want to leave Michigan. He is trying to match those people with industrial companies that have lost auto-related business. The new partners can blend talents to create new companies and products.

"We don't necessarily need money but need investments in them as people," he said. "We are not raiding the talent. Don't ignore the talent we have here."

Many middle-aged former white-collar don't necessarily want the risk of starting a new business, but want to continue their career. He dubbed programs matching the two as "pre-incubators."

Efforts to help those potential workers with another college degree are wasted, he said.

"They don't need another degree," Tanniru said. "They need an opportunity to contribute for the next 10 or 15 years" of their career.

The county's two top economic development officials said the state focuses too much on attracting large, highly visible companies to Michigan, at the expense of small businesses.

Don Morandini, deputy director of the Economic Development Department, noted most job expansion occurs among small businesses, which represent 95 percent of the companies in the county.

His boss, Steve Cassin, said many business people believe "it's not right" the state awards tax breaks to new businesses, penalizing existing ones.

Several speakers pointed to the massive tax credits that are being awarded to film industry companies as an example of excessive state money being spent on incentives.

"I think we'll have to repeal some of those film credits," Meltzer told the speakers. "Is the cost benefit there? Are we getting as much as we put into it?"

David Spencer, executive director of Michigan SmartZone development, said in many cases the state should foster diversification of existing businesses over attracting a new business.

"It took decades to build up their businesses; they're much more likely to survive in the long term," Spencer said.

Among claims by speakers that state leaders often fail to follow through on ambitious efforts, Spencer said the Michigan Economic Development Corp. for years has not been as focused as it should be, in part because of multiple leadership changes.

"I don't think our strategies have been very clear," he said.

But he believes it is on the right track with CEO James Epolito now in the top spot.

Speakers said they hope Macomb County's SmartZone, one of 15 in the state, will add to the corridor of military defense contractors along Van Dyke and Mound from Eight Mile Road to M-59. The area already contains several companies as well as related governmental entities -- Tank-Automotive Command, which includes the Tank-Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center in Warren.

Defense contractor Rave Computer is the anchor tenant of the Macomb-OU incubator, located on Sterling Ponds Court near 14 Mile Road and Van Dyke in Sterling Heights. Rave, which integrates computer hardware for all the military branches, is growing even though the amount of available defense work has been dipping slightly "in some sectors," Rave CEO Rick Darter said.

"We will be hiring additional employees," Darter said.

He said despite the economic gloom and doom of the area, he remains upbeat, in part due to efforts of business and government.

"I see a lot of synergy here in Macomb County," he said.