in the nation. People are losing their jobs, their homes, a way of life that their parents and grandparents worked hard to build.
Because there is relatively little deal flow coming in to Michigan, a great deal of what I will report in Xconomy will be attempts to get things moving. Universities and government are crucial to the story. I have written before about the state’s Green Sector Skills Alliance, which is attempting to take a workforce already skilled in automotive engineering and transfer them to the promised, new “green” economy.
I will write about people like Greg Auner at Wayne State’s Smart Systems and Integrated Microsystems lab, who has been working for years on advanced sensors that he believes could revolutionize medicine. He recently created an initiative called Technology and Engineering Applications in Medicine and Surgery (TEAMS) and partnered with all the major hospitals in the region to help place these technologies directly into the hands of doctors who can use them to quickly diagnose cancer or detect viruses before they kill.
But Auner is not there yet. He still needs funding, and businesspeople to take the reins. It is still “becoming.”
But Auner knows something that many entrepreneurs in Michigan know. This region has always had the seeds of a diversified economy contained within its one industry. Think about your car, Auner says, and it’s all there, from advanced materials to sensing systems, all more sophisticated than much of what you’d find in biomedicine, he says.
For example, inside auto supplier Delphi, only recently emerged from bankruptcy, are technologies that can be taken off the shelf and applied to countless other industries.
Col. James Braden, director of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Defense Contract Coordination Center, knows that, too. Michigan has talented automotive and robotics engineers. He is trying to steer them toward a new Michigan Automotive Robotics Cluster (MARC) initiative. He has nothing right now but an idea that a cluster like this can work, so he’s pulling together federal and state funding to help get it launched. The cluster does not exist yet. It is “becoming,” and I plan on writing about how exactly that might happen.
I plan to point out successes, too. Hopefully more and more of them as time goes by.
Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor recently announced that it has received $4.7 million from the Pentagon to develop a fuel-cell system. This is in addition to the $3 million it received in December to develop fuel cells for the U.S. Air Force. To fill the order, the company is looking to hire nine new engineers. Adaptive’s success illustrates one place where Detroit can find some success right now—in energy innovation combined with government or military funding and incentives.
Four new plants that manufacture batteries for electric vehicles are being built in Michigan using, in part, federal stimulus money. Dow Chemical plans to build a new solar-shingle factory in the middle of Michigan.
These things might not even be considered “news” in other regions, but in Detroit they are important parts of a narrative, the tale of what Detroit is becoming. I’ll follow the action as best I can, but I can use your help, too. Do you have any stories in mind, ones that can add to the narrative? Please contact me. I’m at [email protected].
