The Arab Advantage

Tags

Arab Americans, MEA-TV, Michigan economy, Middle Eastern Americans

In 2006, for reasons that take longer than a blog intro to explain, I was boarding a plane in Copenhagen in a state of absolute joy to be going home. It was hard to believe I was really going to make it. Imagine my delight when took my seat right next to a guy who appeared to be Muslim, dressed in a long tunic. Yes! It was true! I was really getting back to Michigan, and here was my first sign of home.

It was a direct flight into Detroit, and so of course seeing a man of Arabic decent was proof that I was truly homeward bound. Non-Michiganders are sometimes surprised to learn that we’re home of the one of the (and some say, the very) largest population of Arabs outside of the Middle East. In 2011, the Arab American Institute Foundation estimated that more than 500,000 people of Arabic-speaking ancestry live in Michigan, with 80 percent of that population in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties.

How awesome is that? Honestly, it’s not just a fun fact: it’s an economic and cultural gift. This first began to dawn on me last year when I interviewed Wally Jadan who owns MEA-TV & Radio. It was one of those weeks when I had a million and a half things happening, and while I typically spend some time researching people before interviews, in this case, I was winging it (oops!). So imagine my surprise when I was a few minutes into an interview with this guy who owns what I assumed was a nice little local Middle Eastern American television station and he starts telling me about his 9 million viewers in North America and the 10 million more he was about to add in the Middle East. And his interview with Hillary Clinton. And how his goal is to change the perception of the US in the Middle East as great place where Arabs are welcomed and thrive – a goal he was months away from beginning to achieve.

That changing the world bit got my attention. Here’s an excerpt from the story that ran in Metromode:

“Jadan’s pride in the local Middle Eastern American community is clear from the MEA-TV website, which boasts the same statistics the broadcast network hopes to share with the world. According to the page, Middle Eastern Americans own more than 10,000 businesses in the tri-county area and contribute $3.7 billion in wage and salary earnings in the state. It also clarifies that Middle Eastern American families have higher average incomes than other Americans and are notably well educated.”

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a handful of those well-educated, job-creating Middle Eastern Americans while writing another story for Metromode on ICON Global Architecture Engineering, a collaboration between a handful of architects, developers and engineers who are in the process of signing a $5.5 billion contract with the National Investment Commission of Iraq to build cities’ worth of housing there. Yes, billion, with a “b.” And that money is coming here, to Michigan, to be circulated through those development firms as well as manufacturers and other companies in the businesses of building things here.

How did Michigan get so lucky? To start, the chair of the National Investment Commission for Iraq is an MSU grad. For real. He teamed up with the East Lansing-based economic development organization Prima Civitas to specifically find Michigan firms to work with on the project because of his connection to the state. And then there’s the fact that nearly all the partners in ICON have a connection to Iraq.

You know the expression, “it’s all about who you know?” Apparently that works for states too. For Michigan, we couldn’t be more fortunate to have such a vibrant and diverse community bringing so much talent, culture and economic development to the Metro Detroit. When you hear the talk about inviting highly educated immigrants to settle here in Michigan, this is why you should cheer: $3.7 billion in annual wages and salaries; $5.5 billion in overseas contracts. And that’s just from a few people I happen to have chatted up recently.

You’re Not Looking Close Enough

Tags

economic development, economic recovery, Michigan economy, Michigan talent, Michigan workforce

Mike and I were recently visiting my grandmother and various aunts, uncles and cousins in Florida. As my mother’s Pontiac born-and-bred family are wont to do, we decided to have a Michigan-y night, so we ordered pizza and gathered ’round a DVR’d episode of the Smithsonian Channel’s Aerial America featuring Michigan. It’s a cool concept, and we generally had fun virtually zooming around our state from above.

I thought I'd share this montage of Grand Rapids because the Smithsonian Channel decided to overlook the city completely. Look! Kind of a nice place! Photo credit: Wikipedia - Montage of Grand Rapids images on Commons

But it left me feeling…off. I didn’t notice anything incorrect in the show’s coverage (besides totally missing Grand Rapids, a metro area of a million-ish people), and they did a fine job showcasing the natural beauty of Michigan’s coastlines, inland lakes and the Mackinac Bridge and Island. Unlike most of the complaints found on the episode’s website, I wasn’t upset by the disproportionate coverage of Detroit to the rest of the state, so much as what was shown of the area. Yes, the decline of the automotive industry is an engaging story; yes, there are a lot of sadly vacant facilities there at which to ogle. But telling the story of how those buildings came into such disrepair without even touching on what’s happening now – the next chapter in the story – seemed downright unfair.

I sort of get it. The problem with telling Michigan’s story on Aerial America is that it’s not the big buildings (occupied or otherwise) or the natural splendor that makes the state such an exciting place to be right now. It’s the people. Despite our famed battle against the brain drain, we’re still producing ridiculous quantities of amazing brains here, and real story about Michigan today is that more and more companies are finding ways to plug the drain. And the bathtub is starting to fill.

This week I wrote a story on the Royal Oak company Vectorform. You’ve probably never heard of them, but you’ve definitely seen their work. Their client list includes Microsoft, Nokia, KAYAK, Volkswagen, Jeep and the Associated Press, so…yes, you have seen their work. The employ about 100 workers worldwide and have offices in Seattle, Brooklyn, Germany and India. Their headquarters in Royal Oak is there not only because the two founders are from the area, but also because that’s where they’re finding the talent. The automotive industry may not be what it was before, but our universities are still churning out the talent that served them well for so many years. We’ve got engineering grads coming out of our ears here in Michigan. When we can keep them here, they’re just making different things. Apps don’t require acres of warehouse space, but that doesn’t make them less meaningful to our economy.

Another case in point is the Lansing-based manufacturer of superconducting accelerators, Niowave. What is a superconducting accelerator? I’m not a super sciencey person, so the best way for me to describe them is that they’re super advanced, university research people need them, they currently cost about $100 million and are super, super sciencey. Niowave is about to start producing the first commercially-available superconductor accelerators in Lansing (reducing their cost to a mere $10 million per), and the CEO told me he couldn’t be doing this anywhere but Lansing. Between the science and advanced engineering talent being developed at MSU and the stockpile of engineers and already-trained machinists from the auto industry, he says, “we have the manufacturing capability that nobody else has.”

This is the MSU Cyclotron Lab. Seriously quantities of talented smarty pants geniuses come out of here, and Michigan businesses like Niowave are giving them opportunities to stay and do their smarty pants work right here. Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons, User:Jeffness

So maybe “manufacturing capability” is something that is difficulty to catch from an aerial camera. Perhaps I can’t fault the Smithsonian Channel too much for not showcasing the intangible nature of the very real entrepreneurial renaissance happening in Michigan right now, or the huge wave of human capital here that is teaming with talent here. But if you show the empty buildings where our talent was born, I do think the story of how that talent is being redirected and reenergized is a necessary piece of the story.

Here’s why: In an email from one of the founders of Vectorform, his first response to my question of why Royal Oak is still the headquarters of his now global company was that this is where the talent is. Plain and simple. He went on to explain, however, that while he initially stayed for the labor pool, he is constantly surprised by the number of clients he maintains in the Metro Detroit area.

Of course, that outcome is a direct result of other CEOs like him, who were determined to stay here and utilize Michigan’s talent pool. Now those businesses are there to service each other. When the talent is here, so then follows economic vitality. We even surprise ourselves sometimes, which is another charming theme stitched into the fabric of our Michigander DNA. The talent, the brains and the willpower of the people who live in Michigan is so unassuming – so very Midwestern – that it’s easy to overlook, whether you’re flying by with a camera or driving down I-75. But it is here. We’re here. We haven’t stopped working just because everyone stopped paying attention, and we’ll likely keep our heads down and nose to the grindstone when the world starts to take notice of how far we’ve come. That’s just how we do things here.

Here’s some Michigan for you

Tags

community development, Michigan, Michigan economy, Michigan entrepreneurs, Michigan growth, Michigan writing

Every week, I am lucky enough to have the same experience – often, multiple times. I’ll hang up the phone after interviewing someone for a story and say to myself, “I can’t believe that person exists and s/he is doing that thing.” It’s absolutely overwhelming. In  a state that seems to only get bad press – the only state in the nation to decline in population in the 2010 Census – I am constantly speaking to people who are inventing, investing, creating and building here. So I take a moment to feel awestruck, and then go about the business of telling each story, not only because each story needs to be told, but also in the hopes that they contribute to a changing narrative about Michigan.

I write about business, innovation, community, entrepreneurship and development in Michigan. It’s hard to explain this to people without someone making a crack about how I must be a fiction writer. Very funny. But on Thursday I interviewed a guy who is making the world’s first commercially-available super conductor. They’ll be available by the end of the year and retail for about $10 million. And he’s doing that in Lansing. In fact, he said Lansing is one of the only places in the world where it’s even possible to do what he’s doing. A few weeks ago, I spoke with a group of men who will be helping to rebuild cities in the Republic of Iraq to the tune of $5.5 billion – from Metro Detroit. And yes, a lot of that money is going to be spent with Michigan manufacturers. If that doesn’t knock your socks off, there is a serious problem with your socks. Really, it’s these are the kinds of things that makes you go, “who needs those 537,000 people who left Michigan in the last decade? More room for us and all our awesomeness.”

Hell yeah, I'm going to write more about Michigan. And if you want to wear more of your Michigan love, you can find this delightful t-shirt at: www.siblingdesign.com

Can these stories be told enough? I don’t feel like they can. And every week I write them up and ship them out and then wonder, did everybody hear that? Are you listening? Old Town Lansing flipped a 90 percent vacancy rate to a 90 percent occupancy rate in just over a decade. Did you get that? Have you organized a parade?

The collective body of my Michigan writing has yet to inspire a parade. That doesn’t mean I can’t keep trying. My new, if nebulous, career goal is to continue to find new ways to tell the story of what’s happening in Michigan. Mike and I most recently started writing about our Michigan-made wedding as a way to showcase all the great local vendors we love. That has been, and will continue to be fun, and we’ve even been surprised to have attracted some press for it. That’s all well and good, but the scope is also a bit narrow. It’s also going to end in less than four months when the actual wedding finally happens (guess it’d better turn out to be a good time after all that, right?). So what to do next?

I’m not sure. But until I figure it out, my plan is to use this blog to tell those “wow” stories I come across each week in a different way. To write about what I’m writing about, more or less. Because if I’m going to stand akimbo and shake my finger at the world for not appreciating all the amazing things happening in Michigan, I’d better be doing everything I can to make sure the stories get told.