Issue 23

The Southwest Michigan economy is often recognized for the strong roles that its pharmaceutical, medical device, furniture, agriculture, food processing, and manufacturing industries play. But what about design? Michigan, as a whole, is brimming with designers of all sorts: industrial, interior, graphic, fashion—you get the drift. According to 2017 data from the U.S. Bureau of […]

BEN JEGLIC IS GETTING HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE AT KAISER ALUMINUM Position Engineering Intern at Kaiser Aluminum    Education Western Michigan University (WMU) Industrial and Entrepreneurial Engeneering   Graduation Date May 2020 Keeping Pace With Production I work on the engineering and maintenance team. Our main goal as a team is to maintain our equipment, though I […]

Company Eimo Technologies It’s Nice to Meet You The first instinct of many is to pronounce this company’s name as “Eee-mo,” “Eye-mo,” or even “El-mo.” (That’s right, as in the star of Sesame Street!) However, the correct pronunciation goes back to the company’s Finnish roots. All together now, “Ay-mo!” Keeping Up With the Times A […]

USING EMPATHY AND PLENTY OF POST-ITS A Q+A WITH ALISON SHIELDS __________________________________ What is your role at Stryker? I’m a user experience (UX) researcher on Stryker’s product development team. My job is to advocate for the people who will eventually use our products. I work to understand the needs of the end-user by gathering authentic […]

Comstock Township will sparkle more brilliantly thanks to the 25,200-square-foot Forman Glass expansion that broke ground in June 2019. While the aesthetic impact Forman Glass brings to a project is dazzling, the company’s solutions are practical. This 57-year-old company specializes in providing comprehensive solutions for the “building envelope”—all exterior glass and metal panels. Forman Glass […]

We sat down with two local leaders to get their insights on success, development, motivation, and more. Joseph Thomas III FIELD Services and Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Manager at Kalamazoo County Ninth Circuit Court—Family Division Linda Apsey President and Chief Executive Officer of ITC Holdings Corp. — First Things First First big purchase? Thomas: My […]

When two Grand Rapids natives opened the doors of Eastern Kille Distillery in 2016, it was a moment long in the making.  It all started in 2014 when Brandon Voorhees and Steve Vander Pol began transforming a dilapidated industrial building at 700 Ottawa Avenue NW into Grand Rapids’ second distillery. Four walls and a leaky […]

Sometimes a spark of inspiration is all it takes Inspiration struck David Maurer when he was a student at the University of Michigan. Maurer was studying biology, but he found that the subject didn’t really suit him. One summer, he got a job working the assembly line at Humphrey Products. He ended up liking that […]

For just a moment, think back to July of this year. Oh, the glorious days of midsummer, when the sun was shining, the humidity was just right, and the evening temps were cool enough to sleep with the windows open. It was easy to be lulled into the false sense that midsummer in Southwest Michigan—with […]

Event Annual Holiday Art Sale Organization Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) Date and Time November 30 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm
December 1 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Location 435 West South Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49007 — What roel does the KIA play in the community? When I first moved to Kalamazoo, the city […]

Patricia Provot North American Continental Leader at Armstrong International 1978 | Born in Belgium I was the first of four children born to a French-speaking dad and Dutch-speaking mom. My delivery happened while my parents were on vacation for a month in Belgium. My father was a diplomat for the Belgian government, and my parents […]