So here's the deal: Five springs I've done this Tech Tour, and when it comes to West Michigan I've always visited Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.
But out along Lake Michigan like a string of pearls are a host of smaller cities, all with their own technology industry jewels.
Thursday, I finally got a chance to visit them, as the Great Lakes IT Report's Spring Tech Tour 2009 visited the West Shore, hitting Covert, Holland, Grand Haven, Muskegon and Manistee.
The day began with a talk with George Brostoff, CEO of Sensible Vision, an IT security company based in Covert (that's right -- Covert -- for security -- nice).
Sensible Vision has developed advanced facial recognition technology that's being deployed for IT system authentication at a variety of clients large and small.
If that name sounds familiar, it should. Brostoff was involved in two Detroit-area tech startups in the 1980s and 1990s, Symplex Communications and Ensure Technologies.
Brostoff said that while the company is based in Covert, where he has a home on Lake Michigan, it's really virtual, with employees scattered everywhere from Washington state to southeast Michigan to North Carolina.
He said Sensible Vision has a number of advantages over its competitors, including software that learns as it goes to get better at recognition.
Current customers range from the large, Kaiser Permanente in California, to Maine General Hospital to Mecosta Hospital in Big Rapids.
The company also has an OEM relationship with Dell Inc. to include its technology in Dell computers.
Brostoff also said the company will be adding employees in Michigan soon -- but probably won't be building a physical office anytie soon.
More at www.sensiblevision.com.
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Next it was on to Holland and the amazing headquarters of Rutherford Inc., developers of software called eoStar to manage the routes of drivers in the beer, wine and related industries.
It's hard to tell what you're walking into when you walk into Rutherford's office. To the right is what looks for all the world like a vintage Carnegie library, except for the antique computers prominently on display. On the left, a pretty standard-looking software development shop, except for the extra-large offices and 15-foot ceilings.
Michael Rutherford started the company in 1987 as Rutherford and Associates. Rutherford learned computers in the Air Force and evolved the company into vending machine management. That software was bought out by M&M Mars, and Rutherford then spent two years working out the new software that became eoStar.
"We went through a full rewrite of systems from the ground up and thought through the industry we wanted to serve," Rutherford said. "We liked beer and wine because of the reporting and tracking requirements they have, and the (software) competitors were all stuck in the 1980s."
EoStar was introduced in 2003, bringing Microsoft technology to a previously IBM-dominated market. Rutherford now has 20 employees in its 10,000-square-foot headquarters, with room to grow that will soon be needed based on business growth. It became a strategic partner with Miller Coors after answering a 2,300-question test.
"Nothing is outsourced," Rutherford said. "Everything is designed here, developed here and supported here."
Rutherford software helps beer and wine distributors get more efficient and achieve compliance with all applicable laws and manufacturer rules. It's also branching into other industries, having one client in coffee distribution and another client who is distributing glue in China. The software can be run on tabled PCs or handhelds running Windows Mobile. In fact, any handheld running Windows Mobile 5 with a touch screen can run the application.
More at www.eostar.com.
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Next it was a quick jaunt up US-31 to Grand Haven, where I visited Media 1, an online learning company headquartered in an old elementary school building.
CEO Chris Willis, who started the company in a spare room of a blueberry farm in Nunica in 1993, was out of town. but production director Harrison Withers gave me an update on the company.
The company continues to develop e-learning curricula for midsized and large corporate clients. And it's created a new business unit, M1 DesignWorks, which Withers said "is our effort to serve the regional market and the mid-market with design talent we already have."
Media 1 has won an amazing array of national and even international awards for its work, and is up to 19 total employees.
More at www.media1.us.
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Next up, a couple of stops in Muskegon. First, it was the absolutely amazing Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, a $3 million energy workshop and incubator developed a few years back by Grand Valley State University. It's part of a redevelopment of a former Continental Motors factory site on Muskegon Lake downtown.
The building had its grand opening in the spring of 2004 and is one of the few Michigan buildings to achieve gold certification under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Efficiency Design) system developed by the United States Green Building Council.
Among the building's touches -- 90 percent flourescent lighting that shuts down automatically based on attendance in a room or outside lighting, pressed wheat walls, recycled flooring materials, raised floors and energy-saving bathrooms.
Around 4,000 square feet of the 25,000-square-foot building is devoted to business incubation. The rest is classrooms and offices.
The building also features 30 kilowatts of photovoltaics on the roof, a 30-kilowatt natural gas microturbine, a 1.8-kilowatt wind turbine, a huge 250-kilowatt fuel cell that catalyzes natural gas into power, and an 80-kilowatt battery storage system. The building also uses waste heat from power generation for building heat and snow removal in winter.
Then it was lunch with Jason Piasecki, someone I've been corresponding with for years but never met in the flesh. Piasecki is CEO of the marketing firm Qonverge, which has brought a sophisticated blend of online and offline marketing efforts to a wide variety of clients.
Piasecki said business remains reasonably good for his firm, with a continued emphasis on health care, community, nonprofit and green clients.
Among his cooler client wins -- the Muskegon Lumberjacks minor league hockey team, which is playing in the International Hockey League's Turner Cup finals.
I've got to mention the restaurant, too -- Mia and Grace, a storefront eatery on Third Street featuring locally grown organic food. Its menu is ever-changing.
This is no mere bean sprout emportium, either, although there are plenty of vegetarian options -- I had a hamburger made out of local grass-fed beef, and it was AMAZING. According to Jason, so was his cheese ravioli. If you're in Muskegon, GO.
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Finally, it was the day's longest jaunt up US-31 to Manistee and a visit to MasTech Wind, a branch office of a Sterling Heights machine equipment and tooling company.
MasTech earned headlines last month for being named the manufacturing partner of Reno, Nev.-based Mariah Power for its Windspire vertical axis wind turbine.
With plant manager John Holcomb I got a close look at the entire manufacturing process, from welding raw steel pipe to the finished product.
"We set a goal a couple of years ago to the local economic development group that we wanted to diversify and get into alternative energy," Holcomb said. "It happened that the local chairman of the county board was on the American Wind Energy Association, and he was at a convention where he heard Mariah was looking for a manufacturing partner. He brought Mariah to me, and then it was my job to convince them we were the right partner."
Obviously, that worked. And now MasTech is building and shipping 150 of the machines a month out of two buildings in a Manistee industrial park totaling perhaps 35,000 square feet.
Holcomb said a building expansion is likely as production ramps up to 1,000 wind turbines a month by next winter.
The Windspire turbines are on a 30-foot-tall mast with a hoop on top and another about 10 feet off the ground. The hoops are connected by vertical blades that look like long, narrow airplane wings. The wind spins the blades no matter which direction it's out of, and the entire assembly weighs only 600 pounds.
The Windspires being produced today produce 1.2 kilowatts on hoops four feet in diameter. Models coming soon will have larger-diameter hoops and bigger blades, and will thus spin faster to produce more power -- up to 10 kw.
What MasTech is proudest of, Holcomb said, is that their Windspires are 98 percent Michigan-made. The wing-like fan blades come from Whitehall Industries in Ludington. Inverters are made by Amptec in Freesoil. Stampings come from Michigan Tool Works in Sturgis. The castings come from Calhoun Foundry in Homer. And the whole manufacturing enterprise is managed by Plex software from Auburn Hills.
The units are about $6,500, which Holcomb said puts renewable energy within the price reach of virtually any homeowner.
More at www.mastech-inc.com or www.mariahpower.com.
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Yes, I took one more jaunt up US-31 to Traverse City. I'm wrapping this up now from a room at the lovely vintage Park Place Hotel downtown (get one of the rooms high up in the old tower; they're small but the views are phenomenal). Friday I'll spend the day checking out the technology in northwest Lower Michigan, then it's on to the Upper Peninsula.
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