A revitalized downtown soon to be full of college students, with four new restaurants and more nightlife on the way?
A business-tech park along the shores of the Flint River, in what used to be a Chevrolet plant and what is now a post-industrial wasteland?
Institutions of higher learning actually working collaboratively to each other's strengths, most remarkably with the actual assistance of government, and going after $30 million plus in sponsored research?
Can this possibly be Flint?
Yes, Flint. That much-reviled former General Motors company town, last seen at or near the bottom of just about everybody's places-to-live and places-to-raise-a-family lists, appears to have some hope.
At least, if the people I talked to Friday on the ninth and final day of the great Lakes IT Report's 2009 Fall Tech Tour are to be believed.
My day began at Kettering University, where hundreds of optimistic freshmen had descended on the hard-core tech school for the start of another term.
The tour started about a third of a mile east of Kettering's campus along Bluff Street, where Kettering is building a 9,000-square-foot business incubator.
Kettering spokeswoman Pat Mroczek said the school had the choice of building immediately to the east of the campus, or establishing the eastern edge of what it hopes will be a thriving business and technology park ona former Chevrolet site, as well as expanded Kettering Greek housing in a neighborhood nearby. The optimistic folks at Kettering chose to build the center at the northeast corner of Bluff Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, creating that eastern boundary.
The $3.1 million project was funded by the United States Economic Development Administration, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the C.S. Mott Foundation and private donations.
"The city's revitalization will take place in this Flint River district between Kettering and downtown," said Neil Sheridan, director of Kettering's TechWorks Technology Accelerator.
The incubator has space for up to 12 companies and will have "wet lab" space available for biotech startups. It's also applying for LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council and will have numerous energy-saving features.
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One of the building's first tenants will be Global Energy Integration, a company founded by K. Joel Berry, head of Kettering's Mechanical Engineering Department and director of the Kettering Center for Fuel Cell Systems and Powertrain Integration.
The company will commercialize fuel cell technology under research at the center, and will produce fuel cells as auxuiliary power units for military vehicles, commercial trucks, recreational vehicles and the home. The idea in vehicle applications is to cut down on vehicle idling, saving fuel and cutting emissions.
His high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells have the advantage of accepting a variety of fuels -- primarily low-sulfur diesel fuel, but also propane, military JP8 fuel, natural gas, hydrogen, methanol and biofuels.
Berry said his third-generation fuel cells produce 30 percent more power in the same space as earlier versions. A five-kilowatt unit is about the size of a cube refrigerator, two by two by two feet.
He also said he has two units in the field being tested by Ingersoll-Rand and has a contract to develop fuel cells as an APU for the Abrams tank.
More at www.geifuelcells.com.
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Kettering then provided me with a complete roundtable of Flint-area academics and economic development experts, all talking about how they're working to turn what was once known as "Vehicle City" to a tech-based town.
Sheridan told me about Kettering's TechWorks program, which works to get fledgling businesses into incubators in all fields except pharmaceuticals. The program uses 55 business expert "coaches" to help the prospective companies, and also uses the services of the Kaufman Foundation's TechVenture program.
He also said he's looking for investors and venture capital for his company.
Tony Hain, associate provost of graduate studies and chief of Kettering's research efforts, told me the school has a remarkable $31 million in sponsored research proposals outstanding and under review -- 10 times the level of just five years ago.
"With the opportunities that are out there, we decided to really make a full court press on this," Hain said. "We just dabbled in it before."
Kettering has also seen sharp growth in its enrollment of graduate students -- now at 1,200, up from 200 a few years ago. And Hain pointed with pride at the fact that in General Motors Corp.'s bankruptcy, the company cut its number of university partnerships from 30 to 3 -- the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Kettering.
I also heard from Morris Fulcher, associate dean of computer and information sciences, and Van Scott, a faculty member, both of Baker College's Flint campus. This little-known campus beat out huge names to win the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition last year.
"Our specialty is turning out people you hire to do things," Fulcher said. "We create the geek squads."
His graduates work with everything from robotics to renewable energy to advanced automotive systems.
John Callewaert, director of the office of research at the University of Michigan - Flint, told me about the recent growth at his institution, which now boasts 7,700 undergraduates and 1,200 grad students. Most of its tech outreach programs are directed at the Flint area's K-12 schools, to get school kids interested in science, technology, engineering and math careers. UM-Flint also boasts a health careers early college and Ph.D. programs in physical therapy and nursing practice.
Marsha Lyttle, director of Region 6 of the Michgian Small Business and Technology Development Cetners, said her office is enjoying its strategic relationship with Kettering since coming on campus in 2007.
"We are the business fundamentalists," she said. "Boots on the ground, we teach people the basics of starting a business."
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I then thoroughly enjoyed a Kettering lunch with a bunch of professors and students behind groundbreaking research and startup companies.
And what a whirlwind. I talked to the people behind Primitech LLC, which is developing more energy-efficient freezer and refrigerator cases for supermarkets based on the research of Homayun K. Navaz, who researches optimization of air curtains in open refrigerated display cases for energy saving purpose by using computational and flow visualization techniques.
Craig Hoff, a professor in the mechanical engineering department, looks to start a business in the new Kettering incubator with a graduate student, and is researching the effects of increased levels of ethanol blends on gasoline engines.
Dr. Massoud Tavakoli, professor of Mechanical Engineering and the provost`s coordinator of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, told me about his efforts to spread entrepreneurial thinking across the entire university. So far, 34 faculty have been put through an eight-week, 16-hour training course featuring innovators and entrpreneurial speakers.
I also had time to talk to a couple of entrepreneurial students. Chad Ortiz of Swartz Creek noted that "everybody still thinks automotive when they think of this school," but it's broadened out considerably. He'll look for jobs in biotech or start his own company. Classmate Alex Masters, meanwhile, may work in TechWorks, but wants a job in finance.
Casey Schaaf, an MBA student at Kettering, offered me a presentation on Ecodev Engineering LLC, which plans to use technology to generate power off human motion on exercise gear, starting with treadmills.
"We want to create a green fitness center where you can reward yourself physically and financially while leaving zero emissions," he said.
My Tech Tour ended with a tour of downtown Flint with Sheridan and Leslie Smith of the MEDC's SmartZone. I saw the new restaurants first hand, as well as the rebuilding work going on to turn two old hotels into new UM-Flint student dorms. I also saw the still-gorgeous cultural center area of Flint, its municipal theaters and libraries and art museum, a relic of its departed industrial wealth just waiting for the Next Big Thing to add on to it.
I'm none too brave about making predictions. But if hope and hard work count for anything, Flint will be transformed, like so many other former one-industry towns.
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Oh, and in the final high-speed internet competition, from the Holiday Inn Gateway Centre just south of town, Verizon mobile checked in with a 120 millisecond ping, 910 kbps download and 590k up, Sprint with a 354-millisecond ping, 990k down but an anemic 11k up, and the hotel Wi-Fi won out with a 104 ms ping, 2.74 megabit per second download and 54k upload.
And I can't say enough nice things about this fall's Tech Tour Mobile, the La Fontaine Family Deal GMC Yukon Hybrid. It's an enormous SUV that seats five comfortably and two kids in a third row jump seat, with huge towing capacity, rock solid handling and ride and some serious, effortless power, both off the line and for those passing situations. Yet thanks to help from the electric hybrid technology at low speeds and cylinder deactivation at high speeds, I got 23 mpg out of the thing in the real world. Thanks again to the La Fontaine folks for letting me put about 1,700 miles on this great vehicle.
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And more about my overall feelings about the Tech Tour later this week in a special edition.
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