Crain's Detroit Business

In an exclusive interview with Crain’s, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Chief Operating Officer Mark Stewart talks about the automaker’s $1.6 billion transformation of two engine powertrain plants on Detroit's east side into an assembly plant that will start pumping out Jeep Grand Cherokees and a new three-row Jeep SUV early next year.

This week on Detroit Rising podcast, Alecia Gabriel and Deirdre Roberson, co-founders of The Lab Drawer, discuss their Detroit-based education tech startup company that has a subscription service for science experiments and projects that comes in a box in the mail that looks like a science lab drawer.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools, talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about the district's plans to reopen school buidlings and offer an online-only option this fall for families concerned about the spread of COVID-19.

Bob Walters, president and chief operating officer of Rocket Companies, talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood and tech and finance reporter Nick Manes hours after Rocket Companies began trading on the New York Stock Exchange for the Detroit-based mortgage giant's Initial Public Offering.

Detroit political activist Meeko Williams spoke to Crain’s Senior Editor Chad Livengood about his experience with police officers, why he believes police residency should be mandatory and how he’s not in favor of defunding the police.

In Detroit, just 23 percent of the nearly 2,500 police officers live within the city limits. A 1999 law outlawed local ordinances requiring police officers to live in the city where they serve. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, a former county sheriff and one-time police chief in Detroit, says requiring police officers to live in Detroit is "a great concept" but "very impractical to be able to enforce." He spoke with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about police residency, construction of a new Wayne County jail, how the county's health department is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and other issues in a wide-ranging interview on Detroit Rising.

Drew Patrick, owner and president of Skidmore Studio, and Meg Burritt, a managing partner of Planted Detroit, talk with Crain’s Senior Editor Chad Livengood about Skidmore’s new online farmers market and delivery service, MichiganFields.com. The design studio launched the service during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Planted Detroit, an indoor vegetable growing operation on Detroit’s east side, is selling its salad greens through the website after its commercial restaurant work dried up during the coronavirus shutdown of dine-in restaurants.

TCF Center was converted from a convention center to an unconventional hospital in April at the height of the coronavirus outbreak. Lynn Torossian, a retired Henry Ford Health System executive, talks with Crain’s Senior Editor Chad Livengood this week on the Detroit Rising podcast about what went into standing up the now-idled temporary hospital and how it might be used in the event of a second wave of COVID-19 infections in Southeast Michigan.

Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood talks with Sachse Construction owner Todd Sachse about the construction industry returning to work after a six-week shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. After the interview, Chad talks with his Crain's colleagues Kirk Pinho and Annalise Frank about the construction and real estate business in Detroit and what's on the horizon for the city as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.

John Walsh, president and CEO of the Michigan Manufacturers Association, talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about how his members are adapting to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order that non-essential businesses shut down during the coronavirus outbreak. Walsh is a former state budget director and state representative from Livonia.

Lon Johnson, CEO of WaterWorks Fund, knows Milwaukee is ahead of Detroit in developing technology for clean drinking water. But he thinks Detroit could overtake other Great Lakes towns by becoming the Capitol for water technology investment capital that can fuel innovation. Johnson, of Detroit and a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, has recently co-founded a Detroit-based online investment platform aimed at crowdsourcing equity capital for water technology projects at WaterWorksFund.com. He recently spoke with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about his new business initiative on the Detroit Rising podcast.

Marvin Beatty, chief community officer of Greektown Casino, talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood and reporter Kurt Nagl about the downtown Detroit gambling hall's foray into sports betting and what has changed since Penn National bought Greektown from billionaire businessman Dan Gilbert's Jack Entertainment.

Five years after Detroit exited a historic bankruptcy, the city's chief financial officer Dave Massaron talks with Crain's senior editor Chad Livengood and reporter Annalise Frank about Detroit's municipal financial outlook and challenges ahead in the next decade when pension contributions will resume and an economic recession could hamper tax growth.

Laura Grannemann, vice president of strategic investments at the Quicken Loans Community Fund, talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about the company's efforts to educate low-income Detroiters about the eligibility to get exempted from paying property taxes and avoid foreclosure for unpaid taxes. Mayor Mike Duggan and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans are lobbying lawmakers to relieve homeowners in Wayne County of past fees and interest charges for unpaid property taxes to avert another wave of foreclosures in 2020. The legislative effort follows several years of groundwork by housing advocacy groups and the Quicken Loans Community Fund, which has funded door-to-door campaigns to educate low-income residents in Detroit on how they may qualify for an exemption of property taxes.

Nicole Sherard-Freeman, executive director of workforce development for Mayor Mike Duggan, talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about the employee recruitment program the city developed to get Detroiters at the front of the line for the nearly 5,000 new jobs that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles intends to offer at its east side Detroit assembly plants.

Compuware Corp. CEO Chris O'Malley talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about how the information technology company has reinvented itself over the past five years since spinning off several divisions of its business and returning to its roots of developing software for mainframe computers, which remain the mainstay of IT operations for banks, airlines and insurance companies. Compuware remains based in the former Compuware Building (now called One Campus Martius), the headquarters of Quicken Loans.

Chris Jackson and Anthony Sabatella are cannabis entrepreneurs who are building companies at different ends of Michigan’s green rush. Jackson is co-owner of Indica LLC in Ypsilanti, a state-licensed marijuana provisioning center that does business under the name “Sticky Ypsi.”  Sabatella is the founder of THC 123, a back-office support firm tailored to marijuana growers, distributors and retail stores. Jackson and Sabatella sat down with Crain’s Senior Editor Chad Livengood last month at the 2020 Net Impact Conference at TCF Center in Detroit to talk about how they got into the budding industry and what challenges they see ahead.