I took a funeral day last Wednesday.

It was to attend a memorial service for my sister’s brother-in-law, Louis Verschaeve of Dryden, who died in a tragic ice fishing accident on Saginaw Bay.

Louis was heading off the ice at the end of the day on his ATV when he and his son, Michael, went through the ice.

Michael managed to pull himself out of the freezing water and back onto the ice shelf.

He was going to attempt to rescue his dad, but Louis told him not to try.  It was too dangerous.

He told his son to stay away and go for help.

It was the last time Michael saw his father.

I only met Louis once.

But I know his parents, Charlie and Evelyn Verschaeve, and have been to their little farm in Cedar.

Their son, Joe, married my sister and teaches at Grand Valley State University.  Joe was a great comfort to both my parents in their last days.

And then there’s my sister, Elizabeth.  She knew Louis well…and his wife Leslie, and their children Rachel and Michael.

And there's Joe’s brother, Rev. Michael Verschaeve, a Catholic priest and pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Lake Orion.

Mike presided at the funerals of both my parents and at my daughter’s wedding.  In essence, he’s become our spiritual hero and our own family priest.

So, I went to Louis Verschaeve’s funeral to comfort my sister, her husband Joe, Charlie and Evelyn and Mike, who had the toughest duty of all, presiding at the funeral Mass of his brother.

Let me just say it was a beautiful — albeit heart rending — memorial service.

And I was thankful I took a day away from the busy newsroom at Crain’s Detroit Business to be there.

During the service, I found myself thinking of an old friend from early in my career.  Her name was Angelina Laycock.

I met her first when she was on the staff at Eastern Michigan University.

Later, our paths crossed when she became a work/life consultant and wrote a column for the business journal I edited.

Basically, she pushed for making workplaces more family friendly and for developing a healthy balance in our work and family lives.

Angelina was also an author and wrote a book, Strategies for Reshaping the Workplace.

We all work, but we have a life too.

Well, last Wednesday I was grateful I worked at a place that let me take a day to be with family and friends when they needed me.

Mike summed it up best at one point in the homily for his brother.

He asked us all to think about how we would answer these simple questions:

n Why are we here?

n What is important to us?

n Who is important to us?

Last Wednesday, I discovered you can’t always find those answers sitting at your desk.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Peter Schork and William Broucek had good reason to celebrate last week.

Their fledgling Ann Arbor State Bank turned the corner on its first year in business Jan. 14.

And what a year it was for the newest bank in Tree Town.

There’s nothing like the thrill ride of opening your doors in the middle of one of the “most turbulent and unpredictable financial markers since the first half of the 20th Century,” the bank noted in its press release.

“People said we were crazy to open a new bank in 2009, but it has been successful,” said Schork, president and chief operating officer.

In a nutshell, here are some of Ann Arbor State Bank’s points of pride for its first year:

n It served more than 1,000 new customers.

n It closed on more than 120 mortgages and served more than 30 first-time home buyers.

n It made more than $90 million in loans to customers.

n It tallied more than $55 million in deposits and certificates of deposits.

n It’s ranked one of the fastest growing new banks in the country, according to its press release last week.

"We were profitable for the month of December," Schork said. "The loss for 2009 was in line with our business plan – way ahead of plan – which called for our first monthly profit to be after 18 to 22 months...We are looking to show a good solid profit for 2010."

Broucek, chairman and CEO of Ann Arbor State Bank, attributes the bank’s success to community support.  He’s a local banking veteran and was instrumental in opening the Bank of Ann Arbor 15 years ago.

“I was very pleased with the way the community reacted to our new bank and the way we were able to assist over 340 businesses and individuals with loans for a myriad of different purposes,” Broucek said in a statement.

“Our first year turned out way better than I had expected when I compare our ending the year as a $70 million bank… to the last bank that I founded, Bank of Ann Arbor, which ended its first year in 1996 as a $43 million bank,” Broucek said.

Numbers tell the financial story, but Schork points to the benefits of community banking and the advantages of sending deposits back into the local economy.

And he’s upbeat on the positives Southeast Michigan has to offer.

 “There are opportunities for business leaders who have good ideas.  And if you are contemplating starting up in Michigan, there are good reasons to be hopeful,” Schork said in a statement.

“The money is here and the opportunities are here.  We just need the entrepreneurs with good ideas that are ready to build businesses.”

Need some insightful perspective on the U.S. economy?

Micheline Maynard, author and business correspondent at The New York Times, will discuss her new book “The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream,” Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 4:30 p.m. in Blau Auditorium at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Maynard also wrote “The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market,” which foresaw the collapse of Detroit carmakers.

Maynard will be interviewed by UM Dean Robert J. Dolan.

She’ll sign copies of her book following the event.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Ann Arbor-based Liberty Title has developed a new online tool to help mortgage lenders make the accurate fee disclosures mandated by new federal regulations requiring good faith estimates of closing costs on real estate transactions.

Tom Richardson, general counsel and CEO at Liberty Title, says his company’s software is the first of its kind in Michigan.

Richardson said the new HUD rules and mandate for good faith estimates are a major revision to the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act originally passed by Congress in 1974.

The act was created to prevent companies involved in buying and selling of real estate — lenders, realtors, construction companies and title insurance companies — from providing undisclosed kickbacks to each other.

Changes in the law will have a huge impact on the residential real estate market, Richardson said.

“They will definitely change how clients interact with their lenders and how the whole closing process is organized. We are pretty proud of our new application and are going to do presentations in Florida later this week and Atlanta later this month to try and sell it around the country,” he added.

“We have gotten rave reviews from our lender clients and already have 47 lenders signed up on our second day of our release,” he said.

“I will be showing the app to the Title Executives Council in Atlanta at the end of the month.  This is a subgroup of our national trade group comprised of the top 55 of the title agents by revenue in the country.  We think we can customize the software for other users for $3,000 to $5,000, now that we have created the basic architecture,” Richardson said.

“GFE QuickQuote will give lender’s the accurate information they need to quote title and closing charges, transfer taxes and recording fees to prospective borrowers,” said Michele Richardson, president of Liberty Title.

“Our guaranteed quotes, available in seconds, will give lenders the ability to quickly complete good faith estimates,” she said in a press release.

According to the press release, the new online system can be accessed by lenders through the company’s Web site at www.Libertytitle.com.

The software provides quotes of the lender’s title services, the owner’s title premiums, transfer taxes and recording charges on all types of residential mortgage transactions.

The system also gives lenders tax information for calculating escrow deposits required by the new regulations and assurances that they are making the compliance efforts required by the new federal regulations.

“The system will help them avoid costly refunds arising from inaccurate disclosures on good faith estimates,” Tom Richardson wrote.

And the custom software for the new system was developed locally by Ann Arbor-based Medhub Inc.

“GFE QuickQuote is the type of unique business software that is our specialty” said Peter Orr, CEO of Medhub. “We see great potential for licensing this software in other states.”

“MedHub did a great job of getting the coding done on a rush basis over the Christmas holiday when it became  apparent that HUD would stick with its Jan. 1 implementation date even though the industry still had a million questions,” Tom Richardson said.

“We worked on this project for about five months after HUD released their first set of FAQ's to the public on the new regulations.  The idea to create the app came as I was chatting with some lender clients who expressed a great deal of concern about their need to quickly get this information in a guaranteed format, 24/7,” he said.

He said Liberty Title has always been a market leader in Ann Arbor in adopting new technology to the closing process and coming up with the application was a natural.

Founded in 1974, Liberty Title is one of the largest independent title agencies in Michigan. The company has offices in Brighton, Canton, Chelsea, Farmington Hills, Jackson and Rochester Hills.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Designers, information architects, and Web producers at the firm’s office on Catherine Street are handling projects for the Ypsilanti District Library, the University of Michigan School of Education and UM’s School of Nursing.

Q Ltd. also has offices in San Francisco and a working partnership with Q in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Tom Rieke, president of Q. Ltd., talked about his firm’s new contracts and the outlook for the coming year in an e-mail with Crain’s earlier this week.

A. For the Ypsilanti District Library, we will design, develop, and produce an entirely new Web site to function as a “virtual branch” of the library, providing members with a more engaging online experience and greater accessibility to information they are looking for.

For the UM School of Education, we will develop a fresh, contemporary look and dynamic usability features for the school’s Web site, which is primarily used as an informational resource for prospective students, but also serves as a vital communications tool for existing students, faculty, and staff. Q LTD will work in collaboration with the school’s communications team and in-house design staff.

For the UM School of Nursing, we will create a strategic brand identity for the school.  This will include graphic design as well as a brand positioning statement, and campaign tagline. Q LTD will also design a series of print pieces for prospective nursing students at the undergraduate, master’s degree, and Ph.D. levels.

All three projects will involve conducting a series of discovery sessions and focus groups to gain an understanding of the audiences, and to analyze client strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges.

The discovery sessions also provide insight on the target audiences.

A. Results can be measured in a variety of ways, depending on the client’s timeframe and resources. Typically, Q will build Web site analytics tools into each client’s site in order to enable each client to monitor and gauge site traffic, new visitors, and user actions.

Specifically, for the School of Education and School of Nursing, student application traffic and enrollment numbers will be monitored by the schools. For the Ypsilanti District Library project, results will be measured by the number of new library memberships, materials checked out, and community participation in events and classes.

Additionally, the Ypsilanti District Library will look for a decrease in the number of calls made to the library for simple questions, since help will now be more  readily available online.

A. We had a very successful 2009. We expect similar results for 2010, primarily because we will continue to emphasize diversification in our client base.

For example, one major long-term client is a Japanese medical technology supplier. Another is a local company that supplies equipment to health clubs and rehabilitation firms. Others are a major Midwest law firm and one of the largest foundations in the U.S. Another is a major international conference on computer graphics. Several are major educational institutions.

We also seek to expand our geographic diversification at SIGGRAPH Asia in Seoul for 2010 and Yale University, for example.

A. We hope to increase revenue by 8 to 10 percent in 2010.

A. The San Francisco office (very small) provides design and strategic planning services to most of our clients, wherever they are located.

The German office is a separate, affiliated company with the same name: Q GmbH. It provides the same services as Q Ltd. to a diverse list of European clients. Whenever possible, the two Qs collaborate on international projects when clients need branding, strategic planning, and communication services in Europe and North America.

A new study released this week by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business sheds new light on how banks received government bailout money.

Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, both UM assistant professors of finance, found that banks with strong political connections were more likely to get funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

And they discovered that banks with stronger political connections got a bigger piece of the pie than those with weaker Washington ties.

The new UM research shows the distribution of TARP money was directly related to a bank’s political contributions and lobbying.

And, the effect of political influence was strongest for poorly performing banks, the UM researchers found.

“Our results show that political connections play an important role in a firm’s access to capital,” Sosyura said in a press release.

“The effects of political ties on federal capital investment are strongest for companies with weaker fundamentals, lower liquidity and poorer performance — which suggests that political ties shift capital allocation towards underperforming institutions.”

The UM team used four variables to measure a bank’s influence:

n Seats held by bank executives on the board of directors of any of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks or their branches.

n Banks with headquarters located in a district of a member serving on the Congressional Committee on Financial Services or its subcommittees which played a role in drafting TARP policy.

n Bank’s campaign contributions to congressional candidates.

n And a bank’s lobbying expenditures.

For example, Duchin and Sosyura discovered that a bank with a board seat at the Federal Reserve Bank was likely to have a 31 percent greater chance of getting federal Capital Purchase Program funding from TARP.

They also found that a bank’s connection to a U.S. House member on finance committees was likely to mean a 26 percent increase in the likelihood of getting funding.

Duchin and Sosyura found the amount of government investment in banks was strongly related to political contributions and lobbying.

“Our findings also suggest that qualified financial institutions were more likely to receive an investment from CPP if they were bigger and had lower earnings and lower capital,” Duchin said in the UM release.

“This is consistent with an investment strategy seeking to support systematically important institutions experiencing financial distress.”

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Want to help your employees better understand how their health care benefits fit into their overall need for coverage?

The Ann Arbor-based health care business of Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) might have a new software application for you.

It’s called the Thomson Reuters Informed Solution.

The application takes an employee’s medical data, crunches the number of claims and provides an easy to understand breakdown that the employee can understand.

It displays the number of prescriptions and doctor visits.

Then it models the results and compares them with other benefit options.

In a nutshell, it helps workers evaluate how their current benefits and medical expenses stack up with other available plans.

They get a personalized summary of their families’ use of health care services and the cost of that care, Thomson Reuters said.

They can then decide which of the company’s health care options best meets their needs.

Thomson Reuters designed the application to help workers make more informed decisions about health care benefits, especially during open enrollment periods.

“Benefits are confusing and most people are risk-averse, so they tend to keep the benefit plan they have and not consider other options,” said Jon Newpol, executive vice president for the health care and science business of Thomson Reuters in a press release.

“With this summary of their own health care experience, however, people can see the savings potential of a different plan option or a flexible savings account. This personalization increases employee satisfaction with, and confidence in, the benefit choices they make.”

Some major employers are already implementing the plan.

Among them are companies like Pepsi Bottling Group, ArvinMeritor Inc., Marathon Oil Co., and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

For 2010, Thomson Reuters’ clients include Fortune 500 companies, a major university and two state governments.  That’s a workforce of more than 600,000 workers combined.

And Thomson Reuters says Informed Solutions gets results:

n Up to 30 percent of employees moved from benefit plans in which they were over-insured to more appropriate coverage.

n More employees selected consumer-driven health plans and set up flexible health care spending accounts, reducing taxes for employers and employees.

n And the use of online enrollment tools doubled, boosting employee health care satisfaction, Thomson Reuters reported.

Two power generation facilities projects designed by the engineering staff in Black & Veatch’s Ann Arbor office have earned project of the year honors by Power Engineering magazine, the company announced this week.

The projects include the Gateway Generating Station in Antioch, Calif., for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. which won best gas-fired power project; and a project in Springfield, Ill., for City, Water, Light & Power, which won the project of the year award for the best coal-fired power plant.

Black & Veatch’s Ann Arbor office provides consulting, engineering and construction services for its clients.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Ann Arbor-based NSF International hit a milestone last month.

While we typically don’t write about company anniversaries here at Crain’s, I thought NSF’s was noteworthy.

It was 65 years ago in November that two University of Michigan professors and a public health professional from Toledo — Walter Snyder, Henry Vaughan and Nathan Sinai — decided the U.S. could use some standardization of health requirements and food service equipment.

Their initial idea was to draft safety standards for soda fountain and luncheonette equipment.

Today, NSF International, with its headquarters on Dixboro Road, is known worldwide for protecting human health and safety.

The independent nonprofit, originally a spinoff from UM’s School of Public Health, has developed more than 72 American National Standards to protect food, water, dietary supplements and consumer goods.

It was a press release on NSF’s most recent acquisition, Seattle-based Surefish, that caught my eye.

I had recently returned from a trip to the Northwest and eaten my share of smoked salmon at Pike’s Fish Market, where fishmongers entertain shoppers by tossing their fresh catch from stall to stall.

Surefish also has offices in Alaska, Vietnam and South Korea and will help NSF monitor seafood quality.

The Surefish acquisition this year came on the heels of a new NSF Toy Safety Accreditation and the opening of its new office in India.

NSF also has satellite offices in Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China and a European headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.  It now has staff in 120 countries on five continents.

In 2004, it acquired Quality Assurance International Inc., an organic certifier based in San Diego.

In 2007, NSF completed an 80,000 square-foot expansion of its lab space in Ann Arbor and then in 2008 it launched its Environmental Sustainable Program that provides standards and certification for sustainable products like carpeting, furniture and building materials.

There are a lot of good things happening on Dixboro Road and globally by NSF’s more than 850 employees.

Those are just highlights of an organization that was just a glimmer of an idea at UM in 1944.

Robert Guenzel, longtime Washtenaw County administrator and corporation counsel, is going to be a tough act to follow when he retires next spring.

After 37 years working for the county, Guenzel knows his turf and has given much to the community.

You can Google recent news stories to get a snapshot of his board memberships.  It’s impressive.

Most telling though, I think are the comments made by people who’ve had the good fortune to work with him.

For instance, Washtenaw County Commissioner Leah Gunn said, “Bob Guenzel is the finest public servant in Washtenaw County.  His excellent leadership as administrator, combined with his outstanding service to our community, will be missed.”

In my years working in Ann Arbor, I’ve had a couple of opportunities to see Guenzel in action.

My sense is he’s a professional executive, articulate, smart…and dedicated to Washtenaw County.

In short, he is a prototype for an excellent county executive.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Pure Visibility Inc., an Ann Arbor-based Internet marketing company founded almost five years ago by partners Linda Girard and Catherine Juon, announced this week that it was recently selected for the Yahoo! Web Analytics Consultant Network.

The new designation recognizes the firm’s expertise in applying analytical data to online marketing campaigns.  In its announcement, Pure Visibility says it is now one of just two agencies to earn accreditation by all major search engines.

“Pure Visibility is proud to be one of the most accredited analytics providers in the world,” Girard said in a press release.  “Pure Visibility’s accreditation through Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and Urchin results in cross-platform online marketing expertise that is a key driver of our clients’ Web performance.”

Girard explained what the new designation means for her company and its client base.

Q. What does the new certification really mean for Pure Visibility and your clients?

A. Metrics are the key to success in today’s Internet-driven business environment. Our new certification recognizes our ability to interpret the data provided by the interactions inside and outside of our clients’ Web sites. This information tells a provocative story about visitor behavior that we harness to help our clients grow their sales and generate a positive return on investment.

Our clients own page one in the search engine results for the right (profitable) keywords because we are listening to their analytics and creating effective search experiments based on our analysis.

Q. You mention you’re now one of two firms to achieve certification by every major search engine. Who is the other firm?

A. Worldwide, only Pure Visibility and Stratigent in Illinois hold partnerships in Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics and Urchin. Currently just 16 companies are part of the Yahoo Web analytics program worldwide.

Q. How’s your business doing this year in such a turbulent economic climate?

A. We are doing phenomenally well. We attract clients that are innovative thought leaders like Thomson Reuters Techstreet who embrace the idea of experimenting with search.

Q. Any new clients?

A. In turbulent economic times, companies need us to help them improve sales through increased online visibility and reach. Our business is growing, not just because we help our clients grow, but because we repeatedly demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology. Any company can say that they do SEO or Internet marketing, but very few approach our business with the same depth of experience, rigor and results-driven methodology as Pure Visibility.

That commitment to results has attracted many of Michigan’s top companies such as Consumers Energy, Yazaki, Kellogg Co., and recently Corrigan Moving Systems. We’re also proud of our long term relationships with advertising agencies like re:group and excited to be adding new agency partners such as Mort Crim Communications.

Q. Any goals for next year that you can discuss? What’s the next step for Pure Visibility? What’s the latest in search engine optimization?

A. Companies will continue to experiment with online marketing efforts that connect their customers to their Web site, and it’s our job to identify which of these tools are turning visitors into customers. Utilizing the story we find in their analytics we help them create competitive advantage.

In particular, we have found great opportunities for Michigan companies to reach out globally using paid search, and because of this I have a specific interest in analyzing how culture effects how people search for specific products and services.

The latest in search engine optimization will be determined upon the completion of the launch of Google’s Caffeine after the holiday season. Google will be shaking up the algorithm just when companies were getting comfortable with traditional SEO concepts like link building, writing Web site content with keywords, and adding useful Title and Description tags. Now social media will be leading the charge with an eye on optimizing for mobile and video. Being found in the natural search results is going to be about a lot more than just keywords.


Q. I remember meeting you and Catherine Juon when I was working in Ann Arbor. How old is your company now and what were some of the biggest challenges you faced getting it off the ground? Any surprises? What were the pitfalls, if any?

A. Pure Visibility is almost five years old.  We went through a lot of the same ups and downs as any startup: Managing growth in a smart way, outgrowing our office and moving to a new one, and staying ahead of the competition.
The biggest challenge — and opportunity — for Pure Visibility has been staying on top of emerging online marketing technologies. This industry is ever evolving, and what worked for our clients yesterday could be different today.

Our passion for search and online marketing has been a huge competitive advantage throughout our evolution — we enjoy experimenting with search, learning what’s new. Ultimately we enjoy building competitive advantage for our clients, helping them implement proven strategies to reach more targeted prospects, and help them turn more of those prospects into customers.

Q. Any big successes that you want to mention? What are you proudest of accomplishing?

A. Over time we’ve continued to add meaningful industry certifications, including our latest one with Yahoo! and that’s an incredible measure of success for our team and our clients. Our commitment to learning and mastering the latest online marketing tools isn’t always easy, but it means that we’re staying ahead of the curve as a company and helping our clients through the most advanced tools on the market. We’re really proud of our expertise and how that knowledge has helped continually grow our business.
Ultimately, we’re most proud of how all these strategies come together and help our clients grow.

Q. How about a little more about you personally? What got you interested in search engine optimization? How did you team up with Catherine?

A. I started using search back in the marketing department at Bluegill Technologies, later CheckFree i-Solutions. Soon after their acquisition I hung out my own shingle doing search engine optimization because I could clearly see the impact that Internet marketing would have on business.

Along the way, a mutual friend, Jill Wagner, insisted that I needed to meet Catherine Juon who also had run an Internet marketing company. Now we’re partners, and the rest as they say, is history.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.

Rick Kurtz, chairman and CEO of Ann Arbor-based Advanced Photonix Inc.  (NYSE Amex: API) will be fielding questions from potential investors Dec. 3 at the LD Micro Conference in Los Angeles.

He’ll be making a formal presentation at the conference and then he and his management team will answer questions about Advanced Photonix and its products.

Dec. 10, Advanced Photonix Inc. will also participate in the SMID-West Stock Conference hosted by Lambert, Edwards & Associates in Chicago.

Advanced Photonix supplies optoelectronic products and builds high-speed optical receivers and instrumentation for telecom, homeland security, military, medical and industrial markets.

Domino’s Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) is bringing back the Noid.

The Ann Arbor-based pizza giant will trot out the brand’s 1980’s advertising character on Cyber Monday, Nov. 30.

It’s one of the busiest days of the year for online retailers.

The goal is to help raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of the hospital’s annual Thanks and Giving Campaign.

Nov. 30, Domino’s customers can purchase a Noid T-shirt and profits from the sale — at least $14 — will be donated to St. Jude.

Domino’s is selling 1,000 limited edition Noid T-shirts for $19.99 at www.noidtshirt.com.

In addition, Domino’s is offering any combination of three or more medium one-topping pizzas, sandwiches, or bread bowl pastas for $5.55 each.
When ordering online at www.dominos.com, customers will also have the opportunity to make a donation to benefit St. Jude.

Domino’s will match all customer contributions up to $250,000.



The Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce now has its own iPhone application.

The new app is the product of talented folks at three local companies: Whole Brain Group LLC and Arbormoon Software Inc. in Ann Arbor, and Torrance Learning in Chelsea.

The new app features business listings by category, as well as discount details with click-through links to visit a business Web site, e-mail or phone, and view a Google map of the location.

It’s free to all chamber members.

Businesses can update their discount offers to members on the application electronically through the chamber’s Web site www.annarborchamber.org and the new information will appear weekly as an iPhone update.

“This is a great example of the chamber’s philosophy of ‘together we profit,’” stated Jennifer Coleman, director of member benefits for the chamber in a press release. “These innovative businesses combined forces with the chamber to provide a great new service and value to our members!”

If you’re a chamber member, Best Buy at 3100 Lohr Road, is planning a VIP event for you Saturday, Dec. 5.

From 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. the store will host its “Best Buy for Business” program for chambers members, their employees and families.

The store will demonstrate technology for small businesses…and offer shopping discounts for chamber members, their employees and their families.

Doors open at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast provided.

Share your Ann Arbor area business news tips by e-mailing them to me at achapelle@crain.com or by calling (313) 446-0402.