The following is a list of achievements by businesses and individuals in the Ann Arbor area:

• Jeff DeGraff, clinical professor of business administration at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, gave a talk about how Michigan lost its edge during the "Destination Innovation" event April 29. Michigan’s University Research Corridor and WWJ Newsradio 950 gathered leading innovators at the Michigan State University Management Center in Troy on Thursday for the event. The University Research Corridor is an alliance between Michigan’s three major research universities to transform, strengthen and diversify the state’s economy. The partners, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, spark regional economic development via invention, innovation and technology transfer, by educating a work force prepared for the knowledge economy and by attracting talent to the state. DeGraff is also the founder of Competing Values, an Ann Arbor-based consulting company to 100 of the Fortune 500 companies.

• On April 19, Ypsilanti-based law firm Manchester & Associates announced that it added Nicole E. Mackmiller as an associate attorney and concurrently announced the acquisition of the Law Office of Helen Conklin Vick. Mackmiller will take over Vick's family law practice and will continue to specialize in immigration law.

• On May 6, Con-way Freight, a less-than-truckload carrier and subsidiary of Con-way Inc. based in Ann Arbor, announced it was named 2009 National LTL Carrier of the Year by Echo Global Logistics Inc., a provider of technology enabled transportation and supply chain management services. The company was honored during a ceremony held at Echo's Chicago headquarters on April 28.

• Cleary University, a business university with campuses in Howell and Ann Arbor, on May 5 signed an articulation agreement with Lansing Community College, which will allow LCC students to transfer credits to Cleary toward a Bachelor of Business Administration in Health Care Management or a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management with additional degree programs under future consideration. Under the agreement, Cleary University Students may also concurrently enroll in LCC and Cleary University, enabling them to obtain their Cleary degree sooner.

• Ann Arbor-based MedHub Inc. signed an agreement May 5 with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the University of Oklahoma at Tulsa (OUHSC) to deploy its MedHub enterprise physician trainee management system across both institutions to handle medical students. MedHub's system was already being used to handle all resident and fellow training, but the new agreement means more than 600 medical students across the state will also begin using the system. On the same day, MedHub signed an agreement with Duke University Health System to deploy the MedHub enterprise residency management system across all residency and fellowship programs, graduate medical education and hospital finance.

• Ann Arbor Certified Distressed Property Expert - designated agent Kathy Toth and team of Keller Williams Realty has announced the expansion of an information website for Ann Arbor-area homeowners in distress, www.AnnArborShortSale.com. The site includes eligibility surveys for government programs offering help to distressed homeowners, including the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program, or HAFA, which increases the likelihood of a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. These surveys will let homeowners discover new options made available by the government.

• Polycom Inc., a firm based in Pleasanton, Calif., specializing in telepresence, video and voice communications solutions, has partnered with Internet2, an advanced networking consortium with offices in Washington, D.C. and Ann Arbor, to introduce E2Bconnect. E2Bconnect is a free, online professional networking program designed to facilitate collaboration between higher education institutions and businesses using visual communications to address business challenges such as corporate training and to improve educational opportunities.

• Christopher Ballard, a partner in law firm Bodman’s Ann Arbor office, was elected to the State Bar of Michigan’s Tax Section Council.

• Ann Arbor-based Accuri Cytometers Inc., a life sciences company marketing and producing bench-top flow cytometer systems, has entered into a worldwide co-marketing agreement with California-based eBioscience, the number two supplier of research flow cytometry reagents. In related news, Accuri recently announced the sale of the 500th unit of its Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer.

• Domino's Pizza, headquartered in Ann Arbor, recently signed a franchise agreement that will allow the company to begin selling pizzas in Germany.

• Ann Arbor-based Tecumseh Products Co. announced May 4 that Charles "Chuck" Brewer was named director of North American sales.

• Three Michigan companies recently received a combined total of $121,000 through the Michigan Microloan Fund Program: Inventure Enterprises, based in East Lansing, a global provider of management consulting and technology services; RiserCam LLC, based in Saline, a designer, manufacturer, sales and marketer of specialized video equipment for the shooting sports and outdoors industry; and LED Optical Solutions, a Washington, Mich.-based company specializing in design, development and manufacture of solid state lighting devices.

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