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

• Local educational nonprofit 826michigan recently announced that poet and educator Catherine Calabro will join the 826michigan staff as program coordinator. As program coordinator, Calabro will oversee 826michigan’s youth creative writing workshops program, its tutoring programs at its Ann Arbor site and at Ypsilanti Middle School, its How To Write Like I Do workshop series for adults and other programs. • Women Impacting Public Policy recently named three women from southeast Michigan as recipients of AT&T Innovator of the Year for the Detroit area. Among those honored was Marisa Smith, the president of the Whole Brain Group in Ann Arbor. Smith designed the company’s online Web-based tool, AccreditStation.

• Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP was recognized as one of “Metropolitan Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For” by the Michigan Business & Professional Association. The business law firm was selected from more than 1,000 total nominees and is one of only four law firms named in the metropolitan area. The award was created to honor those companies that work with imagination and conviction to create organizational value through their human resource practices. Honigman is based in Detroit and has several offices around Michigan, including one in Ann Arbor.

• The Ann Arbor campus of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School is planning to establish a new legal service clinic and is asking residents of Washtenaw County for help in determining what legal services are needed most. The school expects the new clinic to be operational by September 2011. The new clinic will be in addition to Cooley’s already established clinic in the Ann Arbor area, the Washtenaw County Public Defenders Clinic. In this clinic, law students are allowed to practice law while being supervised by a state bar member with the approval of a judge. Students handle an array of defense work, which includes interviewing, counseling and representing indigent defendants charged with misdemeanors and felonies. For more information about other Cooley clinics, visit cooley.edu/clinics. Suggestions from the community on the type of clinic that Cooley should offer can be sent to Associate Dean Joan Vestrand at vestranj@cooley.edu.

• Ann Arbor's brand marketing firm re:group recently announced the promotion of Kendra Keller to media planner and buyer.

• Mali Julien of Chelsea, a star leader with direct sales jewelry company Silpada Designs, achieved a top honor at Silpada’s National Conference. Julien was awarded the first place “Rookie Recruiter” award after recruiting 16 qualified recruits in the first year of her business.

• Merit Network President and CEO Don Welch was named the vice chair of Internet2's External Relations Advisory Council, which is responsible for advising Internet2's Board and management on matters of policy, standards and strategies in the context of industry, government and international relations. Internet2 is an American advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community since 1996. Merit Network Inc. is a nonprofit corporation owned and governed by Michigan's public universities, owns and operates America's longest-running regional research and education network.

• The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber is recruiting volunteers for the fall Total Resource Campaign, set to kick off on Sept. 20. The Total Resource Campaign is a volunteer-driven campaign to share the resources and benefits offered through the newly combined regional chamber, identify new sponsorship opportunities and gain new chamber members. Ted Schork of KeyBank and Mike Wynn of Sandler Training have agreed to co-chair the effort. Sharon McRill from the Betty Brigade, PJ Moffett from Real Estate One, Mike Kestly from Kestly Development and Dean Jeffery from Worknet Systems will serve as vice chairs. Chamber members interested in volunteering should contact the chamber's membership director, Cheryl O’Brien, at 734-214-0107 or by e-mail at Cheryl@a2ychamber.org.

• Mike Swartz, a partner at CPA and business advisory firm Plante & Moran PLLC, was appointed to the Michigan State Board of Accountancy by Governor Jennifer Granholm for a four-year term. Swartz is the office managing partner of Plante & Moran’s Ann Arbor office.

• The Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau has added Patti Ingleson to the AAACVB staff. Ingleson was hired as a convention sales account executive and will handle the Union Market Segment, including Ironworkers International and the NJATC.

• The University of Michigan Health System’s Security Services Department recently purchased two Segway Personal Transporters to help its officers more efficiently deter crime on the medical campus. The new Segway Patrol Team will be made up of 23 officers from the Security Services Department who have been trained on the Segways and will wear new uniforms that include bright, yellow jackets designed for increased officer visibility. The UMHS Security Services Department was able to purchase the new Segway transporters with funds from a state homeland security grant by the Washtenaw County Homeland Security Task Force.

• The Eastern Michigan University Foundation Board of Trustees recently re-elected the current officers for 2010-11. The officers are Maureen Thomas, chair, consultant with Building Materials Holding Corp.; Dan Arbour, past chair, president and CEO of National Archive Publishing Co.; Dale Heydlauff, vice chair, vice president of corporate communications for American Electric Power Service Corp.; and Ronald Reed, treasurer, managing director of Seneca Partners. James Greene was granted emeritus status. Representing the university for 2010-11 are Susan Martin, EMU president, and Jaclynn C. Tracy, department head of EMU’s Leadership & Counseling Department. Representing the EMU board of regents is James F. Stapleton. Professor Matt Evett will represent the EMU Faculty Council; Emeritus Professor Thomas Gwaltney will represent the emeritus faculty; Greg Sheldon will represent the alumni association board of directors; and the student representative for 2010-11 is Antonio Cosme, EMU student body president. The EMU Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation that increases private support and manages endowment assets for the benefit of Eastern Michigan University.

• The Cranbrook Institute of Science selected Ingenex, an Internet marketing firm based in Ann Arbor, to develop a new website for the institute.The Cranbrook Institute in Bloomfield Hills will implement Ingenex recommendations for website development, search engine optimization, content management systems, e-commerce functionality, social media integration and analytics.

• University of Michigan Kelsey Museum director was recently part of team that discovered a rare gold coin in Israel. Sharon Herbert and her team were wrapping up their dig at the Tel Kedesh site in Israel, sweeping the site in the 140-degree heat, when a student discovered what is believed to be the heaviest and most valuable gold coin ever found in Israel. Herbert is director of the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archeology and served as co-director of the dig with Andrea Berlin, the James R. Wiseman chair of Classical Archaeology at Boston University. Andrew Booz, a University of Minnesota student, found the coin. • Two student teams from Eastern Michigan University recently won the first and second place in a direct marketing contest against other college teams from around the world. The students, from Eastern’s master’s degree program in Integrated Marketing Communications, won the top awards for graduate students in the annual Collegiate ECHO Direct/Interactive Marketing Challenge. Marketing professor David Marold, lead the team that took first place. Marketing professor Matthew Sauber, lead the team that took second place. Winners of the gold award for first place were Elliot Jones, Scott Martin, Katie Talik and Alison Torreano, all of Ann Arbor. Silver award winners were Harmony Faust and Jonathan Fuhrman of Dexter; Jeffrey McElyea of Shelby Township and David Schwartz of North Tustin, Calif. EMU-IMC student teams also received three honorable mentions.

• Kelly K. Burris, a shareholder in the Ann Arbor office of law firm Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, was named a recipient of the 2010 Women in the Law award from Michigan Lawyers Weekly. Burris was one of 20 women attorneys in the state of Michigan to be recognized.

• Allstate Insurance Company recently recognized local Allstate agency owners for outstanding customer service and business results in 2009. Ann Arbor Allstate agents John Casey and Aaron Stein were among those receiving awards. Stein was honored with the Inner Circle Conference Award, given to only 3 percent of Allstate agents in the nation. Professionals in this category demonstrated exceptional customer service skills and surpassed regional sales goals in 2009. Casey received the President’s Conference Award, a designation that recognizes 13 percent of agents nationally who demonstrated high standards in customer satisfaction, customer retention and profitable business growth in 2009.

• Interleukin Genetics Inc. announced Aug. 12 that the company has signed an agreement with the University of Michigan to conduct a landmark clinical study on risk factors predictive of periodontal disease progression to tooth loss using a new version of Interleukin Genetics' PST genetic test.

• Forbes, a business and financial magazine, recently chose Foresight Capital Management Advisors Inc. of Saline to be featured in a special financial section of the publication’s June 28 issue. FCMA was among six top-rated registered Michigan firms selected, based on credentials, performance and results.

• E-mail items for People, Achievements and Paparazzi to business@annarbor.com . Sign up for the weekly Business Review e-mail newsletter here.