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

• The Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors announced Vance Shutes as its Realtor of the Year at the general membership meeting Sept. 23. The Realtor of the Year Award is given to an agent who has made a commitment to his community, clients, local, and state Realtor organizations. His past service includes chair of the MLS Committee and board of directors treasurer and president. He currently serves on the Grievance Committee and the board of directors for the AAABoR. At the state level, he has served on Public Policy Committee for the Michigan Association of Realtors. Additionally, he has been a member of “Real Estate One’s statewide President’s Council of Excellence” for more than a decade.

• In related news from the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors, four members were elected during the general membership meeting Sept. 23 to fill open seats on the 2011 board of directors. Members elected the following representatives to serve two-year terms: Marian Gregor of Chelsea, Keller Williams - Ann Arbor, and Teresa Myers of Ann Arbor, MidWest Financial Credit Union. AAABoR members elected the following representatives to serve three-year terms: Nancy Bowerbank of Canton, The Charles Reinhart Co., and Nick Lacy of Ann Arbor, Edward Surovell, Realtors.

• In support of the city of Ann Arbor's Green Energy Challenge and the Ann Arbor DDA's goal to encourage a more sustainable downtown, the DDA recently announced that it will once again be accepting applications for its Downtown Energy Saving Grant Program. Applications for Phase I are available on the DDA website and are due Nov. 30. These grants can help business or building owners downtown determine what energy-saving measures could be implemented to reduce their energy costs.

• Three Michigan companies recently received a combined total of $110,000 through the Michigan Microloan Fund Program, administered by Ann Arbor SPARK. GreenSand Corp., based in Lake Linden, Mich.; iQ-Telematics in West Bloomfield; and MyBandStock, based in Ann Arbor. MyBandStock.com is a web platform that offers music fans digital access to their favorite artists by either purchasing or earning “shares” via a reward system on the site. Microloan funding awarded to MyBandStock was via the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Local Development Financing Authority.

• The Ypsilanti District Library has a new and improved website built by Ann Arbor-based design firm Q LTD. The library staff and the team at Q LTD began the new website project by conducting research to gain insight on how patrons use the library and online resources. One of the most notable features of the new website is a section of staff recommendations where visitors can learn about new releases and read book reviews. Library members can also sign up to receive e-mail notifications of upcoming author presentations, events and classes of interest.

• The Crown House of Gifts in the Traver Village Shopping Center off Plymouth Road in Ann Arbor will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a weekend of special events and celebrations at the store in late October.

• The website for nonprofit Recycle Ann Arbor was recently redesigned by DesignHub Inc., a creative services and marketing firm based in Saline. The site’s home page points visitors to the information most relevant to them, depending on whether they are residents, businesses, or construction site managers, and whether they are from Ann Arbor or other communities in Washtenaw County. The new Recycle Ann Arbor website also features the latest news from the organization and an interactive calendar of recycling-related events in the area.

• To ensure that business start-ups have the opportunity to participate, the application deadline for the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition has been extended to Oct. 13. The Student Competition deadline is Oct. 22. The competition is an international business and student idea competition designed to bring attention to Michigan's top early-stage companies and brightest college students. For more information, visit http://www.acceleratemichigan.org/main.cfm?cid=2235 or e-mail info@acceleratemichigan.org.

• Local small business owner, Jan Davies McDermott, recently completed facilitator training at the Peter Drucker Leader to Leader Institute, an intensive nonprofit leadership training program, at the Women Presidents’ Organization National Conference in San Diego, Calif. McDermott is the owner of Guiding Light Business Consulting with offices in Indian River and Hartland. She is also past president of the executive committee of the Women Business Owners of Southeastern Michigan.

• Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan, the council serving 24,000 girls in southwest, central and northeast lower Michigan, was honored with an “Outstanding Website Award” from the International Web Marketing Association. The council’s entry was its newly re-designed website, www.gshom.org, which launched on March 8, the first day of Girl Scout Week 2010. LKF Marketing of Kalamazoo managed the site re-design.

• The University of Michigan's Kenneth E. Warner was recently honored with a 2010 Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Disease. Warner is dean and Avedis Donabedian Distinguished Professor of Health in the School of Public Health at U-M. Warner is internationally acknowledged for his expertise in the economics of public health and, most notably, in tobacco use and smoking cessation, including his economic analysis on the costs of tobacco consumption and advertising and for modeling of the effects of tobacco taxation permitting development of the public policy.

• DTE Energy’s fourth annual “Art from the Heart” fundraiser on Aug. 24 raised more than $3,000 to benefit Arbor Hospice’s “Art from the Heart” program that supports children who have experienced the loss of a loved one through art therapy. DTE employees and their families created pieces of original artwork, and then the donated art was put on display and auctioned to benefit the Ann Arbor nonprofit.

• The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum was recently invited by the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga, Tenn., to deliver biofuels workshops for students in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum’s work is part of the Creative Discovery Museum’s project, which is funded through a grant awarded by the Department of Energy and the BioEnergy Science Center. Through its outreach and ScienceWorks programs, the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum will deliver programming for students in grades four through six on the basics of biofuels.

• Walbridge, headquartered in Detroit, is the first construction company in Michigan to receive the Star Award for safety and health excellence for its exemplary safety program and practices at the Couzens Hall renovation project on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Susan Corbin, deputy director and chief of staff of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, and MIOSHA Director Doug Kalinowski presented the Star Award to Walbridge at a ceremony Sept. 23 at Palmer Field, adjacent to Couzens Hall.

• Andrew Pate will join Ann Arbor-based book manufacturer Edwards Brothers in the newly created position of director of digital and program sales. Most recently, Pate was senior vice president of business development for On Demand Books LLC - makers of the Espresso Book Machine - and senior vice president of operations and global fulfillment at Lulu.com.

• National Airlines, a subsidiary of National Air Cargo, recently announced the appointment of Steven B. Harrison as president. National Airlines is based in Ypsilanti and operates on demand cargo and passenger services, with its main base at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti.

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