Anya AbramzonUnder Anya Abramzon’s guidance, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County has gone from a small program run out of a Jewish community center to a full-service social agency doing work ranging from aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina to helping refugees from the former Soviet Socialist Republic get settled in ...
Shelly Kovacs When Shelly Kovacs went to a homecoming event on Oct. 15 at the University of Michigan’s Michigan League, she had no idea that her friends, family and co-workers had been keeping a secret for weeks and even months. On that night, officials from the University of Michigan School ...
One of the biggest challenges — and one of the biggest rewards — of being the leader of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is creating a sense of community ownership of the organization, Executive Director Mel Drumm said. Shortly after Drumm came to the museum in 2004, he and the ...
LG AlmedaLawrence “LG” Almeda, shareholder in the Ann Arbor office of Brinks, Hofer, Gilson & Lione, grew up as one of only a handful of Asian-Pacific Americans in Rochester. However, he said it wasn’t until the birth of his first son that he began to become more deeply involved in ...
Kimberly Kratz never looked at moving from head of a national organization to executive director of a smaller, local health organization as narrowing her vision.Kratz was hired as executive director of Packard Health in Ann Arbor in 2007 after working for more than a decade at Migrant Health Promotion, a ...
Mike SwartzAccording to Mike Swartz, office managing partner for the Ann Arbor office of Plante & Moran, being good at math isn't the only requirement for being a certified public accountant — the job involves more people skills than most would imagine. “To have a really good, long career, you ...
Sandi SmithFrustration with renting and landlords lead Sandi Smith into real estate and an interest in how communities are built and governed. Smith, the president of Ann Arbor’sTrillium Real Estate, started in the field of real estate before she graduated from college after some bad experiences with student housing. “I ...
Tamara BurnsAs a child, Tamara Burns used to draw plans—making houses and complexes for animals, and even diagramming where she wanted to place each piece of furniture when she decided to rearrange her bedroom. Burns, principal and co-founder of HopkinsBurns Design Studio in Ann Arbor, said she didn’t realize that ...
Amy GrambeauAmy Grambeau, director of Orange Egg Advertising in Ann Arbor, said she tells people to remember her website address by picturing an orange egg in a net. She said that, years later, people will tell her they can’t get the image out of their heads — which is exactly ...
Jon RobinsonA life-changing car accident in 1996 spurred Jon Robinson to turn his dream into a business.Robinson, the founder and CEO of Enabled Traveler, was “heavily into music” in 1996, with a record label that was “doing pretty well” and working with such big names as Kid Rock and Eminem. ...
Tim EhingerAlthough Discount Tire was founded in Ann Arbor in 1960 and Tim Ehinger grew up in West Branch, Mich., he first started working for the company selling and changing tires in Utah. Now acting as Discount Tire’s regional vice president of operations for southeast Michigan, Ehinger’s first job out ...
David MurrayToday, intelligent use of social media is of “huge” importance when it comes to branding, according to David Murray, the new director of social Web communications for Ann Arbor-based brand marketing firm re:group. Murray knows the power of social media, because he found his first job as an assistant ...
Anya DaleAnya Dale became interested in urban planning as an unexpected side result of working in wetland restoration. “We were working hard to retain one acre, when across the street, a 100-acre subdivision was going in,” she said. “I realized it was very hard to protect spaces from that side, ...
When asked what he thinks about his business winning multiple awards from the Saline Area Chamber of Commerce, Peter Bowe, managing partner of Saline Picture Frame Co., says it’s easy to get noticed in a small town. But the local family-owned company has not only survived for 22 years-- it ...
Tim ColbeckTim Colbeck sees his recent hiring as executive director of the Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority as a fresh start for the organization.He started the new position June 21 as head of an organization that has undergone a lot of change in the last year. In the past, Ypsilanti had ...
Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com AnnArbor.com's partner news site MLive.com is on a quest to find the best barbecue in ......
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