Last year I returned to Traverse City after an eight-year absence. Though heading back to a region I had once called home, I was going to work in an industry that was completely foreign to me. Or so I thought.Formerly a senior analyst...
Lake Ann - "I was and always have been obsessed with houses and the people who live in them,"says Dorina Rudd of Lake Ann Twenty years ago, Dorina turned her fascination into Design Strategies, a successful business specializing in interior and exterior design. Recently...
TRAVERSE CITY - What do you get when you combine a good attitude with experience in sign creation and installation? Well, if you're Jason Orton, you get a company that's a model for successful business.In fact, he thought those traits were so important that that...
REGION - After years of plummeting numbers in new home construction, a strong finish in 2010 has given regional construction experts a reason for cautious optimism for 2011.While the number of land-use permits for single-family homes in the four-county region - Benzie, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse...
REGION - The mood at the 17th annual Downtown Bridal Show on January 9 at the Traverse City Opera House was fun, flirty and fantastic. If that's any indication, the economy won't hold back the wedding industry Up North in 2011."I just met someone here...
REGION - Gen Netxt is not a typo. It's a service and networking group sort of like Kiwanis and Rotary, but mostly for people in their 20s and 30s.The Leelanau group's name tells that its members communicate mostly by texting and Facebook in organizing food...
TRAVERSE CITY - Architect Ray Kendra credits the past for his present - and future.Kendra bought out the final partner in CWS Architects in late 2010. The well-established Traverse City firm had operated as Clark Walter Sirrine Architects - run by Jon Walter, Terry Clark...
ACME - Last summer Donald Ponniah left his job as general manager of Hilton Los Angeles North to come to the orchard-dotted hamlet of Acme, just outside of Traverse City, and take over as president and general manager of the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa....
The term micro-business is used freely these days as a catch-all phrase without much regard to its true meaning. The traditional definition of a micro-business is a company that employs less than five people, with annual sales of less than $35,000. Some might dismiss businesses...
TRAVERSE CITY - Dennis Bean-Larson lives in possibility.The avid entrepreneur and his wife, Katie, juggle four businesses: real estate, bike shop, a clothing and accessories line, and a bicycle frame-finishing service. Although he says he's struggling like so many others in northwest Michigan, Bean-Larson leverages...
