Young professionals tout Detroit living, business opportunities

By Rober Ankeny, Crain’s Detroit Business

“Positive attitudes will bring positive results” was how Ron Angelocci, senior vice president of Advance Strategies Group Inc., summed up the hour-plus panel discussion at Wednesday’s Business over Breakfast in the Renaissance Club.

Sponsored by Crain’s Detroit Business, the event featured a panel of four young professionals, each of whom had been saluted in Crain’s 20 in the 20’s feature in the past three years.

Michelle Darwish, Crain’s Business Lives editor who moderated the event, asked the young entrepreneurs to explain why they chose to live and pursue creative careers in Detroit, and how the city and region could best attract and retain more young talent.

All said that using organization resources such as those of the Detroit Regional Chamber, Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., plus networking with colleagues and friends is key to career success.

Austin Black, a Realtor with Max Broock Realtors and president of the City Living Detroit Web site, said he educating friends and co-workers about opportunities in the city can offset the “anywhere but Detroit” attitude frequently voiced by the city’s detractors.

“I had no intention of returning to Detroit,” said Black, a graduate of Birmingham Seaholm High School and Cornell University who has lived in Washington, D.C., and Italy. “But then I saw the chances in the challenges.”

Phillip Cooley, co-owner of Slows Bar BQ and a general contractor of Detroit-based O'Connor Development Group L.L.C., who has a fine arts degree from Columbia College in Chicago, said he too welcomed a challenge in a neighborhood that needed help.

He got support for his restaurant from other Corktown business people by networking, Cooley said. His business has “unexpectedly done triple our projections,” and he is opening a carry-out and catering branch of Slows next year in Midtown.

Eric “Dusty” Duistermars, a senior associate at UGL Equis Corp., is president and founder of Detroit Office Inc., a nonprofit that offers information for businesses considering office or commercial space downtown, and is modeled after Black’s residentially oriented City Living Detroit.

Jeanette Pierce, information director for Inside Detroit, was also raised in Detroit, graduated from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, and lived in Spain before returning to the city.

Specializing in tours of Detroit, Pierce said employers should show potential recruits what the city has to offer, including “150 restaurants and bars in walking distance of downtown, art galleries,” and theaters with a total of 13,000 seats.

All agreed that Detroit and Detroiters need to stress Detroit’s growth and urban advantages, including entertainment, sports, arts and job opportunities, to educate residents in southeast Michigan and beyond, offsetting negative stereotypes.

A test of how positive messages work came when Darwish asked: “What did your parents say, when you decided to move into Detroit?”

Black said his mother, who lives in Troy, now wants to move downtown.

Pierce said her parents stayed in Detroit, and brought her “downtown to every event” as a child.

Duistermars, who grew up in Holland, said his parents visit him frequently, for Detroit events.

Cooley said his parents, who helped finance his restaurant, were “half-excited and half-concerned,” but have also moved downtown.

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