This issue sponsored by Consumers Energy
GOOD THINGS HAPPENING IN CLINTON COUNTY
While the State is going through some tough budget times, positive things are happening in Clinton County. As long as we keep a positive attitude and continue working hard, more good things will happen in the county.
The Clinton County Economic Alliance (CCEA), in partnership with the City of St. Johns, has been successful in securing a grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to assist the city in supporting an expansion by the Quest Software Company. The expansion will result in the creation of an additional 32 jobs by the company over the next two years.
The MEDC also announced grants to the Village of Maple Rapids and the Village of Ovid. The CCEA worked with the two communities to secure the grants. Maple Rapids was for improvements to their existing sewer lines and the Village of Ovid for a new water tower.
For some of you traveling down U.S. 27 you may have noticed a new addition to the Clinton County Business Community. Redline Automotive opened this operation on State Road and U.S. 27. CCEA assisted them with various financing options and tax abatement from the township. Redline took a blighted piece of property and made physical improvements to the site. It certainly has been a major improvement to that intersection.
Michigan Milk Producers Association (MMPA) is nearing completion of its $32 million dollar investment in the Village of Ovid. CCEA was instrumental in working with the Village to secure Renaissance Zone designation for the project and they worked with the Michigan Department of Transportation to secure a grant to make drain and road improvements to MMPA’s site.
FINANCIAL WORKSHOP
On Thursday, October 8, the Clinton County Economic Alliance (CCEA) will host a workshop on state and federal financing programs. The Financial Workshop will be held at Clinton County RESA, 1013 south U.S. 27, St. Johns, starting at 7:00 p.m. and ending at 8:30 p.m. The CCEA has been able to line up a number of speakers extremely knowledgeable of state and federal loan programs. Presenters are:
- Paul Brown – Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Paul will speak on the Capital Access Program and the Diversification Loan Program.
- Al Cook – Small Business Administration. Al will speak on the SBA 7a loan guarantee program.
- Eric Kehler – Michigan Certified Development Corporation. Eric will speak on the SBA 504 program.
- Tracie Smith – USDA Rural Development. Tracie will speak on the Rural Development loan guarantee loan program.
- Dave Brown – President, Firstbank. Dave will address what bankers look at when evaluating a loan request.
This will be a great opportunity to learn what financing programs can assist you in securing a loan from your lender. Please give us a call at 517-669-1345 if you plan to attend.
ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKING SESSION
On Thursday, October 15, the Clinton County Economic Alliance and the Michigan Small Business and Technology Center in Lansing will conduct a networking session for small businesses and entrepreneurs. This will provide a wonderful opportunity for our local businesses and budding entrepreneurs to hear first hand what it takes to run a business. Hear inspiring insights and draw on a wealth of knowledge and experiences from a panel of experts.
Moderator is Chris Holman – publisher of the Greater Lansing Business Monthly.
Panel Members are:
- Mary Ellen Sheets – Two Men & A Truck
- Rob Fowler – Small Business Association of Michigan
- Linda Hundt – Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe
- Bob Fish – Biggby Coffee
- Gordon Ferguson – SBTDC
- Chad Paalman – NuWave Technology Partners
The session will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Clinton County RESA, 1013 S. U.S. 27, St. Johns. Please join us for what will be a VERY informative meeting with successful local entrepreneurs.
LOCAL BUSINESS AWARD
that impressed.
“This is stuff we should have been doing all along” he says. "It’s just common sense."
But he’s pleased with the savings that the company’s efforts are bringing: $17,000 per year.
Barnard is a production machine shop, producing heavy construction equipment, hydraulics, and parts for the railroad, mining and forestry industries.
Caterpillar is a major client.
The efforts of the 43-year-old company go back to a 2005
University of Michigan Industrial Assessment Center evaluation, a free service offered by the
Department of Mechanical Engineering. Reviewers created a list of recommended actions, most of which Barnard implemented.
Staff changed out their 12-ballast lighting fixtures in exchange for more energy efficient electronic ballast fixtures. They fixed leaks in their air compressors and air lines, saving $3,000 a year alone. And they began turning off lights in non-productive areas.
“It’s mostly a case of just being cognizant of what’s going on,” he says.
Putting energy savings in cost/benefit terms helps people get the idea, too. When people can see that in a few years they will recover their upfront costs, they are more enthusiastic about implementing energy saving measures, Barnard says.
Source: Jim Barnard, Barnard Manufacturing
NEW FEDERAL PROGRAMS
VALUE ADDED PRODUCER GRANTS
USDA will soon be accepting applications for grants to assist agricultural producers seeking to add value to the commodities they produce. Approximately $18 million will be awarded nationwide.
USDA plans to award planning grants of up to $100,000 and working capital grants of up to $300,000 to successful applicants. Applicants are encouraged to propose projects that use existing agricultural products in non-traditional ways or merge agricultural products with technology in creative ways. Businesses of all sizes may apply, but priority will be given to operators of small and medium-sized family farms - those with average, annual gross sales of less than $700,000.
Applicants must provide matching funds equal to the amount of the grant requested. Ten percent of the funding being made available is reserved for beginning farmers or ranchers and socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers. An additional 10 percent is reserved for projects involving local and regional supply networks that link independent producers with businesses and cooperatives that market value-added products.
Paper and electronic applications must be submitted to the Rural Development state office in the state where the project will be located. The Michigan State Office is located at 3001 Coolidge Rd., Suite 200 East Lansing, MI 48823, (517) 324-5190. For more details, contact this office or visit the
Michigan Rural Development website.
HELPFUL BUSINESS TOOLS
Reduce Your Hiring and Training Costs: Contact the Council Before You Act!
Screening/Recruitment:
Connecting with Michigan Works! can help you reduce your recruitment costs in a variety of ways, including search time for candidates and reducing piles of resumes and applications.
On-the-Job Training Grants:
A wage offset program recognizing that new hires are not fully proficient on the job at hire. The program pays 50% of wages for about 4-6 weeks up to about $3,000 to $3,500. Applicant eligibility for Michigan Works programs and starting wages determine if company can take advantage of this program. The training grant is paid to the company.
Scholarships:
If you have ongoing needs for certain skilled occupations, we can send applicants to school for up to two years at $5,000 per year. Select a candidate you like from the applicant pool. Hire them part-time while candidates attend school so you may observe their work habits. . Applicant eligibility for Michigan Works programs and starting wages determine if company can take advantage of this program.
Incumbent Worker Training Grants:
Provides funds for training existing workers. Training typically provided through Lansing Community college. Requires a WorkKeys job profile the. Funds are extremely limited.
If interested in learning more about the above programs, or other valuable resources available to support your organization’s on-going hiring/training efforts, contact Bob Sherer at 517-492-5588, or
bsherer@camw.net.
The Michigan New Hires Job Training Program:
Address your training needs for new hires with no or little cash outlay. Uses state income taxes paid by new hires to pay for training. Only available through Lansing Community College – contact Glenys Warner at 517-483-9806,
warnerg@lcc.edu.
BUY LOCAL
Michigan food a tasty way to boost state’s economy
Michigan’s agricultural sector contributes nearly $64 billion to the state’s economy each year and employs about a million people. That means buying Michigan-made grocery items is an easy—and tasty!—way to boost our state’s economy. According to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, we’d keep nearly $40 million in our state every week if every Michigan household spent just $10 per week on Michigan-produced food.
Not sure what qualifies?
Michigan is among the nation’s leading producers of eggs, milk, butter, dry beans, honey, maple syrup, peppermint, and spearmint. If you want fresh fruits and vegetables, we’re also among the top producers of apples, blueberries, carrots, celery, sweet cherries, tart cherries, corn, grapes, onions, peaches, pears, plums, potatoes, and strawberries.
You can also find many Michigan-sourced and/or Michigan-produced grocery items on the shelves at your local supermarket. Among them:
- Absopure water
- Amish Country cheese
- Aunt Millie’s bread
- Awrey Bakeries bakery products
- Ball Park franks
- Bareman’s Dairy products
- Better Made snack foods
- Big Chief sugar
- Biggby coffee
- Birds Eye Foods pie fillings and sauces
- Bob Evans sausage
- C.F. Burger Creamery dairy products
- Cheeze Kurls
- Chiquita smoothies
- Cole’s frozen garlic bread
- Comstock pie filling
- Country Fresh dairy products
- Cream-Nut peanut butter
- Don Marcos corn and flour tortillas
- Drake’s Batter Mix frying mixes
- Dutch Twins brand cookies
- Eden Organic products
- Faygo soft drinks
- Fry Krisp baking and batter mixes
- Garden Fresh Gourmet salsas
- Gerber baby food
- Guernsey Farms dairy products
- Heinz vinegar
- Hillbilly bread
- Hudsonville ice cream
- Indian Summer juice
- Jack Daniels BBQ sauce
- Jiffy baking mixes
- Kar’s Nut snacks
- Kashi snack bars
- Keebler crackers and cookies
- Kellogg’s cereals, Nutri-Grain cereal bars and Pop-Tarts
- Koegel’s meat products
- Kowalski meats
- Lay’s potato chips
- Lumberjack white and wheat bread
- Melody Farms ice cream
- Michigan cottage cheese
- Mussleman’s applesauce
- Okedoke popcorn
- Old Orchard frozen juice concentrates
- Oven Krisp coating mixes
- Pic-A-Nut products
- Pioneer sugar
- Post cereals
- Rothbury Farms croutons
- Sanders ice cream toppings
- Sara Lee bread and pies
- Uncle Ray’s snack foods
- Vernors ginger ale
- Vlasic pickles
- Welch’s jams, jellies, and juices
- Yoplait yogurt
ON THE WEB
Password Headaches
If you are having a difficult time keeping track of several passwords for social media and other Internet sites, you might want to check out a password management Web site. One site,
www.passpack.com, lets you save all your Web site logins and passwords in one place and then access them later by clicking a button on your account page. The basic service is free while paid upgrades offer extra storage and features.
The Future Factory?
Could this be a model of the future factory? The October issue of Inc. Magazine profiles
www.ponoko.com, an innovative company that uses laser cutters to manufacture products on-demand over the Internet. The company carries no inventory, only some 20,000 virtual designs of housewares, toys and furniture. Customer browse the Web site, select a product and order it -- or actually send an order to the laser machine to manufacturer it. It's a fascinating concept worth checking out at the New Zealand company's Web site or at
www.inc.com
SEARCHING FOR CLINTON COUNTY
Our new Web site
www.clintoncountyeconomicalliance.org has given us a global presence on the Internet. About half of the visits we receive each week come from referring sites. To help us drive more traffic to the site, please add a CCEA link to your own Web site. The more the CCEA Web Site is linked to, the higher it will appear on search engines such as Google. This helps raise awareness about our county throughout the world.
CLINTON COUNTY BY THE NUMBERS
Clinton County Unemployment Rate Among Lowest in State
|
August 09 Unemployment Rate
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Clinton County
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9.5%
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|
Eaton County
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10.7
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Ingham County
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12.1
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Gratiot County
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14.2
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Ionia County
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14.3
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Shiawassee County
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15.4
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State of Michigan
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14.7
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Unemployment numbers again showed the Clinton County rate to be among the lowest in the state at 9.5 percent. That is a decrease from the July number of 11.1 percent. We continue to be well below the state rate of 14.7 percent and were for the first time in months slightly below the U.S. unemployment rate of 9.6 percent.
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:
ST. JOHNS--- One of Clinton County’s newest restaurants, The Mint, is now open in downtown St. Johns. It’s a restaurant and nightclub and soon to be hotel on the second floor and it is smoke-free. The name is appropriate for a couple of reasons - St. Johns is the Mint City and the restaurant is located in the former St. Johns National Bank building at 200 N. Clinton Ave. The Mint is open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch, and Monday through Saturday at 5 p.m. for dinner service, and Sunday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Brunch. The nightclub is open until 2 a.m.
The Ortman family, owners of the building, is preserving as much of the buildings features as possible. “It’s a historical building so we don’t want to make structural changes,” said Ortman. “Besides, it has a very interesting history.”
The main vault, which is in The Mint’s dining room behind the bar, is now serving as a liquor storage area. The inner door of that double-door vault has been moved a few feet and is being used as a coffee table in the lounge area of The Mint. “We estimate the vault door weighs between 6,000 and 8,000 pounds,” said Ortman. “We actually broke some of the terrazzo floor moving it.” The door from the original vault in the basement, which weighs about 800 pounds, was cut from the vault and is now one of the doors to the “Board Room.” The Board Room, which seats eight to 10 can be reserved for special occasions or private parties,” said Ortman.
A large safe that was once inside the main vault is now the hostess stand just inside the main entrance to The Mint. It was made in 1885 according to a stamp inside the safe door. “There were 17 different vaults and safes in this building,” said Ortman. Another vault is being used as a small private dining room for two,” said Ortman. “People can reserve it for special occasions. For one price they get the works – their own server, their own music, three-course meal, and a bottle of champagne or wine.”
One room of The Mint is a memorabilia room and guest at The Mint can get a guided tour of the more significant features if they wish. The bar is another interesting feature of the restaurant. “We cut the faces off the solid steel and brass safety deposit boxes,” said Ortman “and we built the bar around them.” The safety deposit box fronts serve as the front of the bar. The boxes were too heavy to move the entire unit, but the brass doors make an interesting feature.
But all the history and décor aside, The Mint is serving delicious food, tasty drinks, and quality service at an affordable price. “We offer a three-course meal,” said Ortman, “salad or soup, entrée and dessert - all for the price of the entrée.” Appetizers and desserts are also available a la carte. The menu includes six main entrée choices - salmon, prime rib, pasta shells stuffed with cheese, ravioli stuffed with meat, chicken, and steak. We also have nightly specials. The food is prepared by a team of three chefs from the Lansing and St. Johns area. “The menu will change slightly from week to week,” said Ortman. “We will be trying new things and changing it up every few weeks.”
The bar, which has a full line of alcohol and beer, will also feature mint-themed drinks. The Ortman’s have also been able to find a wine that is only available locally at The Mint. “Our house wine is something you can’t get anywhere else in town,” said Ortman. “We also serve hard cider from Uncle John’s Cider Mill.”
The Mint has several other features patrons will appreciate. There are televisions mounted behind the bar. There is another in the lounge area, along with a Wii for videogame enthusiasts. “After 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday we will move the table from an area for a dance floor,” said Ortman. “Thursday nights is Ladies night with wine specials.
“We won’t turn people away, but making a reservation is a good idea,” he said. “They can make reservations via e-mail at
stjohnsmint@gmail.com or by calling (989) 224-7700.” When you walk in the front doors you will see white table cloths on the tables but please feel free to dress casual. Menus for both lunch and dinner are posted at
stjohnsmint.com and at the entrance to The Mint.
On the second floor we have three suites and four rooms which will be available to the public. Each room has a theme to it about St. Johns
2009 CCEA Calendar
- Oct. 8, 7:00-8:30 p.m. - Financial Workshop
o A discussion regarding state and federal programs that can assist small businesses in securing loans. Clinton County RESA Office, 1013 S. U.S. 27, St. Johns. Register at 517-669-1345 or
lehmank@cceami.org
- Oct. 15, 6:30-9:00 p.m. - Entrepreneurial Networking – Dessert with Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs
o Interactive discussion with moderator Chris Holman and a panel of business leaders and entrepreneurs (Mary Ellen Sheets, “Biggby Bob” Fish, Rob Fowler, Linda Hundt, Gordon Ferguson, and Chad Paalman). During the “meet and greet” session, share and discuss ideas and information. Clinton County RESA Office, 1013 S. U.S. 27, St. Johns. Register online at
www.misbtdc.org/training. Attendees who wish to showcase concepts and business materials, can reserve space by calling
517-669-1345.