West Michigan News
May 17, 2013
The Internship Movie and Mixer
With Hello West Michigan and HR Collaborative
Sponsored by Steelcase
June 12
Tickets are $25 and include appetizers, one drink ticket, and a small soda and popcorn for the show.
Click here to register.
Join Hello West Michigan and HR Collaborative for a night of networking and entertainment as we screen the new movie The Internship, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
Category: Entertainment, featured, Home, WestMichigan
March 19, 2013
In 2007, a group of chief information officers began a series of conversations regarding the disconnect they were witnessing between talent and job availability in West Michigan. The CIOs worried there wasn’t a large enough pipeline, particularly of information technology students and graduates, to fill the current and future job needs within their growing companies.
As a result, in January 2010, Hello West Michigan was launched. The membership-driven nonprofit organization was developed to service three purposes: to promote West Michigan as a place where business thrives and people want to live and work; to increase the rate of success member companies have in their efforts to recruit top talent; and to collaborate with organizations across the region to help new residents find their fit in West Michigan.
Read MoreCategory: Home, WestMichigan
February 20, 2013
Massachusetts resident Delia Marshall came to Michigan last summer for a family reunion at a beach house on the shores of Lake Michigan. A week later, she left as an ambassador for a state that claims to be home to “the perfect summer.”
“We stayed in a house with a private beach and I just can’t say enough about how beautiful the lake was,” Marshall said. “There was this sense that nature was with us and that Michigan is not just about making automobiles.”
Marshall was one of a growing number of out-of-state residents who are vacationing in Michigan and transforming the state’s $17.7 billion tourism economy. (While growing, the tourism sector still accounts for less than 1 percent of Michigan’s $300-billion plus economy.)
Long dominated by in-state travelers, Michigan’s tourism industry has fundamentally changed in recent years. Out-of-state travelers now account for the majority of leisure travel spending in Michigan, according to state data.
Read MoreCategory: Arts&Culture, WestMichigan
January 22, 2013
TIME magazine says ArtPrize is a place to party. Time’s travel section today named ArtPrize on its worldwide list of
“Five Festive Events You Won’t Want to Miss in 2013.”
ArtPrize 2013, which returns in September, is listed alongside an event in Indonesia, one in New Zealand and two in Europe.
ArtPrize 2013, the radical exhibition and competition created in 2009, ranked No. 4 on the list unveiled today in Time’s Style Section along with such internationally famous events as the Eurovision Song Contest, which ranked No. 2.
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Category: Arts, Arts&Culture, GrandRapids, Home, Innovation
January 09, 2013
Grand Rapids has landed on a national list of cities "Leading the Way in Sustainability.”
The list is by BillMoyers.com. The website provides access to broadcast journalist Bill Moyer’s continued work in journalism, including his TV show, Moyers & Company, which is broadcast nationally on public TV affiliates.
The city's write up in the list cites two of the sustainability efforts that Mayor George Heartwell pointed out in his letter to Tina Brown, The Daily Beast editor, after her outlet included Grand Rapids on its 2011 list of "America’s Dying Cities" — in refute of the city’s inclusion on the list.
Read MoreCategory: Home, Sustainability
January 04, 2013
Land an internship at Gordon Food Service, and chances are a job offer won’t be far behind.
For the last two years, the Wyoming-based food distributor has hired 60 percent of its interns for full-time positions.
Most of the company’s 35 to 40 interns work during the summer.
The majority work at the company’s Wyoming headquarters, primarily in the departments of marketing, information systems and finance or accounting.
Read MoreCategory: Home, WestMichigan
December 05, 2012
When Monique Bush graduated from Michigan State University 10 years ago, she landed at the Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau marketing the city to out-of-towners.
After two years of working to attract business to Detroit, Bush quit and moved to Chicago.
"One day I said to myself, 'I have to move here,'" said Bush, a Farmington Hills native who recently bought a condo on Chicago's north side. "I felt if I didn't leave, I would be stuck in Michigan. (And) if I don't do it now, I am never going to do it."
Bush is among thousands of young, former Michiganians now living in Chicago, among the top destinations for local college graduates. Young people move to the Windy City for work but also for its big-city amenities, such as the arts and mass transportation.
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Category: Home, WestMichigan
November 27, 2012
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The idea of building a year-round public market to tie the city’s skilled chefs to the region’s big complement of young farmers had already attained an air of inevitability by the time this Midwestern city held its first Restaurant Week three summers ago.
The Downtown Market under construction in Grand Rapids, Mich., will be a center for commerce in culinary arts and food.
Next year, just in time for the fourth annual Restaurant Week, Grand Rapids is scheduled to open the $30 million, 130,000-square-foot Downtown Market, a destination that is expected to attract 500,000 visitors a year. The three-story brick and glass building, under construction in a neighborhood of vacant turn-of-the-20th century warehouses, is intended by its developers to be a state-of-the art center of commerce for the culinary arts and fresh local foods.
Read MoreCategory: GrandRapids, Home, Innovation
November 13, 2012
When was the last time you thought about West Michigan? ...to live? ...to work? ...maybe it's time.
And what better time than November 21st, yes, Thanksgiving Eve.
If you're coming back to West Michigan for the Thanksgiving holiday, there's one event you can't miss: the Hello West MichAGAIN Happy Hour Event. On November 21st, several area companies and non-profit organizations are coming together at a casual happy hour to encourage you to take another look at your hometown.
The West Michigan companies that are participating are interested in recruiting former West Michiganders for current opportunities that they have available. And the friends from our nonprofit, entertainment, and cultural sectors will fill you in on all the great events and initiatives going on within our community.
So if you're going to be in West Michigan for Thanksgiving, stop by Eve at The B.O.B., and discover West Michigan again. It's certainly not the same place you remember!
Date and Time: Thursday, November 21, 2012
5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Eve at The B.O.B.
20 Monroe Avenue NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
The event is free to attend, and more details and registration can be found at http://rightplace.org/hellowestmichagain.aspx.
Category: Home, WestMichigan
November 06, 2012
Holland —It’s not your grandmother’s downtown Holland. Nobody appears to have planned it this way, but entrepreneurs younger than 40 have flocked to downtown Holland this year. At least half a dozen young business owners have set up shops selling everything from beer to T-shirts and offering services that range from arts education to tattoos.
Kara de Alvare, interim director of the Downtown Holland office, which manages the Downtown Development Authority and Principal Shopping District, said although there is a benefit to generations-old cornerstones such as the Fabiano family’s Peanut Store, there’s a benefit to new companies as well.
“I think this town is becoming a place where more and more people feel welcome,” she said. The influx of younger entrepreneurs wasn’t planned by landlords. “I think a lot of it is just happening.”
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Category: Holland, Home