More on Why Detroit Rocks...The Story Never Ends

Yes, that's right. We in the Detroit area are a winning combination of classy and funky, tough and tender, and funny (sometimes, even comical). We are much more, of course. Detroit's Nicole Rupersburg, 29, who relaunched herself as a culinary tour guide after being laid off, was quoted in Fortune magazine as saying "This city is a blank slate. It's not a world of wealth and prestige and structure. Detroit is what you make of it, and here you are what you make of yourself." Who could ask for more than that?

In an article entitled "If You Can Remake Yourself Here...You Can Do It Anywhere," Fortune details the careers of 5 different people in our area who have reinvented themselves in "the toughest place for second acts." See if you can recognize the cities they come from, and realize just how close they are to you:

Canton, MI: Daniel Gizaw, 53, was hired as an engineer at GM to invent their first electric car, the EV1, in the 1990's. From there he decided he could innovate more nimbly outside a giant company and recruited two colleagues to help him build Danotek, a company which is building super efficient wind turbines. With startup funding from sources like Detroit's Automation Alley, and a renewed emphasis on wind power world-wide, the company is enjoying a power surge of growth. Says Daniel: "Don't limit yourself to the sector you're in. Look into growing industries and ask, 'What can I offer?'"

Plymouth, MI: Gerry Cox, 47, was finance director of drug giant Pfizer's R & D unit in Ann Arbor, but lost his job due to a major downsizing. Rejecting an offer to continue with the company in New York City, he decided to pursue his dream of starting a new company. He and another former Pfizer scientist went through entrepreneurial "boot camp" at Ann Arbor SPARK's Business Accelerator, refining their plan to offer early-stage drug-testing services to medium-size drugmakers. Their firm, Velesco, hired other Pfizer laid-off scientists and got $800,000 in loans from a state development fund. Their timing was good, and profits are taking off. Cox says, "You have to be mentally strong and focus on the right business niche. If you spread yourself thin in this environment, you struggle."

Detroit, MI: Angela Davis, 38, put her dream of working in the medical profession on hold when she had her first son at age 21. Instead, she went to Chrysler and worked assembling engines. She kept her dream alive by taking classes to prepare for nursing school, so when Chrysler laid her off in 2007, she was ready to get back on course. In a two-year nursing program for displaced autoworkers, run by Detroit's Henry Ford Health System and Oakland University in Rochester, Angela completed her training and will be taking her certification exam in November. From there, she will pursue her master's degree and become a nurse practitioner.

Bloomfield Hills, MI: Sheila Ann Wright, 43, left her engineering job at Chrysler to stay home with her two young children. Just as the kids reached school age and she was ready to return to a job, Chrysler began cutting them. Luckily for her, however, her engineer's mind never took a day off. While caring for her children she came up with a tiny recording device she named the Talkatoo, that could capture her voice and be played back by a small child. When Amazon named the device as a "top holiday gift pick" for 2010, Wright produced an inventory of 15,000 units, at $16.99. Her advice to new inventors: Hang in there. "It's going to take twice as long and cost twice as much money as you think."

Detroit, MI: Allan Gilmour, 76, came out of retirement in 2002 to return as Ford Motor Company's vice chairman. His goal was simply to bring stability to a place wracked by financial turmoil. Eight years later, the board of Wayne State University, shaken by the sudden loss of its president, asked Gilmour to step in again to bring stability, this time as its interim president. Gilmour was not an academic; his life had been the auto industry. But he said "I am a believer that most people are less able to decide what they can do than outsiders are. So if the board thought I could do this, they were probably right." Ten years ago Gilmour was seen as a force for diversity, as one of the few openly gay top executives in America. Now, he's seen as a critical link between education and Michigan's economic future. He has no patience with whining, or complacency in the workforce. "There's a sense of 'Why do I have to adjust? This will come back; I'll be fine again.' But no, they won't be fine. They need to train-not for today's jobs but for tomorrow's."

What does all this prove to those naysayers of our fine state? That just because someone moved our cheese, doesn't mean we won't find it. Look out world! We are unstoppable, once we remember who we are.

Time to Remember Who We Are

In the past few months, it has become more common to speak of the housing and financial crises in the past tense. Recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced the recession ended in June 2009. And while 2010 has hardly been a booming year, job losses have slowed and housing prices have begun to stabilize. No one's striking up the band, but we are slowly regaining our balance.

Or are we? In the past couple months, the banking industry has been sullied with stories of major flaws in the way it forecloses on homeowners who have stopped making their mortgage payments (a lot of people). With a new wave of foreclosures that may top 1 million homes, banks have hired tons of new people inexperienced in the industry to handle the avalanche of paperwork. The result? Foreclosures were being processed by "robo-signers," people who lacked knowledge or experience in the industry, signing as many as 10,000 foreclosure affidavits per month (about 500 a day). Anyone who's ever reviewed mortgage paperwork knows that it's impossible to read that much. Now, a new foreclosure scandal emerges. And Americans, facing yet another economic crisis, are reeling.

The fact is, the latest wave of foreclosures is just another effect of the housing bubble. And banks are doing what banks do; they earn money by taking in deposits and lending it out again at a higher rate. When faced with bad loans, they have to get them off the books to stay solvent. The days of easy credit are over, and many Americans are now angered with demands for what seems like onerous documentation. But "easy" credit got us all (banks and people) into this trouble, and sounder financial policies are needed. It's a hard fact we all must accept.

Yet even with the foreclosure crisis, almost 90% of people with mortgages remain current, and over one-third of all homes are owned outright. This should help put things in perspective.

Yes, the latest round of foreclosures is tough on many. But if we as a country keep focusing only on the empty part of the glass, we are not helping the people going through it. With a sluggish economy and a bleak constituency, a revival of rehiring or the return of anything but mediocre growth is impossible.

Can it be that the country always known as the "can do" nation is now saying "I can't"? For decades, we have been a beacon of hope for people from other countries who saw us as the land of opportunity. We still are. Yet so many of us are hurting that it almost seems as if we as a country have retreated to lick our wounds. I understand this, but we have no time for it. It is time to accept, then act. It's time to remember who we are.

There are those among us who are doing this. Like Andrew Mason, age 30, Founder and CEO of Groupon, a website that offers discounts on local goods and services if enough people sign up. Starting with an idea and a website in 2008, it has now amassed 18 million subscribers, and attracted $175 million in funding.

Or Kevin Plank, 38, Founder and CEO of Under Armour, whose sports apparel firm is on a roll. Up 60% this year with sales expected to hit $1 billion for the first time. But his focus is on his next conquest; sales of women's apparel (currently just 25% of sales). Says Kevin, "There is no time for 'loser talk' about the economy limiting growth. We have to go and grow!"

Well said. We have never been known as a nation of whiners, and now is no time to start. Yes, it's tough. Jobs have been lost that may not return, foreclosures are booming and in a divorce, it's the rare couple with any equity in their home. Clearly, someone's moved our cheese.

But let's remember what we do have. North America is the only part of the industrialized world that will be growing in people. It now has a higher birthrate than Mexico, for the first time in history. Those are promising numbers, yet even more than that, is our heart. Alcoa's German-born Klaus Kleinfeld, previously the head of Siemens, says: "I know the things that America has that are unique. The openness, the diversity, the dynamism--you don't have it anywhere else. If you keep all these things, build on them, I still believe in the American Dream."

So do I. How about you?