Ann Arbor's International Welcome Mat

Arizona, be damned. Attracting immigrants and foreign investment is a key to reviving Michigan's economy, according to a growing mix of local and regional business development efforts.

Ann Arbor SPARK's Cultural Ambassadors (CA) seek to inspire businesses from outside the U.S. to set up shop in Washtenaw County or to partner with local businesses, as well as keep well-educated talent on the scene.

"Cool" is Bill Milliken's assessment of the volunteer Cultural Ambassador program. Milliken, principal of Ann Arbor commercial brokerage Milliken Realty Co., served on the organizing committee. Rick Snyder, Republican candidate for Michigan governor, is credited with the original idea.

"Cool" and "business development"are seldom partnered in a sentence. The growing popularity of programs such as SPARK's and other local efforts brings the two concepts together.

"[The ambassadors] often travel abroad. Many have businesses based in multiple countries. They take our message with them," says founding committee member Elizabeth Parkinson, SPARK's vice president of marketing and communications.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, 80.6% of people counted in Ann Arbor spoke English as their first language. Non-native speakers – 19.4% – spoke Chinese or Mandarin (3.2%), Spanish (3.1%), Korean (1.9%), German (1.2%), Japanese (1.1%) and French (1%) as their first language.

Last January, SPARK retooled the CA program from a country-by-country focus (Team India, Team China) to an action-driven approach, eliminating duplication of efforts between 14 existing country groups. "It makes more sense to organize on activity and desired outcome rather than country: Retention and attraction, trade missions, working across boundaries. We'll focus separately on the cultural side," Parkinson says.

Immigration expert and CA steering committee member Karen McAmmond says, "Working on the Cultural Ambassadors program is phenomenal. It's a wonderful mix of individuals, all really interested in business and cultural issues as well as Washtenaw County."

They aren't alone. Similar local efforts, on a smaller scale, work toward the same goal. Michigan Israel Business Bridge (MIBB) is a non-profit corporation aimed at increasing two-way business collaboration between the state and Israel. "Michigan and Israel have similar economies, an educated workforce, focus on technology and science. Both are rebuilding economies around life sciences and alternative energy. These efforts always start out small. It takes time to build relationships," says Rich Sheridan, MIBB board of directors member and president of Menlo Innovations.

The Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau has just launched a Japanese language website to encourage tourism. It's intended to increase Ann Arbor's visibility to 90 million Internet users in Japan and 374,000 Japanese residents in the US, according to an AAACVB press release. Washtenaw County is home to 14 Japanese companies, including American Honda, Dexter Fastener, Horiba Instruments, IMRA America and the Toyota Technical Center. Asia, in particular, is a strong focus of SPARK's CA program, focusing on: Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, India.

When SPARK hosts companies for attraction or retention visits, the ambassadors have been very helpful, Parkinson says. "We can talk about incentives and programs. It's so nice to have native speakers giving personal opinions and views, people who own a business here, raise a family here, know what it's like to be a foreign national living in Michigan."

Ann Arbor entrepreneur and Russian CA volunteer Michael Tarasev says it's more important to speak as a proponent of an international program with shared challenges and goals than in support of one country or ethnicity. He owns Blaze Medical Devices, a small Ann Arbor company that develops testing systems for blood banking. Building such a program takes time: Results are long in coming, but with three years and counting, the SPARK cultural ambassadors believe they'll start seeing benefits soon, Tarasev adds.

Although immigration is not a focus of any of the local programs, it looms large on the business landscape. We need to make it easier for more talented people with relevant experience will stay in Ann Arbor and start businesses, Tarasev says. "I'm talking about foreign-born people with advanced degrees. So much effort goes into their education at U-M and other local universities. Then they have to leave us – for careers elsewhere."

"We cannot and should not try to retain everybody," he adds, "but structure it in such a way that people with good ideas, good plans will think about Ann Arbor, Detroit, Michigan in general rather than automatically turning their eyes anywhere else - starting with Boston and California and ending with their native countries.”

SPARK volunteer Karen McAmmond is immigration services business manager for Miller Canfield. She provides the CA program with updates on immigration law and legislation. The length of work visas may vary from one to seven years. Gaining visas for foreign workers can be problematic, she says. "Depending on the work visa category, it can be more difficult than a year ago to bring people here. The type of temporary visa that's available depends on work status. There are greater challenges with some categories."

A recent development may help. Governor Jennifer Granholm declared the entire state of Michigan a targeted employment area, creating a statewide EB-5 Zone. The federal EB-5 program is designed to attract foreign entrepreneurs, who gain special immigration status by investing a minimum of $1 million and creating at least 10 jobs.

Three years ago when the CA program launched, Bill Milliken recalls a SPARK meeting with US Senator Carl Levin to request visa changes to help Ann Arbor retain students graduating with advanced technical degrees. Levin applauded the idea but said there was no hope of passing such a proposal.

The climate is still difficult.

"There is an unfortunate confluence of the concepts 'illegal' and 'immigration' associated in the media. The majority of people who come were from other countries come here legally,"says Rich Sheridan of the MIBB board.

Despite brain drain and a challenging economy, local business developers see progress, if only in broader regional pick-up of the cultural ambassador idea. "We've had more and more interest from the University of Michigan. The International Center is involved. There's growing student interest – (foreign-born students) getting MBAs, looking to stay, want to know how they can help with recruiting companies here," Parkinson says.

"Weekly and monthly, we partner with other organizations in southeastern Michigan. The Cultural Ambassadors program is a model for Global Detroit."