What’s “Good For Grand Rapids” is “Good For Michigan”
On September 20, Local First announced Good For Michigan, an expansion of its Good for Grand Rapids initiative across the state.
Lowell
This bedroom community offers a vintage small town lifestyle within a 20 minute drive of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan's second largest economic and cultural center. No wonder it's billed as "the next place to be." Here's your guide to Lowell:
HireReach: Hiring strategy that reduces biases unexpectedly increased diversity
https://www.mercyhealth.com/Michigan Works! and Talent 2025 are launching HireReach, an initiative based on Mercy Health’s Evidence Based Selection Process (EBSP) that seeks to reduce turnover and improve job performance. EBSP has also increased diversity.
All hail the bartender! Veteran West Michigan drink-slingers tell their tales
The bartender is a fixture in dives and restaurants and often serves as a sounding board for life's concerns. To celebrate the profession, four veteran bartenders took a moment to open their lives and careers, expressing the heart of bartending in West Michigan. Here are their stories, so raise a glass.
Livable transportation engineer to share place-making strategies with West Michigan communities
As part of their “Series on Sustainable Transportation and Innovative Community Design,” the Macatawa Area Coordinating Council (MACC), Ottawa County Department of Public Health, and Ottawa County Planning and Performance Improvement Department have invited West Michigan’s city planners, developers, and citizenry to join those conversations, led by nationally-acclaimed speaker and livable transportation engineer, Ian Lockwood, P.E.
Young Professional Spotlight: Brandy Arnold
Rapid Growth Media sits down with local leader Brandy Arnold of Kids' Food Basket to talk about her place in the city.
Working in the City: Angela Nelson
RG chats with Experience GR and 616 Grand Production’s Angela Nelson about how she spends her days, what she is working on, and get serious with career talk.
Strictly Business: The women who own Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is already home to many women owned and operated businesses, and with this development boom we are likely to see a continued rise in women's ownership and leadership. Nationally, business growth among women entrepreneurs continues to be on the rise.
UIX: From leaf to relief, RefuTea helps refugees and others at every level of its operation
Autumn Modena and Jenna Petersen founded RefuTea to help refugees, many from tea-producing countries. RefuTea is involved in ethical business partnerships at every step of the tea-making process, and donates a portion of profits to resettlement programs.
Bigger is better: Fat tire bikes roam winter trails
To catch a glimpse of nature and a one-of-a-kind ride, fat tire cyclists take to West Michigan's trails during the winter, spurning ideas about unbearable cold weather that forces us indoors.
