Randal Charlton, Executive in Residence, BOOM! The New Economy

By Randal Charlton, Executive in Residence, BOOM! The New Economy

If you ask Kim Hodge how her TimeBanks work in Detroit, she may well reach into her bag and pull out a ball of colored yarn. She did that recently at a meeting  I attended on the west side of Detroit, and I took part in a banking lesson that appeared more like a Halloween spider web.

There I was in a circle of eight people throwing a ball of wool from person to person. The person with the ball was instructed to ask the assembled company if anyone could help with getting a task done, something, anything, that the individual couldn’t complete unaided. It could be help with building an internet website, transportation, foreign language lessons or work around the house– anything. A hand would go up and the ball would be thrown to the person prepared to carry out the task.

Then, that person would present a new request to the group, and as a hand went up, the ball would be thrown on. Back and forth the ball went with each person holding on to the yarn as they caught it so that in short order, there was a spider web of wool threads crisscrossed between the group.

“There,” said Banker Hodge with satisfaction. “You see you are all connected. You have the collective knowledge and experience to meet the needs of the entire group.”

Welcome to TimeBanks, a concept that, in these difficult economic times, is beginning to spread around the world. Kim Hodge is leading the movement in Michigan, and her leadership was recognized at the recent annual meeting of the Michigan Chapter of AARP, where she was honored with the first-ever Stephen J. Gools Award for Social Change.

Basically, time banks help local communities help each other. In a time bank, everyone’s time is valued equally. You give an hour of your expertise, and you have earned an hour in the bank, which you can use to meet a need you have. Time banks  help people save money, but they do a lot more. “They connect unmet needs to untapped resources, they help people get to know each other and they make communities better places to live and work.”  Another benefit is that there is money involved and no tax.

Each time bank takes a slightly different approach,  depending on the needs of the community, says Kim Hodge. The banks that work best have an organizer who is often a community volunteer.

There is an obvious attraction for older adults who need work done or transportation that they cannot do themselves. In England, there is at least one time bank organized around health care issues. In the U.S., time banks centered on senior care have received grants of $1.2 million from the Robert Wood Foundation. Locally, the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan has provided support.

So far, Kim has helped eight time banks get up and running in Michigan. There are another 40-plus time banks around the U.S. in addition to time banks in 26 countries around the world. Communities in England have established 126 time banks and  seem to be leading the way in adopting the concept,

To find more information on TimeBanks in Southeast Michigan, go to www.mitimebanks.org or write to the Michigan Alliance of Timebanks, 27580 California Drive SE, Lathrup Village, MI 48076.

To see how people are using time banks to build communities around the world, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_banking.

For information on other services and ideas that may be of value to the over-50 crowd, contact :

• Melissa Seifert, Associate State Director of Economic Security, AARP; (517) 267-8934 office; (517) 316-6395 cell; mseifert@aarp.org
• The Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, cfsem.org
• Betsy Creedon, BOOM! The New Economy, betsy@techtownwsu.org

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

A blog by Randal Charlton

Many years ago in another country and another recession, when I was broke and unemployed and had no idea what to do next, I started casting around for ideas. I knew it was no good to continue submitting resumes. I had tried that for more than six months and had gotten nowhere. I was either too old, under-qualified, over-qualified or simply received no response to my carefully crafted letters and delicately tweaked summaries of experience.

In desperation, I decided to go to a government office that was offering to help match skills sets to available opportunities. I made it to the door but somehow couldn’t summon the confidence to push it open. What was I going to tell them? That I had set up several companies, been the CEO of a public company, but was now so desperate I would work as a night watchman if the job was within walking distance? I turned on my heels and walked away.

Instead of relief at avoiding a possible awkward conversation – “tell me, how did you lose everything?” –I felt terrible that I didn’t have the courage to go through an open door. I realized that all the confidence I had ever possessed had drained out of me. I knew right then that if I didn’t summon the will to push every new door in my path open, I was on a journey to nowhere.

I was reminded of this brush with defeat last week when I attended the graduation ceremony of 17 talented executives, all high achievers, all victims of the recent downturn. They had just completed a course called Shifting Gears, at TechTown, sponsored by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

One by one the graduates came up to take the microphone and recounted their experiences in the Shifting Gears course in front of friends and other professionals. Their stories took on the tone of a religious event. They pretty much ignored years of achievement in big corporations managing hundreds of people and focused on the return of their confidence. One volunteered that his priorities had gotten out of whack; others admitted that they had stopped learning and lost the art of networking.

All heaped praise on the Shifting Gears program and the lessons the facilitators had provided to help them regain their confidence, hone their networking skills and reposition themselves for their next career.

Earlier on the same day I attended another event called BOOM! The Entrepreneurs, designed to help seniors – folks over 55 – figure out how they could fit into the new economy that is emerging in America. I had the same feeling: admiration for everyone who attended, including the guy who volunteered that he was broke, because he and everyone else had the guts to take the first step to push the door open on an unknown journey.

The plain fact is that there is a lot more help out there than you might think, and smart networking is the key to identifying the support that will work for you.

Much of that help is right under your nose in TechTown. For example, we have multiple organizations all offering advice and support to startup companies. These include Bizdom U, the Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center (MI-SBTDC), the Urban Entrepreneurs Partnership, and TechTown’s own THRIVE program. Just one of these services, the MI-SBTDC, provided advice to almost 7,000 businesses last year, helped create 566 new businesses and carried out more than 10,000 hours of training.

Push the door open, and you will find there is much more—opportunities for mentoring and internships whatever your age, help from the state through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and help from the federal government through multiple agencies including the Economic Development Administration, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Housing and Urban Development – the list goes on – all eager to support new people, new companies, new jobs and grow exports.

If you didn’t make it to either of last week’s events, you might be interested in just a few of the doors that were mentioned at the meetings. Any one of them may open a pathway to your new career.

• The First Friday networking event every month at TechTown from 4 to 6 p.m.
• Michigan Shifting Gears: training to help you identify your next career move
• THRIVE
• InsYght: 26,000 resources available in Michigan
• Thetransitionnetwork.org: a support group for women over 50
• iBridge: thousands of new ideas available for license
• AutoHarvest: license technology from the auto industry
• MichBio: Michigan’s organization for people in the life science industry
• Small Business Administration: help for emerging businesses
• Export-Import Bank of the United States
• MI-SBTDC
• MEDC
• Urban Entrepreneurship Partnership–a Kauffman Foundation program in Detroit

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

My daughters said that for years I resembled Chester, the “Gunsmoke” deputy who regularly hauled his crippled frame into Marshall Dillon’s office to warn the sheriff that the bad guys were coming.  Now – in my highly-biased opinion – I walk pain-free with the suave arrogance of a runway model thanks to a recent hip replacement surgery.

Few others may notice the change in my gait or similar changes in the way millions of other older people are walking. Approximately 800,000 Americans will have joint replacements this year, and in the last decade approximately 7 million have had procedures. The numbers are rising rapidly as the 78 million citizens born after the Second World War hit 65 and beyond. One market research company estimates the market will be worth more than $9 billion by 2015.

I am told that America leads the world in this field, which is big business for Michigan and U.S. companies that make prosthetics and medical equipment, and also for hospitals, surgeons, physiotherapists and nurses. All this could be good news for Michigan and Detroit and jobs. I also suspect there are some genuine niche opportunities for entrepreneurs looking for a new business idea.

Let’s start with the big picture.

Stryker is a leading public company in the medical device business headquartered in Michigan, but there are others. The Henry Ford Health System and Beaumont Hospital are acknowledged leaders in the field of joint replacements, and there may well be an opportunity to attract medical tourists from oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia as well as the emerging rich in China and India. Why would they come to Detroit and pay more? Quite simply because American surgeons have dramatically more experience with joint replacements, and experience really counts. Joint replacement surgery is relatively new in both China and India, and in Hong Kong, for example, there is a three-year waiting list. So if you were Chinese and rich, would you wait for years or get a Delta flight to Detroit?

Add to that the five-star hotel-standard service I recently experienced during my surgery, and local hospitals could earn valuable overseas business.

As a patient, I also discovered a host of other services and products that could be opportunities for entrepreneurs. Some examples include CDs and websites that dispense music, motivational talks and advice to help patients prepare for surgery. Qualified post-hospital physiotherapy nurses are essential. Then there are a whole raft of gadgets you need when you get home: walkers and sticks, cushions to raise chair levels, gadgets to help put shoes and socks on, seats for showers and baths, sponges with long handles so you don’t have to twist, exercise guides and equipment for home rehab to build up muscle strength, and taxi services to take recovering patients to and from specialized physiotherapy classes. Every taxi service ought to have vehicles with wide doors, high seats and plenty of leg room.

I will soon be back looking at other business opportunities to help grow the Detroit economy, but hip replacement has been a great learning experience. My big takeaway is that we have world-class medical treatment available in Detroit, and the growing population of seniors represents a massive market opportunity.

For more information on local hospitals that offer joint replacement, go to:

Beaumont Health System

Henry Ford Health System

St. John Providence Health System

Detroit Medical Center

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

By Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

To paraphrase Andy Warhol, everyone has their 15 minutes of fame. I had my moment in the limelight when I was way too young to appreciate it.

I was less than two days old when I appeared on the front page of the London Daily Express, a paper with a national circulation in the millions. My father, Warwick Charlton, was photographed in his splendid military uniform holding me in his arms under the headline: “What Shall I Tell My War Baby Son?”

My dad was home on leave for my birth and, like the great journalist he was, Warwick turned an ordinary family event into a page-one story in a paper read by millions of Brits.

Warwick’s story went on: “Will he know who Hitler was; will he care?”

He then speculated about my future and wondered whether I would live under a free society or something else.

Years later, I wasn’t so sure about being characterized as a war baby. It sounded as if – to use a military term – I was collateral war damage, the result of adrenaline-fueled passion at a time when nobody knew what the next day would bring.

So I sought another description for those of us born between 1939 and 1945. I didn’t much care for the alternative I discovered.

We have been classified as the Silent Generation, a miserable description if ever there was one. Nor did I fancy the name for the next category – the Baby Boom Generation – used to describe the 44 million people who were born between 1946 and 1967, when everyone was happy, middle class and had so few problems that they had dozens of kids just to make life a little more challenging.

Now, of course, my Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers are turning 65 in the millions. Calling 65-year-olds babies seems a bit like mutton dressed up as lamb, and calling folks like me silent seems at variance with the truth. So I have come up with a new name for us all – the Hip Generation. Being hip has nothing to do with growing up with Bill Haley and the Comets, Chubby Checker and The Twist, Elvis Presley, wearing ridiculous polyester leisure suits or growing hair down to our waists.

We are the Hip Generation because sooner or later we all get hip and knee replacement surgery, which extends our potentially active lives by a decade or more. I have just had hip surgery and discovered that so has almost everyone else in my age group. That latest figures show that more than 750,000 hip and knee procedures are being carried out every year, and the number is rising rapidly.

After the hassle of having lumps of metal inserted into your body, I can tell you one thing for sure: we want more than to play bridge and shuffleboard and eat early-bird dinners in God’s waiting room otherwise known as Florida.

In my next blog, I will explain why I think this extended active life span of the Hip Generation offers those of you in Generation X and Y and the Millennium Generation a wonderful business opportunity.  Hey, baby, we are a major market, ready and waiting to be exploited.

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

By Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

I smelled him first. He was lying there, dressed in filthy rags, half covered in the loose straw on the barn floor. He was snoring gently. I was a five-year-old sent to look for eggs from the free range hens, and he was not what I expected to find. Frightened half to death, I dropped the basket of eggs I was carrying, ran down the barn steps and raced to the big farm house to sound the alarm about the trespasser.

The adults in the big slate-floored kitchen told me to calm down and gave me some breakfast to take down to the man. “It’s only a poor tramp,” my aunt lectured me. “He won’t hurt you, and he will be on his way directly after he has eaten.”

The folks on the farm in England where I was raised were used to tramps, thousands of harmless broken men who were so traumatized by fighting in the trenches during the 1914-18 World War that even 30 years later they could do nothing more with the rest of their lives but wander the roads of England. At night they sought shelter wherever they could before moving on in an endless search to lose their memories.

Back then, they called the problem shell shock. Today, the living casualties of war–soldiers who have returned from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan–are given a more medical-sounding diagnosis for their invisible sickness: they call it post traumatic stress disorder. Today, with better field medicine, the bodies of returning veterans are often as seriously damaged as their minds.

It worries me when I see the sign leading to the baggage claim at the Detroit airport thanking returning veterans for their service. That’s it? “Thank you; now figure out how to live the rest of your life with your disabilities.”

Of course the Veterans Administration provides continuing medical care, and there are other organizations providing support for some veterans, but how do these millions of men and women fit back into society?

Maybe there are some new pathways that we should explore. Maybe we should recognize that military training teaches modern soldiers to use amazing cutting-edge technology as well as how to function at the highest level under great stress.

The Israelis, who are the world’s experts in using intellectual capital to make something out of a country with no natural resources, place a very high value on modern soldiers. They are sought out by top research universities in Israel and recruited by new high technology companies. The Israelis recognize that modern soldiers understand how to function at maximum efficiency in multi-disciplinary teams. They also have learned how to improvise creative solutions to unforeseen problems. In short, they offer a lot to startup companies gearing up for an economic battle for survival.

So I was encouraged to learn that the Department of Commerce’s Small Business Administration has a loan program specifically designed to help veterans get started with a new business. It is called a Patriot Express loan and offers up to $500,000. Details are contained in an excellent new reference book published by the SBA which lists all the government services available to anyone growing a small business in Michigan.

Veterans also can get support from an experienced support team at TechTown in downtown Detroit. Ex-soldiers will be in familiar territory when they come to our place: they will join us on the front line of an economic battle helping us to create new jobs and rebuild a great city. It’s a battle that, with a little help from a few veterans, we are certain to win.

For information on the SBA Patriot Express loan, go to http://www.sba.gov/content/express-programs.

For details of all SBA services, go to http://www.sba.gov/.

For information on TechTown’s services, contact our intake champion at starthere@techtownwsu.org.

By Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

If Shifting Gears had been around when I was younger, I swear I would never have entered a rodeo and ridden an unbroken wild horse in front of a few thousand amused onlookers.

Prior to this disastrous exercise, I had embarked on a perfectly sensible career in agricultural science and was studying at a prestigious university in England. I was passionate about my subject and could talk for hours about different breeds of cattle, varieties of corn and the correct fertilizer rates for different crops. This was a problem for some people around me, including my first serious girlfriend.

“You’ve got to face facts, you’re very boring,” my best friend told me as I drowned my sorrows in the local English pub after being dumped. “You can’t change your personality, but you can change your career,” my friend advised. “You need to get into a line of work that has a little more excitement.”

It was at that point that my eye caught a poster on the pub wall advertising an American-style rodeo. “Okay,” I declared, “bring on the broncos. That ought to impress the lady.”

It didn’t. Even though I managed to stay on the horse for several seconds, I convinced my ex that my brain was indeed so full of agricultural trivia that the balance of my mind was disturbed.

Today, anyone seeking a career change for whatever reason can get more measured, thoughtful advice from a program we are running at TechTown called Shifting Gears, developed at Ann Arbor SPARK. Currently, we have seventeen men and women going through the course, which helps talented, well-qualified people understand the adjustments you need to make when moving from a large corporation to a small startup.

Individuals attending Shifting Gears receive a great deal of guidance. We all need it. Going from big business to a startup is, in my humble opinion, not all that different from changing a seat on a staid John Deere tractor for one on a bucking bronco.

As a part of the Shifting Gears program, participants fulfill internships with local companies. If your company is interested in hosting interns, please click here.

If you’re shifting gears yourself and would like to enroll in a future program, click here.

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

In the late 1950s, Wangari Maathai set out to change the world carrying a severe handicap.  She was a young woman in Kenya, an African country where many men publicly regarded females as their property.  Education of females was not encouraged, and the public expression of opinion by women was regarded as a direct challenge to authority.

Her determination to get the best education available took to her to the U.S. and Germany, and she became the first woman in Kenya to hold a doctorate and become a professor, marking her as a problem for the ruling elite. Furthermore, she did not endear herself to the government when she declared that her country was being destroyed by the unregulated clearing of its vast forests, which, she pointed out, was causing critical changes in water tables and turning once-fertile agricultural land into dust.

Professor Maathai decided that it was no good waiting for the government to come to a consensus and do the right thing. The people had to take charge of their own future, so she began a movement among the impoverished women of the country to plant trees. The political leaders declared her mad and, among other things, a woman of doubtful morality. At one point she was arrested and thrown into jail, and another time she was threatened with assassination.

Wangari Maathai

Professor Maathai’s struggles against authority came to mind this past week as I listened to an excellent panel of speakers that had been assembled at TechTown by the online magazine Xconomy.  Xconomy’s editor Bob Buderi wanted to know what Detroit would look like in 20 years’ time. One member of the panel, the distinguished scientist Dr. Roger Newton, expressed the view that Detroit had the resources and talent to do great things but expressed concern that the Michigan political culture would hold back change and progress. He cited our tribalism and inability to collaborate across political boundaries for the common good.

It was at that point that I thought of Professor Maathai. She faced a far more intimidating political and social climate, yet she ignored the authorities who didn’t understand the importance of the environment, the impact of climate change and the critical need to preserve forestry. When the country’s leaders expressed concern, skepticism and even outright opposition, Professor Maathai mobilized the women of Kenya and several other African countries, and over a number of years they planted 20 million–yes, 20 million– trees.  She and thousands of her followers often ignored the need for permits and permissions and literally got down on their knees and planted seedlings in land that was once valuable forestry and had been denuded by years of exploitation. In the process, they changed both the real and the political climate.

Detroit has thousands of acres of barren land and empty spaces that will only increase as our population continues to drop from its high of 1.8 million to the current 714,000 to perhaps under half a million in 20 years’ time. By following the Kenyan example, we can create a smaller yet far more beautiful and environmentally friendly city over the next 20 years.

The officials of Detroit, like those in Kenya, may well struggle to adjust city ordinances to embrace change. Recently, for example, after endless debate, well-intentioned city authorities gave permission for a small urban farming project but only on condition that the food could not be sold locally. This would be a bizarre decision at any time but is especially difficult to comprehend considering that Detroiters find it easier to find a party store than a fresh parsnip, food prices have risen worldwide by 38 percent, and hunger is still the main problem facing mankind.

The lesson from Professor Maathai is that ordinary citizens should just do it. We might even go one better and plant flowering cherries, apples and other native Michigan trees that produce stunningly beautiful blossoms. Who knows? In 20 years, these mature trees might turn Detroit into a springtime tourist destination.

The good news is that there are several organizations in Detroit that are working hard to turn it into a Green City. They rely mostly on donations and volunteers, but they have the support of the local press and recently received support from the federal government under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

If you are worried about suffering the same fate as Professor Maathai by becoming a tree hugger, you should know that her madness was eventually recognized as real leadership. She is now one of the most honored individuals in the world: she has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and has been honored by organizations on every continent, including, in 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to humanity. We could give her one more prize by planting all the empty spaces of Detroit with trees, turning Motown into the greenest city in America and making Professor Maathai an honorary citizen.

For information on Xconomy, go to www.Xconomy.com/Detroit.

To learn about Professor Maathai, go to www.NobelPrize.org or read her biography on Wikipedia.

To learn about getting involved in planting trees or urban agriculture in Detroit, go to The Greening of Detroit.

To buy trees or anything else to improve the environment, go to www.detroiteasternmarket.com

For a comprehensive guide to the green movement, go to the Detroit Free Press site on green leaders at www.freep.com/green.

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

You have to innovative to survive, Americans are told constantly. Our labor costs are high, so we had better come up with new products or new solutions to old problems. If that is true, how do you explain the success of a little company in Indiana that sells all over the world a range of products that have been around for years?

There’s nothing very innovative about masking tape, for example, yet ABRO Industries, a small business based in South Bend, Indiana, has exported so much of this old-fashioned but useful item to dozens of countries that if the rolls of tape they have sold were laid out end to end, it would encircle the globe 91 times. Surprisingly perhaps, ABRO Industries does not do a single dollar’s worth of business in South Bend or anywhere else in America. They survive and thrive on exporting everyday products under the American brand.

In addition to masking tape, the company exports a range of consumer products as ordinary as car polish, batteries, super glue and lubricants for various types of engines. They market everything under the ABRO brand which leaves the buyer in no doubt that he or she is buying American. An American eagle stares out from the side of the container of motor oil against a backdrop of stars and stripes.

The plain fact is the rest of the world values American products and American quality, ABRO’s CEO Peter Baranay told the recent annual Ex-Im Bank conference in Washington, D.C. You just have to market your products clearly under the American brand and use the resources of Ex-Im Bank to help you sell worldwide.

Peter Baranay began using Ex-Im Bank’s services in 2002, and sales and jobs have grown dramatically for the company that still calls itself a small business, even though it sells to 175 countries around the world.

Other small businesses at the conference also had tales of export success for products and services that have been around for awhile. One single-person consultancy small business received an inquiry from Saudi Arabia but needed a performance bond to support their contract. Ex-Im Bank provided it. Another needed to finance receivables before payment was received from overseas. Ex-Im provided a guarantee to the company’s bank. Yet another small business needed insurance before they could move forward with a deal worth $300,000. They received notice of cover within five days of applying. “Express insurance is a new service we have rolled out for small businesses,” said Ex-Im Bank president Fred Hochberg. “We are setting out to provide government (services) at the speed of business.”

Of course, it helps to break out into the world market with a product that is innovative and not easily copied, but there are millions outside America seeking products and services that we have come to regard as everyday staples. “Over 400 million Indians do not have a light bulb in their home,” said one conference speaker. In sub-Saharan Africa, economies are growing on the back of their raw materials, and they need a wide range of consumer goods. And millions of the world’s population apparently do not have masking tape.

For information on the services available to help small businesses sell everyday staples or innovative products around the world, visit www.exim.gov or email Ex-Im Bank at smallbizhelp@exim.gov.

You can check out the way ABRO Industries brands its products at www.abro.com.

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

By Randal Charlton

I am not sure if you know it, but you own a share in a bank. This bank is involved in providing insurance and underwriting loans of one sort or another to countries all over the world, to places as far flung as Vladivostok in Russia and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The bank underwrites some pretty big deals to clients that might not be easy to collect from if they did not pay promptly.

However, the bank president, Fred B. Hochberg, wants you to relax. Speaking at the institution’s annual conference last week, Hochberg declared that he was in the sleep business: giving his shareholders and customers such a feeling of security that they all get a good night’s sleep.

Hochberg’s ability to persuade you to his way of thinking may be the single most important thing in America’s ability to recover from this great recession. The bank he runs is the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which is owned by taxpayers like you, and its job is to help meet President Obama’s target of doubling American exports by 2015. Why is Ex-Im so important? Quite simply, it is because exporting is the key to getting our balance of payments right as a nation.  In the new global economy, there are more rich and middle-class customers with disposable income outside this country than within.

The problem is that only one in 100 companies in America is currently involved in export, and these are mostly big companies. By comparison, in Germany, 12 companies in 100 trade internationally, and you get an idea of the competition. Hochberg’s job is to persuade small companies that they too can go after business beyond U.S. borders where 95 percent of the world’s customers are located, and they can do so with financial support and comprehensive insurance from Ex-Im Bank.

American taxpayers became owners in Ex-Im back at the height of the Great Depression. On February 2, 1934, as part of his effort to persuade Americans that they had nothing to fear but fear itself, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order creating this institution.  Never one to do things by halves, a month later the President created a second export-import bank. The first bank was established to support trade with Russia, the second to underwrite trade with Cuba, but Congress eventually amalgamated both banks into one.

Seventy-seven years later the Ex-Im Bank established in the Great Depression had a record-breaking year. It made money for you and other U.S. taxpayers but, more importantly, it supported more than $33 billion in export sales in 2010, which created an estimated 227,000 jobs.

Last week, at Ex-Im Bank’s annual conference in Washington D.C., I sat next to a lady who said she had been attending Ex-Im Bank conferences for nearly 30 years. “I have never seen a crowd quite like this,” she said as she looked around a room full of 900 attendees. The crowd, however, was overwhelmingly made up of financial insiders – bankers and insurance experts. Hochberg’s challenge is to go beyond the experts and the Fortune 500 companies who know about Ex-Im Bank and its services and make contact with small businesses like those at TechTown. Together with the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Manufacturers Association, Ex-Im Bank has launched an initiative to connect with 5,000 small businesses and support their interest in exports.

To find out how the bank you own can help you go global and get a good night’s sleep, go to http://www.exim.gov.

Or, if you are a Twitterer, go to http://www.twitter/eximbankus.

The phone number is (800) 565-3946.

Randal Charlton, Executive Director, TechTown

By Randal Charlton

It was Hollywood in the early 1960s. The phone rang in the office of Ellis Arnall, the president of the Motion Picture Association.

“Hi, Ellis. It’s Walt, Walt Disney. Listen Ellis, I have a job for you. I want to open up a Disney World on the East Coast, and I figure Orlando is the perfect location. I would really appreciate it if you would get over there and quietly buy up as much land as you can. You own some cattle back in Georgia, don’t you, so you will not cause too much of a fuss acquiring a few million acres of property in a neighboring state.”

The distinguished former governor sat back in his chair and mopped his brow. “Walt, have you ever been to Orlando? It’s a tiny cow town surrounded by swamp land that is fit to grow poor grass and plenty of palmetto trees and harbor big ole gators and poisonous snakes. There isn’t a decent airport, and the hotels may be okay for cracker cowboys, but they don’t fuss about sharing accommodation with roaches. Besides, Orlando is on the route to nowhere.”

“Trust me, Ellis, we’re going to turn Orlando and Mosquito County into a tourist Mecca. I’ve mailed a check to your law office. Just buy low. Mickey Mouse and I will sell high.”

And so a man with vision and a man with smarts began the process of turning an insignificant few streets bordered by live oaks draped with Spanish moss into one of the world’s great tourist destinations and a major American city.

I thought about the rise of Orlando today as everyone was wailing and gnashing their teeth at the news that Detroit had lost one quarter of its population. To some it was confirmation that the city was on an irreversible path to obscurity.

So the phone rings again and it’s Walt Disney. The guy at the other end of the phone is Henry Ford.

“Hi Henry, this is Walt Disney. Listen, I’d appreciate your help. I want to turn Detroit into the center of American innovation and art and entrepreneurship, the hub of NAFTA trade, a model for the new American city of the 21st century and the place that leads the world out of recession. It’s the perfect location, we have plenty of water–an increasingly precious resource and …”

“Land is at rock bottom prices,” says the founder of Ford Motor Company, picking up on Walt’s words. “There are millions of square feet of empty office space going begging, factories are available at giveaway prices and the United States is still the biggest market in the world. It’s the perfect first location for new immigrants who are three times more entrepreneurial than native-born Americans.”

“There is a massive surplus of housing at all sizes,” Ford continue. “You can buy a palace for next to nothing, and–get this–Wayne State University, the Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit Medical Center are even offering financial incentives to buy or rent a house.”

“You got it!” says Walt with conviction. “This is an easy deal compared to persuading families to vacation in cracker country. There are no gators or snakes.”

“There is just one problem,” says Henry, rubbing his chin. “You and I are ghosts. We would never get a notary public to certify our signatures.”

There is a long pause on the other end of the phone. “You have a point,” concedes Walt. “But aren’t there still 714,000 live bodies in the city we could get to come in on the deal?”

For details of housing subsidies and grants, visit http://livemidtown.org/.