Oakland County, Michigan -- 1993
Chapter One
Business and Industry
Overall, 1993 was another splendid year in the fairly remarkable evolution of Michigan's leading economic producer -- Oakland County. Job growth remained consistent. Quality of life continued to be superlative. Diversity took hold like never before ... both in the economic structure of one of America's leading counties, by most measurements, and in the makeup of its people, its retail identity and its centers of culture.
Service industries led the various categories of job growth in 1993, a year in which Oakland County gained more than 17,000 new jobs, according to the University of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. Business and professional services led the way, with health services and social services accounting for most of the remaining job gains.
For Oakland County, the news of positive job numbers in 1993 was part of a consistent pattern. Throughout its more than 150 years as a settled area north of Detroit, Oakland County has confounded observers with its steady growth, the systematic development of its dynamic infrastructure and in the county's apparent lock on all Michigan counties in terms of economic clout. Considerable attention has been paid to the growth in service industries. And, rightly so.
Oakland County's annual growth rate of 3.2 percent during the 1980s was the highest of any major local economy in Michigan. By 1993, there were twice as many jobs in services as in manufacturing. "It's clear that over the past decade Oakland County has been the fore-runner in the state," wrote University of Michigan researchers George A. Fulton and Donald R. Grimes, economists with the university's Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations.
A longtime leader in development among Michigan's 83 counties, Oakland County achieved a lead position in the 1980s as the state's leading economic powerhouse. Prior to the 1980s, Oakland County's dominance took hold in bits and pieces. Through the 1980s, that lock on economic leadership became a clear-blown fact of life. Oakland County called itself a world class community. And no one took exception.
Breaking out the superlatives, chroniclers of Oakland life talked about a local lifestyle, balanced by character, enhanced by quality, imposed against a climate of competitiveness and zest for all things good in life. It swelled up throughout the spirit of the area ... and it found its truest identity in the vibrancy of the local economy, as measured in terms of job growth.
Looking ahead, the researchers predicted continued job growth in the service industry, as well as in finance, some manufacturing industries including fabricated metals, chemicals, plastics, printing and publishing and instruments. "Oakland County will continue to be the major force propelling Michigan into the 21st century," Fulton and Grimes concluded.
By all indicators, 1993 was a pivotal year for Oakland County. From a perspective of pure demographics, the late-1980s and early-1990s had been characterized by relatively sluggish economic growth. Mirroring the national economy, Oakland County -- and all of Michigan for that matter -- saw industrial growth trending negatively and other less-than-heartening sluggishness, from construction to retail to other sectors of the economy. Some 11,000 private sector jobs were lost in 1991 -- the first decline since 1982.
By 1993, that trend was reversed ... and Oakland County again stood out within the state of Michigan as undisputed economic leader.
US. Census figures cast a clear light on the amazing economic incubator that Oakland County has become ... and continues to be. In 1980, 29 percent of county jobs were in manufacturing; by the next census, ten years later, that had been reduced to 17.8 percent. During the same approximate time period, jobs in the service sector grew from 88,000 to 184,000. By 1993, the number was well over 200,000 ... and growing.
Studies indicated service jobs blossomed in Oakland County because of the well-educated workforce in the area. "We believe one reason jobs are being created in Oakland County is that it has a well educated labor force ready and able to fill the jobs in the fast-growing service sector," one study concluded. "The marriage of good employment opportunities and people who are qualified to take advantage of them is what makes Oakland County one of the strongest local economies not only in Michigan but in the entire United States."
There is great logic in measuring "a place" -- in this case, a county -- with primary respect to its economic quality of life. Without that base, life in Oakland County would lose not only its magnificence but also its capacity for continuance. Powerful and well-positioned in commerce and development, Oakland County is much more than an economic success story.
1993 found Oakland County at the forefront in southeast Michigan ... not only in economic terms but also in a broader, more fully balanced sense. Measuring "intangibles" is both illusive and appropriate when you consider the full scope of virtues, such as Oakland County's highly evolved transportation systems, including a total of 87 miles of toll-free interstate freeways; its aesthetic values, embodied in the multi-textured cultural ethnicity of the area and its people; its 515 lakes, including major bodies of water like Cass Lake, Orchard Lake and endless strings of water extending throughout Orion Township, Commerce Township, and several points west and north; its infinite charm as expressed in dozens of nurturing communities.
You can't put a price tag on the feeling imparted by geese flying over a tranquil lake. And you can't attach value to what it means to be within easy driving distance of some of the best restaurants, shopping and general services anywhere in North America. Still, you can draw meaning from the existence of these treasures of civilization. Afterall, they too define life in Oakland County, circa 1993. If nothing else, Oakland County is a cornucopia of diversity, splendor, institutions, industry and unmistakably pleasant life styles.
To understand Oakland County in 1993, you might turn first to a telling statistical reference -- the fact that 28 percent -- or 163,000 acres -- are categorized residential. Population exceeded 1,125,000 in 1993 ... with new centers like Rochester Hills, Clarkston and White Lake Township continuing to push the center of population gravity to the north. Let the record state, that "pushing" effect had appeared to have reached its limits by 1993. Nearly half -- or 42 percent -- of the county remained agricultural and vacant ... and only 9.1 percent, or 53,000 acres, was being used for institutional, commercial or industrial purposes.
If you're coming out of the pure forest, Oakland County may seem like a citadel of new office buildings. It's true. Oakland County has its share of office buildings -- some 55 million square feet of office space, in fact, with the City of Southfield (20 million square feet of office space) and the City of Troy (13 million square feet) leading the way. In the overall scope of things, office space is but a sub-feature to a landscape that is more likely to include field, forest or farmyard ... or at least a quaint subdivision, etched along the tumbled edge of what once was Farmer Johnson's cornfield.
Having established diversity as a theme to be taken seriously, even within an economic context, it is safe to repeat that Oakland County achieved a lead position in the 1980s as Michigan's economic powerhouse. From high tech manufacturing to financing, from service industries to traditional retail activities, Oakland County by 1993 had become -- and locked its grip on the distinction of remaining -- Michigan's preeminent center of commerce and development.
As mentioned, service and manufacturing companies, including high technology, biotechnology and a variety of industries, combined to make Oakland County the virtual job center of the 1,300-square-mile Detroit Metropolitan Area.
Major firms headquartered in Oakland County in 1993 included Michigan National Corporation; Chrysler Corporation; Kmart Corporation; Kelly Services; Core Industries, Inc.; Handleman Company; Thorn Apple Valley: Alexander Hamilton Life Insurance; The Budd Company; and Dupont Automotive Products. In addition, major companies in the research and development field such as Eaton Corporation, Fanuc Robotics North America, Inc. and Ingersoll-Rand Co. operated in Oakland County, along with 35 percent of Michigan's other R&D firms.
Major foreign firms operating in Oakland County numbered 367, representing some 21 countries. They included Canada's Kelsey-Hayes; Molmec Raymond Fasterner Co. of France; Volkswagen of America, Inc., from Germany; Japan's Nissan Trading Corp. USA; and Denby's International from the United Kingdom.
In all, Oakland County boasted a resident workforce of 600,000 in 1993, producing $73 billion in goods and services. More than 2,700 companies alone were engaged in manufacturing; another 127 firms in research and development, making Oakland County the state leader in that category and a major player both nationally and internationally in robotics and other high-tech fields.
To understand Oakland County in 1993, you need to appreciate a few things. First is proximity. Start with proximity to the Great Lakes Region -- where more than 50 million people work and live. Oakland County is at the heart of that broad concentric that stretches from upstate New York, across Ohio and Ontario, Canada, through Michigan and into Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. From a business and industry perspective, it's an awesome place to be. Oakland County, for the record, is situated within a 500 mile radius of half of all manufacturing taking place in the United States.
With free trade agreements in the wind, Oakland's easy access to Canada and shipping channels connecting through the Detroit River and the St. Lawrence Seaway is an even bigger asset. Add to that the fact Oakland County is less than an hour's drive from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which connects directly to 76 American cities and several points beyond, and the picture continues to build.
It's a picture of a still-relatively tranquil area -- a 910-square-mile county, poised on the northern edge of Detroit's Wayne County -- that has taken on legitimate world class stature. Clearly the process surged in the 1920s and '30s, when the automobile industry spilled into Oakland County as Detroit boomed and ran out of room for it's proliferating factories -- and factory workers' homes.
The automobile industry propelled Oakland County into a world class competitor. And that industry continues to set the pace locally. But, as a singular player, it is no longer alone.
What's happened has been like the slow but intractable evolution of a forest. It started in Oakland County with the presence of many rivers, which beget many mills. The mills became beacons for commerce. Soon Oakland County was a hub of something called the buggy industry. Soon buggies turned to automobiles. And, when that happened, Oakland County was on its way to bigger things.
Trees grew. They were called Ford, Chrysler, Chevrolet and they gave impetus to what became giant corporations, including the giant of them all, General Motors Corporation. GM became several "trees." From them sprang supplier firms ... and more suppliers, supplying the supplied. America bought in big-time to the automotive revolution throughout the twentieth century. And southeast Michigan -- and clearly Oakland County -- were the primary beneficiaries.
In this forest came to grow engineers, designers, marketers, die makers, transportation wizards ... and, more than anything, people with a capacity for hard work. People with an instinct for enterprise. People with a lust for making it happen. Detroit, and its shadow sister in all aspects of life, Oakland County, became a world automotive center. In 1993, that story was still being written.
By 1993, electronics, plastics and automated manufacturing had begun to share center stage with the automotive industry. Much of this activity took place at the highly ambitious Oakland Technology Park in Auburn Hills. Willed to existence by the collective vision and efforts of university administrators, business leaders and bold-thinking public officials, the high-tech park is a world automotive center, where companies at the cutting edge of research and development leverage off the resources and brain-power residing in nearby Oakland University and Oakland Community College. The technology park is immense in scope and capability. Its signature component, quite unmistakably, is the 500-acre Chrysler Technology Center -- a nearly one-billion dollar undertaking born of the efforts of state, local and company-funded commitment to the future of Oakland County's most highly visible testament to world class, high technology.
Chrysler executives said they chose the Oakland Technology Park because it is a good place to do business. Many others followed suit. Coatings manufacturers; paints and plastics firms; computer companies; banks; robotics firms. 1993 was a year of continued expansion in the to-be-taken-seriously high tech center. The park began as a vision in the early-1980s. Early in that decade, administrators from Oakland University, public officials with the State of Michigan and various business leaders from the region began to coalesce and eventually orchestrate the actual development of the park.
Comerica Bank jumped in first, buying and developing an early site -- 210 acres in what had been until then idle field and forest adjacent to the busy intersection of Interstate 75 and Michigan Highway 59 (M 59). With a keen eye on the future, commercial real estate firm Schostak Brothers & Company jumped on board, orchestrating much of the early development of the area. Outside contractors were hired to design and market the park and marketing efforts targeted healthy local firms as well as foreign interests.
When Chrysler Motors Corporation signed on in 1984, the Oakland Technology Park experienced instant transformation from vision to reality -- from the drawing boards to the outer limits. By the early-1990s, buildings under construction or completed in and around the park totaled 9.4 million square feet of area. In the minds of local governmental leaders, the park had become a center of technology that was unlikely to be equaled anywhere else in the midwest. By 1993, it had become the fastest growing technology park in the world. And no one was looking back.
Throughout central Oakland County -- from Auburn Hills to Troy to Farmington Hills to Bloomfield Hills, Pontiac and Rochester Hills -- the emphasis in 1993 was on advanced enterprise ... on industries and endeavors having more to do with a vision of the future than anything hindered by the past.
At Electronics Data Systems (EDS) in Troy, company managers said Oakland County and southeast Michigan provided optimal recruiting turf. Plastics manufacturers said they couldn't imagine doing business anywhere other than Oakland County. Automotive trainers and marketing consultants plied their wares in favored markets. Tool and systems specialists continued to flourish, finding new opportunities every day ... all the way through 1993.
Providing maximum support, in almost everyone's opinion, was the Oakland County Growth Alliance group, part of the staff of the Oakland County Economic Development Group with the Oakland County Department of Community and Economic Development. Beyond all the references to what is, in fact, one central resource point for all businesses in the county, is the spirit and impetus of the critically important area resource.
Designated by the Michigan Department of Commerce to assist business development in Oakland County, the Alliance Group has become a proven performer in the areas of helping new and existing businesses work through governmental red tape and requirements, with respect to every imaginable realm of business development. From site planning to location, from financing to community interface, the Alliance Group has established a strong track record for working effectively with all parties to make development happen in Oakland County.
Much of that interface takes place with the area's primary utilities providers -- companies like Michigan Bell, Detroit Edison, Consumers Power. It extends as well to leading financial institutions in the area -- to the four main campus research facilities located within one hour of Oakland County -- the University of Michigan; Michigan State University; the University of Detroit; and Wayne State University. It reaches out with equal significance to the 11 institutions of learning located within Oakland County -- strong universities and colleges with combined enrollments in excess of 50,000 students.
Beyond large enrollments, these institutions bring large agendas to the table. In 1993, that was clear. Industrial research was important business at Oakland Community College and Lawrence Technological University, and, with equal importance throughout the educational structure of the county.
In short, 1993 was another significant year for Business and Industry in Oakland County -- Michigan's indisputed economic leader.
