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Midwest Integrated Suppliers for Renewable Energy:  An Alliance Born from a Tier One Supplier's Vision

The concept of an alliance of manufacturers forming to find alternatives to automotive production came indirectly out of a client assignment in late 2008 for Executive Director Tim Bannister's marketing consulting firm from Creative Foam Corporation, a Tier One supplier based in Fenton, Michigan.  The company's business development team had realized as early as 2003 that they needed to diversify out of "automotive"� or face downsizing as the industry's Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) continued to merge.

Wayne Blessing, Creative Foam's CEO, had made 18 trips to Denmark over a subsequent three-year period courting Vestas Wind of Denmark before eventually earning the opportunity to supply engineered foam kits for their utility-scale wind turbine blades. 

When Vestas decided to establish a base in the United States, it moved production facilities to Colorado, requiring Blessing to lease a plant nearby and eliminating the opportunity to reactive its facilities focused earlier on supplying the automotive industry.  A long-time supporter of Michigan manufacturing, Blessing looked to Bannister to develop strategies on how to recruit a renewable energy manufacturer at the level of Vestas to set up shop in Michigan.

The initial approach Bannister developed in early 2010 was a supplier-driven strategy using a newly formed alliance of manufacturers in partnership with Michigan Manufacturing Association and appropriate agencies from the state of Michigan to recruit large-scale wind turbine OEMs on the strength of the state's supplier base, skilled workforce, tax incentives, and the like.  But the wind turbine manufacturers that followed after Vestas had a preconceived notion of setting up where the wind blows, and systematically located their plants in Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, and Colorado.

Further, the incentives offered by these states were far and above anything that the designated business development agency, Michigan Economic Development Corporation could match.  And Michigan Manufacturing Association decided to take over Midwest's fledgling program as a useful tool to drive its membership recruiting efforts.

Recognizing the need to take a broader perspective, a Midwest planning committee determined that the state's manufacturing base and related service providers would be better served through pressing for energy initiatives that would level the playing field in competing for business in the renewable energy industry.  Initiatives such as the recently enacted Renewable Portfolio Standard, or the possibility of a feed-in tariff program that incorporated local content similar to a successful initiative launched in the Canadian province of Ontario.

An advisory board was formed in 2011, and subsequently approved the mission to press for energy policy change, in part because of the realization that an organized group of manufacturers (and business owners with an impact on job growth) had a better chance of gaining support and spearheading new energy initiatives in the current legislative environment.  As a starting point, the alliance is organizing the summit, 2012 Energy Moves Michigan Forward!, to reach consensus on the most likely initiatives to support.