From: The Great Lakes Information Technology Report (GLITR)

I wrapped up my visit to Flint with a meeting with the Kettering Entrepreneurial Society, a student group at the university of current and would-be business owners.

I met Scott Skelton, a Belleville senior in mechanical engineering, who has two Web businesses -- HighPerformanceOutlet.com for high-performance auto parts, and BookDealFinder.com, a search engine for college textbooks.

Also at the lunch: James Cooper, a Rochester Hills senior in electrical engineering, working on a vending machine concept for taverns; Caymon Love, a senior in industrial engineering who is client project manager at TechWorks, helping Sheridan sort through those 50 potential companies; Kristina Kamensky, a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, special projects manager at TechWorks; Matt Gaidica and Brad Birdsall, whose PrimeStudios offers Web and graphic design and Web application work (see www.primestudiosllc.com); Marc D. Alexander, president and CEO of Youth of Tomorrow, which offers youth career exploration experiences; and entrepreneurial adviser Homayun Navaz, a professor of mechanical engineering, founder of the new chemical engineering degree at Kettering and its new aeronautical engineering minor. Navaz is in the process of starting a business called Coolificient, which will offer manufacturers of commercial coolers software and equipment to make their coolers far more energy efficient.
All in all a great morning and early afternoon. And now it's on to the final stop of the spring tour, our state's capital, Lansing, and its burgeoning tech scene.