Renaissance

Actor, TV Host, Editor, Entrepreneurs and Others Arrive for 'Homecoming'

September 17, 2014, 4:17 PM by  Alan Stamm

Flights from across the country bought past Detroiters to the city for three days of nostalgia and networking.

The main point of Detroit Homecoming, organized by Crain's Detroit Business, is to show the city's bright sides -- and brilliant sunshine on a cloudless arrival day seemed made to order.


Marc Evan Jackson, who honed improv skills at Second City Detroit, is president of the Detroit Creativity Project. It trains Detroit pupils in performance art.

"So excited to be back in Detroit," technology consultant Kristin Smith tweets Wednesday. "Took a walk this AM & it is so inspiring to see all of the energy & love in the D." She's a Troy High and University of Michigan graduate now living in Seattle and running a digital trade school called Code Fellows.

Among the well-known attendees is Marc Evan Jackson, an actor-comedian who has been on "Parks and Recreation" and "21 Jump Street." He moved from Second City Detroit to Los Angeles in 2001. Jackson and his wife, Dr. Beth Hagenlocker, founded the Detroit Creativity Project in 2011 to provide free stage skills training at Detroit high schools and middle schools. Dr. Hagenlocker, a veterinarian, is a Metro Detroit native. 

They and other invited guests hear Wednesday evening from Roger Penske, chairman of the Penske Corp., who'll introduce Gov. Rick Snyder at a welcoming reception and dinner at the David Whitney Building downtown.

Presenters Thursday and Friday at the Taubman Center for Design Education in Midtown include Mayor Mike Duggan, executives Dan Gilbert and Chris Ilitch, investor Warren Buffett, GM chief executive Mary Barra, philanthropist Eli Broad and Bloomberg President Dan Doctoroff.

Participants also can join bus tours, Comerica Park batting practice, a Chene Park concert, a driverless car demonstration at Belle Isle and dinner at the Globe Building Outdoor Adventure & Discovery Center on Thursday, Jennifer Chambers reports in The Detroit News.

Eric Cedo, Crain's director of integrated marketing, uses soaring language to describe the event Wednesday afternoon on Twitter: "three days that will change Detroit."

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Jim Hayes, who worked at the Fisher Building as a young Sports Illustrated ad salesman, moved back to the area last year and is event co-chair.

Former Fortune magazine publisher Jim Hayes, who chairs the event with publisher Mary Kramer of Crain's Detroit Business, previews the gathering in a TV interview embedded below.

More than 120 people have come from Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

Ron Fournier, senior politics correspondent and editorial director at the National Journal in Washington, swung by the Michigan Central Depot, the old Tigers Stadium site and the east-side neighborhood where he grew up -- a bittersweet stop because his childhood home on Coram Street and the house cross the street where his mother was raised had been demolished as a result of arson fires, he tweets.  

These are among others who posted their arrivals Wednesday:

  • Bill Clark of Austin, venture capital investorand business adviser.
  • Nicole Curtis of Minneapolis, host of the HGTV series "Rehab Addict."
  • Julie Egan of New York, a State Department foreign service officer and international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • Billy Dexter of Chicago, executive search firm partner.
  • Julia Farber of Washington, D.C., environmentalist.
  • Jamie Hodari of Brooklyn, attorney and business founder.
  • Greg Lindsay of New York, journalist, author and senior fellow of the World Policy Institute.
  • Jules Pieri of Lexington, Mass., CEO and co-founder of an oniine "undiscovered products" store 
  • Michael SImon of Brooklyn, a former campaign aide to Peresident Obama who is co-founder a president of a business and politics consultancy.
  • Rebecca Villarreal of Hyattsville, Md., project manager at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities in Washington, D.C.

Earlier coverage at Deadline Detroit:

Ex-Pats Will See And Taste A Changing Detroit This Week, Sept. 14



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