Peter Karmanos Jr.
Comeback efforts in Pontiac have been uneven, with one step forward often followed by one step backwards.
Pete Karmanos Jr., co-founder of Compuware, who left the company in an acrimonious breakup and has founded MadDog Technology in BIrmingham, hopes to push Oakland County's seat many steps forward.
John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press reports:
Tech pioneer Pete Karmanos Jr. helped jump-start the downtown Detroit revival in 2003 by moving his Compuware headquarters from the suburbs into the gleaming, new 15-story, $450-million headquarters building at Campus Martius. Now he's hoping to do something similar for downtown Pontiac.
Karmanos, now chairman and co-founder of MadDog Technology, along with co-founder Mark Hillman, announced this morning they are moving three of their startup companies to the historic Riker Building. Those three companies will occupy a 15,000-square-foot space now being prepared. They plan to hire more than 100 professionals over the next three years.
In interviews this morning, Karmanos said the move to Pontiac made sense.
“There is a growing base of technology companies in Pontiac, and we see Pontiac emerging as a technology center in southeast Michigan,” he said. “Being one of the first to invest in Detroit, we saw that technology companies can be the heart of an economic renaissance. We believe Pontiac can see the same sort of explosive growth in the short term.”
The three firms moving to Pontiac are Lenderful, a mortgage company, DeliverMyRide and PerfectRealty.
Karmanos is minority owner of Deadline Detroit.
