[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 113 (Tuesday, September 1, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9798-S9799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GRAND RAPIDS' COMMUNITY SUCCESS

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to bring to my colleagues' 
attention an important article from The American Enterprise magazine. 
In it Michael Barone of Reader's Digest lauds the great success of 
Grand Rapids, Michigan in rebuilding its economy and community. Mr. 
Barone reports that a vital combination of entrepreneurship, public 
spirit, and responsible philanthropy have brought the people of Grand 
Rapids together to build a vibrant economy and public life.
  Business and community leaders in Grand Rapids have joined together 
to rehabilitate the downtown area. They have encouraged one another to 
sponsor important projects like the Van Andel Institute for nutrition 
research and Faith Inc., which trains people from close-in 
neighborhoods and places them in full-time jobs. A pro-business 
environment has facilitated the growth of diverse businesses, from 
furniture manufacturers to merchandisers. And Grand Rapids' respect for 
free markets and entrepreneurship has maintained an economy in which 
unemployment is low and small business thrives, with 80 percent of 
local businesses employing fewer than 30 people.
  Mr. President, as we in the Senate continue our debate over how best 
to encourage the revitalization of distressed urban areas, I hope we 
will learn from cities like Grand Rapids. As a member of the Renewal 
Alliance and a strong supporter of its efforts to help distressed urban 
areas, I feel that Grand Rapids can provide us with an extremely 
helpful model of what works. This great city shows the importance of 
local involvement, free markets, and faith in rebuilding strong 
communities.
  I heartily recommend this article to my colleagues and ask that its 
text be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

            [From the American Enterprise, Sept./Oct. 1998]

            A City Where Business and Philanthropy Flourish

                          (By Michael Barone)

       Looking for a city with a tradition of community 
     involvement, creative local philanthropy, vibrant cultural 
     institutions old and new? Try Grand Rapids. The home town of 
     President Gerald Ford, the city proposed by Chicago Tribune 
     publisher Colonel Robert McCormick as a new national capital, 
     Grand Rapids remains largely unknown nationally and even in 
     Michigan is often overshadowed by Detroit. But greater Grand 
     Rapids is now approaching a million people, its strong local 
     economy has led Michigan's economic recovery, and its 
     successful entrepreneurs have built civic institutions the 
     envy of many metro areas two or three times the size. Civil 
     society is alive and well here.
       What are Grand Rapids' secret? One is a vigorous free 
     market economy, built steadily over decades. Grand Rapids was 
     first settled by New England Yankees and immigrants from 
     Germany and the Netherlands at the falls of the Grand River, 
     in the heart of Michigan's immense forests. Its first 
     industries were lumber and a natural offshoot, furniture. In 
     the first decades of this century Grand Rapids was the 
     nation's leading producer of household furniture. But the 
     forests were overharvested, the furniture market collapsed in 
     the Depression, and after World War II manufacturers 
     relocated to North Carolina.
       Some furniture manufacturers who survived turned to office 
     furniture. Today three of the nation's four largest office 
     furniture manufacturers are located in Grand Rapids or nearby 
     Holland. But there is plenty of diversity as well. The city 
     is a leader in injected plastic moldings and a major center 
     for tool and die shops, with lots of small successful firms. 
     It is the headquarters of Meijer, whose 100-plus Thrifty 
     Acres stores combine supermarkets with general merchandise 
     stores--a formula Wal-Mart has copied but has not been able 
     to make pay as well as Meijer. Grand Rapids is the 
     headquarters of Universal Wood Products, the nation's largest 
     fence producer. It is the home of Gordon Foods and Bissell 
     carpet sweepers. It has one large General Motors plant and 
     dozens of auto suppliers. Ada, a village six miles east, is 
     the home of Amway, privately owned by the Van Andel and DeVos 
     families, founded in a garage in 1959, now selling over $7 
     billion of home care housewares, and cosmetic products in 52 
     countries, most of them manufactured in Grand Rapids' Kent 
     County.
       Most of Grand Rapids' successful companies are small: 80 
     percent of businesses employ fewer than 30 people, according 
     to John Caneppa, former chairman of Grand Rapids' Old Kent 
     Bank. Firms that have grown bigger have done so through 
     creative innovation and good employee relations. Local office 
     furniture manufacturers pioneered modular units and 
     electronic connectors. Amway

[[Page S9799]]

     took an old idea--direct sales--and made it work on a scale 
     never seen before. Fred Meijer, to make shopping more 
     pleasant for parents with kids, installed mechanical ponies 
     in his stores which cost one cent per ride and personally 
     hands out ``Purple Cow'' cards for free ice cream cones.
       Employee relations are also an important part of Grand 
     Rapids' success. ``We have 60,000 people working with us,'' 
     Fred Meijer says. ``We need them; so let's treat them like we 
     need them.'' If any of us makes a mistake, he adds, ``we 
     don't need to be bawled out, we need to be helped to 
     succeed.'' That way, the ``job will be better, and everybody 
     will be more productive.''
       Nor is there an adversarial relationship between business 
     and government. ``The best thing government can do is to get 
     out of the way,'' says Grand Rapids City Manager Kurt 
     Kimball. ``To try to create an environment that enables the 
     private sector to achieve its ends. Prosperity for business 
     means prosperity for residents. Then we'll have the resources 
     for quality of life.'' Says GR magazine editor Carol Valade, 
     ``There is a very low tolerance for government here--the 
     attitude is, I will do it myself. And a tremendous respect 
     for the arts of the entrepreneur. It spills over into 
     government. The city removed 98 percent of its effluents from 
     its sewers, without federal funds--the only city in Michigan 
     to do so.''
       Successful small businesses and small businesses that have 
     grown large but have stayed headquartered here, have helped 
     build Grand Rapids' cultural institutions. Even the banks 
     have remained local. Old Kent is still based in Grand Rapids, 
     though it has spread outward; First Union sold out to 
     Detroit-based NBD, but David Frey, whose grandfather founded 
     the bank, has kept the Frey Foundation here, and 85 percent 
     of its grants are in western Michigan. ``Giving money 
     intelligently is hard work,'' Frey says. ``A lot of due 
     diligence is required. But there's the prospect of great 
     satisfaction.''
       Anyone walking through downtown Grand Rapids can see some 
     of the reasons for that satisfaction. Twenty-five years ago, 
     downtown Grand Rapids looked dumpy, with aging and often 
     empty commercial buildings, and a grubby convention center. 
     Then Grand Rapids' business leaders decided to make it 
     something special. ``Always the private sector has taken the 
     lead,'' says Frey. ``And people are willing to put corporate 
     money into projects. Then they would get the city, county, or 
     state governments to forge a coalition.'' Phase one, in the 
     mid-1970s, included a new Old Kent building and Vandenberg 
     Center, which replaced abandoned warehouses. Phase two 
     included the Amway Plaza Hotel and the Gerald Ford Museum. 
     Phase three includes the recently opened Van Andel Arena for 
     Grand Rapids' minor league hockey and basketball, a new 
     convention center, and a downtown campus for Grand Valley 
     State College.
       The secret is leadership and commitment. ``We have people 
     who give time and effort and support. They sit at the same 
     table,'' says Pete Secchia, head of Universal Products, and 
     also a leader of Michigan's Republican Party who served as 
     Ambassador to Italy under Bush. ``When we promise 
     something,'' says Fred Meijer, sitting around a table with 
     other Grand Rapids business leaders, ``we don't do it 
     lightly. Not one of us has ever reneged on a promise.'' If 
     there are problems, someone jumps in and solves them. ``The 
     Amway Plaza would be torn down or destitute if Amway hadn't 
     picked it up,'' Meijer adds.
       With no major university or medical school, Grand Rapids 
     has missed out on the boom in biomedicine. But that's likely 
     to change with the building of a Van Andel Institute for 
     nutrition research at Grand Rapids' Butterworth Hospital. 
     Steve Van Andel, who has succeeded his father Jay as co-head 
     of Amway, describes the process. ``We watched our fathers 
     build the firm. The second generation got even more involved 
     with the community. The building decision was also made by 
     the second generation of the Van Andel and DeVos families. My 
     dad and family have been discussing it for years. We decided 
     to do something. Dad was always interested in nutrition, so 
     we decided to build an institute that would work on nutrition 
     research and education.'' He is thinking big. Peter Cook, who 
     owns several big car dealerships and is on the board, says 
     that it has five Nobel Prize winners as advisers and will 
     have 200 to 300 doctors and scientists in a $30 million 
     building.
       Grand Rapids' philanthropists are buttressed not by the 
     liberalism of so many national foundations but by traditional 
     virtues. It's an early-to-bed-early-to-rise town, where 
     people eat at home with their families. ``Everyone is doing 
     well but restaurants,'' says Secchia, ``but the breakfast 
     joints are filled at 6:30 in the morning,'' The churches are 
     busy on Sundays, filled with people from all economic levels; 
     the billionaire Van Andels and DeVoses pray at a modest 
     Reform church not far from downtown. Or as Peter Cook puts 
     it, ``A lot of our people have done more than their share in 
     giving. We grew up in a Christian home and tithed, and after 
     that you gave more. We give 30 to 40 percent of our income. . 
     . . That type of thing is very influential. This is a good 
     place to work and live.''
       Entrepreneurial and religious impulses also inform Grand 
     Rapids' programs to help the poor. Gene Pratt, now retired, 
     tells of raising $1 million in less than two hours to 
     renovate his community center, and how a kids' gardening 
     project produced City Kids Barbecue sauce, got it stocked in 
     Meijer's and other local supermarkets, and got 5 percent of 
     the market. Verne Barry, head of the Downtown Development 
     Agency, came to Grand Rapids in 1985 after living homeless in 
     New York. With ministries and social service agencies he 
     founded Faith Inc., which won competitive contracts with 25 
     local manufacturers. Hiring people from close-in 
     neighborhoods, his group got commitments for 10 percent of 
     the jobs on projects like the Van Andell Arena. He claims 
     that more than 50 percent of those with little work 
     experience are now in permanent employment.
       Grand Rapids has low crime, low unemployment, and scandal-
     free local government. But statistics tell only part of the 
     story. For Grand Rapids' leaders have put the imprint of 
     their own personalities on the civic institutions they've 
     built. The Grand Rapids Museum hosted an exhibit of the 
     artist Perugino in 1997-98; Secchia helped set it up using 
     his Italian contacts and the fact that Perugia is a sister 
     city. Fred Meijer took over a 20-acre parcel of industrial 
     property and built the Frederik Meijer Gardens, one of the 
     nation's largest conservatories. Amid the plants and the 
     gardens outside he placed 70 bronze sculptures he has 
     collected over the years. You can see him there some days, 
     smiling and enjoying himself as he leads kids around, 
     explaining the plants and sculptures, and handling out Purple 
     Cow cards for free ice cream cones--the spirit of Grand 
     Rapids in person.

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