We’ve arrived at my favorite issue, and it’s built around my favorite event of the year: the Greater Lansing Entrepreneurial Awards. We started the event here at the magazine and I can’t believe it has been ongoing for 17 years. I particularly enjoy this evening because my heart goes out to small businesses.

I do appreciate the big businesses; they employ a lot of people, are wonderful for the community and do a great job economically for all of us. But it is the small businesses and their various stories, like those that perhaps begin with a hopeful entrepreneur borrowing money from a relative, or maybe someone who became excited after discovering a proprietary item in the basement of a house, or the one about not having enough money to hire any staff for the first year.

We have a marvelous base and people often forget there are over 10,000 small businesses in mid-Michigan alone. It’s sometimes overlooked that, as a whole, small business owners are the major employers in our community. While there are those who employ extremely large numbers—for instance Sparrow Health System, General Motors, Michigan State University and others—we may forget the fact that the area’s major employer truly is small business. Without small businesses, we would have a huge employment problem locally.

I have to say that when I was on the podium (next to my distinguished co-host Paula Cunningham), it was so enjoyable providing small business owners the opportunity to tell their stories. It made for a wonderful evening, hearing about risks taken and successes gained. (There were a few tears because coming to those successes had not been easy.) Special congratulations to the winners, and congratulations, too, to those honored with a nomination.

Thank you to our 2011 sponsors: Andrews Hooper & Pavlik, Capitol National Bank; The Greater Lansing Business Monthly, Maner Costerisan, MSU Federal Credit Union, Plante & Moran, Radisson Hotel Lansing, Strategic Products & Services, Inc., Symbiosis International, TDS Metrocom, Traction, and WILX-TV 10.  Special thanks to Traction, Good Fruit Video, Shaver Photography and Event Depot for making this an outstanding event.

Lastly, thank you for allowing the telling of these great stories; they add so much to the entrepreneurial culture here in Greater Lansing. 

Have a prosperous month,

		Chris Holman Publisher