by: John Clore | 3/25/2025 at 5:47 AM
Rubber Stamp or Rigorous Review? How Michigan Picks Grant Recipients
When I first started digging into how Michigan awards its multimillion-dollar economic development grants, I was definitely looking for corruption and the deeper I went, the more the red flags started stacking up.
Yesterday, we revealed that dozens of companies receiving grants from the Michigan Strategic Fund also happened to donate to the same politicians responsible for approving or overseeing those funds. Coincidence? Maybe. But it doesn’t feel like one.
Now, I wanted to pull back the curtain on how these companies get selected in the first place and more importantly, who makes the decision. What I found was a system that operates with all the hallmarks of legitimate process with committees, scoring rubrics, performance contracts — but very little transparency and almost zero public accountability.
A “Selective” Selection Process
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) administers these grants, but the final say lies with the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) Board, a group of political appointees who meet monthly — often rubber-stamping grant proposals with little public debate or scrutiny. Minutes from these meetings are posted online, but unless you know what you’re looking for, it’s easy to miss which companies were approved and why.
Here’s the kicker: there’s no public portal to track who applied and didn’t make the cut. So we can’t see which companies were rejected or how the winning proposals scored.
If you’re an average business owner — not a major auto supplier or politically connected executive — good luck figuring out how to even get your application considered.
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Composition of the MSF Board
The MSF Board consists of 11 members:
Three state officials:
Eight private-sector members, appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. These members serve four-year terms.
Appointment Process and Political Considerations
The Governor holds significant influence over the MSF Board through these appointments. In 2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation expanding the board to include nominees from legislative leaders.
Current Board Members and Affiliations
As of August 2023, the MSF Board includes:
Quentin L. Messer, Jr.: Chair and CEO of the MEDC.
Susan Corbin: Director of LEO.State of Michigan
Rachael Eubanks: State Treasurer.
Dr. Britany L. Affolter-Caine: Executive Director, Michigan’s University Research Corridor.MEDC
Wesley Eklund: CEO, Eklund Holdings.MEDC
Dimitrius Hutcherson: EVP and Chief Administrative Officer, First Independence Bank.
Michael B. Kapp: Designee of the Director of the Department of Technology, Management, and Budget.
Dan Meyering: President, DJ’s Landscape Management.
Charles P. Rothstein: Senior Managing Director, Beringea, LLC.
Susan Tellier: President, JetCo Solutions.
Cindy Warner: Founder and CEO, 360ofme.
Lack of Transparency and Potential for Favoritism
The appointment process, heavily influenced by the Governor, raises concerns about political favoritism and the overall selection remains opaque. The board’s composition of political appointees and business leaders with potential conflicts of interest further complicates matters.
Who Can Apply? Technically Anyone. Practically, Not Quite.
Yes, the MEDC says its programs are open to all businesses, but the fine print tells a different story. The Michigan Business Development Program, one of the most lucrative grant vehicles, targets companies that promise to create a certain number of jobs, meet investment minimums, and commit to Michigan long-term.
That sounds reasonable until you realize the process heavily favors large corporations with lawyers, lobbyists, and grant writers at their disposal. There’s no simple application you can download. You typically need to be working through a local economic development organization, and you don’t even make it to the MSF Board unless MEDC staff have already given you the green light.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
In 2024 alone, the state awarded over $250 million in strategic fund grants to around 40 companies, according to publicly available records. Many of those companies — including Pfizer, Magna, and Amazon — aren’t exactly struggling startups.
So here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you’re a politically connected company, you get invited to the table. If you’re not, you probably didn’t even know there was a table.
Why This Matters
This is more than bureaucratic red tape — it’s a possible gateway to corruption. If a company can donate to a state politician’s campaign, then receive millions in taxpayer-funded grants with little explanation of how they were selected, we have a serious problem.
Oversight is thin. Public involvement is virtually nonexistent. And the entire system seems to operate on trust. The trust that insiders won’t exploit the process for political or financial gain.
This isn’t your typical “apply online and wait” grant. It’s a gatekept system where the gates are manned by political appointees, economic insiders, and an agency that offers little visibility into why some businesses are deemed “strategic” and others are not.
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