Michigan Business Beat | Dwayne Powell Jr. & Marcel Fable Price, Tsunami Lab Builds New Owners

Jeffrey Mosher welcomes back Dwayne Powell Jr., Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner of Kalamazoo Forward Ventures & Marcel Fable Price, Director of Platform and Programming at Kalamazoo Forward Ventures. Welcome back Dwayne and Marcel. Please remind the Michigan business community about Kalamazoo Forward Ventures and the Tsunami Lab? Many small business owners are nearing retirement. Why is buying an existing business becoming an attractive alternative to starting one from scratch? Tsunami Lab focuses on helping entrepreneurs acquire established businesses rather than launch new ones. How does that approach help protect jobs, preserve local businesses, and strengthen the regional economy? Access to capital is often one of the biggest barriers to business ownership. How is your program helping more entrepreneurs, including women, veterans, and underrepresented founders, overcome that challenge? The first cohort included professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, from engineering and military leadership to nonprofit management. What qualities make someone a strong candidate to successfully take over an existing business? Looking ahead, what are your goals for the next Tsunami Lab cohort, and what would you say to Michigan business owners who may be thinking about selling their companies or entrepreneurs interested in becoming the next generation of owners? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN’s YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Thursday, July 30th, Kalamazoo Forward Ventures graduated the first cohort of Tsunami Lab, an accelerator built to change that math. Thirteen local operators, including a sitting city commissioner, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, a Detroit-native nonprofit exec, and a Kalamazoo Promise grad-turned-tech-sales-pro, completed 14 weeks of training in the mechanics of buying an existing business, from financial due diligence to regional bank financing. The goal: instead of starting from scratch, these graduates are now equipped to step into ownership of established local companies, protect the jobs already there, and keep the wealth those businesses generate in Kalamazoo. The evening drew State Rep. Julie Rogers, who presented tribute plaques to each graduate, members of Kalamazoo Valley Community College, along with regional banking executives, local investors and county commissioners. Michael Davenport, President & CEO of Jireh Metal Products, delivered the keynote. A few graduate names worth noting: Alonzo Wilson II, a Kalamazoo city commissioner, is targeting a legacy business to scale using his industrial engineering background Dave “Brew” Brewer, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, is bringing 29 years of large-organization leadership to a Michigan legacy business Stacey R. Ledbetter, Executive Director of the Douglass Community Association, wants to prove small business success can directly fund nonprofit resilience Shantonio Birch, named 2026 Black Engineer of the Year, is eyeing an HVAC company to modernize for the clean-tech future