If knocked down five times, get up six

Six stories of Michigan’s economic diversification, even in the face of the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies…

1. 50 Michigan Companies to Watch. This year’s list of fast-growing Michigan entrepreneurs includes such firms as A & M Aquatics (a saltwater livestock wholesaler in Lansing), Burkard Industries (an old-line manufacturer in Macomb County that has trandformed into an industrial coatings supplier for the military), and Threefold Sensors (an Ann Arbor medical testing equipment firm that expects to more than double the size of its workforce this year. Altogether, this year’s “Michigan 50″ earned $405 million in revenue in 2008 (a 30 percent increase over 2007) and employ more than 1,500 people.

2. Michigan’s Life Sciences Industry. This high-tech industry now includes 80,000 Michigan workers. Employment in this sector is up 10 percent in the past decade and wages are up nearly 30 percent.

3. Cherries, soybeans and grains. Michigan agriculture exports grew by 48 percent from 2003 to 2007.

4. The hearty Upper Peninsula. Outdoor Life Magazine just named Marquette the second best town in America for sportsmen. And with a thriving university culture and several strong high-tech employers, the region has an unemployment rate lower than the state average.

5. Mars Advertising. While numerous top advertising firms are caught up in the auto bankruptcies, Mars indeed seems like it’s in outer space. “That’s because Mars (based in Southfield and founded in 1973) specializes in one of the very few growing ad segments: in-store marketing that targets consumers already in the buying mode,” Crain’s wrote this week. “Mars conducts advertising and marketing campaigns inside stores such as Wal-Mart, Art Van, Sears and Best Buy, and does work for brands that include Little Caesars Pizza, Coca-Cola and Mattel.”

6. Innovation Michigan finalists. More than two dozen additional examples of entrepreneurialism at work across the state.