Oxford resident Alain Piette is a well-traveled man. But he doesn’t travel the world to sight-see or visit family.
He travels to help new companies get off to a healthy start in their business or aid them in turning around a financial crisis.
That’s why he’s the recipient of the 2005 Adams Entrepreneur Fellowship from Wayne State University. He was awarded the fellowship this past September.
The fellowship is awarded to universities to encourage people to start businesses. WSU received a grant for the fellowship from the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan.
By receiving the fellowship, the 52-year-old native of Belgium said he will be working for a start-up company called SpaceForm, a new firm headquartered in TechTown, an urban research and technology park in downtown Detroit.
Delphi Technologies launched a new welding company with funding through an award from Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor and Automation Alley. Piette will be helping the company commercialize Delphi’s Deformation Resistance Welding (DRW) technology within the mobile space-frame market.
‘I’m responsible for the technology transfer from Delphi research into SpaceForm and then basically do business development for SpaceForm by getting paid customers,? he said. ‘Our goal is to make American companies more competitive and bring jobs back into the United States.?
Piette receives a $70,000 compensation and benefit package for one full year while he’s working for SpaceForm.
But this isn’t the first time Piette has lent his hand in helping start-up a business.
After receiving his undergraduate degree in Belgium, he came to the United States in 1978 and began working for a Detroit-based company, which took him to South Africa, South America and Mexico.
He also helped a Scandinavian company’s North-American division turnaround a $14 million loss.
‘With the new approaches and new techniques we broke even in seven months and were profitable in one year, tripling sales in three years,? he said.
The new techniques and approaches Piette has been bringing to small and medium-sized businesses is making them competitive in the global arena.
‘People always talk about you have to take jobs to China, to India and that is virtually impossible,? Piette stressed. ‘I’m a specialist in doing partnerships, or joint ventures, where there is technology exchange in both directions.?
To help keep jobs in the U.S., Piette gets the company to work with minority owned businesses. For example, he has component parts manufactured in foreign countries while having the final product assembled in the states.
?(Small businesses) don’t have the resources to do that and think it’s much more complex than what it is,? he said. ‘I bring what is very sophisticated at Toyota or GM and I bring it down to a scale that makes them successful.?
Piette received his master’s degree from WSU’s School of Business Administration in 2004 and believes everyone should continue their education to be successful.
‘I felt that I needed to sharpen my skills and it was time to get additional exposure to the new theories, to the new practices,? he said.
Piette has lived in Oxford with his wife and two children on a small horse farm for the last 10 years. He plans to ‘go from start-up to start-up? until he retires.
‘That’s really what I enjoy,? he said.