Shinola: One Company That’s Focused on Boosting Detroit’s Economy
It’s a company that prides itself on emphasizing American-made products and it is based in Detroit.
FOX’s Carole Zimmer reports:
A Detroit-based company is making a new musical product in the city that brought us Motown…
Detroit is famous for Motown and groups like the Supremes. Now, Shinola, a company that has set up shop in Detroit, has been helping the city move towards an economic resurgence. The company started out making watches. Its newest addition is a turntable that sells for $2500.
Tom Lewand is Shinola’s CEO:
(Lewand) “Detroit’s landscape of music is varied and rich and there’s in our minds, no better place to launch a line of music products than in Detroit.”
The company now has more than 500 employees. Tom Lewand says many of those workers had lost their jobs in other industries:
(Lewand) “I got some former auto workers who had been laid off during the tough times. I got folks who had worked at fast food companies. I got got folks who were part time security guards or custodians.”
Lewand says those workers are helping Shinola to build a reputation for producing quality products made in America.
Shinola is also building something bigger than a turntable… A hotel in downtown Detroit.
I’m Carole Zimmer.
