Williamston business receives recognition

Elden Gustafson, president of D & G Equipment Inc. in Williamston, was honored at The Greater Lansing Business Monthly’s 13th Annual Entrepreneur Awards of Greater Lansing. Gustafson won the Master Entrepreneur and the Retail Entrepreneur awards.

Gustafson started D & G (which stands for “dirt and grass”) with two locations in 1993 and has grown to seven locations— Williamston, Mason, Corruna, Highland, Howell, Rives Junction and Charlotte. It employs more than 120 people, with plans for further growth.

Laury Hammel, author of Growing Local Value: How to Build Business Partnerships That Strengthen Your Community, will speak about Healthy Communities at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11, in Room 105 of South Kedzie Hall on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Hammel also will meet that afternoon with local business owners interested in helping organize a “Local First” group in the greater Lansing area, similar to the Local First groups in Grand Rapids and Washtenaw County. For more information, call 517.355.1751 or e-mail Terry Link at link@msu.edu.

Hammel, owner of a group of health clubs in the New England area, is cofounder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and founder of New England Business Association for Social Responsibility, the first organization of its kind in the nation.

Meijer will spend more than $123 million this year to build three new Michigan stores, upgrade older stores and expand its Lansing distribution center, according to President Mark Murray. Next year the Walker-based retailer plans to spend more than $100 million on further growth in the state.

The expansion is part of a strategy to compete with Wal-Mart, which this year will open its first five metro-Detroit supercenters, which sell a full line of groceries.

Texas-based J.C. Penney Co. Inc. plans to anchor a new $80-million shopping mall next to the Michigan State Fairgrounds on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. The new mall will give Detroiters their first opportunity to shop at a department store in the city in at least a decade. Over 40 national and local shops will reside in the mall scheduled for a 2009 opening.