[oneguynick]

Saginaw is having issues, but there are a few consulting firms around the area. Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Lansing though are having strong comebacks. As someone from Standish, I look forward to the day that the MBS area is more than just Dow.

[timdellinger]

One of the interesting things about MBS is that there's a huge amount of under-employed or under-utilized talent that's basically (1) the "trailing spouse" problem (one half of a couple has a Dow job, the other doesn't) plus (2) Dow employees that have been lost in the shuffle and aren't in roles that are a good match. I never quite came up with the right idea to take advantage of the local talent pool... a startup incubator is a maybe. If Dow were the smart and forward-looking, they would encourage a local startup community, but that's not the pattern of decision-making that happens at Dow.

[bluedino]

I'm also from the area - don't forget about Nexteer. The IT market is pretty bland, though. There's a handful of MSP's you can work at to build some experience, CRUD programming at accounting consulting firms, or be a one/two man IT shop at any of the smaller companies with 50+ people.