ABOUT RICHARD CHANG:
Chang joined the Blumira executive team with a distinguished professional background in leadership and entrepreneurship. He has co-founded multiple organizations including NewFoundry, a custom software consultancy serving small, medium and corporate clients; Clean Fun, a consumer services business; and Kestrel Medical, a company focused on simplifying the development process for mobile and web apps in compliance-heavy environments like HIPAA. Chang also successfully guided NewFoundry as CEO through its acquisition by Symphonize Inc.
Additionally, his extensive non-profit board involvement—spanning United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Ann Arbor YMCA, Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority, Michigan League for Public Policy and Michigan Works! Southeast—showcases his dedication to community development and organizational leadership.
ABOUT ANDY LABARRE:
Andy LaBarre was first elected to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in 2012, representing District 7, located in the eastern half of the City of Ann Arbor. Andy is a proud Democrat. He served as Vice Chair of the Board of Commissioners and previously served as Chair of the Board (2017-18), Chair of the Ways and Means Committee (2015-16), and Chair of the Working Session Committee (2013-14). Andy lives in northern Ann Arbor with his wife Megan (a teacher at Dexter Community Schools), son Declan, daughter Delaney, and dogs, Monster and Frankie.
Andy now serves as Executive Vice President and Director of Government Relations for the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber and is David Fair's co-host for "Washtenaw Business Lens."
RESOURCES:
Blumira Appoints Richard Chang as Chief of Staff
Michigan State of the State 2026
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and I'm David Fair welcoming you to the March edition of Washtenaw Business Lens. President Trump recently delivered his State of the Union address, Governor Gretchen Whitmer her final State of the State address. Politics and policy most certainly have an impact on the health and well-being of the business community. Now, our partner for Washtenaw Business Lens is the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber. And each month, the Chamber's Andy LaBarre joins us, alongside a special guest to discuss business in Washtenaw County. Welcome back, Andy! Thank you!
Andy LaBarre: David, thank you for having me!
David Fair: And, Andy, today our guest is Rich Chang. Rich is chief of staff of Ann Arbor-based Blumira. Blumira is a cyber security company focused on providing automated threat detection and response, specifically designed for small to mid-size businesses. And, Rich, we really appreciate your time!
Rich Chang: Thanks, Andy! Thanks, Dave! I appreciate the time to be able to chat.
David Fair: From a strictly business perspective, Rich, what was your overall takeaway from what the governor put forth in her address?
Rich Chang: Yeah. In regards to the governor, I mean, the main areas of focus were education, housing, and health care, which are very important. But some of the challenges I have with that is small and medium businesses really run our country and our state. And I feel like, just like the middle class, they get the least attention and the least amount of incentives. Overall, I wish there had been a more sustained focus, speeches around workforce pipeline, because the way I look at it, I view at the top of the pyramid, if we can think of like the Maslow hierarchy needs, workforce pipeline is very at the top. And it solves housing affordability, it solves education, it solves our declining population problems and even it helps solve health care, but we have to make it affordable for businesses. We have to figure out ways to actually attract businesses to our state. So, that's something that, I hope that in 2026 and even beyond whoever the next administration is, they really look at everything as being based around workforce pipeline and then peel back the layers from there.
David Fair: Andy, the governor proposed $11.3 billion in support investment for small businesses, including the Main Street initiative to support entrepreneurial endeavors, that funding for support hubs and expansion of access to high-speed internet among other things. Do you anticipate any of that money will make its way to Washtenaw County?
Andy LaBarre: I do. And I think, broadly, those are good investments and can be applicable across the state. And I thought, David, that Governor Whitmer's speech, in particular, I think focused on what I would call pragmatic possibilities. The issues she talked about, by and large, have some broader appeal, both across partisan lines but also geographic lines, industry lines. And really, when you talk about housing and child care, those are issues that resonate throughout the workforce, but also just throughout the state. If you're in Kalkaska or Ann Arbor or Detroit, you need to live somewhere, it needs to be affordable. And if you're a parent or a caregiver, you need be able to access child care and afford it. Now, what we do from this point on though, that's the real story. And I think Rich's point is a good one that when you look at those underlying drivers like a workforce pipeline, that may be the most bang for your buck in terms of legislative investment and in terms of raw political capital.
David Fair: When you're talking to the residents and voters of the state of Michigan, Rich, with the corporatization of federal and state government, is catering to business something you can push past the residents of Washtenaw County and the state of Michigan?
Rich Chang: I think it's how it's framed. And so, I think if we're able to frame this as we can help you be able to afford to live, if we can hope you afford to be able to buy a house or even rent an apartment, basically just afford to leave, business is a key aspect of that because you have to have businesses in order to employ people. So, I think that's why I said, like, I think the way, as long as it gets framed the correct way, I don't see why it shouldn't be a way for people, whether it's especially in regards to small and medium businesses. Because in the grand scheme of things, the data shows that small and medium businesses make up the largest workforce across our nation, which is why I appreciate that we're always trying to attract large corporations to the state of Michigan. But that also, oftentimes, comes with a cost, usually in the way of incentives. That, frankly for me, I don't know how often those incentives. Like, we give companies incentives because they're going to provide X number of jobs, for example, right? And I don't know the statistics of it. I'd be curious to see the statistics around how many times those businesses actually meet those numbers that you warrant the amount of tax incentives that we give them. And for me, personally, I also oftentimes feel like a lot of these larger corporations, this might be controversial, but they take more of a scorched earth approach, right? They're here to bring value to their shareholders and not value to the community. Where small and medium businesses, they're very focused on the community, they are focused on hiring local, keeping people employed and helping the actual community economically grow, and they're here just to stay for the long term. And we've seen this with large businesses moving out of California to other states because they get better tax incentives. And you don't see that type of action typically out of small and medium businesses unless there is a really valid reason for them to need to move. So, yes, I think we can attract businesses, and we can attract the workers and also help the communities be very supportive of that. But I think we have to differentiate between are we talking large corporations or talking about small and medium? And I think we can definitely get communities to rally around small and medium businesses.
David Fair: This is WEMU's monthly conversation series, Washtenaw Business Lens. And today, we're talking with Andy LaBarre from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber and Rich Chang from Ann Arbor-based Blumira. Rich, the state budget remains a work in progress, and there's no guarantee it's going to be put in place by the start of the new fiscal year, October 1st. How is that affecting the local business community? How is it affecting your business?
Rich Chang: I'm not an expert enough to kind of say how much it'll affect, say, for-profit, but I can definitely say it is affecting nonprofits because there are a lot of community-based organizations that their funding are on hold. And even these are ones around workforce pipelines. So, for instance, one of the boards that I serve on is Michigan Works for Southeast Michigan. They serve five counties. There's a lot of unknowns that they're facing for the internal budget because they don't know how much funding they're going to be getting from the states to be able to provide support for programs that they have. And these are some programs that have been touted at the national level, such as apprenticeship. That is one that the President of the United States touted as a very big focus for them of making sure that we have a very robust apprenticeship program. Yet, on the flip side, they actually cut funding to apprenticeship programs to the state level to the point that the state of Michigan had to reduce the staff that actually supports apprenticeship programs. So, I guess, in the end, yes. That does affect businesses because the non-profits or state-funded entities, such as Michigan Works! Southeast, and other community organizations that work with the workforce at training them, keeping them employed, providing the wraparound service they need in order to be able to survive in their community. They're facing drastic cuts, which then, of course, affects the ability for those workers to be available for businesses, such as the one that I'm at and other businesses in the community. So, I guess these unknown budgets is going to affect businesses and for the for-profit side and also the nonprofit side, negatively.
David Fair: And, Andy, what are you hearing from chamber members regarding the uncertainty in the politics surrounding the state budget?
Andy LaBarre: Well, that's the theme of this year that we've talked about throughout this series, David. There is a sense that you can't depend on government at any level right now to meet normal deadlines or to meet sort of norms and standards of past behavior. And I think, to be fair to the state, that's a little bit different. And I do think what the governor's speech was really trying to do is lay out a way in which public action and investment can enhance both private sector small businesses, but also sort of the general ecosystem that feeds them employees and that allows their folks to live here in the state of Michigan. The challenge then is: Can you do that in a rational, predictable way on a normal fiscal schedule? And that is sort of the question that our members are wondering, because both last year with the extended deadline. And then again, when you look at national and international uncertainty, that's a heck of a combination. And if you can't depend on some of those funding decisions and some of these regulatory entities being in place to provide the services you need, that is a real burden. And it's on top, David, as you said, this year of a theme of uncertainty across all levels.
David Fair: Rich, your company Blumira has been around since 2018, just about the same amount of time Gretchen Whitmer's been in office. She ended her State of the State address with the sentence, "Big Gretch out." How do you think the business community is fared during those eight years of Governor Whitmer's time in office?
Rich Chang: We've had a lot of support overall, so I definitely want to couch what I said at the beginning where I wish that there was a lot more focus on workforce pipeline. It's not to say that Governor Whitmer was not doing that. It's just more of what's said at the top is a lot of time what the community hears and focuses on. I'd like to just hear more about workforce pipeline in a lot of their speeches, their marketing materials, their community outreach, because they have been very supportive. I think Michigan overall has been a lot friendlier to attracting businesses, but we have to figure out how to get those businesses that come here, because you can have the nicest house in the world in a particular community, but if the other components are needed to attract people actually live and move into that house aren't there, you have a very beautiful house that's empty. And so, I view the state of Michigan as a very beautiful house. And we have so much between the Great Lakes that surround us, the awesome land and trees and everything that we have in the environment. We just need to figure out how to attract those businesses and the people to staff those businesses here. So, I think we've fared well. I think there's still room to grow. It's shown in the attainment numbers that we have as a state, which, unfortunately, we're typically at the bottom in regards to other states. And so, I think that's where we really need to figure out how do we reverse that trend and become one of the top 10 in the rankings instead of the bottom 10 for various attainment stats.
David Fair: And, Andy, same kind of question, understanding there was a pandemic included in there. In the eight years that Governor Whitmer was in office, how has the Washtenaw County business community fared?
Andy LaBarre: Well, I think, by and large, folks would say something like, generally well. The governor made decisions not every business would agree on all the time and so forth, but what was important that did happen is she was a clear communicator in times of crisis. She had a general vision, and she felt like a governor that was not just good at communicating but actually enjoyed that conversation with the people of the state of Michigan. And as you said, David, really, you can split Governor Whitmer's time almost into three parts, which was that window before COVID, that two or three year window of COVID, if you will, and now these closing years in terms of her office as we've come out and as we sort of get ready for the election here in 2026. And so, I think she has a unique role in history in the state of Michigan in terms of such an active eight years and eight years where state government had to react to things in a different way than I think any of her predecessors had to deal with. And I think, by and large, at the end of the day, the business community, particularly here in Washtenaw County, would have generally warm feelings about that time. Again, no one and nothing is perfect, but generally, these were eight years where we felt heard, engaged, and communicated with.
David Fair: Unfortunately, we could keep going for quite a bit of time, but our time has run the course. So, thanks again for both of you for being here!
Rich Chang: I appreciate the time! Thanks, David!
Andy LaBarre: Thank you, David!
David Fair: That is Rich Chang. He is Chief of Staff at the Ann Arbor-based cyber security firm, Blumira, and our guest on Washtenaw Business Lens. Our content partner for this monthly segment is the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber. And the Chamber's Andy LaBarre joins us each month and will do so again in April. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on X (Twitter)
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
