Local Spotlight

The choices we make as business owners contribute to the state of our local economy. We can either buy from people in our community and build each other up, or we can send our money out of the community and continue the downward economic spiral.

I’m a big fan of local support, with the understanding that it has to make business sense. So while I don’t advocate paying substantially more for goods and services, I do think we should give local businesses a fair shot at the money we spend.

At Office Express, we deliberately seek to spend our money in the Detroit area. To help you learn about local companies, we will spotlight one of customers in each issue of our newsletter. Would you like your moment in the spotlight? Just let me know!


Local Spotlight

Recaro, Inc.

Check back later for article

Shelving, Inc.

While we’re on the subject of organization, the office isn’t the only thing that needs to be organized. I’ve been in many of my customer’s warehouses and I am always impressed when I see a warehouse where everything looks like it is clean and neat. It’s probably not an accident that those companies are usually the most successful ones.  At Office Express, we like to partner with experts in different areas of need for our customers.  I got to know Mike Schodowski through a couple of charitable organizations that we are involved with together.  Mike is part-owner of Shelving Inc., a second generation, family-owned business, which was founded in 1960 by Mike’s father Jack Schodowski. 

Shelving Inc. has two Detroit area locations and serves the wide ranging needs of homeowners for shelving and closet organization.  They can also help you with all of your large industrial needs including but not limited to; selective, push back and drive in racks, pallet flow, carousels, conveyors, pack bench stations, pallet trucks, security fencing, collapsible containers and much more.  For planning the best use of your space and finding the most cost effective solutions for your home or office, feel free to contact us here or Mike directly at (800)637-9508.  Check out their product selection at www.shelving.com.

Shelving Inc. strives to provide the highest quality of service available in the industry while also valuing and taking pride in being a good corporate citizen. Shelving Inc. only adheres to the highest standards of business conduct, ethics and integrity. Now that is a company we are proud to partner with and serve!

Great Lakes Recycling

At Office Express we take great pleasure in seeing our customers persevere in tough economic times. I recently attended an open house for one of our customers that is doing remarkably well in 2009, Great Lakes Recycling, who just opened a new state-of-the-art recycling facility in New Boston, MI.

The new $12 million processing center, which officially opened in January, is expected to sort 8,000 tons of material a year from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Canada with only approximately 3% of the incoming materials going to landfills. 

The 81 year old business, which started as a Detroit rag, paper and metal scrap hauler by Henry Rosen in 1927, now boasts the only two “single-stream” recycling centers in Michigan. The single-stream system uses a complex machine that identifies paper, plastics and metal and separates them appropriately. This allows residential and corporate customers to place all their recyclable materials in one bin without having to sort anything.

Another perk of Great Lakes Recycling is the Corporate Office Recycling Program (C.O.R.P.). This program promotes responsible recycling by providing time and cost-effective solutions to office recycling. Nothing ever needs to be sorted and waste paper can be picked up as neede