Ten years ago, Andrew Basile was a stalwart member of the Silicon Valley technorati. An intellectual property lawyer, Basile spent most of his time among wunderkind tech start-ups and Internet giants. Life in the lower part of the Mitten was a distant memory.
But a decade later, Basile is back in Metro Detroit, and intent on not only nurturing an IP law practice with powerhouse clients such as
LeapFrog and Nissan, but high-tech start-ups taking their first steps in Southeast Michigan.
Basile never dreamed his career path would take him back to Detroit. Graduating from the University of Michigan with a law degree, he spent more than a decade in Chicago before getting married and heading west to California in the late 1990s. Ascending to equity partner in the Bay Area offices of
Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, which represents such companies as Facebook, eBay, Google, and Adobe Systems, Basile managed the firm's 18-attorney information technology practice.
"I never thought I would ever come back to [Michigan]," he says.
But while San Francisco was a great place for techies, Basile's wife and children were looking for a more family friendly place to call home. The family moved to Michigan in 2004, and he commuted from San Francisco for a full year before realizing that the schedule was untenable.
"It was an impossible lifestyle," he says. "I had to make a choice." So he chose to join the Troy-based IP law firm his father founded:
Young Basile Hanlon & MacFarlane P.C., and to bring Silicon Valley-style companies to the Motor City.
Basile started and runs the Silicon Valley branch of Young Basile, spending about a quarter of his time in California. The new branch not only expanded the firm's geographic reach, but infused its primarily domestic automotive client base with a new range of high-tech clients that range from software producers to medical device manufacturers to young start-ups.
"I was fairly established in California and had a reputation in my field," he says. "And it was good for Young Basile, a firm heavily dependent on automotive. It's been a stroke of luck that we've been able to build a significant practice over the last four years."
But Basile has also extended his work into spurring the high-tech entrepreneurial activity in metro Detroit. Last June he formed the nonprofit
North Woodward Tech Incubator, a 1,200-square-foot home for tech start-ups that are still in their infancy.
"I have a deep love of start-ups," he explains. "We wanted to be the helping hand that caused that raw entrepreneur to take the plunge. And I think we did that."
The incubator offers free office space, telephone and Internet services, administrative support and access to legal services for six to twelve months in exchange for the option to invest in the company once it gains its sea legs.
In its first seven months, the incubator has attracted eight companies, including
Link XL, a website that automates purchases of targeted text links for web-based marketers;
Organic by the Case, an online retailer of organic foods with customers in more than 40 states; and
Climate Technologies, which sells systems that convert environmentally harmful emissions to electrical power.
The idea, Basile says, was to turn his frustration at Metro Detroit's economic woes into positive action. "I felt I had a good understanding of business in [Silicon Valley] and business in Detroit," he says, adding that many of Detroit's troubles seemed to be caused by a failure to make simple changes. "It should be one of the greatest metro areas in the planet; it has everything to succeed. … I decided to do something about it and attack the problem."
The incubator is one part of the endeavor. But Basile is also circling an effort to build the Woodward Avenue corridor into the metro region's most significant urban hub. Detroit's leaders have historically invested in "extreme suburbanization," Basile says, neglecting the urban centers that at their best attract talented highly skilled workers, diverse industries, and the wide array of services that support them.
The solution, he says, is to connect the "great urban assets" that exist along metro Detroit's main strip with mass transit and building walkable density between active downtowns such as those of Detroit, Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Birmingham. "We've got a great American city hidden in plain sight," he says. "If we can set aside arbitrary boundaries and look at what we have on the ground, we have a lot. Now we need to think about how we integrate that so it's a coherent place."
Basile's "Woodward Project" is in its fledgling state. But for a guy that never thought he'd grow roots in Michigan, he spends much of his time thinking about how to rejuvenate Metro Detroit's urban centers, including focusing on its automotive legacy as a way to draw venture capital dollars. Silicon Valley investors, he says, are deeply interested in putting money in electric cars and other aspects of the automotive industry's future.
Meanwhile, Basile is solidly focused on building Young & Basile's scope and geographic reach while fostering a homegrown community in Michigan to foster greater high-tech entrepreneurship.
"Tech company formation is a community phenomenon," he says. "They need networks of people to drive them forward, and they don't form well in sprawling suburbia. It would be great to have a permanent incubator in downtown Royal Oak," he says. "That would be my dream."
Michelle Martinez is a freelance writer and editor who has
reported on
Metro Detroit businesses and issues for five years. Her previous article
was Y Arts Brings Filmmaking To Metro Detroit Youth
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