Urban Science continues its steady growth, a march that has spanned more than three decades and includes about 150 new hires over the last year.
"That's a good year for us, but we have had 35 of them," says
Jim Anderson, president & CEO of
Urban Science. "Every year we have been in business has been a record year."
The automotive retail consulting firm provides analysis for a number of different corporations. The company has developed software programs that create analysis on a business's customers, its retail location and what it can do to improve the performance of both, among other things. Urban Science has called the Ren Cen home since it opened in 1977, recently expanding its footprint there to accommodate its growth.
Urban Science employs about 750 around the world, including 350 at its downtown Detroit headquarters. Most of its new hires come from a major expansion of its software team, with many of them going to Detroit. Those new hires are thanks to continued double-digit growth. Urban Science watched its revenue increase by 20 percent last year.
Urban Science has also begun building a $1 million endowment for the Col. Gregory Gadson Scholarship at the
Wayne State University College of Engineering. The scholarship will provide up to $50,000 annually to a wounded veteran to study engineering and earn an EDGE Engineering Entrepreneur Certificate. The scholarship is named for U.S. Army Col. Gregory Gadson, who lost both legs and severely injured his right arm in a May 2007 IED explosion in Iraq. He is now the director of the
U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program.
"We have an opportunity to create another Greatest Generation," Col. Gadson says. "There are great men and women who have served our country that need these sorts of opportunities."
Source: Jim Anderson, president & CEO of Urban Science
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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