This multi-billion dollar company invests in young lives
'You wouldn't be able to ... recognize me a year ago.' Penske team inspiring students in Detroit to create their own LLCs.
Elijah Elens-Eigbokhan of Detroit still can’t believe he made the cut after a series of elimination rounds as a student intern to go to Abu Dhabi and compete in a global coding competition while representing the United States.
“It just gives me perspective on the beauty of this world, outside of what’s … around us,” he said. “It helped me discover what I truly like. The whole thing about engineering is trial and error … failing and regrouping and retrying.”
His team programmed a driverless car that finished in the top 10 in the Autonomous Racing Championships in April. The field of competitors included the world’s most elite collegiate programmers who write and test code for computer software.
The previous May, another team of Metro Detroit teens raced against 17 other international entrants, placing first among high school teams and fifth in the overall championships.
These teams were brought together by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan with the backing of Penske Corp. after a phone call and a prayer.
“I couldn’t tell the story without crying,” said Letty Azar, vice president of community affairs at Penske Corp., based in Bloomfield Hills. “It was like ‘Miracle on Ice.’”
The success of students, including Elens-Eigbokhan, is actually part of a larger initiative led by billionaire Roger Penske and his team that’s transforming the lives of young people in Detroit through strategic philanthropy.
This is about putting dollars into highly specific programs that show measurable return on investment. It is a unique approach to economic development that brings together students and real-life business experience — executed so effectively that non-profits from around the country are studying how to replicate what’s working.
They’ve come to Detroit from Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville plus cities in Arizona and Minnesota.
“We went from getting ready to go out of business to becoming a national leader,” said Shawn H. Wilson, a social entrepreneur who took the helm as CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan (BGCSM) in November 2018. “We’ve reimagined the organization from a gym, swim, drop-in organization to a place with rigorous programming that prepares them to move up the economic mobility ladder.”
Penske focus
Penske, specifically, is invested in three BGCSM Industry Clubs that involve a competitive interview process for internships in the areas of mobility, digital design and media arts for area high school students. Students are paid $15 an hour.
“We don’t want them to choose between the industry club or another job because they have to earn dollars,” Wilson said. “I contributed to my household as a teenager. I understand sometimes we’re faced with tough decisions. I don’t want them to have to choose. And this holds students to a different level of accountability.”
Here is a glimpse behind the scenes:
Members of the Mobility Industry Club, focused on robotics and AI, learned coding to design technology that guided driverless vehicles in a series of challenges to qualify for world competition in 2024. When the team arrived in the Mideast, the design requirements changed dramatically. The students exceeded expectations. This year, a different group of students returned to Abu Dhabi and they finished in the Top 10 despite being elevated to collegiate level competition.
Members of the Digital Design Industry Club create professional banners, selected on a competitive basis, that line the barrier walls of the Detroit Grand Prix city street circuit. The motorsports event, itself a non-profit, becomes the first client of student designers who can set up their own companies as LLCs. Currently, digital designers are working on automotive design. ,
In the motorsports Correspondents Industry Club, students learn about photography, videography and how to interview professional race car drivers competing at the Detroit Grand Prix, alongside professional sports journalists.
The nonprofit is a business with social impact — operating with both the head and the heart, Wilson said. Documenting progress and tracking students is essential. Because Detroit can’t just recruit talent. It must be grown locally.
An estimated 17,000 students are touched by these programs each year from throughout Metro Detroit, including Eastpointe, Highland Park and Van Buren Township.
“This is about real-world experience,” said Wilson, 51, of Canton, who moved to Detroit to work at the Ford Fund in 2014 before changing course. “We recognize there are inherent challenges that come from serving communities of color. That's the greatest opportunity as well. A lot of times they don't get the same level of quality programming. We’re really proud we get requests from suburban officials or community members.”
The organization, founded by women in 1926 as a safe place for fatherless boys who needed something positive to do, has evolved into an economic mobility hub, he said. Its budget has grown 10 times over the past decade, from $2.2 million. A portion of these dollars go to pay for internships.
Bill Ford provides space for innovation
Christian Davis of Detroit is an 11th grader at Mumford High School, who competed in Abu Dhabi this past spring and came back sort of stunned.
“I didn’t expect the competition to be that intense. I didn’t know how hard it would be,” he said. “It helped me be able to deal with things better, way better. There were multiple nights we had to stay up late to work for the next day. We had a back pile of work and we were able to get it all done.”
The experience stripped away fear and anxiety of change and crushing deadlines, Davis said, taking a short break at the Newlab site where mobility club members work beside tech startups on the Michigan Central campus in Corktown. “I can see doors opening up every day that I come here. I learn more and more coding, which helps me learn about the future and the future of autonomous vehicles.”
Young minds working side-by-side at the old Book Depository building is precisely what Bill Ford envisioned back in 2018 when he announced plans to resurrect the long abandoned site.
“It was to be a talent magnet for people to come to Michigan. But there’s a corollary to that, which is, we have to keep our young people,” Bill Ford told me recently. “I think it’s really important that they are there because it will open their eyes and I think it already has, in terms of watching the future being invented. They can see themselves as part of that future. To me, that’s really, really important.”
Ford, executive chair of Ford Motor Co., said companies on site are curated carefully.
“We want to have this kind of learning atmosphere and entrepreneurial atmosphere to build upon itself,” he said. “You can absolutely feel the energy and the kinds of connections that are made among all the different companies down there. It is kind of a flywheel effect. It builds upon itself … That’s how we’re going to build the workforce of tomorrow and how we’re going to build Detroit into a world-class business destination. That’s the goal.”
Powerful executives often call the mix of innovative companies an ecosystem.
It’s proven to be highly effective in Silicon Valley.
At Newlab, students are surrounded by mobility and tech startups.
“It shows them what’s possible. You see a robotic cart going around,” Wilson said. “This is about growth and confidence. I’ve had parents in tears talking about how shy their son or daughter was, then they come into our program.”
Detroit Grand Prix connection
Outside the spotlight, top Detroit executives are working together to develop ways to invest in families that have lived in the Motor City for generations.
“We’re always talking about the future of the workforce and what it’s going to look like and how we can compete and get our kids ready,” Ford said. “By the way, I don’t have many people alive that I consider role models anymore but I do consider Roger (Penske) that. He’s a remarkable business person but, even more importantly, he’s a remarkable human being. It doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t want credit for this but he deserves so much credit for so many things he does, most of which people will never know, because that’s the way Roger likes it.”
Bud Denker, president of the $43 billion global Penske Corp. told me that loyalty to Detroit is intentional. “Because we are based here, we feel we have an obligation and commitment.”
While digital design and correspondents clubs have been fueled by the Detroit Grand Prix, which is overseen by Denker, the mobility club formed by chance.
A group called Code19, the world’s first autonomous racing team that’s based in Indiana, reached out in the fall of 2023 to James Feagin, managing partner of Black Bottom Ventures. He reached out to Wilson to see if the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan might be interested in partnering for global competition. Wilson put together a proposal and reached out to Penske, who is always open to good ideas. Within weeks, nine students had interviewed for the positions and made the Jan. 9, 2024 application deadline. They immediately began studying after school at Newlab the coding protocols needed to compete. They cleared competitive thresholds in January and February and then March. The rest is history.
“We were way behind other international — mostly college level — youth who had already been training,” Wilson said.
This is is the power of having a partner like Penske on speed dial. Their investment launched the program. Last year was autonomous racing, this year the focus is drones.
“We want kids to develop skills for years to come,” Azar said. “Because of the 2024 performance, they competed at the professional level this year, joining forces with one of the university teams. And once again they qualified for the world championship.”
Meanwhile, digital design club interns are commissioned by the Grand Prix.
Ari’Onna Harrel, an 11th grader at Detroit School of Arts, has immersed herself in graphic design, fashion design and interior design — now she’s a mobility club intern. “We’re learning the basics of the Python program and learning to code a car to self drive. Not only do I look at seams of my clothes and notice a good job or how cheaply its made, I’m coding and I understanding the basics of AI now. My outlook on the world is more vast … I’m able to grow and learn from these people.”
General Motors sees impact
Coding and AI expertise are required for advanced manufacturing now, so it seemed natural that General Motors has stepped in to support projects including mobility innovation and digital design.
“Our value proposition is building their future pipeline,” Wilson said. “Part of the secret sauce is engaging these kids, and we’ve game-ified advanced manufacturing by adding a competitive component. These are skills you need and students are being put in competitive situations. They want to learn how to program and code … Our youth will rise to the level of expectations we bestow on them.”
Student programs teach interviewing skills, social protocols for electronic and personal workplace interaction, as well as financial literacy.
Roger Penske and his team aren’t motivated to invest by headlines or naming rights.
“It’s to build something that can continue on for generations,” Azar said. “We’ve laid the groundwork on community programming around the Grand Prix. It represents Roger’s spirit and focus.”
Changing in unimaginable ways
Braylen Thomas, a senior at Cass Tech High School in Detroit, is a motorsports correspondent intern who said the experience has changed how he sees and experiences the world — and his role in it. When he met people who talked in a different way or had different childhood experiences, he felt like an outsider. It deteriorated his confidence, Thomas said.
Interviewing champion race car drivers such as Will Power, Santino Ferrucci and Nolan Siegel can change someone.
“You wouldn’t be able to talk to me or recognize me a year ago,” Thomas told me. “I feel like I’m a completely different person. I’m talking to people who don’t know me and I don’t know. You can actually find one of my broadcast reports on Will Power’s webpage.”
Thomas has applied to study engineering at college, so he has a back up plan. But media work is what captures his heart. Now he can go into high-profile settings such as televised news conferences without fear or anxiety.
He’s not alone in securing a path forward.
Elens-Eigbokhan graduated from Communication and Media Arts High School in Detroit and is now a freshman studying computer science at Henry Ford Community College. As a high school intern, he designed drone technology with students from Cass Tech and Cody High, and he has since designed an app to discourage impulse purchases.
“This grew Elijah and gave him a different perspective on opportunities,” said Tyisha Hudson, an administrative assistant and proud mother, who explained how BGC has evolved with the times. “This has been opportunity after opportunity. They give inner city youth experiences outside of what they might see every day.”
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BRAVO! and keep up the great progress and success and keep moving forward.
Phoebe, I sent this on also to my sis moved back to Kansas, retiring after leading the giant BG Club network to financial and leadership self-sufficiency across a couple of decades in gang-impacted Fresno, with close to a perfect high school graduation rate by the hundreds of kids involved. This is a good story!