July 2021

I moved to Kalamazoo 28 years ago and although I did not grow up here, I have a lot of family in the area and I definitely consider it home. Growing up, I expected I would move to a large metropolitan region (New York City comes to mind), but the move to Kalamazoo has been fantastic and quite frankly, just a really cool place to live.

Here are some things I love about where I live: 

• 16 years ago, a large donation was made to provide free college tuition to all Kalamazoo Public School graduates. It can be used for any public Michigan college or university and a small handful of private colleges in Michigan as well.  The impact on the community has been life changing.
  
  
• Kalamazoo has a big city feel but a small town atmosphere. With a population of over 250,000, with over 75,000 of those people living in the city of Kalamazoo, you are surely not living in a major city. With that, you also have access to tremendous arts programs, such as theatre and music, festivals and activities that bring people downtown throughout the year.  We have a walkable downtown to take you to brew pubs, restaurants or local distilleries, to name a few.  There is always something to do in Kalamazoo.
  
  
• The Irving S Gilmore International Keyboard Festival is held right here in Kalamazoo, presenting a world-class music festival featuring the finest international keyboard artists. In addition, Kalamazoo was once the home of Gibson guitars. In fact, Hard Rock International will be renovating the old factory into a hotel, restaurant and brewery.
  
  
• Pfizer, headquartered in Portage, MI, part of the greater Kalamazoo area produced and distributed one of the now, widespread COVID-19 vaccines. Before being Pfizer, the Kalamazoo pharmaceutical company was known as The Upjohn Company, which was formed to make friable pills.
  
  
• If you’ve been in the hospital in the last few decades, you might have been experiencing some of the innovations from Stryker Corporation, headquartered in Kalamazoo. Stryker develops medical and surgical equipment that is used throughout the world.  If you have a new knee or hip, it might be from Stryker!
  
  
• We have three higher education learning institutions in the greater Kalamazoo area: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo College, and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.  Western Michigan University (WMU) was most recently in the news for receiving the largest gift to a public university in our nation’s history. That gift was $550 million provided by a small group of WMU Alumni.  $300 million of that gift is earmarked for the medical school, WMed, $200 million for general operations at the university, and $50 million towards athletics.  This will have an incredible impact on the university and our community.

These are just a few of the amazing highlights of Kalamazoo.  If you’re not from here, we welcome your visit!  Cliff and I, and the entire Kindred Financial Partners team, can give you many suggestions for sights to see and enjoy!