Katy Rent

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	Keith Brophy, CEO of Sagestone Consulting and one of the firm's founders, has published numerous technical works since translated into the languages of the world's economic powerhouses.

GRAND RAPIDS — For the third year in a row, Keith Brophy has taken a look backward — and a look forward — at his predictions about trends in technology.

LANSING — The Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth announced that Michigan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December edged upward by one tenth of a percentage point to 7.2 percent from November’s 7.1 percent.

GRAND RAPIDS — The National Association of Purchasing Management is reporting that moderate growth is resuming, according to data collected in the third and fourth weeks of December.

HOLLAND — Barry Rice is hip.

Well, HYP, actually.

Rice, founder of the Holland Young Professionals (HYP), is working to create a place where professionals between the ages of 21 and 35 can congregate to make business and social connections with people from all over West Michigan.

GRAND RAPIDS — Customers often dictate business decisions and when shutterbugs started making the shift to digital photography, commercial photo houses had to go along with them.

GRAND RAPIDS — President George W. Bush’s vision of returning human beings to the moon and possibly traveling to Mars is an inspirational goal, Congressman Vern Ehlers agrees, but it is a vision that comes with peril and a huge price tag.

GRAND RAPIDS — According to a survey released this week by IRN, automakers and their Tier One suppliers continue to demand greater price reductions from their component suppliers.

GRAND RAPIDS — Some area teenagers are learning the art of — and rewards from — philanthropy at an early age.

GRAND RAPIDS — Not only did the erection of the 215,000-square-foot, $53 million Cook DeVos Center for Health Sciences change the downtown skyline, it also changed health education in the region.