Centralight

30 centralight spring '14 30 centralight spring '14 Startup Guys the 30 centralight spring '14 You're attending a business conference at a huge convention center in an unfamiliar city. Where are the breakout sessions located? What's the easiest way to get to your hotel room? Where is the meeting room where you're scheduled to meet a prospective client? A small Mount Pleasant company that received crucial startup assistance from CMU can help you fi nd your way. Tangerine Mobile, founded by three CMU geography grads, works with concert halls, convention centers and other public venues to provide event participants with mobile apps that feature indoor maps and indoor location services on Apple and Android mobile devices. "I used what I learned in school to make money. That's not always the case for people, especially in geography," says company co-founder Ken Curry, '94, chuckling. Curry, along with J.J. Schlafl ey, '04 MS '11, and David Nichol, '04 MS '11, started the company in 2012. Tangerine Mobile is a subsidiary of Amalgam LLC, which they started in 2005. Amalgam sells geographic information systems mapping to local governments and businesses, primarily in central and northern Michigan. Its maps allow citizens to view their property and obtain a variety of tax, assessment and other information on those properties. The three men maintained strong connections with CMU following graduation, having worked in the university's Center for Geographic Information Science before starting Amalgam. Tangerine, founded in 2012, received crucial startup assistance from CMU Research Corp., which provides a variety of services to new companies. "They connected us to market research information and are helping us fi nd fi nancing," says Curry, the company's business development director. "We're still in that process with them." While Google and other companies off er mobile mapping applications, creative director Schlafl ey says few off er interactive indoor location maps in the growing event business, Tangerine's specialty. Tangerine has developed mapping applications for DeVos Place and the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Radisson Plaza Hotel and Suites in Kalamazoo, Boyne Mountain Civic Center in Boyne City, Grand Traverse Resort in Acme, and Weber's Inn in Ann Arbor, in addition to other hotels and convention centers in Kansas, Indiana and Louisiana. The company also is targeting visitors and convention bureaus to provide event participants with online maps that give them information about hotels, restaurants and other services. The young company hopes to grow nationally over the next several years. "We are really in a big build-up phase," says Schlafl ey. "We're showing our maps to people in the event industry and getting our name out there." In addition to the three founders, Tangerine employs several graduate student interns from CMU's GIS program and contracts work out to other companies. "One of the things we learned from serving small communities up here in Amalgam is that you have to stay lightweight," Curry says. Tangerine's connection to CMU helps the company keep "lightweight" during its crucial early development stage when resources are tight, while also providing an educational benefi t to the university's students. "Being able to come back here, working with CMURC and supporting student internships is rewarding on many levels," Curry says. >

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