pulse 220 owners Craig and Renee Erlich met in high school.

more bar business on Thursday nights,
so I was hired to bring customers in
with karaoke," recalls Schechter, 40,
now of Bloomfield Township. "Liquor
sales zoomed from $400 to $2,400 on
Thursdays."
He and Renee met when he was her
vendor for various party services as
he continued and expanded Star Trax
after graduating with a finance degree.
The young entrepreneurs became 50-
50 partners, merging their businesses
for overall social entertainment events
and expanding in the mall. Schechter
later left to enter his father's insurance
business.
Craig Erlich sold the direct market-
ing firm, QMS, to a publicly traded
company in 1999 and joined his wife in
the burgeoning Star Trax. They opened
the Southfield location a year later.
Schechter, still a partner in the com-
pany, says he has "no regrets" about
leaving. "I wanted a new intellectual
challenge," he said.
He is now is managing director
of Schechter Wealth Strategies in
Birmingham. "I know that Star Trax
has been run well, and the challenge
for pulse 220 is to keep after those
national clients:' he said. "If they do a
good job with one, the word will spread
to the others and make the rebranding
a success!'

On The Move
Now, pulse 220 has a five-person busi-
ness development department, which
obtains clients and turns them over

to an account team for timeline man-
agement and budget control, then a
creative team, made up of account and
program managers.
"They come up with the really cool
stuff," Craig Erlich said. "They create a
culture that embraces outside-of-the-
box thinking. We now handle corporate
events that range in cost from $50,000
to $3 million!'
For example, pulse 220 arranged a
four-day series of parties and events
for VIP's of Gatorade Inc., at the
February Super Bowl in Miami, includ-
ing transportation and entertainment.
It played a big role in party handling
for companies during the 2006 Detroit
Super Bowl. "One of our goals is to
build lasting relationships with these
corporate giants, and we hope that our
work with them will get the attention
of other companies:' Erlich said.
And pulse 220 impressed Microsoft,
the giant computer software company,
by carrying out multi-city "executive
summits" to strengthen Microsoft's
relationships with its customers.
Guests received a "save the date" teaser
with chips and salsa accompanied by
a card that read "This should get your
mouth watering" to whet their appetite
for three days of brainstorming and
strategizing.
In 2005, Star Trax was responsible
for a two-day 20th anniversary celebra-
tion for Livonia-based Quicken Loans-
Rock Financial at Cleveland's Quicken
Loans Arena, home of the Cleveland
Cavaliers basketball team, owned by

Dan Gilbert of Franklin, who founded
the mortgage company. More than
5,000 people were bused to the event
for dinners and entertainment, includ-
ing a surprise performance by the
Black Eyed Peas rock group. Star Trax
staged the company's most recent holi-
day party for 4,000 people at Detroit's
Renaissance Center with an appear-
ance by Kid Rock.
The new identity "pulse 220" for-
mally debuted in January with the
unveiling of a new logo for a minor
league Cleveland hockey team, the
Lake Erie Monsters, also owned by
Gilbert. That extravaganza featured a
re-creation of the Lake Erie shoreline,
with a mysterious monster, right in the
arena, complete with sight, sound and
smell, including fog pumped into the
press conference.
"These guys execute — they 'got
game, a lot of energy and creativity:'
is how Gilbert describes pulse 220.
"Our company's events play a big role
in sustaining our company culture, so
we try to make each event special. The
people at pulse 220 understand this;
they bring much more than chair rent-
als and caterers to the party."
Craig Erlich observed "that every-
thing usually goes smoothly with our
events, but there are often some inter-
esting situations along the way. We had
booked the great singer Lou Rawls into
a corporate event — then he died five
days before the party date. Through the
ingenuity of our staff, we got Natalie
Cole to fill in at practically the last
minute. Another time, a well-known
jazz star suddenly refused to perform
unless he was paid his $70,000 fee in
advance — in cash! But we also got
that done!'
Added Renee, "I remember the grow-
ing pains of the old Star Trax days
when some of our young staff actually
got lost on their way to a party venue.
As we started branching out around
the country and places like Mexico and
the Caribbean, we realized we needed
complete information systems to make
sure everything runs properly. Our
storage room contains travel literature
and data on every state and large city.
Our employees now are young and
`driven' for success!'

Youthful Infusion
Karen Mendelsohn, vice president for
sales and marketing for Taylor-based
Masco, a $12 billion-a-year home
improvement company, calls pulse
220 "very unique because they have a

Turning Up The Pulse on page 28

rmployment for
Adults with
Disabilities

JVS was in the forefront of placing
individuals with developmental disabilities
into the workforce. Today, we provide
the support needed to keep hundreds of
our clients working in the community.

The employers are happy with their
workers and our workers are proud
of themselves.

It's a win-win for everybody.

Need Reliable Employees?

29699 Southfield Rd.
Southfield, MI 48076

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www.jvsdet.org

June 14 • 2007

27

