Carol Kane | Free Press Business Columnist
Bill Ford talks with Carol Kane at the Detroit Free Press Breakfast Club
Carol Kane interviews Ford Chairman Bill Ford on the Detroit Free Press Breakfast Club series on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
David Tarver grew up tinkering with vacuum tubes, transistors, and other gadgets in the family garage alongside his father, Fred Tarver, who was a postal worker by day and a local TV and radio repairman by night.
Tarver learned a lot from watching his father and inherited his love of electronics and technology. His family, his parents and three siblings, moved to Flint from Georgia in 1950.
Tarver, now 71, told me that his late father couldn’t get a job in the electrical industry because not many black people were employed in the emerging industry at the time — fixing televisions and radios was the closest thing he got to a job.
Inspired by the civil rights movement and greater opportunity of the 1960s, Tarver told me he wanted to pursue a career in technology, and he also wanted to start a tech company.
He earned two electrical engineering degrees from the University of Michigan in the 1970s and went to work for AT&T Bell Labs. After a few years, he left the company and in the early 1980s founded a communications equipment business, Telecom Analysis Systems Inc. (TAS), in Red Bank, New Jersey. The company’s products were used in research and development for communications equipment companies around the world.
Twelve years later, Tarver sold the company for $30 million, continued on as the acquirer’s group president and helped found Spirent, a communications industry leader valued at more than $2 billion, according to his biography on the University of Michigan’s website.
He has taken a different path in recent years, focusing on giving back and providing opportunities to urban entrepreneurs, which will also help cities and the unique challenges they face.
Tarver has been teaching at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering Entrepreneurship Center since 2012.
Mr. Tarver started the Urban Entrepreneurship Initiative, a nonprofit that helps urban startups, in 2014. It started out well, but struggled as the pandemic hit cities hard, and Mr. Tarver has paused operations and is restructuring.
He just relaunched the organization at an event with other entrepreneurs at the Detroit Golf Club on July 18. UM is supporting the relaunch, giving UEI $250,000 in seed funding.
“UM supports the reopening of UEI because this is consistent with the university’s desire to promote economic development and improve the quality of life in Detroit and other urban communities,” Tarver said.
For his work, Tarver will receive the University of Michigan’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s 2024 Electrical and Computer Engineering Alumni Achievement Award this fall.
Tarver currently or has previously served and provided expertise on nonprofit organizations such as the Red Bank School Board, the University of Michigan College of Engineering National Advisory Council, the National Committee on National Educational Development Program (NAEP) Grade 12 Assessment and Reporting, the University of Michigan Alumni Association Board of Directors and the Flint Trustee Transition Advisory Committee.
Providing opportunities for startups remains his core mission.
“While many recognize the role entrepreneurship plays in ensuring urban communities thrive, there remains a shortage of urban innovators who can create innovative, scalable businesses that specifically target and respond to the needs of urban communities,” he said.
“That’s why UEI is moving from advocacy to action, with our online Urban Innovators Platform (which we are launching) serving as a hub where urban innovators can find critical business model information, inspiration and connections with like-minded individuals and groups,” he said.
In its early days, UEI hosted annual symposiums in Flint, Detroit and Ann Arbor, bringing together local and national entrepreneurs and thought leaders to discuss supporting urban entrepreneurs.
Tarver spoke about how UEI is changing and adding new things to its portfolio of offerings.
Going forward it will be like this:
Create a member-driven business model centered around access to the Urban Innovators Platform, an online collection of city-focused business profiles that help innovators shape new businesses and projects by understanding the successes and challenges of existing urban innovation activities around the world. Provide community profiles and needs assessments to help target entrepreneurship to where it is most needed. Bring together entrepreneurial experts from start-ups, community organizations and governments through a global online Urban Entrepreneurs Network. Create courses, seminars and reference materials that highlight the knowledge, methods and skills needed for effective urban innovation and entrepreneurship.
I asked him where he sees the opportunities for startups in Detroit.
“We have seen a lot of small business initiatives in the housing and retail sectors,” he said. “At UEI, we want to place more emphasis on innovative solutions in areas such as education, health, safety and mobility. Our long-term goal is not only to create small businesses, but to foster innovative businesses that can create profitable solutions in this region and many other communities.”
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Carol Cain can be reached at 248-355-7126 or clcain@cbs.com. She is senior producer and host of “Michigan Matters,” which airs Sundays at 5:30 a.m. on CBS Detroit and Sundays at noon on 50 WKBD in Detroit. This Sunday’s show features James B. Nicholson, James M. Nicholson and John Nicholson of PVS Chemicals, and Cassandra Thomas and Espy Thomas of Sweet Potato Sensations. The show is also available on Fubu, Pluto TV, YouTube TV and Apple TV in the program listings of these two stations.
