As Good as Gold

The year 2019 marks Treystar's golden (50th) anniversary. In recognition of this milestone, we're going to feature snapshots from our history in this newsletter and on our website. We hope you enjoy walking down memory lane as much as we do.

The First Decade (Give or Take)

Robert Brown started Treystar by building two large mobile home communities in Kalamazoo County. Thanks to his expertise, hard work, and persistent desire to discover and cultivate opportunity, Treystar grew quickly from these humble roots. 1968: Bob, Susie (his wife), their two sons ("Brownie" and Fritz) and their dog (Blue) pack into the car and return to Kalamazoo after a 10-year hiatus. The family previously resided in Colorado, Idaho and Texas, where Bob had worked in plant management and sales with Boise Cascade Corporation. His tenure with Boise Cascade gives him the confidence to risk his own capital and chase his dreams of opening his own business.

Bob's first independent venture "50-percent interest in Colonial Acres, a mobile home community on Sprinkle Road in Portage. Bob buys the remaining shares by the fall, and then procures his own back hoe and bulldozer with the intent of developing more land between the original property and the Kalamazoo Airport.
After toiling with his "big trucks," Bob's crew informs him he'd "be better served by doing something else." To that end, he purchases and zones another 55 acres on the west side of Kalamazoo on KL Avenue (aka Colonial Manor).
Bob oversees the construction of 200 additional sites at Colonial Manor. (Bob and his partners build 650 mobile home sites over the next three years. A Detroit-based developer purchases Colonial Acres and Colonial Manor in 1982.) Bob and his mentor (Carlton Reed) spend their waking hours in a 10-x-10 office above the Capital Movie Theater on South Street. Within these close quarters, the two businessmen look after 40 or so tenants at Colonial Acres and brainstorm other potential investments.
Inspired by continued growth, Bob now invests in a machine tool company. LeVanes, Inc. manufactures precision plastic components for GM and Ford, as well as other non-automotive industries, and proves to be a very worthwhile transaction. Bob and a new business partner, Jay DeBryan, renovate his second office space on the corner of Walnut and Burdick Streets. Bob enters the business world of banking this same year.
One meeting with a family friend, one scuffle in an Ann Arbor bar (stemming from the ever-contentious Michigan vs. Ohio State football game), and one rumor over the impending foreclosure of major Kalamazoo bank leads Bob and four partners to take over the reigns of Industrial State Bank (ISB).
Bob acquires Valley Plastics, another molding operation. By 1975, Valley Plastics expands from its Plainwell location into a new 17,000-square-foot building on Kilgore Road. Because mobile home communities, banking and manufacturing facilities don't keep him busy enough, Bob joins forces with a German immigrant to seed the invention of a high-pressure painting and cleaning device. An instant success, the product receives an exclusive contract with Sherman Williams. Bob sells it outright to the paint company in 1977.
Detroit Bank and Trust buys ISB. One of the original partners (Ron Bieke, President) represents Detroit Bank and Trust's efforts in out-state acquisitions, while Bob joins the Board. Detroit Bank and Trust becomes Comerica in 1981.