Information provided by Lambert, Edwards and Associates:

Thursday Jeff Lambert, the president and managing partner of Lambert, Edwards & Associates, presented a $10,000 check to the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids. 

The donation will fund swim lessons for urban youth at the Greater Grand Rapids and Metro Detroit YMCA brances. 

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports drowning is the second leading cause of injury-related death among children under the age of 15. 

Carl Erickson is the President of Atomic Object and SoftwareGR. He's recently started blogging about building and running software product development firms at Great Not Big.

West Michigan is missing critical ingredients common in more entrepreneurial communities -- or at least so I keep hearing. According to this line of thinking, our major shortcomings are a lack of ideas, intolerance of failure and an unwillingness to take risks. If there were more ideas, if it were more socially acceptable to fail, or if people were more willing to risk success than to avoid failure, we'd have a more diverse and vibrant regional economy.

Mark F. Miller is an architect and urban designer at Nederveld, a local engineering and planning firm, the former chairman of the Grand Rapids Historic Preservation Commission and a past president of the Grand Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects.  He's pictured here with his three children.

How do you turn one of West Michigan's most pedestrian hostile environments into a pedestrian haven?

Wyoming's Turn On 28th St. Project.