Hills Honors Mercedes-Benz Financial Services

During the past four years, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services (MBFS) has helped bring art into the lives of its employees and local residents. According to company representatives, that's just the way they do business.

At Monday night's Farmington Hills City Council meeting, company representatives received a proclamation honoring MBFS as a 2011 Distinguished Service to the Arts Award recipient. The annual award recognizes "exceptional service to the arts."

"We're extremely committed to our community," said Jennifer Korman, who works in media relations for Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. "Our main focus is really visual arts, but we also promote the Sphinx organization and Mosaic Youth Theatre. We've been a title sponsor for the Stars in the Park () concert series."

"Our employees are out there every night," her colleague Jack Ferry added.

But visual art is the company's creative focus, something that's easy to see when you walk in the door of its facility on 12 Mile Road, between Drake and Halsted. 

"We definitely believe the arts provides inspiration," Ferry said. "Contemporary art hangs in all of our U.S. and Canadian facilities. We'd like to think that the art engages our employees. We want to foster a creative environment."

The company has established a relationship with the Cranbrook Academy of Art; a committee goes to the school every year to select student artworks that turn MBFS into a kind of art gallery. The pieces are not what you'd normally see in a corporate office, Ferry said.

You'd also not expect to see a panel discussion about the city of Detroit in a Farmington Hills corporate office – but that's what happened Wednesday night at MBFS. The company brought in Detroit City Council president Charles Pugh, Detroit Free Press senior editor Stephen Henderson, founding principal of Henry Ford Academy School for Creative Studies Michelle White and Detroit artist Sioux Trujillo to engage in a conversation around the question, "Can Art Rebuild a Community?"

Afterward, more than 200 guests mingled and continued the discussion as they browsed through the showcase of Cranbrook art and met the young artists. The Mosaic Youth Theatre singers and students from Sphinx, a nonprofit organization that encourages diversity among youth in the arts, performed.

"For a couple of hours, one night a year, it turns our building into an art gallery," Ferry said.

"How arts is moving the community forward is such a hot topic," Korman added, noting this is the third year for the company's arts-related panel discussion. "Not only are we in the conversation, we're ahead of the curve."

Ferry and Korman each said the Farmington Hills award means a lot to Mercedes-Benz Financial Services.

"It's nice to know our community is recognizing our commitment to the arts," Korman said.

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services employs 500 people and marks its fourth year in the community this August. The company primarily provides financial services for Mercedes-Benz dealers and dealers' customers.