LaGrand is not used to losing money

sLawyer, conservationist, politician David LaGrand


David LaGrand dreams of living in a world that's green and sustainable.

But unlike most dreamers, LaGrand acts on his dreams.

He's installed solar panels on the roof of his Heritage Hill home and his Lake Michigan cottage, which also has a small wind turbine. On a sunny day, the meter spins backward.

He's going to put solar panels on the backside of Wealthy Street Bakery, which he and his wife, Melissa, started with their next-door neighbors.

Rather than drive a car and join a health club, he walks to his downtown law firm most days.

The 44-year-old former city commissioner and state senate candidate is not stopping there.

"The more you get into environmental issues, the more you realize the challenge for the future is water and food systems," LaGrand says.

So he's farming now. Inspired by poet Wendell Berry's "Mad Farmer's Manifesto," the lifelong city resident has bought into a 150-acre cattle farm in Cannon Township.

Though LaGrand maintains he's an urbanist at the core, he's been busy buying hay, cattle, fencing and land across the road. The goal is to convert the land from corn and soybeans back into pasture. He envisions a robust market for his grass-fed beef back in the city.

"He loves start-ups," says Melissa, his wife of 19 years. "He loves that phase of making it happen."

He knows value of investments

Despite his green start-ups, LaGrand is averse to throwing money around. Almost every one of his ventures begins with a shrewdly calculated profit motive.

Whether it's the solar panels on his house or the hay he's buying for his cattle, LaGrand can quickly tell you the cost and the return on investment his venture will yield.

He'll quickly recite the cost of those solar panels on his house, rattle off the rates he pays for electricity, the life of the solar panels, the number of hours of sun he expects. It comes up to a 7.5 percent return on his investment.

LaGrand is a big fan of solar energy.

"If every roof in the city had a solar panel, I think you could take the city off the grid," he says. "I think with a full build-out, we could be an energy-producing state."

With a new rack of solar panels he plans to install on the backside of the bakery, LaGrand calculates its energy bill will be cut even deeper. He plans to install more panels at his home.

He estimates he can install solar panels for $3.50 a watt — $2.35 a watt with the available federal tax credits.

The $9,500 wind turbine on his cottage is another story.

"In the last year, it's produced $3 worth of power," he said. "You can only justify it as an investment in principle."

Cutting energy costs at the bakery

While at the bakery, LaGrand is calculating how to cut the energy bills. They've already saved $2,000 a year by converting to compact fluorescent bulbs. Once a new series of LED bulbs qualify for a federal tax credits, he's going to install them.

"That's going to save us $400 more," he says, quickly reciting how the LEDs' higher cost is offset by the lower energy use, assuming they are lit at least 6,000 hours a year.

LaGrand is not used to losing money and has a knack for finding it.

When Melissa got into an accident with their minivan about 10 years ago, he ran the numbers and figured it would cost them about $9,000 a year to replace the vehicle and keep it running.

He decided he would rather spend the $9,000 a year to buy and maintain an abandoned storefront building that was for sale near their home along Wealthy Street SE.

Today, LaGrand grins broadly as he tells the story while sipping a Diet Coke in the Wealthy Street Bakery.

"We bought this place because Melissa got into a car accident," he chuckles.


They began the bakery in 2002 with their next-door neighbors, Jim and Barb McClurg, after concluding the neighborhood would embrace a shop with fresh baked goods. They leased the storefront next door to another neighborhood couple, who opened Art of the Table, a shop that caters to foodies and wine lovers.

Another reason they started the bakery; they were having trouble finding pastries for Four Friends Coffeehouse, a downtown business they began in 1994 with Karl Swedberg and Sara DeBoer, college friends who were moving back to West Michigan from the Seattle area.

"I don't tend to do things without partners. I'm very collaborative," LaGrand says. "We asked six people what color to paint our bedroom before we made that decision."

Early years

LaGrand credits his late grandfather, James LaGrand Sr., with his business acumen and entrepreneurial daring.

"He quit his job and started a lumber company during the Great Depression."

His passion for social justice comes from his upbringing as a preacher's kid. Though his resume indicates he was born in Grand Rapids and graduated from Calvin College, his childhood was more diverse.

He is the eldest of four sons born to James and Virginia LaGrand, an intrepid couple who left Grand Rapids and taught in Nigeria for two years in the early 1960s. His father was a seminarian at Calvin Seminary, and his mom an instructor at Calvin College when LaGrand was born in 1966.

When he was 6 weeks old, they moved to New Haven, Conn., where his father studied at Yale University. When he was 3, the family moved to Chicago, where his father pastored a Christian Reformed mission church in a predominantly black neighborhood.

Eight years later, the family moved to England, where they lived in Sheffield and Cambridge while his parents pursued their studies and research. When David was 11, the family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father served as pastor to a Christian Reformed Church.

As an honors student at Queen Elizabeth High School, LaGrand distinguished himself as a public speaker, winning provincial oratory contests and placed second in a national debating seminar.

With all of the moving around, LaGrand's summers usually included long visits to his grandparents. Both sides lived in Grand Rapids and owned cottages along Lake Michigan.

"I loved Grand Rapids, and I loved coming back to Grand Rapids and seeing relatives, which is why Lake Michigan in the summer is my favorite place in the world."