Commercial Progression

Commercial Progression is an American based web design and development firm headquartered in Northville, Michigan. Commercial Progression focuses on Drupal open source web design, development, and support projects.
Commercial Progression’s clients include a number of recognizable name brands, including National Geographic Channel, The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, ZF-TRW Automotive, New Balance, Detroit Public Television, Justice Fellowship, and the Detroit Zoo.

History
Commercial progression was founded on May 7 of 2008 by the company’s CEO, Alex Fisher of Northville Michigan. Alex had early success with entrepreneurship and technology. At the age of 18, Alex’s Dearborn high school class was grant funded to work on a vanguard wearable computer technology project. When launched, the project gained considerable attention and was the focus of national press coverage and featured on the Today Show.
With a degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Alex continued his career development in digital media. At Move Networks, a $100 million funded startup media company and early leader in the streaming media space, Alex oversaw the setup of live streaming for high profile clients including ABC, Fox, and Oprah.
In May 2008, Alex founded Commercial Progression LLC and began a digital consulting business. Like many tech startups, Move Networks faced financial challenges in 2008 and was eventually defunded. Alex moved his focus completely to the development of Commercial Progression and developed a new passion for Open Source technology and its surrounding community.
Alex soon found a niche with open source content management systems, and specifically the Drupal CMS project. Finding Drupal to be an extremely capable web platform with proven success powering such high profile websites as whitehouse.gov and economist.com, Alex believed he could build a business around this technology. Commercial Progression soon completed Drupal projects for Detroit Public Television, ZF-TRW Automotive, National Geographic, and the University of Michigan.
Working with freelance and part time staff to accomplish these early projects, by 2011 Commercial Progression now had the capital to hire full time staff.
Through 2012 Commercial Progression worked out of shared office space with Forest Post in Farmington, Michigan. In 2013 it was time to open the first Commercial Progression dedicated office. On May 7, 2012 Commercial Progression celebrated their 5th year anniversary and the grand opening of their first office in downtown Northville. On the second floor of a renovated historic furniture building, Commercial Progression set up shop. Commercial Progression became a registered solution provider on Drupal.org, a member of the Drupal Association and a certified Acquia solution providers. In 2013 a Forbes article on Commercial Progression recognized their growth in corporate clientele and status as a leader in the Drupal open source community. Commercial progression continued their growth by exploring new markets within manufacturing as members of Automation Alley. Teaming up with Ann Arbor Spark, Commercial Progression facilitated a state sponsored programming literacy initiative known as Shifting Code.
Through 2014 new project launches in the automotive and manufacturing space included the front facing website for RouteOne and Hosco Fittings. Nationally ranked by Clutch for Drupal web design and development. In 2014 Commercial Progression also launched their first podcast, Hooked on Drupal Podcast. Commercial Progression launched a subscription based Drupal support and maintenance plan called DrupalCare in 2014.
In 2015 several new clients were acquired in the technology and higher education space. A front facing website for the Junxure CRM, the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology and Procurement Services Department.
2015 also saw a marked increase in Commercial Progression’s sponsorship and attendance of local conferences. Commercial Progression was a founding sponsorship members of the 2015 DrupalCamp Michigan, a sponsor of the 2015 ACE entrepreneurship event, and sponsoring attendees of the 2015 Detroit Digital Summit.
Commercial Progression launched their first internship program in 2015 and partnered with the Northville High School DECA young entrepreneurship program.
Continued growth and the promise of additional offices with the completion of the Goldman Sachs strategic growth program lay ahead for Commercial Progression in 2016 and 2017.
Michigan Drupal User Group & DrupalCamp Michigan Events
Commercial Progression founded the Michigan Drupal user group community in 2010. Michigan Drupal offered a collaborative learning environment in step with open source ethics and hosted regular meetup events. Fisher and the Commercial Progression team have been attending members of the popular DrupalCon annual event since 2011. After visiting this event, an initiative to host a local event in Michigan was begun. A biannual DrupalCamp Michigan event was formed in 2011 where over 100 attendees gathered in Novi Michigan. hese events continued in 2013 and DrupalCamp Michigan 2015 events was the most recent. In 2015 Commercial Progression sponsored the creation of a series of free Drupal training videos in partnership with OSTraining.
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
In February 2015, Alex Fisher and Commercial Progression were accepted into the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Detroit strategic growth program. Sponsored by Wayne State University and Babson College, this intensive program focuses on growing small businesses into the next steps of their evolution. Alex Fisher graduated the program at a Wayne State held ceremony in August 2015. The program has received coverage by local press as an important contribution to the growth of entrepreneurship in Detroit.

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