We are a small family-owned business that began in 2016 with the formation of Motor City Sea Farm LLC. We bought a vacant shell of a 17,000 sq ft building along with two vacant city lots on West Chicago in Detroit in November 2017. The building had been vacant for 10 years and was hit hard by scrappers and vandals and used as a dump site by many. We spent the next 2 years cleaning it up and renovating it. In November 2019, we sold our first batch of the freshest shrimp in Michigan. When the pandemic hit in 2020, our shrimp business dried up and we were also faced with some issues growing our shrimp. We were not using all the space we had in our building and decided to pivot and utilize it better by growing other high-demand and healthy items. After some research and discussion, we settled on raising microgreens, cut flowers and mushrooms. In 2021, Motor City Micro Farm was born. In October 2022, we finally abandoned the shrimp business and focused our full attention on our Motor City Micro Farm operation.
MARK GRZYBOWSKI,
CO-OWNER AND CEO
Mark is the founder and runs the day-to-day operation of Motor City Micro Farm. He spent 20 years in the hospitality management business before changing careers and then spending 18 years in development and fundraising in the city of Detroit.
KELLY LONGO,
CO-OWNER AND PRESIDENT
Kelly is Mark’s wife and idea sounding board. She has a day job as an SVP in Human Resources at a financial management consulting firm and helps out during the weekends at the farmers market. She is responsible for our cut flower business and makes all the bouquets we sell.
CHRIS TYLENDA,
CO-OWNER AND DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING
Chris is our sales guy. He also has a day job as a Transportation Broker and helps out on weekends and evenings as needed.
NATE TYLENDA,
CO-OWNER AND DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND IT
Nate is our “numbers guy” with a strong background in financial analysis. He also has a day job as an IT Security guy and helps out on weekends and evenings as needed.
MEGAN TYLENDA
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Meg is responsible for all our social media: scheduling posts and bringing to life our delicious, nutritious microgreens. She’s also a very busy mom and helps out occasionally at the farmers’ markets as needed.
APOLLO AND THUNDER,
CO-DIRECTORS OF SECURITY
Fearless and ever vigilant with endless appetites, they prowl the premises greeting everyone, protecting us from squirrels, alerting us of UPS and FedEx deliveries and occasionally warming feet under desks.
