(MONEY Magazine) – Our June 1997 cover story on inconspicuous millionaires included a profile of Kenneth Bardwell, a Detroit businessman who planned to create 300 manufacturing jobs in the depressed city of Highland Park. So far, though, all Bardwell has created are disgruntled investors and bad press. A circuit board assembly plant he intended to open hasn't, and in August, the Detroit Free Press wrote that Bardwell had misstated his education credentials and that some investors felt he had misled them.

Bardwell admits that a preliminary prospectus he handed out last year said he had gone to schools that he never attended. As for unhappy backers, Bardwell says he has encountered "typical start-up problems," and that investors who are complaining are "unsophisticated." Michigan securities authorities are investigating. --JAMES E. REYNOLDS