As the "Amazon field generals" were getting organized, a disparate band of consultants were being brought into the project — some paid, others volunteering for the cause.

Officials at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. recommended Gilbert's Rock Ventures hire economic development consultant Jeff Marcell's TIP Strategies. Marcell's résumé came with built-in Amazon knowledge; he's a former CEO of the Seattle region's economic development council.

Tom Whatman, an Ohio-based Republican political strategist who had done public affairs work for Rock Ventures before, was brought into the communications team.

And the Troy office of Boston Consulting Group had offered to lend the Detroit task force up to eight of its employees to run a project management office, or PMO, on a pro bono basis.

The firm, referred to as BCG in emails, served as an organizational clearinghouse for the large volume of regional information being accumulated for the narrative and visual presentations to Amazon.

"From our call this morning, they are highly professional and all business," Fleisher wrote in a Sept. 19 email to the "commanders."

"Excellent choice for PMO/Process Management," Baird replied. "Former chairman of BCG back in the day was a good friend of mine."

Baird, who was previously a global managing partner of PwC focused on talent recuritment, wanted to accumulate as many corporate contacts as he and others could leverage to make inroads with Amazon and Bezos' inner circle. He mentioned a connection former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had to the publisher of The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.

Later that day, another connection emerged.

Sarah Hubbard, the Detroit Regional Chamber's contract lobbyist, met with Baruah in Lansing.

Through her firm, Acuitas LLC, Hubbard also has been Amazon's in-state lobbyist for state subsidies the online retailer secured for a distribution center in Livonia and another package-fulfillment facility that's under construction in Romulus.

Amazon wants to be in a state where computer science education is part of the standard public school curriculum, Hubbard told Baruah, according to an email.

She said the tech giant is a "big time supporter" of the FIRST Robotics program for high school students to learn how to build and program robots, according to Baruah.

And, according to Hubbard, Amazon needed space for development of its ambitious plans to someday deliver packages from the sky.

"Drones are a real thing," Baruah wrote in an 8:29 p.m. email to Lewand, one of Duggan's top deputies.

Illustrating the round-the-clock work going into the Amazon bid, Lewand replied nearly five hours later — at 1:12 a.m. the next day.

"Very helpful intel," Lewand wrote. "Look forward to talking this afternoon."

A week after the Amazon bid was submitted in mid-October, Snyder talked publicly about the need to make computer coding a foreign language under the state's K-12 curriculum.

Michigan's nerdy governor was starting to speak Amazon's language.