On Aug. 27, Detroit Regional Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Sandy K. Baruah filled in for Paul W. Smith as a guest host of WJR 760 AM’s Focus With Paul W. Smith, interviewing prominent business, community, and government leaders in the Detroit Region.
Hear what the guests had to say below.
Michigan State University (MSU)’s President, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, reflected on the university’s recent successes, including enrolling the second-largest freshman class in the university’s history this year and the upcoming Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences Center, slated to open in the spring of 2027.
In a conversation about MSU, public support, and funding, Guskiewicz noted that the university is not where it would like to be, further emphasizing that “we have got to take care of our own.” MSU proportionally admits around 72-75% of in-state students. On the horizon, Guskiewicz looks forward to the new health sciences center in the heart of Detroit, which will house over 500 researchers and 80 principal investigators.
“It’s an incredible partnership with Henry Ford, and a lot of great things are going to happen with discoveries right there in the heart of the city,” Guskiewicz said. “Research innovation is a big part of what we do, and it will make a difference. We are going to have more of a presence in Detroit than we have before.”
Listen to the full recording below.
At the 2023 Mackinac Policy Conference, Matt Elliott, then Conference Chair, emphasized the importance of adopting an “and” mindset, which focuses on the idea that more than one thing can be true at the same time. Today, when reflecting on the Conference theme, Chamber Board Chair Emeritus Elliott expressed its relevancy and that “we do better when we honor those truths…in reality, we are all Michiganders.”
As the owner of Blue Lake Ideas, Elliott’s work revolves around helping companies create the capacity it takes to embrace a power of & mindset. This fall, Elliott’s book, “Overloaded: Recapturing Leadership Capacity With the Power of &,” will be released.
“This is the other big learning that I have had when I have been researching the book is that there is something very predictable that happens to us when we are overloaded and too much change and volume of information is coming at us too much and too fast,” Elliot explained. “We get caught in what I call a binary track. Everything becomes either or to keep up.”
Listen to the full recording below.
President and Chief Executive Officer of United Way for Southeast Michigan, Darienne Driver Hudson, and Meghan Schmidbauer, Senior Director of Detroit Drives Degrees at the Detroit Regional Chamber, joined Baruah on air to highlight the new Open Door program and initiatives to increase education attainment for Southeast Michigan students beyond financial assistance.
“We know that students need more than just a list of places that they can attempt to contact to troubleshoot,” Schmidbauer said. “We know that students do well when there’s that warm connection and when they have someone that’s consistent and that they don’t have to tell their story multiple times. We know that asking for help can be a challenge.”
Cost of tuition isn’t always the answer to students’ hardships in educational attainment. “Our 211 data tells us every day that food insecurity, housing, and transportation continue to be a problem for all Michiganders,” Hudson said. “This partnership with Open Door allows us to bring all of these worlds together in a really impactful way.”
Listen to the full recording below.
Nicole Sherard-Freeman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, shared the company’s initiative, Sector Readiness. It intends to leverage the various nonprofits living in Southeast Michigan to collaborate and use its resources to drive the Detroit Region forward, together.
“At some point…we have to ask ourselves, ‘are we using our resources in ways that position our nonprofit partners to deliver their best outcomes, have their greatest impact and really focus their resources on the needs of communities?’” Sherard-Freeman said.
Listen to the full recording below.
Newly appointed Consul General of Canada in Detroit Andrea Clements joined Baruah to discuss the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship and the economic ties that connect Michigan and Canada. Covering Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, Clements said her role is to advocate for cross-border collaboration and highlight the ways Canadians and Americans work together to benefit communities on both sides of the border.
The conversation highlighted the Detroit Region’s role as a key gateway for trade, manufacturing, and economic cooperation between the two countries. Clements discussed the automotive sector’s deep integration across the border and the significance of regional assets like the Gordie Howe International Bridge in supporting commerce and connectivity.
“Canada and the U.S. do nearly $1 trillion in bilateral trade each year,” Clements said. “This region is really important for North American prosperity because approximately 25% of the land-based trade of that $2.5 billion every day passes through the Windsor-Detroit corridor. Michigan sells over $20 billion of goods and services to Canada every year.”
Listen to the full recording below.
Mark Hollis, Chief Operating Officer of Rock Entertainment Group, and Terry Rhadigan, Executive Advisor to the Detroit Regional Chamber, joined Baruah to discuss Detroit’s preparations for the 2027 NCAA Men’s Final Four and the role major sporting events play in driving economic growth and national visibility for the Region.
Rhadigan said the Final Four is expected to bring significant economic impact to Detroit while attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and generating national attention through fan events, community programming, and corporate partnerships.
“What this does is bring $400 million of economic impact to our city,” Rhadigan said. “This is even more impactful than the NFL Draft. We figure we’ll have a couple of 100,000 people per day, and you’ve got the NCAA and the machine that they have and their national sponsors that come in.”
Hollis also highlighted the importance of the Detroit Sports Commission in attracting and coordinating major events, noting that its ability to unite stakeholders across the Region creates a single point of coordination for national organizations considering Detroit as a host city.
“What the Sports Commission does is really bands everybody together,” Hollis said. “You have one source you can go to, and that source brings everyone together.”
Listen to the full recording below.
U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers joined Baruah to discuss Michigan’s competitiveness challenges, focusing on education outcomes and housing affordability. Rogers argued that improving literacy rates and expanding pathways into skilled trades are critical to strengthening Michigan’s workforce and long-term economic growth.
Rogers also addressed the state’s housing shortage, sharing ideas to help more Michiganders achieve homeownership and to encourage new housing development. He pointed to rising costs, regulatory barriers, and limited housing supply as challenges affecting families across the state and emphasized the need for solutions that increase affordability and expand opportunity.
“We’re going to stop talking about how many homes we tear down in Detroit, and we’re going to start talking about how many homes we build in Detroit,” he said.
Listen to the full recording below.