Mike Duggan is a lifetime Michigan resident who was born in Detroit.
After graduating from Law School at the University of Michigan, he became an attorney for Wayne County and then served for 14 years as Deputy Wayne County Executive. During that time Mike chaired the stadium authority and was responsible for building Comerica Park and Ford Field, the downtown stadiums for the Tigers and Lions. He also oversaw the construction of the McNamara terminal and the modern Metro Airport that serves Southeast Michigan today.
After 3 years as Wayne County Prosecutor, Mike was hired as the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center in 2004 as that hospital system was facing bankruptcy. Mike turned the huge 8 hospital system around by improving care and offering the nationally-celebrated 29 minute ER guarantee. If a patient wasn’t seen by a doctor within 29 minutes of entering the emergency room, they received 2 tickets to a Tiger game. The DMC system grew from 11,000 employees to 14,000 under Mike’s leadership, serving more than 1 million patients a year.
In 2013 as Detroit was heading toward bankruptcy, Mike left DMC to run for Mayor of Detroit. He employed a very unusual campaign strategy – each night he attended meetings in the homes of any Detroit neighborhood that invited him. 250 house parties later, he shocked many political experts on election night by carrying 92% of all Detroit precincts.
Today, Mike Duggan is the second-longest serving Mayor in Detroit’s 200 year elections history. He has the record for the largest back-to-back landslides ever in the city, winning re-election in 2017 with 72% and again in 2021 with 75% of the vote.
National columnist George Will has named Mayor Duggan, “the most accomplishing politician in America.”
Last year the National Management Association inducted Mike into the National Management Hall of Fame in St. Louis.
And Fortune Magazine ranked Mayor Duggan as #20 on their list of “50 greatest world leaders.”
