- Just tell us about a little bit of your journey.

Were you born and raised here?

Have you been here the whole time?

Have you left and come back?

- Yeah.

So, yep.

Born and raised here in metro Detroit.

Spent most of my life in Oak Park.

I went to Ferndale High School for high school, went to Wayne State University for undergrad.

I went to the University of Michigan Ross School of Business for my MBA.

So Michigan, Michigan, Michigan.

- What about southeast Michigan?

The Detroit area has kept you here because again, you have options.

- Marketing, and marketing with an automotive industry was really appealing to me.

I mean, that's an industry that is growing and evolving each day.

And so for me, what's best for my career, what's the best for my family is chasing after that.

- In your experience, because you've been here, you've been in the industry and you've played multiple roles in the industry as well.

Have you seen that there are opportunities for millennials who are at a professional level as you are?

Has that been something that you've noticed like you know, obviously you're doing well but there are other opportunities for people.

- For so long we're expecting that big fish that, you know, Amazon World headquarters 2.0, remember when that discussion happened?

Yeah, but that's not how we're set up.

Not as a region, not as a city.

We're set up like the bad boys.

We're set up like the Pistons where you have one small piece added to another piece, added to another piece.

- Part of one of the things you do as we said also in the open, is your work with "Let's Detroit", you said you've been doing that for a couple years.

So just tell us, for those who are unaware, what is "Let's Detroit" and what your role is as an ambassador has been.

- Yeah, so 'Let's Detroit", it's a part of the Detroit Chamber of Commerce and really "Let's Detroit" is just a connector.

Detroit, Metro Detroit., it's small to us locals, but for transplants, people trying to enter this area, it can be pretty big.

I mean, it's hard to find your network, the best companies to work for, places to visit, organizations to, you know create an impact on.

And what "Let's Detroit's" goal is, is to make that easier.

They wanna connect young professionals like myself to other young professionals, point blank period.

What they're finding is we can Google best restaurants to go to.

You can LinkedIn best places of work, but when it comes from somebody that's experienced it, myself, it's more impactful.

I'll give you examples.

So I'm a black male, I'm married, I live in the suburbs, I work in automotive.

That's my experience.

It's unique.

And I can share that gospel of Detroit with let's say 10 people at different bars, at networking events.

But that only goes so far.

What "Let's Detroit" is equipped to do is amplify that.

- What kind of difference does it make to actually have a real life person help you figure these things out when you're essentially considering and looking into what is a major life shift.

- So this might be a millennial answer but I think connections are important, right?

I mean, as we're making these decisions it's a lot harder to leave an area if you have those emotional and real connections to that area.

And the only way to create it is not through a Google search, is with somebody like myself or other Let's ambassadors showing you around.

I'll give one example not directly associated with "Let's Detroit" but at Ford we have interns.

They come in every year, you know, 11 weeks.

Over the last few years they've been remote and we've only got a chance to bring 'em here for a week at a time or even a weekend at a time.

Last year when we had our interns come in for only four days, we, well, first of all we packed so much until those four days.

I don't know how they survived.

We floated the Huron River we took them to the DIA, we took 'em to sporting events.

We had a barbecue.

But the amount of time that people said, "I did not know Detroit had so much offer.

Wow.

I did not know that the riverfront was so cool.

I didn't know."

And this is a quote, 'I didn't know Michigan had beaches.'

- You know, how often do you encounter that type of thing?

Because when you say someone's was unaware that Michigan has beaches and Michigan has the world's largest freshwater coastline.

- Exactly.

- Is that a common thing where people are just lacking what we think is basic information about this place?

- 100%, and it's because for so long we haven't controlled our narrative.

I mean there's been obviously stuff in the news.

We can go into the social political climate and things like that if we wanted to.

But at the end of the day the news that controlled what is Detroit, what is Michigan for way too long.

And until we get to a place where we are taking that narrative back, that's what's gonna happen.

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