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Matt Cullen Making the Detroit riverfront, and other communities, flow
Heading up real estate operations for General Motors Corp. could have been a hum-drum gig for Matt Cullen. Instead, the native Detroiter turned his post into a high-profile combination of community booster, company spokesman and deal broker for the world's largest automaker. As the man in charge of GM's more than 450 million square feet of property around the globe, Cullen has helped solidify the company's Detroit presence without ever building, designing or selling a vehicle. In doing so, the Detroit Catholic Central High School grad has helped bring new life to the city's long-blighted downtown, especially its riverfront. Cullen was chief architect of GM's $500 million acquisition and remodeling of the Renaissance Center, which replaced the GM Building as the corporation's global headquarters in 1996. He has been a key player in the redevelopment of the Detroit riverfront as co-chairman of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. "I really over time saw the scale on which GM has an impact on communities," says Cullen, 51, while standing on the riverfront promenade he championed. The father of three began his GM career in 1979, a year after graduating from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in economics. GM was struggling then, feeling the brunt of the oil crisis, as it is now. At the time, Cullen says, he didn't know his job was one he'd keep for the next quarter century. Gradually, though, he was given more responsibility, getting placed in several senior leadership roles before landing the job of worldwide real estate director in 1995. Along the way, Cullen found himself taking on more after-hours assignments, from social service groups to economic development boards. He has roles at more than a half-dozen organizations at present, from being chairman of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to sitting on the board of the University of Detroit Mercy, where he received a master's degree in business administration in 1982. Andrea Fischer Newman, a University of Michigan governor and senior vice president-government affairs at Northwest Airlines, has known Cullen since the early 1990s. Like others who work with him, Newman says Cullen's straightforward nature and knack for making people feel heard help him easepeople from vastly different backgrounds to work together. While most would say Cullen's politics lean to the right, Newman says, he was appointed by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm to work with the MEDC. "He's just honest and he's nice," she says. "He makes people want to work together." Sharon Terlep
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Maggie Allesee